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A lot of Romantic poetry (for e.g. Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" and Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn") uses words like thou, thee and thy even though these had fallen out of use in regular speech sometime in the seventeenth century. Was this merely a poetic convention that was taken for granted or did the words stand out as archaisms (and as attempts to write in the high style)?

user392289
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  • Can you explain a little more about the difference between your two options? It can be e.g. both an archaism and a poetic convention. – cmw May 02 '23 at 17:58
  • Yes, of course! But I think I meant, in poems like the ones I mentioned and like William Blake’s “The Tyger” and “The Lamb”, are those words comment-worthy? Do they indicate an especially elevated/formal diction? Or are they to be taken for granted, like they would be in a Shakespeare play (even though people didn’t actually use those words anymore by the Romantic period)? – user392289 May 02 '23 at 18:51
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    They would have been taken for granted in 'serious' 'literary' poetry (or however you like to express it). – Kate Bunting Jul 12 '23 at 15:37

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