1. Romantic Poetry （1） (1798-1832) [The Lyrical Ballads collaborated by
Wordsworth and Coleridge
The death of Walter Scott]

2. Historical Background
Politically
The most important event is the French Revolution (1789), which at first gave British people great hope for a better future with rights and independence for all men but later brought them despair and nightmare.

3. I. Historical Background
“Declaration of Rights of Man” (1791-2) Thomas Pain
“Inquiry concerning Political Justice” (1793) William Godwin
“A Vindication of the Rights of Woman”(1792) Mary Wollstonecraft

4. I. Historical Background
Ideologically
the principle of Ration was giving way to an individualized, free, liberal, imaginative attitude towards life; a tendency to turn or escape from the tumultuous and confusing Here and Now

5. Economically
the great Industrial Revolution:
continued fast changes both in the country and in the cities;
many farmhands driven out of land into the city;
women and children employed as cheap labor;

6. I. Historical Background
new machines set up, rendering many out of work;
growing disparity between the rich and the poor;
expansion abroad continued: (America), Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India, the West Indies and other nations

7. II. Literature
Prose
familiar essays of journals and newspapers (Charles Lamb, Lee Hunt, de Quincey)
literary criticism/reviews as authority (Charles Lamb, Lee Hunt, de Quincey)
novelists: Jane Austen, the realist
Walter Scott, the 1st historical novelist/ romantic poet

8. Poetry the Age of (Romantic) Poetry;
the voice of the age
developed from sentimental and gothic
literature
1. differences between 18th-century and
19thcentury; between Neoclassicism and
Romanticism:
reason vs passion
reason vs imagination
commercial vs natural

9. II. Literature industrial vs pastoral present vs past
society vs individual
order and stability vs freedom
decorative expression vs simple and spontaneous expression

10. II. Literature
2. New Poetic Features
A. language: simple, everyday life speech, common vocabulary and accent, dialect (Wordsworth, Blake);
B. form: Lyrics---sonnet, ode
Narrative---ballad (instead of
mock epics, romance)

11. the supernatural/mysterious (dreams or dream like)
II. Literature
C. subject: Nature
the rural/pastoral
the past/historical
the alien/exotic, oriental
the supernatural/mysterious (dreams or dream like)

12. the revolutionary/justice the patriotic
II. Literature
the personal
the common/low class
the revolutionary/justice
the patriotic
D. purpose: lyrical (emotional)
confessional
visionary/prophetic

13. II. Literature E. Principles /ideas: imagination
“the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, which originates in emotion recollected in tranquility”
Preface by Wordsworth

14. A. Pre-romantic poets 3. Schools of Romantic Poets:
Robert Burns: Scottish dialect, ballads
William Blake: mysterious, philosophical, visionary
Songs of Innocence
Songs of Experience
Marriage of Heaven and Hell

15. B. Lakers/Lake Poets
(Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, 2 Poet
Laureate) radical youth; conservative old
age; long life
William Wordsworth: Nature,
country, poor people,
anti-industrialization
Lyrical Ballads (Prelude)
Nature & country poems

16. II. Literature Samuel Coleridge:
mysterious/demonic, dreamy, oriental, visionary
The Rime of Ancient Mariner
“Kubla Khan”

17. C. Satanic school: rebellious, revolutionary,
romantic, short life
George Gordon Byron: romantic, revolutionary, satiric, proud, angry,
“Byronic Hero”
Don Duan
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
Manfred

18. III. Text Study Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” ( p. 103)
Theme: Through describing a scene of joyful daffodils recollected in memory, the poet hopes to put illustrate his theory of poetic inspiration --- “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, which originates in emotion recollected in tranquility”

19. III. Text Study Image: dancing daffodils
“fluttering”, “dancing”, “tossing”, “dance”,
“danced”, “dances” “sprightly”, “glee”, “gay”,
“jocund”, “pleasure”

20. III. Text Study Metrical pattern:
a short lyric of 4 sestets (a quatrain-couplet)
of iambic tetrameter lines rhyming
ABABCC

21. III. Text Study Structure: 1st stanza occasion
2-3rd stanza happy sensation at the sight of the dancing flowers
4th stanza happy sensation experienced again at the memory of the scene

22. Stanza Summary:
1. The speaker was wandering like a lonely
cloud when he encountered a field of
dancing daffodils beside a lake.
2. Stretching endlessly along the shore the
flowers danced happily.

23. III. Text Study
3. The waves of the lake danced merrily, but the daffodils outdid them in glee, and the poet could only be happy in such a joyful company.
4. Since then, the memory of the happy scene would often come back to refill him with pleasure.

24. Questions for Next Week:
“The World Is Too Much with Us” p.116-7
1. What is the theme, i.e. the meaning, of the first line?
2. What romantic ideas does it advocate?
3. What type of sonnet form it is?
4. What romantic spirit does it represent?
5. Paraphrase the poem in your own words.

25. “Ode on a Grecian Urn” p. 109-110
1.What is the theme of the poem?
2.What is the rhyme scheme?
3.What romantic feature does the poem reflect?
4.Summarize each stanza in one or two sentences.
“The Tiger” p.115
1. What is it about?

26. Questions for Next Week:
“The Tiger” p.115
1. What is it about?