Romantic Poetry Mood

While Romantic poetry is not the product of a specific formula, it is crucial that it contain varying degrees of the elements which maximize its effectiveness. Among these elements, the ability to reach within and arouse the imaginations of both the poet and the reader is imperative to writing meaningful, thought provoking poetry. Romantic poetry is incomplete if not written imaginatively, and though logic and reason matter as well, they only make up the outermost layer of poetic compositions. As stated by Percy Bysshe Shelley in, A Defence of Poetry, “Reason is to Imagination as the instrument to the agent, as the body to the spirit, as the shadow to the substance.” Like imagination, emotions are important to Romantic poetry because they …show more content…
The first line, “O my Luve’s like a red, red rose,” (Burns 1) hints that the poem will speak of pleasant things because its introduces the comparison of love, something positive, to a rose, which creates a pleasing image for the reader and causes them to feel cheerful. The poem, which incorporates lyrics of folk songs and was originally set to music, uses an ABCB rhyme scheme for the first two stanzas, and ABAB for the latter two. The consistent rhyming gives the poem an upbeat flow which reveals the speaker’s emotions as well as evoking emotion from the reader. This upbeat rhythm is exemplified in lines such as, “Till a’ the seas gang dry, my Dear/ And the rocks melt with the sun:/ O I will love thee still, my Dear/ While the sands o’ life shall run” (Burns 9-12). Many comparisons are made in order to stress the enthusiastic love the speaker has for his significant other, such as, “And I will love thee still my Dear/Till a’ the seas gang dry,” (Burns 7-8). These lines makes it apparent that the speaker never intends to stop loving the woman. It also shows the poet’s use of imagination because instead of a conventional proclamation of love, the poet has thought up various scenarios to use as comparisons for the amount of love he possesses for the woman. By discussing the melting of rocks by the sun and the drying of the oceans, he goes beyond logic to profess an emotion. Burns’ use of a captivating rhythm and strong emotion, as well as the imagination that was necessary to compose this poem, demonstrates the ideal standards of poetry as stated by Shelley. Of all the elements that constitute Romantic poetry, emotion is the most engaging and effective. Emotion in poetry works in two ways, because the poet feels something and is