Flashcards
08 - Romanticism
Cards in this deck (22)
- 1Romanticism• To some critics the beginning of Romanticism is
signalled by the Lyrical Ballads (1799) by Wordsworth and
Coleridge; Wordsworth's preface is a "theoretical
manifesto of Romanticism".
• Macpherson, Ossian (1762/3)
• Bishop Percy, Reliques of Antient English Poetry (1765)
[antient=old spelling]
• Walpole's Castle of Otranto was published as early as 1764
--> conflicting cultural currents and tendencies at one and
the same time (see Raymond Williams' model of cultural
change; reading list).
• But it was the publication of the Lyrical Ballads which
signalled the beginning of the Heyday of English
Romanticism.
very critical of society, very progressive - 2Romanticism characteristics
- 3Romanticism characteristics Percy Bysshe Shelley
- 4Romanticism characteristics notesvery critical of society, very progressive
more conservative, less political - 5William Blake (1757-1827)Blake interrelates image and text (new
method). The text does not simply explain
a picture, and the picture does not merely
represent a text – both are seen as objects
for interpretation. Together they form a total
sign system, in which different signs work
together or even against each other.
• Blake's poetry is steeped in the symbolism
of the Old Testament. But his interpretations
are influenced by other sources, especially
the Swedish visionary Emanuel
Swedenborg.
• For Blake, heaven and hell are not opposed
to each other: heaven belongs to a semantic
framework which has to merge with the
creative energy of the infernal.
-not only wrote poems, but also illustrated them; nice dialog between text and illustration (illustrations are not always illustrating the text; create conflict! together they form a total sign system, in which different signs work together or even aginst each other)
- - 6William Blake, "The Tyger" (1794)
- 7William Blake, "The Tyger" (1794) Interpretation
- 8William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
- 9William Wordsworth, The Preludelife of country side; there he tries to find essential passions of the heart
In November days,
When vapours, rolling down the valleys, made
A lonely scene more lonesome; among woods
At noon, and 'mid the calm of summer nights,
In solitude, such intercourse was mine;
'Twas mine among the fields both day and night.
(Book 1)
Prelude from 1799 was revised for over 40 yrs because records the growth of a poets mind (is very autobiographical in a way); you can gather how his ideas, imagination grew - 10William Wordsworth, "Daffodils" (1804) – 1Topic: nature (also solitude, lone wanderer, being in nature, surrounded by nature); one of most famous poems: Daffodils (not only a nature poem, but also reflections on what poems should do - metapoetic level of meaning)
-theme of lonely wanderer in nature; lyrical speaker compares himself to a cloud, suddenly he has an encounter (word crowd is intensified by word ‘host’ of ‘golden’ daffodils → host of angels → sublime); fluttering and dancing - anthropomorphization; lonely wanderer who wants to escape the cities of industrial revolution
-‘gaze’ intensifization of ‘see’, lyrical speaker is fascinated by the sight (burns itself deep into memory of lyrical speaker);
-vacant (not thinking at all), pensive mood (reflecting); flash (also color of gold again) - 11Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)From the diary kept by Wordsworth's
sister Dorothy we know about his
friendship with Coleridge.
• Coleridge was a passionate early radical,
he had a revolutionary enthusiasm for
change in society and literature.
-England was close to a revolution, but didn’t happen - several times, a lot of dissent about the right to vote; working class had to wait until 1867 to vote.. took England quite some time to reform itself.
• Later, this changed: He went on
appreciating the phenomena of nature
and their transcendental quality.
Coleridge loves the sublime in the sense of gothic and transcendental
• "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
(first published in Lyrical Ballads, 1798) - 12Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
- 13The Rime of the Ancient Mariner-long poem
-beings with ancient mariner stopping a wedding guest who wants to go to a wedding party and mariner tells him his life story and at the core there is a great sin (he shot the Albatross), mariner shot it just for fun and a thousand slimy things lived on and so did I; people die (for some strange reasons) because he shot the Albatross - creation is turning against him. His guilt is big. He cannot pray any longer and is condemned by some superior force to spend the rest of his life relating his story to warn them to not do that. (Flying Dutchman, Wandering Jew (some guy who has deep secret at bottom of heart and has to wander the earth forever and cannot die and find rest and peace) )
world that makes use of the gothic and the sublime and of nature. At the core of this poem, warning that we should have respect for nature and for - 14Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
- 15Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) Kubla Khanpoem in exotic context
stems entirely from imagination (key word for romantics, no longer imitatio naturae) of writer - 16George Gordon Lord Byron (1788-1824)• Prominent among those who spurn early
romantic worship of nature, Byron cultivates
a form of disillusioned subjectivism which
borders on the cynical and the theatrical.
• Childe Harod's Pilgrimage (1812,
first two cantos)
• "Byronic hero" = "a man proud, moody,
cynical, with defiance on his brow, and
misery in his heart, a scorner of his kind,
implacable in revenge, yet capable of deep
and strong affection" (Macauley), turns
against social norms; follows his own
inner law, like Prometheus, to a bitter and
even fatal end – as in Byron's poetic
drama Manfred (1817).
• Byron's masterpiece is: Don Juan (1819-24)
good looking man, every appearance of him was like an appearance on stage, always very well dressed and so on. Successors: Oscar Wilde and Portrait of Dorian Grey (modelled on Byron and his self-stylization) - 17Lord Byron, Don Juanshipwreck, decide to eat themselves up
cynicism, no god who holds hand over boat, fight over their lives; have to kill one of them and then eat him (journey in a boat - always related to one’s life journey) - 18Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)• Byron's friend and companion in
exile. critical group of young men
• Just as critical of the British
establishment.
• Prometheus Unbound (1820)
• Queen Mab: A Philosophical
Poem (1813)
• "Song to the Men of England" - 19Percy Bysshe Shelley, Queen MabQueen Mab
-kings, priests, statesmen (critical elite of a country) blast the human flower
-they didn’t like society at all (the group) - 20Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Song to the Men of England"Bees of England= industry of the workers
forge weapon, chaing and scourge (call for revolution, why don’t you overthrow these stingless drones, that just benefit the calls ftom the workers) - 21John Keats (1796-1821)• "On First Looking Into
Chapman's Homer" (1816)
• Odes (written in 1819)
containing: "Ode to a Nightingale"
and "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
• He inspired the L'Art pour l'art
fashion later in the nineteenth
century. - 22John Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale"-hemlock=opium
-Lethe-wards (Lethe is river of death in Greek mythology)
-describing a nightingale and its song
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- History of Literatures in English Flashcards on 08 - Romanticism , created by Lisza Neumeier on 20/02/2018.
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