Romantic Poetry Study Guide
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Some Basic characteristics of Romanticism are
 nature
 examination of inner feelings, emotions, and imagination
 concerned with the individual
 interested in the mysterious and supernatural
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What are the three influences on Romantic poetry?
What does Romantic poetry try to capture?
What did the Romantic poets write about?
What three ways did Romantic poets distinguish themselves?
Pages 720-721 – Robert Burns
1. What sort of literary fame did Burns gain?
2. Where did he work?
3. How did he try to pass himself off?
4. Burns wrote about everyday people doing everyday things. What do you think attracted
him to these topics?
5. What is dialect?
6. What do you do when you paraphrase?
7. What is an apostrophe?
Page 722 – “To a Mouse” by Robert Burns
8. What kind of creature is described in the first line? Which words used in this description
sound like words we use today?
9. How does the speaker in “To a Mouse” feel about overturning the mouse’s winter nest?
10. Paraphrase lines 7-12. What conflict exists between “man’s dominion” and “Nature’s
social union”?
11. How do lines 7-8 display a typical Romantic concern?
12. What lines from “To a Mouse” indicate the speaker’s understanding of the relationship
between mice and farmers?
13. What is the effect of the repetition of wee and wee-bit in lines 1, 19, and 31?
14. First, put lines 45-48 into normal word order. Then, restate them in your own words.
How are these lines a fitting conclusion to the poem?
15. How would the poem be different if the Scottish dialect were replaced with modern
English words?
16. What comparison between himself and the mouse does the speaker make in the last two
stanzas of ‘To a Mouse”?
17. “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men/Gang aft agley” (lines 39-40) has become a
common saying. How does the pairing of mice and men reinforce the meaning of these
lines?
Page 724 – “To a Louse” by Robert Burns
18. Why is the speaker in “To a Louse” surprised to see the louse on “sae fine a lady”?
19. How would you describe the Burns’s tone in the beginning of “To a Louse”?
20. What words in the third stanza are examples of Burns’s Scottish dialect? What tone, or
attitude toward his subject, does he create with these words?
21. Paraphrase lines 17-18. Where does the speaker want the louse to go?
22. In the fifth stanza, the speaker threatens the louse. How does the speaker’s word choice
make the tone comical rather than threatening?
23. According to Burns, what about the louse would make its presence on a “flannen toy”
(line 32) or a “bit duddie boy” line 33) more appropriate?
24. Paraphrase lines 37-40. How has the speaker’s attitude changed from what we’ve seen in
previous stanzas? Why does he advise Jenny “dinna toss your head”?
25. How does the addressee of Burns’s apostrophe (when a speaker directly addresses an
absent or dead person, an abstract quality, or something nonhuman as if it were present
and capable of responding) change over the course of the poem?
26. What is Burns’s underlying theme, or insight into life, in “To a Louse”? Is his main
focus the louse or the lady? Explain.
Questions on both Burns poems
27. What is the speaker’s tone in “To a Louse”? How does it differ from the speaker’s tone
in “To a Mouse”?
28. Which of the louse’s characteristics does the speaker mock? Which of the mouse’s
characteristics does the speaker praise?
29. In “To a Mouse” and “To a Louse,” the speaker addresses two creatures that most people
notice with disgust or alarm. Why and how does he come to appreciate these creatures?
30. How does Burns use dialect in these poems to convey strong emotions and to create
memorable images?
31. The speaker is the imaginary voice assumed by the author of a poem. What does the
speaker’s response to plowing over a mouse’s nest reveal about him?
32. How does Burns use his imagination to learn about life from even the smallest of
creatures?
Pages 728-729 – William Blake
1. Why wasn’t Blake’s life particularly “romantic” compared to those of Coleridge, Shelley,
and Keats?
2. What job did he begin at the age of fourteen that he continued throughout his long life?
3. Who illustrated and printed much of his poetry?
4. When was Songs of Innocence published? When was Songs of Experience published?
What, when published together in one volume, did Blake promise a demonstration of?
5. Describe Blake’s idea of “Innocence.”
6. Describe Blake’s idea of “Experience.”
Page 732 – “The Lamb” by William Blake
7. From which collection is this poem taken?
8. What does the creator of the lamb do for his creation in the first stanza of the poem?
9. The word He is defined in the footnotes. What context clues in the poem help you
confirm the definition given?
10. Where in the second stanza does Blake make explicit the Christian symbolism of this
poem? Why is this person called a lamb?
11. What are you told directly about the speaker of “The Lamb”? What inferences can you
draw from this information?
Page 731 – “The Tyger” by William Blake
12. From which collection is this poem taken?
13. What question does the speaker of “The Tyger” ask repeatedly? What answer is implied?
14. The last stanza of “The Tyger” is almost identical to the first. What is the significance of
the one word changed in the last stanza?
15. Where in the poem does the speaker wonder if the tiger may have been created by God?
What imagery tells us that the speaker also suspects that the tiger could be a demonic
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creation? List the images that suggest a human creator – like a blacksmith or a
goldsmith.
Notice that Blake does not use the normal spelling of the word tiger. What other clues
can you find that hint at the tiger’s extraordinary nature?
Think about what the lamb symbolizes, and then restate line 20 in your own words. What
might the speaker be implying by this question?
The tiger may symbolize, among other things, a revolutionary energy that can disturb but
also transform society. Identify imagery that associates the tiger both with enlightenment
and with revolutionary violence.
How does “The Tyger” represent people’s attraction toward and repulsion from evil?
Questions on both “The Lamb” and “The Tyger”
20. What do the lamb and the tiger tell us about the nature of good and evil?
21. What differentiates the voice of the speaker in “The Tyger” from the voice of the speaker
in “The Lamb”?
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22. What is parallel structure?
Page 738 – “The Chimney Sweeper” from Songs of Innocence by William Blake
23. Why were children used as chimney sweepers?
24. How did children usually begin working as chimney sweepers in Blake’s day?
25. How does the angel reassure Tom Dacre in his dream?
26. How does Tom Dacre’s dream contrast with the actual conditions of his daily life?
27. What might the “coffins of black” symbolize besides death?
28. What happens to Tom’s dream in lines 11-20?
29. What thought keeps Tom “happy and warm,” though the weather is cold and his work is
hard?
30. How does Blake use white and black to suggest innocence and experience?
Page 740 – “The Chimney Sweeper” from Songs of Experience by William Blake
31. Who are the first three lines spoken by? Who speaks for the rest of the poem?
32. What details about the child does Blake give in the poem’s first line? What conclusion
can you draw about this child’s life from these details?
33. How does the young chimney sweeper answer the adult’s question? What do you think
his “clothes of death” are?
34. Why don’t the parents of the young chimney sweeper see the harm they have done to
their child?
35. Whom does the chimney sweeper blame for his misery?
Questions on both “Chimney Sweeper” poems
36. What contributes to the distinctly different attitudes expressed in the poems?
37. In each poem, what is the emotional effect of the child’s mispronunciation of the
chimney sweeper’s cry?
38. Do people sometimes take the attitude expressed by the speaker of the first poem? If you
are good, if you do your duty, you need not fear harm? Expand on your response.
39. When readers understand or know something that a speaker in a literary work does not,
dramatic irony occurs. What examples of dramatic irony can you find in the first poem?
40. How does Blake use his imagination to disclose the truth about chimney sweepers to his
readers?
Page 746 – William Wordsworth
1. Where did the orphaned Wordsworth attend school? What did his experiences there do
for him?
2. How did the war between France and England disillusion Wordsworth?
3. With whom did Wordsworth begin a friendship in 1795? What was the culmination of
this friendship?
4. How did his friend Coleridge feel about Wordsworth?
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5. What is an allusion?
Page 764 – “The World Is Too Much with Us” by William Wordsworth
6. What type of poem is this?
7. How does the speaker of this poem feel about “getting and spending”?
8. Why do you think the speaker in this poem would “rather be / A Pagan”?
9. Why is the exclamation of “Great God!” ironic, considering the content of lines 10-14?
10. How are the ideas about materialism and progress in this poem relevant to today’s world?
11. What examples of allusion did you note while reading this poem? How do these
allusions affect the theme?
12. What is Wordsworth’s purpose in alluding to mythology in the final two lines? What
emotions do these allusions evoke?
13. The theme of a literary work is the main idea or central insight into human nature.
Identify the theme of this sonnet. Does Wordsworth state this theme directly, or is it
implied?
Pages 766 -767 – Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1. What did Coleridge produce other than poetry?
2. With what did he impress his classmates as a child?
3. What types of discussion intrigued him?
4. What greatly influenced the development of his poetic techniques and style?
5. What was his later life like?
6. What is alliteration? What can alliteration do? Give an example.
7. What is imagery? To what does it appeal?
Page 768 – “Kubla Khan” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
8. Who was Kubla Khan?
9. How did Coleridge claim to have envisioned Kubla Khan?
10. What happened during the composition of this poem?
11. How does Kubla Khan build his paradise?
12. In the first stanza, what images show that Xanadu is an extraordinary place?
13. In lines 4-6, do the dimensions described make the setting of the poem seem real?
14. What examples of alliteration can you find in the first five lines? What is the effect of the
alliteration?
15. What images shatter the depiction of Xanadu as peaceful and serene?
16. What images in the first stanza evoke a sense of a fantastic, otherworldly place? Explain
your answer.
17. What do you think of when you imagine caves of ice? Why do you think Coleridge
included this image in his poem?
18. Identify the examples of alliteration used in lines 37-45. How do they affect the rhythm
of the poem?
19. Why does the speaker yearn to re-create the damsel’s symphony and song within
himself?
20. What does the imagery in lines 14-1 convey? Contrast this impression with that
conveyed in lines 1-13. What phrases does Coleridge use to differentiate between the
two places?
21. Many ancient cultures revered poets as seers who had a special relationship with the
gods. How might the last stanza allude to this belief?
22. How could this poem itself be about the act of creating a poem?
23. In your opinion, does this poem celebrate the imagination or caution against its
indulgence? Support your answer with evidence from the poem.
24. A symbol is a person, place, or thin, or event that stands both for itself and for
something beyond itself. What might the “dome in the air” that the speaker wants to
create symbolize?
Pages 810-811 – George Gordon, Lord Byron
1. When did Byron become a celebrity and why?
2. When did Byron’s writing life begin in earnest?
3. How did Byron die? How old was he?
4. What is a simile?
Page 812 – “She Walks in Beauty” by Lord Byron
5. What is being compared in this poem? Why would these two things be linked?
6. In the first line, the speaker uses simile, declaring that the beautiful woman he admires is
“like the night.” How does the speaker extend the simile as the stanza continues?
7. How does the woman’s beauty affect the speaker?
8. The words “dark and bright” in line 3 of the poem suggest a balance of opposites. How
is this idea developed in the poem?
9. Explain the simile in the first stanza of the poem and the emotions it evokes.
10. The repetition of consonant sounds in words that are close to one another is alliteration.
Identify an example of alliteration, and analyze its effect.
Page 818 – Percy Bysshe Shelley
1. What did Shelley believe about human thought and expression?
2. What happened to Shelley’s first wife?
3. Who was his second wife? What did she write?
4. What brought Shelley together with Byron?
5. How did Shelley die?
“Love’s Philosophy” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the Ocean,
The winds of Heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
in one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine?--
See the mountains kiss high Heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What are all these kissings worth
If thou kiss not me?
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What is the purpose of the speaker?
Give some examples of imagery from the poem.
How are human emotions reflected in nature?
How are human emotions and nature closely related?
What does this poem say about the relationship between humans and the natural world?
Is loving each other and affection a natural thing? Explain your answer.
6. What characteristics of Romanticism are found in this poem?
Pages 842-843 – John Keats
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At what age did Keats die? How was his poetic standing at the time of his death?
How was his childhood tragic?
What job was he apprenticed to?
How was his first book of poetry received?
What happened to his brother Tom?
Who was Keats in love with?
When did he realize he was dying?
Rather than depressing, how are his poems considered?
What are they rich in?
Keats requested that his epitaph be: “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.”
What does this reveal about how Keats felt about his life work?
Page 845 – “When I Have Fears” by John Keats
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What type of poem is this?
What does the speaker fear in the poem?
Whom does the speaker address? What line tells you this?
In standard English, modifiers are placed close to the words they modify or describe.
How would you reverse the words in line 10 so that the adverb more is close to the word
it modifies? What effect does this change have on the poem?
21. What do the image in “When I Have Fears” make you visualize? What feeling is created
by the image in the final two lines?
22. What ideas are presented in the quatrains? How does the couplet sum up the speaker’s
point?
23. The writer’s attitude toward the reader or subject is called tone. Describe the tone in
“When I Have Fears.” Does it change? Explain.