The Vision of Sir Launfal

Romanticism, or the Romantic era, was an artistic and intellectual movement that began in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, with its peak in the mid-1800s. Its characteristics are based on the idealization of nature, on emotion and individualism, and on glorification of the medieval past and heroism. The visual arts, music, and literature were strongly represented in the Romantic Movement.

Although many noteworthy Romantic poets stem from Britain, Lowell is an American Romantic poet. The influence of the Romantics on Lowell is clear. Keats, for instance, made nature his subject. His “Ode to Autumn” is often viewed as a model for Prelude to Part First of “The Vision of Sir Launfal,” which is in many ways an ode to June. Wordsworth was said to be obsessed with nature and glorified it in his poems such as “Daffodils.” Like Lowell, these poets saw in nature a source of solace for the human condition and the route to connection with God. William Blake is another key Romantic figure who expressed the role of nature and its connection to human liberty and pleasure in his works.

Another common theme amongst the Romantics was the idealization of the Middle Ages, or medieval period, hence their interest in the Arthurian legends and the role of chivalry and spiritual quest. The Romantics, as their name suggests, sought to escape the ever more humdrum human existence characterized by the 19th-century development of mechanization and industry. In their poetry, Coleridge and Shelley evoke the mysticism and beauty of former époques. Tennyson’s poem “Sir Galahad” is an example of this idealization of the Arthurian Knights. In “The Vison of Sir Launfal,” Lowell recreates the mystic journey of one such medieval Knight, follower of King Arthur.