Title: What is the significance of imagination to the Romantics? Why is imagination important to the Romantics? - eNotes.com
Headings: What is the significance of imagination to the Romantics? Why is imagination important to the Romantics?
Literature
What is the significance of imagination to the Romantics? Why is imagination important to the Romantics?
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Content: They felt that doing so was more natural and, as such, better than the contrivances of scientific pursuit in man placed himself in a position beyond his nature and often his ken. Approved by eNotes Editorial Team
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The imagination is of particular importance to the Romantics because they can see a world that has started to disappear with the arrival of the Age of Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason. People had begun to turn toward the answers science was beginning to reveal to the world. However, the Romantics believed that there were many truths to be found in the natural world. Coleridge, for instance, grew up in a town where the only nature he saw was the sky and stars between buildings at night. Later he promises that his child will know nature intimately. It is not only his imagination to see the world as a better place, but it is a quality that adds to the effectiveness of his writing. For instance, Coleridge uses his imagination to personify frost in his poem, "Frost at Midnight." He also is able to make his poetry come alive with the use of his imagination in providing moving and descriptive images, especially of nature: But thou, my babe!