Canadian poets Roberts and Lampman, both affiliated with the school of Confederation poetry, found themselves writing amidst a "new world" full of beauty and prosperity and were thus eager to capture this essence of the Canadian landscape. Hence, their turn towards the Romantic poets of Britain and Europe from the late 18th and 19th centuries proves highly effective in serving as a source of poetic inspiration in capturing the sheer splendor of their surrounding landscape. Thus, the nature poetry of Roberts and Lampman, along with many other Canadian poets of the time, reveals an array of neo-Romanticist underpinnings throughout.
Evidence of this Romantic influence in their poetry primarily shows itself in their quest to capture the eternal beauty of nature as well as an emphasis on the individual, particularly on the relationship and interaction between nature and the individual. Roberts's poem 'Tantramar Revisted' and Lampman's 'Heat' serve as evidence of the inspiration derived from the British Romantic poets; namely in the interconnectedness between nature and individual illumination in which the individual's contemplation of nature leads to some sort of spiritual enlightenment, the emphasis on the eternalness of nature in light of time and change, the theme of memory and observation and the individual's role in it, and ultimately the promise of consolation that nature can provide.
In essence , the poems of Roberts and Lampman , like those of their Romantic predecessors, create speakers whose observations on the natural world around them provide a kind of harmony and serve as a vehicle of meditation.
[...] Though the reader is constantly aware of the speaker's consciousness insofar as he constantly refers to himself, and his thoughts on his surroundings, Lampman's poem creates a series of impressions inside the mind of the reader so that they too act upon their own consciousness. Thus, through the speaker's impressions, the reader imagines the scene for himself and can almost feel the sensations described. Hence, Lampman's poem details the landscape in a far more direct manner than does Roberts's. It is far less narrative than it is visual and sensual. [...]
[...] Hence Roberts's poem, typical of Romanticism, ultimately suggests the eternalness of nature and the power of consolation it provides in light of the passage of time. Furthermore, as with other Romantic poets, Roberts's poem relies on the contemplation of nature as a healing power, to console the unease introduced at the start of the poem. The speaker in “Tantramar Revisited” returns to the land of his youth in the hopes of assuaging his anxiety about the ever-changing passage of time. [...]
[...] pure and untouched in light of the ever-changing world around him. However, upon his revisit, he discovers that the landscape has in fact changed and begun to show signs of encroaching human civilization. Thus, Roberts's poem, like those of his Romantic predecessors, reads as a kind of nostalgic remembrance of times past. Roberts, like the British Romantic poets, wrote during a time of increasing industrialization. Thus, his desire for a return to the natural greatly echoes the spirit of British Romanticism, which sparked as a revolt against the Industrial Revolution. [...]
[...] Like “Tintern Abbey,” “Tantramar Revisited” takes the form of a return poem seen through the repetition of “well I remember” throughout and lines such as “Summers and summers have come, and gone with the flight of the swallow,” (Roberts, line indicating a prolonged passage of time. Just as in Wordworth's poem, the landscape described is conveyed through equal parts remembrance and observation. Thus, rather than merely citing the sites around him, Roberts's speaker actively partakes in the construction of nature. [...]
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