Dead Poets Society

Romanticism originated in Europe around 1750 with celebrated authors including: John Keating, William Wordsworth, and Percy Shelly. This literary trend soon after crossed the Atlantic appearing in the works of poets such as: Walt Whitman, Henry Thoreau, and Ralf Emerson. This period emphasizes “natural objects, intimate self-revelation . . . , and direct expression of strong, personal emotion” (Perkins 9). Because of the Industrial Revolution, individuals, often economically forced, moved from the country to underdeveloped towns (Perkins 6). As towns grew more …

…it is because he hears a different drummer. Let he step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away” (Lauter 2137). This example, like the ones preceding shows the eventive and creative lengths to which Keating would go in order to impare a sense of individuality. Furthermore, in all of these situations, Keating reinforces romantic ideas about nature in that he continually draws his students away from the classroom into a natural setting.