What is the main difference between Neoclassicism and the Romantic period when it comes to poetry?

Neoclassical poetry tended to be written in a much more elevated manner, using classical models such as epics, odes, and pastorals. The aesthetic approach of neoclassicism was descriptive, seeking to represent the world with the utmost fidelity and accuracy. Unlike the Romantics, there was no sense of fusing one's imagination with the world to create new forms of expression. It is not surprising that neoclassical poetry achieved prominence during the Enlightenment, with its strongly empirical...

Neoclassical poetry tended to be written in a much more elevated manner, using classical models such as epics, odes, and pastorals. The aesthetic approach of neoclassicism was descriptive, seeking to represent the world with the utmost fidelity and accuracy. Unlike the Romantics, there was no sense of fusing one's imagination with the world to create new forms of expression. It is not surprising that neoclassical poetry achieved prominence during the Enlightenment, with its strongly empirical spirit. The workings of the imagination were felt to be dark, barbarous, and largely unfathomable. They were not, then, thought to be a suitable instrument for poetic composition.

The Romantics, by contrast, were keen to establish a poetic voice based on simple language. This was the manifesto of Wordsworth and Coleridge that they famously set out in the Advertisement to Lyrical Ballads. The very title of this collection must have seemed quite shocking at the time, almost oxymoronic. Ballads were songs or verses associated with the common people. As such, they were deemed unworthy of the lyricism of high art. Wordsworth and Coleridge, however, were effectively saying poems that dealt with the concerns of ordinary people, written in a language they could understand, could indeed aspire to the condition of music just as much as the more refined work of the neoclassicists.

There was more than just a hint of snobbery in all of this. In the waning hours of neoclassicism's heyday the writing of poetry was widely thought a suitable occupation solely for gentlemen and should deal with elevated themes culled from antiquity, history, and mythology. When Keats published "Endymion," a scathing review appeared in Blackwood's Magazine, contrived to be both condescending and brutally snobbish. As well as patronizing Keats as "Johnny Keats," part of a "Cockney" school of poetry, the reviewer lamented the fact that farm servants and married ladies were increasingly starting to write poetry. Even footmen were composing tragedies!