1. ROMANTICISM AND THEMES

Romanticism has very little to do with things popularly thought of as "romantic," although love may occasionally be the subject of Romantic art. Rather, it is an international artistic and philosophical movement that redefined the fundamental ways in which people in Western cultures thought about themselves and about their world.

(http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/rom.html)

Romanticism was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in late 18th century Western Europe. In part a revolt against aristocratic, social, and political norms of the Enlightenment period and a reaction against the rationalization of nature, in art and literature it stressed strong emotion as a source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as trepidation, horror, and the awe experienced in confronting the sublimity of nature. It elevated folk art, nature and custom, as well as arguing for an epistemology based on usage and custom. It was influenced by ideas of the Enlightenment and elevated medievalism and elements of art and narrative perceived to be from the medieval period. The name "romantic" itself comes from the term "romance" which is a prose or poetic heroic narrative originating in medieval literature. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism)

In Lyrical Ballads (1798 and 1800), a watershed in literary history, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge presented and illustrated a liberating aesthetic: poetry should express, in genuine language, experience as filtered through personal emotion and imagination; the truest experience was to be found in nature. The concept of the Sublime strengthened this turn to nature, because in wild countryside the power of the sublime could be felt most immediately. William Wordsworth is said to be one of the most important and influential poets of British literature. As a poet his style was very free and naturalistic which was characteristic of Romanticism. William Wordsworth brought about significant changes in the literary world. For example, different writing styles emerged with many having freer and more detailed, fast paced

plots. Wordsworth combined an abundance of genres into one in order to make the plots so unique. A result of this was the tragicomedy, which was a collection of grotesque andsublime plots. He terminated the use of the three unities of time, place, and action, which were no longer tolerated in classical conventional tragedies.

The second generation of romantic poets included John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and George Gordon, Lord Byron. In Keats's great odes, intellectual and emotional sensibility merge in language of great power and beauty. (http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/ent/A0858004.html)

Characterized by freedom of the mind and an idealistic view of human nature, Romanticism slowly crept out of Neoclassicism to become one of the most influential periods of British literature. It is the emergence of this new literary period called Romanticism that stirred an interest in those who were hungry for a new form of writing and thought. This idea, although relatively short-lived and lasting only from 1798-1832, had enormous effects on the philosophy and literature of the time while leaving its mark on the history of England. (http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/ent/A0858004.html)

Characteristics of Neoclassicism were prominent in Europe for nearly a century, contributing to the British a yearning for change. This long-awaited change was brought about by Romantics focusing more on the sense, emotions, and imagination of each individual, rather than standards that were set by previous writers. The styles of the authors were more free than before while they focused on nature above all else.

(http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761558048_5/English_Literature.html)

Sir Walter Scott, for example, was interested in far, distant time and wrote ballads based on the simplicity of nature. Lord Byron, on the other hand, portrayed himself in tragic revolts against society while his satirical spirit and strong sense of social realism kept him separated from other Romantic writers. Percy Bysshe Shelley is yet another Romantic writer with highly acclaimed credentials. Shelley is best known for his self-portrayal and revealing personal experiences in his Prometheus Unbound. John Keats is recognized as being the youngest romantic writer of all time. Most of his poetry was a response to sensuous impressions. He was concerned with what was going on at the

present moment and felt as if there was no time to ponder the future. It has been stated that:

It was these authors and intellectuals that shaped and molded the ideas that characterized Romanticism. (http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761558048_5/English_Literature.html)

It was from the works of these writers that four major themes of Romanticism emerged, greatly influencing religion and philosophy.

The first of these themes is Libertarianism which preceded Romanticism. While Romanticism embraced the idea for freedom of the mind and a concentration on nature, Libertarianism was focused on nature alone. The Romantic movement greatly endangered Libertarianism by reversing the neoclassical philosophy.

The second theme of Romanticism is nature. Critical to the Romantic movement, nature was most notably represented in the poetry and works of Wordsworth.

Thirdly, the lure of the exotic was a vital theme to Romanticism.

The last major theme of Romanticism was that of the supernatural. Supernaturalism was a combination of disillusion and rationalism that was influenced mostly by folk tales and folk ballads. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism)

Changes in the language and pronunciation of words spoken by the English people were a direct result of the effects of these new forms of writing. Romantics were especially intrigued with words and reintroduced many expressions and words back into the English language that had not been used for centuries. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism)

In conclusion, British Romanticism had major effects on psychology, theories of human nature, literature, religion, politics, and revolution.

Although characterized by freedom of the mind and an idealistic view of human nature, the Romantic period, while being the shortest of any time period in the history of Europe, is recognized as being one of the most influential eras of British literature and philosophy. (http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761558048_5/English_Literature.html

2. THE MOST IMPORTANT ROMANTIC POETS

The best known Romantic poets were Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats and their poetry was dependent on various features peculiar to their time: a reaction against previous literary styles, arguments with eighteenth century and earlier philosophers, the decline in formal Anglican worship and the rise of dissenting religious sects, and the rapid and unprecedented industrialization of Britain and consequent changes in its countryside. (hppt://www.englishhistory.net/keats/contents.html)

Above all, however, it was the impact of the French Revolution which gave the period its most distinctive and urgent concerns. Following the Revolution itself, which began in 1789, Britain was at war with France on continental Europe for nearly twenty years while massive repression of political dissent was implemented at home. Against this background much of the major writing of the period, associated with the term Romantic, takes place between 1789 (when the French Revolution began) and 1824 (the death of Byron) and can be seen as a response to changing political and social conditions in one respect or another. (http://www.poetseers.org/the_romantics)

William Wordsworth 1770-1850

Major WorksLyrical Ballads (1798, with Preface, 1800)· "Tintern Abbey"· "We Are Seven"· "Lines Written In Early Spring"The Prelude (1799, 1805, 1850)Resolution and Independence (1807) Ode: Intimations of Immortality From Recollections of Early Childhood (1807)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772-1834

Major WorksLyrical Ballads (1798, 1800)· "Rime of the Ancient Mariner"Conversation Poems· "The Eolian Harp" (1795)· "This Lime-tree Bower My Prison" (1797)· "Frost At Midnight" (1798)Kubla Khan (1798)Christabel (1801)Dejection: An Ode (1802)

Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792-1822

Major Works:Mont Blanc (1817)Hymn To Intellectual Beauty (1817)Prometheus Unbound (1820)Ode To The West Wind (1820)To A Skylark (1820)Ozymandias (1818)Epipsychidon (1821)Adonais: An Ellegy on the Death of John Keats (1821)The Triumph of Life (1824)A Defence of Poetry (1821 / 1840)

George Gordon, Lord Byron 1788-1824

Major WorksChilde Harold's Pilgrimage (1818)Manfred (1817)Don Juan (1824)She Walks In Beauty (1815

John Keats 1795-1821

Major WorksEndymion: A Poetic Romance (1818)Hyperion (1820)The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream (1820)The Eve of St. Agnes (1820)La Belle Dame Sans Merci (1820)Ode to A Nightingale (1820)Ode on a Grecian Urn (1820)Lamia (1819 / 1856)

3. JOHN KEATS

John Keats was born in Finsbury Pavement near London on October 31st, 1795. He had a sister and three brothers, one of whom died in infancy. When John was eight years old, his father was killed in an accident. In 1810 his mother died of consumption, leaving the children to their grandmother. Keats was well educated at a school in Enfield, where he began a translation of Virgil's Aeneid. In 1810 he was apprenticed to an apothecary-surgeon. His first attempts at writing poetry date from about 1814, and include an `Imitation' of the Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser. In 1815 he left his apprenticeship and became a student at Guy's Hospital, London; one year later, he abandoned the profession of medicine for poetry. (http://www.john-keats.com/biografie/biografie_index.htm)

He soon got acquainted with celebrated artists of his time, like Leigh Hunt, Percy B. Shelley and Benjamin Robert Haydon. In May 1816, Hunt helped him publish his first poem in a magazine. A year later Keats published about thirty poems and sonnets printed in the volume "Poems". (http://www.john-keats.com/biografie/biografie_index.htm)

He went on a hiking tour to Scotland and Ireland with his friend Charles Brown. First signs of his own fatal disease forced him to return prematurely, where he found his brother seriously ill and his poem harshly critisized. In December 1818 Tom Keats died. John moved to Hampstead Heath, were he lived in the house of Charles Brown. While in Scotland with Keats, Brown had lent his house to a Mrs Brawne and her sixteen-year-old daughter Fanny. Since the ladies where still living in London, Keats soon made their acquaintance and fell in love with the beautiful, fashionable girl. Absorbed in love and poetry, he exhausted himself mentally, and in autumn of 1819, he tried to gain some distance to literature through an ordinary occupation. (www.englishhistory.net/keats/contents.html)

An unmistakeable sign of consumption in February 1820 however broke all his plans for the future, marking the beginning of what he called his "postmumous life". He could not enjoy the positive resonance on the publication of the volume "Lamia, Isabella &c.", including his most celebrated odes. In the late summer of 1820, Keats was ordered by his doctors to avoid the English winter and move to Italy. His health improved momentarily, only to collapse finally. Keats died in Rome on the 23rd of February, 1821. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keats)

4. TO AUTUMN

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

(http://www.online-literature.com/keats/480/)

5. ANALYSIS: THEME, RHYME, MEANING…

To Autumn is often referred to as an Ode. It was written on a Sunday afternoon in 1819. It was the last poem that Keats ever wrote.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keats)

The poem celebrates autumn as a season of abundance, a season of reflection, a season of preparation for the winter, and a season worthy of admiration with comparison to what romantic poetry often focuses upon the spring.

Keats recognizes autumn’s importance as he touches on the amazing things that occur during the harvest season. To illustrate the amazing things that take place in autumn Keats uses personification to bring autumn to life in the form of soft haired girl who doesn’t recognize her beauty or impact on nature.

The theme in ‘To Autumn’ is to live your life actively until darkness consumes your body.

The extraordinary achievement of this poem lies in its ability to suggest, explore, and develop a rich abundance of themes without ever ruffling its calm, gentle, and lovely description of autumn.

"To Autumn" is concerned with the much quieter activity of daily observation and appreciation. In this quietude, the gathered themes of the preceding odes find their fullest and most beautiful expression.

The selection of this season implicitly takes up the other odes' themes of temporality, mortality, and change: Autumn in Keats's ode is a time of warmth and plenty, but it is perched on the brink of winter's desolation, as the bees enjoy "later flowers," the harvest is gathered from the fields, the lambs of spring are now "full grown," and, in the final line of the poem, the swallows gather for their winter migration. The understated sense of inevitable loss in that final line makes it one of the most moving moments in all of poetry; it can be read as a simple, uncomplaining summation of the entire human condition.

Despite the coming chill of winter, the late warmth of autumn provides Keats's speaker with ample beauty to celebrate: the cottage and its surroundings in the first stanza, the agrarian haunts of the goddess in the second, and the locales of natural creatures in the third.

The poem follows the traditional framework of fan ode.

The poem was written to convey a sense of purpose to life and the worth of death. The poem achieves this by using descriptive and vivid expressions to describe the essence of autumn. The poem uses powerful language to achieve this effect. It often makes use of imagery, exaggerated language and onomatopoeia to create an atmosphere of English autumn, for the reader:

And fill all fruits with ripeness to the core,

To swell the gourd, and pluma the hazle shells

Adjectives like ripeness and pluma, provide the reader and excellent description of the landscape

In stylistic sources we can see the use of the onomatopoeic effect and alliteration, they are used rather well in the following example:

‘Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind’ (line 15)

"To Autumn" is written in a three-stanza structure with a variable rhyme scheme. Each stanza is eleven lines long.

The first part of the poem is made up of the first four lines of the stanza, and the second part is made up of the last seven lines.

The first part of each stanza follows an ABAB rhyme scheme, the first line rhyming with the third, and the second line rhyming with the fourth.

The second part of each stanza is longer and varies in rhyme scheme: The first stanza is arranged CDEDCCE, and the second and third stanzas are arranged CDECDDE.

The time frame of the stanzas progresses through autumn and a day as a person’s life does. It shows that autumn and a day are being paralleled to a person’s life.

The first stanza is set in early autumn and morning:

Season of mist and mellow fruitfulness…(line 1)

The second stanza is set in middle-autumn and the afternoon:

Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep (line 16)

The third stanza is set in late autumn and the evening:

‘Hedge-crickets sing…’ (line 31)

These facts show that the poem progresses through a single day and the entire season of autumn, it shows that life is progressing. Life is paralleled with a day and autumn.

So, we can see that life is a beautiful thing that should not be wasted. The death in Keats life is the most important thing: his dad and mum, and a year later his brother, Tom. This theme and the anxiety for living the life (because he was 24 when he wrote it) makes that the major theme in this poem is that we have to enjoy life.

So, this poem is made up of three parts and each of the parts represents the transition of the season of autumn. The first part is about ready to harvest, the second part is in the middle, and the last parts of this poem shows his empty feeling after the harvest. All men have life cycle, ‘To Autumn’ connects to Keats’ life.

6. CONCLUSION

I chose this poem because it reflects the life and the feelings of the author. First I had chosen the poem ‘When I have fears that I may cease’, but when I read ‘To autumn’, I found it more interesting.

We must view Keats as a mature poet who reached a full cycle in his short life. A life that had gone through all of its seasons, even at the young age of 24.

Finally, there is relinquishing to death, as he could not escape the winter of his life. It was the end of the cycle. In such a short poem, as in such a short life, we find a unique balance between life and death

I like this poem because I can understand the life of the author better. He interprets his life in the poem.