Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: your students don’t like reading poetry, and your peers don’t care to teach it. A common refrain in my neck of the woods. Those of us that love poetry have tried everything. And believe me I enjoy 20th century poems like Maxine Kumin’s Woodchucks or 21st century work like Major Jackson’s Mighty Pawns. The question is: do our students? Maybe. They certainly appreciate poems that they understand, but have you ever felt like you a read a poem with the class, everyone kind of got it on the first try, and no one was particularly interested in engaging with it on a deeper level? It’s frustrating I know. That’s where the Romantics come in. Stick with me: in this post, I’ll talk about why we should be teaching Romantic Poets in high school. Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Keats still have a place in our classrooms. In another post later this week, I’ll cover those two rapscallions of the Romantic period: Percy Shelly and Lord Byron.
Keats, the Youngest Romantic Poet
It’s true that asking students to read the poetry of John Keats sight unseen is asking for failure. Kind of like asking them to cold read Flannery O’Connor. He’s not exactly the easiest poet especially for those students who aren’t that enthused about the subject. So why Keats? As I mentioned in my introduction, I often find that students don’t like poetry because they either don’t get it at all, or they think the message is so obvious, it is not worth discussing. That’s the beauty of the Romantic poets, especially Keats.
His poems are like a puzzle.
And you can unlock that puzzle for your students by letting them in on one little secret: he’s talking about death.
Seriously. Like all the time. The Nightingale? a metaphor for death. That Grecian urn: yep that’s death. To Autumn? You better believe he’s worried about dying.
Once students understand Keats’ dominant theme, then they can start having fun. What’s the point rhyme scheme, meter, figurative language, and allusions if our students don’t know why they are applying them?
By guiding our students on meaning rather than how that meaning is created, we can help them to productively struggle to figure out how the poet makes that meaning. If they know Keats’ endgame is death, then they can examine the tools he uses to explore that message. The image of the empty town and sacrificed heifer on the Grecian Urn. The hook swiping the flowers in To Autumn. The question: Do I wake, or sleep? in Ode to a Nightingale. It’s all there in front of them. They just need the direction. It’s hard. They’ll struggle. But in that struggle when they know the end goal: that’s where they’ll find the fun.
If you need help teaching the poetry of Keats, take a look at my week-long lesson on my TPT store. I break down everything for you and your students.
Wordsworth, the Master Poet
Then what about William Wordsworth? His name is synonymous with Romanticism. Without Wordsworth we never have Frankenstein. Heck, we probably never have The Scarlett Letter (although our students may appreciate that). The great thing about Wordsworth is that his most popular poems are far more accessible than Keats. But like Keats there’s really one idea that you need to communicate to your students to unlock the puzzle:
Nature: isn’t it something?
He’s the purest lover of nature of all the Romantic poets. In my opinion no student should ever graduate high school without at least reading I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud. What’s the benefit? Imagine teaching our students a poem about being alone with their thoughts! What a concept! Sorry…forgive my sarcasm. That is not directed at you, but at our streaming media, instant gratification-obsessed society. Can you tell I’m a Romantic at heart?
Allow your students to unpack the rich imagery of The World is Too Much With Us. If there is one thing I’ve noticed about Gen Z and Gen Alpha kids, they are well aware of humanity’s negative impact on our planet. They honestly love to see those same sentiments echoed in literature from hundreds of years ago. To again return to my point in my introduction: is there something wrong with teaching modern poetry? No! But! The classics still speak to us. The super power of the Romantics was their intuition. Their ability to speak across generations is unmatched, and Wordsworth might have been the best at it.
As we expand diversity in our curriculum and make sure that our best Americans are not forgotten, we must not lose sight of the fact that certain periods of literature remain forever relevant.
Coleridge, the Imagination
It’s right about when you tell your students that the fountain that momently bursts to feed the river Alph is a metaphor for imagination that the light bulb goes off in their brain. The greatest introduction to a poem ever written:
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
It should not be only enjoyed by British Literature majors in the 21st century. Allow your AP students to enjoy Coleridge’s classic manic opium dream Kubla Khan. Allow your honors students to enjoy it. Heck, I’ve taught it to my on-level juniors and seniors! Samuel Taylor Coleridge shows students what poetry can be: crazy, unhinged, bizarre, dare I say: memeable? I shouldn’t. But I did. The thing about Kubla Khan is that in comparison to Wordsworth and Keats, you can simply tell your students that sometimes poetry is a vibe. Sometimes teaching Romantic poets in high school doesn’t have to make total sense. Sometimes it just has to make you feel something.
Then you can drop The Rime of the Ancient Mariner on them, show the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and have a great time discussing just how influential these guys are.
Conclusion to Teaching Romantic Poets in High School
Let us not give up on poetry. Let us look to the past for inspiration on the present and the future (you know how the Romantics did). We cannot give up on our students just because they complain about poetry, or because our peers don’t share our passion. We need to choose the right poems, the stuff that we loved, that inspired us to teach. Keep the contemporary greats, the modern classics, but don’t lose sight of the stuff that gave us visions of something greater.
Need help? Take a look at my lessons on Keats, Wordsworth, and Coleridge, which streamline everything for your classroom.
