The Romantics and the Wonder of Childhood
Updated: Sep 30
A central theme for the Romantics was that children experience the world differently than adults. Kids are new to everything, so they don’t know yet which parts of the world they’re supposed to ignore.
The Romantics worried about how that beautiful wonder of childhood could get crowded out by habit. And to keep it from happening, they turned to art and nature.
That longing is obvious throughout their work.
Wordsworth—mourns the fading of childhood wonder.
Shelley —celebrates its joy.
Blake —shows its vulnerability
Coleridge—goes even further. Imagination is part of perception itself.
William Wordsworth
In "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" Wordsworth realizes that the child-like sense of wonder would never fully return, but he can still find meaning in the world around him.
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
Percy Bysshe Shelley
For Shelley The Skylark echoed the pure and innocent joy of childhood that adults struggled to hold onto.
Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.".
William Blake
In the "The Chimney Sweeper", Blake’s childhood innocence wasn’t sentimental. It was fragile, and something the world could easily crush.
"And because I am happy and dance and sing,
They think they have done me no injury,
And are gone to praise God and his Priest and King,
Who make up a heaven of our misery."
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
While Wordsworth is telling us “Don't lose wonder.” Coleridge, in Biographia Literaria, went even deeper. He is saying the world is enchanted whether you notice it or not.
"The primary imagination ... is the living power and prime agent of all human perception."
Imagination isn’t separate from reality. It’s one of the ways we experience it. The mystery (Sparkle Valley) is always out there but we just learn to ignore it.
Continue on the 🌱 New Reader Trail
The bear never came back. The wonder did.
Continue Exploring
A personal reflection on art and perception.
Sehnsucht goes beyond yearning. How does it relate to the Blue Flower?
Wonder invites us in, but the sublime is something else entirely.
