Poet Dylan Thomas was influenced in his writing by the Romantic Movement from the beginning of the nineteenth century, and this can be seen in a number of his best works, including the poems "Fern Hill," "A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London," and "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night." These and other Dylan works show the power of the Romantic style, which fit well with Thomas's interests and capabilities as a poet.
The Romantic period in English literature is usually considered to extend from 1798, when Wordsworth and Coleridge published their Lyrical Ballads, to 1832, when Sir Walter Scott died. The Romantic impulse extended beyond these dates, however, and can be seen in a variety of art forms, from the music of the latter half of the nineteenth century to the Romantic impulses of the Impressionists and post-Impressionists. The Romantic period was a turbulent era politically and socially as England was changing from its former status as an agricultural society to a modern industrial state where the balance of economic power shifted to large-scale employers. The French Revolution was another impetus for the development of the Romantic spirit, a spirit more egalitarian than the previous era. Yet, England was not becoming more egalitarian but was indeed more repressive during the period of the wars with France, but new classes were coming into being and demanding their share of the power of the state (Abrams et al. 1-3). The old regime in England took its stand in the face of revolutionary fervor based on the American and French Revolutions. For those who sympathized with the Revolution, they needed a new revolution directed against reason and toward something else, and that "something else" was imagination (Adams 363).
The imagination of the Romantic writers was occupied with the spirit of revolution. The poetry of the Romantic period had a different aesthetic from that of the earlier era. In...