I choose this poem by Lord Byron, becuase I have always loved his work. He is a true romantic by the words that he uses. I thought that this poem would fit perfectly with this unit:
"Maid of Athens, Ere We Part" Lord Byron

Maid of Athens, ere we part,
Give, oh, give back my heart!
Or, since that has left my breast,
Keep it now, and take the rest!
Hear my vow before I go,
Ζωή μου, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ.

By those tresses unconfined,
Wooed by each Aegean wind;
By those lids whose jetty fringe
Kiss thy soft cheeks' blooming tinge;
By those wild eyes like the roe,
Ζωή μου, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ.

By that lip I long to taste;
By that zone-encircled waist;
By all the token-flowers that tell
What words can never speak so well;
By love's alternate joy and woe,
Ζωή μου, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ.

Maid of Athens! I am gone:
Think of me, sweet! when alone.
Though I fly to Istambol,
Athens holds my heart and soul:
Can I cease to love thee? No!
Ζωή μου, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ.

This was written by Lord Byron in 1810. The poem was about how Byron feel in love with the twelve year old girl, Teresa Marci. Bryon was deeply in love with this girl, but the feelings were not meet. The parts of the romantics that are found throughout this poem are of childhood and human passion and emoiton.

The reason that childhood shows up is becuase Byron has a sort of puppy love for this girl. He considers this girl the world to him and he is fully head over heals for this girl, even though there is an age difference. It just shows how love knows no bounds.

The other part of the is the passion and emotion that is found as a human. This part goes along with the idea of being in a childhood crush. The feelings that he has are deep and pure even though the girl does not recipricate them.

The Enlightenment

Another name for Enlightenment is the “age of reason”. There are actually two different concepts that are thought of through the enlightenment: religious or spiritual enlightenment and secular or intellectual enlightenment. There are a few people in the book that help to prove the philosophy of enlightenment are John Locke, Giambattista Vico, and David Hume.

The first is John Locke who was an English philosopher during the enlightenment. Locke’s ideas were mainly that the mind was a blank slate, and that the only way to define one is through consciousness. In Locke’s mind we construct the world around us through languages (323).

Giambattista Vico expressed much of his feelings through his writings while writing about human thought, language, and culture. He was both a humanist and he also had pedagogic concerns. The reason for Vico’s thinking is because of the assertion he has from the past philologists.

David Hume was an empiricist like John Locke and George Berkeley. Hume also has a skeptical view of aesthetic standards. Hume also believes the religious bigotry which happens to certain works of art. He believes that the poet must be the one that looks at things to see how they really are.