In this final chapter of our Romanticism series, we bring the velvet curtain down with a sharp, necessary reality check. After indulging in the beauty, the yearning, and the drama of Romanticism, it’s time to ask the uncomfortable questions: What happens when feelings become fact? When perception overrides truth? When self-expression becomes a substitute for self-governance?

In this episode, Allen Mowery unpacks the paradox at the heart of Romanticism and explores the cultural consequences of turning emotion into moral authority. From Oscar Wilde’s unexpected transformation to T.S. Eliot’s quiet call to humility, we examine the poets who pushed back — and what their work still demands of us today.

We don’t just critique Romanticism’s legacy; we wrestle with it. And in the process, we offer an alternative: a life rooted not in the whims of feeling, but in the enduring clarity of truth.

Topics Covered:

• Why feelings are not facts (even if they feel really, really factual)

• The paradox of Romanticism’s emotional revolution

• The dangers of moral relativism and cultural narcissism

• Poets who resisted the emotional freefall: Eliot, Auden, Herbert, and more

• The difference between being expressive and being whole

• A call to choose truth — especially when it’s uncomfortable

Featured Poets & Texts:

• T.S. Eliot – Four Quartets, Ash Wednesday

• W.H. Auden – September 1, 1939

• George Herbert – The Elixir

• Oscar Wilde – De Profundis

• Selections from Romantic-era and post-Romantic poets

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In this darkly delightful episode, we stop swooning over daffodils and start whispering to ghosts. Welcome to the stormy underworld of Romanticism—the side that’s drenched in moonlight, mourning, madness, and metaphysical despair. We explore what happens when emotion becomes obsession, beauty turns to terror, and the soul starts writing poetry with a quill dipped in melancholy.

From Charlotte Dacre’s guilt-laced internal ruin to Novalis’s cosmic marriage proposal to death itself, we examine poetry that doesn’t just feel—it devours. Along the way, we meet snowbound nihilists, disillusioned philosophers, and poets who would have had thriving TikTok trauma-core accounts.

And yes, we talk about the real monsters—like Matthew Lewis, who made Gothic horror loud, excessive, and weirdly seductive long before horror movies knew how to scream.

In the end, we discover that the Romantics weren’t just dramatic—they were timeless. Their hunger still echoes through our curated sadness, moody playlists, and spiritual search engines.

Featured Poets and Works:

• Charlotte Dacre – “The Confession”

• James Thomson – from Winter

• Friedrich Schiller – from The Gods of Greece

• Novalis – from Hymns to the Night

• Matthew Lewis – “The Fragment”

Themes Explored:

• The Gothic as emotional architecture

• Nature as beautiful annihilation

• Spiritual grief and divine silence

• Death as intimacy, not destruction

• Emotional excess as both truth and performance

• Modern culture's Romantic inheritance: from curated sadness to hashtag despair

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Tags:
#Romanticism #PoetryPodcast #GothicPoetry #Novalis #CharlotteDacre #DarkRomanticism #ModernMelancholy #TheSublime #PoeticDespair #PerfectlyPoetic

Romanticism. The age of passion, poetry... and maybe just a little too much fainting onto chaise lounges. In this episode of Perfectly Poetic, Allen takes a long, emotionally complicated walk through the overly perfumed garden of 19th-century love poems. Featuring full readings of Byron, Hemans, Moore, Landon, and Shelley, this episode explores the syrupy, swoon-heavy side of Romanticism — the poems that confuse longing with love and fantasy with fact.

But it doesn’t stop in the 1800s. We draw the not-so-subtle lines between these melodramatic verses and our modern dating culture — complete with swiping, soft launches, emotional martyrdom, and “u up?” texts disguised as destiny. It’s deeply philosophical, hilariously brutal, and surprisingly poignant.

If you’ve ever projected a full love story onto someone who matched your energy for three days, this one’s for you.

In This Episode

• Lord Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty” and the art of poetic projection

• Felicia Hemans’ flaming ode to obedience in “Casabianca”

• Thomas Moore and the emotional limbo of unlabeled relationships

• L.E.L.’s glamorized grief in “The Grave of a Suicide”

• Percy Shelley’s overly sensual nature metaphors in “Love’s Philosophy”

• • A full cultural and philosophical breakdown of modern love, dating apps, emotional detachment, and the fantasy trap we still fall for
  • One fainting couch, emotionally speaking

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  Poems Featured (in full):

• • “She Walks in Beauty” – Lord Byron

  • “Casabianca” – Felicia Hemans

  • “Oh! Call It by Some Better Name” – Thomas Moore

  • “The Grave of a Suicide” – Letitia Elizabeth Landon

  • “Love’s Philosophy” – Percy Bysshe Shelley

  
  

  Connect with Us:

  Website: perfectlypoetic.comInstagram: @perfectlypoeticpodcastFacebook: facebook.com/perfectlypoeticEmail: poetic@perfectlypoetic.com

  
  

  Tags

  #Romanticism #LordByron #PoetryPodcast #DatingCulture #SappyPoems #LiterarySatire #PhilosophyOfLove #FeliciaHemans #DatingApps #PoeticMeltdown #ThomasMoore #RomanticPoets #PerfectlyPoetic #Shelley #EmotionalProjection