Byron and Shelley

Once again, two friends helped pioneer and push forward the new Romantic era. Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, like Coleridge and Wordsworth, helped invent the Romantic way of writing. Byron and Shelley grew up in opposite households; Byron growing up poor yet obtaining the title of Lord early, while Shelley grew up in a wealthy household with the best education.

Byron was strongly influenced by nature and seemed to develop two different personalities in his writing. He was often portrayed as a "dark and brooding" character, similar to what he wrote about, yet was often nice. His poetry was strongly influenced by revolution and his slightly radical political ideas. In his poems "Apostrophe to the Ocean" and "She Walks in Beauty," the dark side of Byron is shown. Both poems seem to display the strength of nature over man and the idea that man can do nothing to control the will of nature. Nature is able to easily destroy man, which he seems to find beauty in. This dark viewpoint slightly differs from Coleridge and Wordsworth who viewed nature as bright and cheerful almost.

Shelley seemed to be more influenced by politics. He believed in the will of man over the will of government and displayed this through his poetry. In "Ozymandias," he emphasizes the cruel rule of Ramses II. He displays the power of nature and how it affects the statue, yet also displays his disdain for an absolute rule, as Ramses had. Shelley also continued the idea of the power of nature over man, while also including an almost god-like symbolism to nature in the next poem, "Ode to the West Wind." He emphasizes the hierarchy of nature over man, just as Byron did.