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Mariah Maras Professor Kimberly DeFazio English 204 Spring 2011 On Romantic Thought: The Imagination A key trait of the romantics was the focus on the imagination, which was seen as the ultimate creative power or even, deity-like influence. During the Romantic era, writers, poets, and artists, among others, not only began to look at nature, but to also look into themselves in relation to nature. Naturally, as humans, they yearned for a kind of tangible connection between what appeared to be two opposites: Man and Nature. From a linguistic perspective, imagination is the act of forming mental images. Imaginary is a connotation without a denotation, meaning imagination belongs to no particular class of things, it is that of its own; and since it is still technically considered real, it is privileged with the ability to deal with very important concepts whether tangible or not, such as our concept of democracy. This guideline allows for the term to be dynamic, an active, rather than passive power, with many functions; in this case, by the romantic. Coleridge coins this as intellectual intuition, and Wordsworth exercises that, we not only perceive the world around us, but also in part create it (with our imagination) (English). Throughout this essay I will be addressing three texts in relation to each other, at which point I will conclude with the importance the romantics, especially the poets of the era, placed in the imagination. The texts I will use are Apostrophe to the Ocean, by Byron, Author/ity from The Theory Toolbox, and A Defence of Poetry, by Shelley. In chapter two of The Theory Toolbox, it is emphasized that authorship necessarily begins as a verb, and that even after the title has progressed from authorship to author (a noun) it is still able to name a social action. It is here where I will point out that action is a procedure, and procedures lead to progression. Progression is

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dynamic and, as stated before, imagination is dynamic. We can therefore affirm that the title of author is dynamic, with many functions. Through this, we can maintain that both imagination and the author can reconcile many functions. However, the title of author is still only after the fact that he/she is considered canonical, meaning the author is deemed worthy of continued scholarly attention. At this point, he is able to establish authority, then worthy of honor and reverence. So, if both author and imagination can reconcile many functions, then they must have both maintained and established authority, worthy of honor and reverence. I will begin by introducing Lord Byron and his poem Apostrophe to the Ocean, directing my focus on a key line, if not the most substantial line in the poem, I love not Man the less, but Nature more, (1598). This line may not only be an epitome of the fancy of romantic thought, but it may also represent two other identifiable aspects: an interpretation of what the author feels about himself as a man with nature, along with an interpretation of the structure of the sentence he has written. From a technical viewpoint, I have gutted the sentence. By this I mean that I looked at and compared the subject, objects, and nouns, along with the position of the prepositions and conjunctions. Through this, my biggest discovery was that in the entire conclusion of the poem, besides one other line, this one began with the word I. I is therefore the subject and love, in effect, is the predicate. I love. We now know that he loves. He loves what? What also captured my attention in this sentence is the capitalization of the words Man and Nature. Which led me to believe that these were the complimentary nouns waiting to claim something, as did the previous subject (I). And here is where the nouns (Man, Nature) repose with that of the prepositions, and opposites at that, less and more. We can now see that Man is to less as Nature is to more. If we put these conclusions together we have, I love Man less Nature more, and perhaps that is all that is needed; but, this is where the importance of the fancy of the romantic comes to play. Lord Byron has ingeniously placed the word not in between his love of Man, therefore concluding, I love not Man. Lord Byron has indeed identified that he does not love Man, because he cannot. He is Man. On that note, as the sentence is pieced together, I love

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not Man the less, but Nature more, we can confirm that since he is Man, he speaks as Man, stating that he loves Nature. In conclusion, we can now recognize that Byron has not only, by making these nouns proper, but by making the statement he has made, come to presume that Man and Nature are two separate things; opposites. Essentially saying I love Nature. The sentence is dichotomous, but relative. In the following analogy of the text, A Defence of Poetry, Shelley supports the thesis introduced in this paper, imagination, by stating, Reason is to imagination as the instrument to the agent, as body to the spirit, as the shadow to the substance (Shelley 826). With this he is essentially saying that reason is instrument, body and shadow as imagination is agent, spirit and substance. The key phrase in connection being, imagination is agent. In his Defence of Poetry, Shelley has seemed to mysteriously unearth some rather coincidental features relating to that of the previous Apostrophe to the Ocean sentence structure analogy. He explains this mysterious nature of the imagination that influenced not only Byrons writing, but romantic poetry in general, of which he expresses as a kind of divine gift of legislation. In Shelleys Defence of Poetry in particular, he explains how the imagination functions through the mind of the romantic poet, like a curtain over a stage. Shelley writes, For language is arbitrarily produced by the imagination, and has relation to thoughts alone; but all other materials, instruments and conditions of art have relations among each other which limit and interpose between conception and expression (Shelley 828). Shelley describes that language is only relative to the context of the person. So, if the imagination is that of the persons, then the person must be the author of the language he produced, but in honor and reverence of his thoughts alone. All other objects are to be interpreted by the reader. The reader being Nature, who comprehends what Man doesnt, in Byrons relative sense. Shelley summates, Poetry, as has been said, differs in this respect from logic: that it is not subject to the control of the active power of the mind, and that its birth and recurrence has no necessary connection with the consciousness or will. It is presumptuous to determine that these are the necessary conditions of all mental causation, when mental effects are experience insusceptible of being referred to them. The frequent recurrence of the poetical power, it is obvious to suppose, may produce in the mind a habit of order and harmony

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correlative with its own nature and with its effects upon other minds. But in the intervals of inspiration (and they may be frequent without being durable) a poet becomes a man, and is abandoned to the sudden reflux of the influences under which others habitually live (Shelley 833). Shelley, with most effortless brilliance, in one paragraph has completely explained the structure and habit of Byrons writing, through Byrons one sentence, by explaining that this structure wasnt intended at all, but somehow under these necessary conditions Byrons mind was the causation of this structure without him directly knowing it. So, perhaps this is how the imagination of the poet functions. This is what Shelley and Byron, among other romantic poets, try to authorize and call upon when writing poetry. Perhaps there isnt a necessary duty of a romantic poet, but an agency of imagination which creates the poet.

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Works Cited Byron, Lord. Apostrophe to the Ocean, Conclusion. The Longman Anthology of British Literature Fourth Edition. Ed. David Damrosch and Kevin J.H. Dettmar. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, 2010. 711-713. English Department, Brooklyn College. A Guide to the Study of Literature: A Companion Text for Core Studies 6, Landmarks of Literature. 2009. 28 Feb 2011 <http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/rom.html> Nealon, Jeffrey and Giroux, Susan Searls. The Theory Toolbox. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. Shelley, Percy Bysshe. A Defence of Poetry. The Longman Anthology of British Literature Fourth Edition. Ed. David Damrosch and Kevin J.H. Dettmar. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, 2010. 825-834.