The poets of the 17th and 18th centuries, also called the neoclassical period, focused on a revival of classical forms and constraints. Two well-known neoclassical poets were John Dryden and Alexander Pope, both of whom used heroic couplets and stanzas, satire, and other epic tropes to create mock-heroic poetry with a rigorous form. In the early 19th century, poets began to loosen the restrictions on forms imposed during the neoclassical period. Mary Wollstonecraft and Elizabeth Barrett Browning were among the authors who in the years surrounding the Romantic period wrote condemning the rigid expectations that English society had placed on women. Another author, Joanna Baillie, was an influential source of admiration for well-known Romantic poets such as Lord Byron and Williamworth. In opposition to the formal norms advocated by Neoclassical poets, Romantic poets focused on experimentation with form as a way to express their radical ideas that explored freedom in politics, society, education, nature, and the imagination. Romanticism was a literary movement in response to the Enlightenment ideals of the neoclassical period. Rather than being in direct conflict, the authors of the two periods simply took different approaches to supporting through their writing a necessary critical evaluation of their society. Janko Lavrin's book, Studies in European Literature, began with a chapter entitled “On the Romantic Mentality” in which Lavrin defined the Romantic period in relation to the Neoclassical period; “[a]fter an era of fermentation and chaos follows a period of organizational discipline; and when this 'conservative' period threatens to become stale and stagnant, a new centrifugal o...... middle of paper ......ra eDe Monfort." Gothic Studies 3.2 (2001): 117. Academic research completed . Web. 14 December 2013. Horace. "Ars Poetica". Question of nature: Byron andworth.”worth Circle 41.1(2010): 14-18 Web 14 December 2013.Lavrin, Janko Studies in European Literature 1970. Print.McGann , Jerome J. The Romantic Ideology: A Critical Investigation Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 1983. 61. Print.Peyre, Henri What Is Romanticism?. Print.Wollstonecraft, Mary 'introduction by Elizabeth Robins Pennell London: Walter Scott, 1891. 37. Print