The Romantic Period

Romantic Period Shortest major era of English literary history  Started with the publication of Lyrical Ballads by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth in 1798  Dominated by six poets:  William Blake, William Wordsworth, & Samuel Taylor Coleridge were born before era & lived through it  “Second generation” – Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, & George Gordon (Lord Byron)  England changed from agricultural society to industrial  Large & restless working class in crowded mill towns of central & north England  French Revolution also had profound effect, causing fear in ruling classes of England that bloody revolution would spread

Romantic Period Frustrated by England’s resistance to political & social change, Romantic poets turned from formal, public verse to a more private, spontaneous, lyric poetry  Expressed belief that imagination, rather than reason, was best response to forces of change  Four concepts to understand:  Term Romantic  Interrelationship of nature, the human mind, & imagination  Idea of the poet  Romanticism

Romantic Period The Term “Romantic”  Term suggest to look backward & forward in time  Signifies both beginnings & endings  Poets were conscious of living in two centuries & two worlds: one gone & the other “powerless to be born” First generation of Romantics looked back to Shakespeare & Milton for inspiration Second generation looked forward in being more extravagant & visionary than first generation  Signals:  1) fascination with youth & innocence;  2) stage associated with questioning tradition & authority in order to imagine better ways to live;  3) acquisition by people of stronger awareness of change & adaptation

Romantic Period The Interrelationship of Nature, the Mind, & Imagination  Wordsworth: There is nature and there are human beings to experience nature  Romantics often called “nature poets”  Prized experiences of the beauty & majesty of nature  Strong sense of mysterious forces of nature  Sought reassurance in face of change by thinking about relationship between human mind & what is out there, rather than concentrating on nature itself  Intrigued by fact that nature & human mind always act upon each other Fascinated by “how” problems of thought & feeling

Romantic Period Idea of the Poet  “What is a poet? He is a man speaking to men”  Goal is to accomplish something else  Requires readers not just to think about the “speaking” taking place, but also what kind of speaking is taking place  Praising? Complaining? Worshipping? Envying?  Romantic lyric speaks in true voice of feeling or language of the heart

Romantic Period Romanticism  Poet is someone human beings cannot do without  Sought new vision of the relationship of the mind & nature  Accomplished this by turning toward more lyric forms of poetry, where imagination was freer to seek these visions  Explored new aspects of human experience Forms of Literature during Romantic Period  Novels: Jane Austen, Sir Walter Scott, Charlotte & Emily Bronte, Charles Lamb, & William Hazlitt  Literary essays & critiques  Plays & Poetic Dramas  Journals & Sketches

Robert Burns Scottish farmer who wrote dialect poems “to amuse himself with the little creations of his own fancy, amid the toil and fatigues of a laborious life”  Poet regarded as “speaking for the people”  Scottish culture seems to have spoken through Burns  Immersed in lives of ordinary people  Wrote about things common & enduring in human experience  Burns also aware of tradition of Scottish literature  Wrote in dialect (language specific to a region of people)  EX: What are y’all doin’ tonight? Whudder youse up to tonight?

William Blake Great artist in the fullest sense who wasn’t truly appreciated until the final 10 years of his life  “If we see with imagination, we see all things in the infinite. But if we see only with reason, we see only ourselves.”  Blake’s real life was lived in & through his imagination & the creation of works of art  Blake is the “speaker” in some of his poems and the “narrator” in others

William Blake Two collections: Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience  Songs of Innocence – state of genuine love and naïve trust toward mankind, accompanied by unquestioned belief in Christian doctrine  Songs of Experience – Recognition of the Church of England’s use of Christian doctrine as a form of social control  gave Blake profound disillusionment with human nature & society  Saw cruelty & hypocrisy too clearly, unable to imagine a way out  Third state of higher consciousness called “Organized Innocence”  One’s sense of the divinity of humanity coexists with oppression and injustice, though involving continued recognition of and active opposition to them

William Wordsworth Life & work have doubleness  Strange duality of remembering and one remembered  Gradually grew more & more disillusioned Met Samuel Taylor Coleridge later in his life, with the two becoming powerful influences on each other’s work  “Tintern Abbey” shows how crucial Coleridge’s effect was on Wordsworth  Wordsworth found delight in simple miracles of perception & experience, and in the way the mind and nature are “adapted” to each other  Conveyed this in vivid, direct, and seemingly immediate images & descriptions

Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey Ease of composition hides art of the poem  Asks readers to imagine that the lines were poured out at the time the speaker returned to the Wye valley after five years’ absence  Poem created over several days, but readers seem to hear the immediate utterance of what is going on in the heart & mind of the speaker While you are reading, consider the interrelationship between the humanity and nature. Complete questions 7-9 on page 637

“Lucy Poems” Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known, She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways, and A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal  Written while Wordsworth was in Germany  “Literary mystery” where it’s suspected there exists a hidden connection between the writer’s life & his work that will supply a clue  Speculation to the ID of Lucy  Third poem called an “epitaph” by Coleridge, underscoring idea of death on which speaker meditates in each poem  Focus on speaker’s imagination – including connections to nature and humanity’s interrelationship with nature

Wordsworth “London, 1802”  Written after a visit to France during brief peace in Napoleonic Wars  Visited to see a friend and her child to help him make peace with his past before he could marry  Wordsworth struck with “vanity and parade of our own country … as contrasted with … the desolation that the Revolution had produced in France.”  Poem doesn’t directly attack smugness & materialism, rather it shows the need for new & powerful poetic voice (such as Milton provided)  “she is a fen/Of stagnant waters: altar, sword and pen”  “We are selfish men;/Oh! raise us up, return to us again”

Wordsworth “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”  Main appeal rests on vivid imagery  Final stanza celebrates powers of memory to turn fleeting experiences into “spots of time”  Similar to “Tintern Abbey” in this way  Something remembered and one remembering “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge”  Poet could also be moved by majesty of sleeping city (London)  Imaginative impression important (imagery) “The Solitary Reaper”  Not the result of personal experience, rather a manuscript of someone else’s experience in Scotland  Speaker finds consolation in assurance that an experience will endure in the speaker’s heart & imagination

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Coleridge ( )  Close friends with William Wordsworth – catalysts for each other’s work  Coleridge a profound philosopher  Troubled individual who battled drug addiction as well as expectations for himself as philosopher, critic, and original artist  “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” – his most famous work – was written as part of a collaboration with Wordsworth  Division of labor between 1) representing ordinary events & objects in unfamiliar way to make them fresh & interesting; and 2) to make believable the unfamiliar & strange

Coleridge “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”  Coleridge tasked with writing about “persons & characters supernatural, or at least romantic; yet so far as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.”  Reflects Coleridge’s reading of obscure books, including travelers’ accounts of strange lands  Keep in mind:  1) There is no explanation for the killing of the albatross (the results of the act are important, not the act itself)  2) The “moral” of the story is too much and too little (it is too obtrusive & yet not adequate)  3) Must be read through the light of Coleridge’s own religious convictions, which contrast the despair of the mariner

George Gordon, Lord Byron Rose quickly to fame with publication of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage  Had obsessive determination to prove himself  Conscious of his noble stature & his obligation to uphold a code of conduct  Byron not a “romantic” in style, but he was regarded as the incarnation of “Romantic”

Lord Byron “She Walks in Beauty”  Commentary on behavior of people  Still connects humanity with nature “So We’ll Go No More A-Roving”  Awareness of passing of youth  Addressed to the general public – any man “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”  Thinly disguised autobiography  Byronic Hero – an antihero, alienated & rebellious; reader must sympathize with him, but he may be unpleasant; can never be happy, even when good things happen, because that would require a perfect world

Percy Bysshe Shelley Believed human thought and expression had ability to change human life for the better  Held many radical opinions and beliefs, making it difficult to find a consistent audience  A philosopher, thinking and writing about what seemed to him ultimate questions of the forces of the time  Lifelong conviction that poetry must strive to enlarge human understanding so that men & women might improve their lives by knowing their true bearings in the universe

Percy Bysshe Shelley Literary Terms  Paradox – an apparent contradiction that is actually true. May be a statement or situation; as a statement it is a figure of speech  Odes – Complex, generally long lyric poem on a serious subject  Two types: 1) Highly formal & dignified in style usually written for ceremonial or public occasions; 2) derived from Latin poet Horace, second is much more personal & reflective (exemplified by intimate, meditative odes of Romantic poets

John Keats Best known for ballads, sonnets, and his poems inspired by archaeological discoveries and nature  “Ode on a Grecian Urn” may have been inspired by one such discovery  Describes the painting on one of the urns, which included narrative scenes  “To Autumn” was possibly inspired by Keats viewing of a stubble field of wheat stalks In both, Keats simply wrote about what he saw  Uses personification & imagery in “To Autumn” to describe the scene for readers