Apocalypse and Millennium in English Romantic Poetry

The interrelationship of apocalypse and millennium is a dominant concern in British Romanticism. The Book of Revelation provides a model of history in which apocalypse is followed by millennium, but the major Romantic poets - Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, and Shelley - question and even at times undermine the possibility of a successful secularization of this model. Is history developing towards end time and millennium, or is it cyclical and purposeless? The fear that millennium may not ensue on apocalypse emerges as a major, if often repressed, theme in the great works of the period.