The Romantic period author utilized nature as a characteristic of love and passion. He would often get lost in the beauty of nature and time would pass with the wind. For instance, when starring at the colors of the mountain, the author felt “an appetite; a feeling of love… that time is past” (William Blake; page 3). Nature is his love and nature his distraction from reason. Romantic writers like Blake showcase the scattered, unreasoned thoughts of a person when love and passion take over. In fact, if you look at most romantic storylines, we see the same concept that many people get “blinded with love”. Therefore, like Blake’s awe for nature, Romantic period writers try to tell us that there is a catalyst of irrational thinking in everyone. We can not rely on reason, because love and passion will always get in the way.
4 thoughts on “How do Romantic writers depict the limits of reason?”
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That was a great way to describe romanticism. I really enjoyed the line you chose from Blake’s poem and I loved his imagery as well. Well written!
Kristy, I agree with your analysis of how Romantic writers stressed the importance of following strong emotions above reason. Romantics shifted away from the traditional standing of reason being the supreme faculty of the mind towards a more natural and subjective mentality. I specifically like the section where you wrote that relying on reason alone is unreasonable because of the weight that some emotions, like love, could have.
I agree with your comments on nature being utilized to parallel/ characterize emotion and love. I believe nature has been such a common tool amongst romantic writers because of its simplicity and tangibility. It allows them to explain the emotion of the characters, as well as the plot, in a much more relatable way. Also, I would even take it a step further and say that nature is a common tool amongst all writers. Enlightenment writers specifically (i.e. Henry Thoreau in his book, Walden) would often use Nature to parallel much larger concepts.
I agree with your analysis; Romantic poets believed that logic and reason caused more problems then it solved. They also valued the relationship between humans and nature because of nature’s purity. I think that nature in their work also represented an uncorrupt or wholesome society before the Enlightenment occurred.