Among all the English poets who make up the Romantic period, George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824), John Keats (1795-1821) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) is the master par excellence of romantic poetry. Their contributions to the aesthetics of versification, from which emerged "a concept of the poetic imagination which acted as a single unifying force within all creative acts... (and) defined the doctrine of Romanticism » (Holmes 108), are highly representative of the Romantic period as evidenced by Byron's "She Walks in Beauty", Keats's major odes ("Ode to a Nightingale", "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and "Ode to Melancholy ") and Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner". Say no to plagiarism. Get a Custom Essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"?Get an Original EssayInitially, the term romanticism referred to the characteristics of novels written in the neoclassical style that emphasized a strict adherence to form and function without what some call “flowery” language or literary extravagance. But by the 18th century, Romanticism came to denote a new type of exotic landscape dominated by the excluded wanderer, always heroic but cursed and often in desperate search of identity and discovery. The penultimate example of Romantic poetry's commitment to these ideals is found in William Wordsworth's preface to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (1800), where he states that "all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of feeling powerful” (Lowes 246). In contrast, Victorian era poetry, written during the reign of Queen Victoria, focused on contemporary social issues and abandoned self-indulgent poetic attitudes to focus on human culture and the resulting social structures of the industrial revolution. On the afternoon of June 11, 1814, at Lady Sitwell's home, George Gordon, Lord Byron, upon seeing his cousin Lady Anne Wilmot Horton in "a spangled black mourning dress" (Leung 312), was so moved that The next day, he wrote "She Walks in Beauty," first published in Hebrew Melodies in 1815. In this beautiful poem, Byron uses many metaphors to describe the beauty of his cousin, a girl who was rather "prim and pretty." » celebrated in two of his most haunting lines--"She walks in beauty, like the night/Of cloudless climes and starry skies." In essence, Byron compares her to the beauties of the natural world, for her beauty is "cloudless" like the dark, starry night and her "appearance" or physicality is imbued with "all that is best in darkness and light” which symbolizes it. dual nature as a woman with varied romantic temperaments. Yet Byron's main focus is on his head and face, where "nameless grace...waves in every raven", being his black hair (symbol of darkness) and the light softens his face amidst " serenely sweet thoughts..." "(a symbol of luminosity). But the most revealing aspect of "She Walks in Beauty" concerns the soul of the idealized woman who is "at peace with all that is below" and his heart which is "innocent", a very important trait for Byron which he equates to a necessary element for true love and adoration during the Romantic period in England. can be best heard in the romantic odes of John Keats In “Ode to a Nightingale,” Keats relates that “her heart aches and a drowsy numbness aches/My senses, as if I had drunk the hemlock” (1st stanza, lines 1-2), which shows that Keats longs for happiness and wishes to be free.., 1983.