Imagination as Divine Vision in Romantic Poets

The Imagination in Romantic Poets

Romantic poets had to be dull of imagination, like children are. They had to remain astonished at everything they saw. Imagination is considered as the mean though which Men could know the world. Imagination, or “the Divine Vision” means “to see more, beyond material reality, into le life of things”. The poet becomes a sort of prophet who can see more deeply into reality and who also tries to warn man of the evils of society. This was the idea of imagination for Blake who can be considered a pre-romantic poet.

What is the Central Role of Imagination?

For the romantics, imagination was the core aspect of their poems because they thought that without it poetry was impossible. Blake and Coleridge rejected the conception of the Universe of Locke and replaced it with their own system, where the Mind is the central governing factor and the most vital activity of the mind is the imagination. Romantic poets believed that it was divine and that, by exercising it, they partook in the activity of God. As such, imagination was somehow concerned with a supernatural order but held some essential relationship to truth and reality. The romantics believed that when imagination was at work one could see things to which the ordinary intelligence was blind and this wsa closely connected with a special insight, or perception, or intuition.