The Romantic Picture of the Universe

- Aristotles view of poetry as ideal imitation (what should be or might be! through
imagination" poetrys rules are not dictated by an e#ternal authority$ but by imagination%genius
- Poetry inseparable from philosophy (&oleridge!" the poet as a metaphysician
- The T'()*T)& &+,&(PT)+, - unity mind-body .eats/ unity of being$ the principle of
beauty which lin0s things to universal harmony 1nature is poetry for him$ mediator between
man and nature" integration of man with nature through poetry 2 T'( &'A3(4(+, P+(T 2
being one and many at the same time ),T(5RAT)+, ),T+ U,)6(R*A4 7(),5
Romantic pantheism
- 8orld-soul (Plato! 9 animism 2 )magination as a mediator between man and forms of human
nature
- *helley - emotional response 1imagination: to intellectual beauty" a means of apprehending the
moral truths of the visible world
- &ommunion with nature 2 not only aesthetic en;oyment of its beauty$ but (3PAT'< by the
imagination with the ,atures *oul$ a contact with the divine
- A,)3)*3 2 individual spirit inhabiting every natural ob;ect
- ,ature made up of symbolic elements 2 a sacred script full of secrets" , - poetry read
figuratively$ correspondences with the spiritual world transcendental reality as remedy via
Platonic%,eoplatonic philosophy Romantic escapism
- 7la0es originals$ *helleys intellectual beauty$ .eatss 5recian Urn - permanent
realities$ immutable vs= mutable life 2 symbol of the 6()4 uncovering the ideal world of reality
- &onception of poetry as a vision of the transcendental ideal
(mpathy
- ( with anything animate%inanimate result of Romantic sensitiveness
- A sacred moral duty 9 a belief in the common essence of the 8orld-*oul or *pirit of ,ature
- (mpathy through sympathy 2 sub;ect (poet! > ob;ect (universe! in osmotic relationship
A(*T'(T)& )3P+RTA,&( +? (3PAT'< 2 .eatss chameleonic versatility (annihilation
of the self$ of poets identity vs= 8ordsworths egotistical sublime!
- *ymbols - a way of apprehending the whole$ the reconciled opposites$ simultaneousness$ the
noumenal revealed through the phenomenal