Conceptualization of Death: Subjective Depictions in Selected Romantic Poems

Abstract

The theme of death is highly philosophical in the poetry of the British Romanticists. This paper attempts to explore how the poets like Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats and Byron viewed death in their selected poems and the possibility of why they were interested in this particular theme. Their perceptions on death were varied and subjective. Wordsworth saw it as a punisher of crime. Shelley evoked the omnipresent nature of death. Byron saw it as a means of eternity to merge in love and Keats viewed it as an awakening to life that he sees as a mere dream. Despite the different analyses on death, these poets connect in the fact that they believed in some kind of a life beyond death.