Of all the English poets comprising the Romantic period, George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824), John Keats (1795-1821), and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) is considered the master par excellence of romantic poetry. Their contributions to the aesthetics of versification, from which emerged "a concept of poetic imagination that acted as a single unifying force within all creative acts... (and) defined the doctrine of Romanticism" (Holmes 108) , are highly representative of the Romantic period as evidenced by Byron's "She Walks in Beauty", Keats's major odes ("Ode to a Nightingale", "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and "Ode to Melancholy") and "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Coleridge. We say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Initially, the term Romanticism referred to characteristics of novels written in the neoclassical style that emphasized a strict adherence to form and function without what some call "flowery" language or literary extravagance. But in the 18th century, Romanticism came to designate a new kind of exotic landscape dominated by the marginalized wanderer, always heroic but cursed and often desperate for personal identity and discovery. The penultimate example of Romantic poetry's commitment to these ideals is found in William Wordsworth's preface to the second edition of the Lyrical Ballads (1800), where he declares that "all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (Lowes 246). In contrast, Victorian era poetry, written during the reign of Queen Victoria, focused on contemporary social problems and eliminated self-indulgent poetic attitudes to focus on human culture and social structures resulting from the Industrial Revolution. On the afternoon of 11 June 1814, at Lady Sitwell's house, George Gordon, Lord Byron, on seeing his cousin Lady Anne Wilmot Horton in "a mourning dress of spangled black" (Leung 312), was so moved that from the day next he had written "She Walks in Beauty", first published in Hebrew Melodies in 1815. In this magnificent poem, Byron uses numerous metaphors to describe the beauty of his cousin, a rather "private and pretty" girl celebrated in two of the his most fascinating verses: "Walk in beauty, like the night / Of cloudless climates and starry skies". In essence, Byron compares her to the beauties of the natural world, for her beauty is "cloudless" like the dark, starry night and her "appearance" or physicality is imbued with "all that is best in the darkness and in the light" that symbolizes it. dual nature of a woman with different romantic temperaments. Yet Byron's main focus is on her head and face, where "nameless grace... waves in every raven tresses", her hair being black (a symbol of darkness) and the light softening her face amidst "serenely sweet thoughts..." (a symbol of brightness). But the most significant aspect of "She Walks in Beauty" concerns the soul of the idealized woman who is "at peace with all that lies beneath" and her heart which is "innocent", a very important trait for Byron who considers a necessary component for true love and adoration during the Romantic period in England. The great symbolic voice of the true Romantic poet can be best heard in the Romantic odes of John Keats. In "Ode to a Nightingale", Keats relates that his "heart aches and a drowsy numbness aches / My senses, as if I had drunk hemlock" (1st stanza, lines 1-2), which shows that Keats longs happiness and desires to be free like the nightingale, a symbol of great importance for romantic poets,, 1983.