Impact Of The French Revolution On The West Wind By Percy...

The impact of the French Revolution brought profound change to 18th century Britain. The political practices of the Enlightenment gave way to fresh concepts that transformed all aspects of society, including the arts. Romanticism was born and through it the majestic beauty of nature and her climatic force, influenced a new perception of philosophical and poetic thought. Romantic writers who existed in the wake of the pan-European movement, found a new awareness in nature and viewed it as a sublime entity that mirrored the power and terrors of the human soul. Romantic poetry commonly characterised the beauty of the natural environment as akin to human life and aesthetic experience. This contemplation of the sublime in nature in relation to finding a deeper awareness of self, can be examined through the poetic works of William Wordsworth in his poem ‘The Prelude’ Book II and ‘Ode to the West Wind’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Both poets recognised the aesthetic value of nature and its elemental force to illicit wonder and fear within the human mind. However, it is the contrasting modes of poetic language, the construction of verse and individual point of view that separate the ways in which each poet reveals the power and terrors of the inner imaginative life. Written in first person point of view and unrhymed blank verse, ‘The Prelude’ begins with ‘I remember well’, and goes on to recount the poet child s inner fear and distress, of losing his guide near the site of a