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Idealism

Philosophy
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Idealism is a philosophy that emphasizes the primacy of mind, spirit, or ideas over material reality. It holds that reality is essentially mental or experiential.

Detailed Definition
From Plato to Hegel, idealism asserts that consciousness shapes the world. In poetry, it informs a focus on imagination, the subjective self, and the power of thought. Poetic language becomes a means to construct or reveal a higher reality. This perspective lends itself to visionary, symbolic, and introspective poetry, where inner experience is valued over external fact, and the poet acts as a creator of worlds.
Example
Example in poetry:
A visionary poem like William Blake's "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" is a form of idealism, where the poet's imagination creates a new reality; The philosophy of Romanticism, as seen in Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind," is deeply idealistic, privileging the mind and its creative powers; A poem that celebrates the power of art to shape the world, such as Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn," can be read through a lens of idealism; The introspective poetry of Emily Dickinson, which explores the inner world of the mind, is a form of idealism, where consciousness is the primary subject.
Additional Notes
Idealism is the philosophical view that reality is fundamentally mental, spiritual, or ideal, as opposed to material. In its various forms, from Plato's theory of Forms to Hegel's absolute idealism, it asserts that the ultimate nature of the world is mind or spirit, and that the material world is either a reflection or a product of this mental reality. In poetry, idealism manifests as a focus on imagination, the inner self, and the power of thought to construct reality. A Romantic poet like William Wordsworth, who sees nature as a "living presence" and the human mind as a creative force, is an idealist. This perspective lends itself to visionary, symbolic, and introspective poetry, where the subjective experience is valued over objective fact, and the poet is seen as a creator of worlds.
Also Known As
Spiritualism (related) Idealism proper Mental realism
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