M.K.M Summary

Chapter One: Romantic Poems and Context

The difference between lyric and narrative

- Lyrics are poems written in the first person and they record the feelings of a particular moment or private thoughts, therefore they deal with private experience.

- Narratives may be written in the first or third person and tell a story. All stories will involve encounters with people and show their interaction, so narrative poems have a social dimension and they are likely to raise more public issues.

Writing in history

William Wordsworth

She dwelt among th'untrodden waysBeside the springs of Dove,Maid whom there were none to praiseAnd very few to love:

A violet by a mossy toneHalf hidden from the eye!Fair as a star, when only oneIs shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could knowWhen Lucy ceased to be;But she is in her grave, and, oh,The difference to me!

In the beginning, the poem looks to be a narrative, it talks about a girl, but all we learn from the poem, is her name 'Lucy' and that she dies, so the poem is a lyric (an elegy or a love poem). In the second stanza, Wordsworth describes the girl through symbols drawn from the nature, figurative language (simile: A violet / Fair as a star). The use of the personal pronoun 'me' indicates the poet's voice 'narrator' and that the poem is composed on individual feelings.

* Two theories about the identity of 'Lucy' according to Critics:

- Wordsworth fancied the moment in which his sister 'Dorothy' might die.- The absence of the poet from his homeland.

Two characteristics of romantic writing

1- An assertion on the self and what it wishes, feels, fears and so on.2- The desire to transfigure or transcend the ordinary.

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England in 1819

Percy Bysshe Shelley

1. An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king; aPrinces, the dregs of their dull race, who flow bThrough public scorn, mud from a muddy spring; aRulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know, bBut leech-like to their fainting country cling, aTill they drop, blind in blood, without a blow, b

2. A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field; cAn army which liberticide and prey dMakes as a two-edged sword to all who wield; cGolden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay; d

3. Religion Christless, Godless, a book sealed; cA Senate - Time's worst statute unrepealed - cAre graves from which a glorious Phantom may dBurst to illumine our tempestuous day. d

It is a sonnet – a poem of fourteen lines, with the rhythm Iambic pentameter and the pointed out rhyme scheme beside the poem. The poem is angry and that is clear through the poem's uncompromising vocabulary (mad / despised / dregs / scorn).

First stanza: Shelley illustrates that King George III is 'old, mad, blind, despised, and dying'. Then the poet used metaphoric device in 'mud from a muddy spring' to describe the Prince who succeeded the king because he came from the same muddy soil, which is his father. Then he used simile in 'leech-like' to describe the rulers as if they were insects sucking the blood of the people. Second stanza: it is about the situation of the common people who were starving from extreme poverty 'starved and stabbed'. In the second line he illustrated that the army 'liberticide and prey / as a two-edge sword', who is supposed to defend the people rights, but in fact the army was the source of suppression, killing and torture.

Third stanza: the poet refers to the corrupted church and the parliament who twisted the constitution in favor of the king 'A senate, time's worst statute, unrepealed', but in the last two lines, the poet express his hopes for revolution and reform, that a 'glorious Phantom' may spring from this decay and 'illumine our tempestuous day' breaking the chains of tyranny.

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Three poems about London

London's summer morning by Mary Robinson

Who has not walked to list the busy soundsOf summer's morning, in the sultry smokeOf noisy London? On the pavement hotThe sooty chimney-boy, with dingy faceAnd tattered covering, shrilly bawls his trade,Rousing the sleepy housemaid. At the doorThe milk-pail rattles, and the tinkling bellProclaims the dustman's office; while the streetIs lost in clouds impervious. Now beginsThe din of hackney-coaches, wagons, carts;While tinmen's shops, and noisy trunk-makers,Knife grinders, coopers, squeaking cork-cutters,Fruit barrows, and the hunger giving criesOf vegetable-vendors, fill the air.Now every shop displays its varied trade,And the fresh-sprinkled pavement cools the feetOf early walkers. At the privet doorThe ruddy housemaid twirls the busy mop,Annoying the smart girl 'prentice, or neat girl,Tripping with band-box lightly. Now the sunDarts burning splendour on the glittering pane,

Save where the canvas awning throws a shadeOn the gay merchandise. Now, spruce and trim,In shops (where beauty smiles with industry)Sits the smart damsel; while the passengerPeeps through the window, watching every charm.Now pastry dainties catch the minuteOf humming insects, while the limy snareWaits to enthrall them. Now the lamp-lighterMounts the tall ladder, nimbly venturous,To trim the half-filled lamps, while at his feetThe pot-boy yells discordant! All alongThe sultry pavement, the old clothes-man criesIn tone monotonous, while sidelong viewsThe area for his traffic: now the bagIs slyly opened, and the half-worn suit(Sometimes the pilfered treasure of the baseDomestic spoiler), for one half it's worth,Sinks in the green abyss. The porter nowBears his huge load along the burning way;And the poor poet wakes from busy dreams,To paint the summer morning.

Mary Robinson wrote forty two lines of poetry that are described as a blank verse poem. 'Blank here means not rhyming, but the term blank verse is used specifically to describe verse in unrhyming iambic pentameters'. It means the absence of any particular rhyme and the variation of line lengths and the rhyme scheme for this poem is 'abcddefgaaaaaidgejfkddlmiloiiagnaanodpqman'.

The poet throughout the poem gave a detailed description of the sounds and activities that happened in the crowded city of London in a hot summery day. She began the poem by using a rhetorical question about the different sounds that can be heard just by walking in the streets of London during the early morning 'Who has not walked to list the busy sounds of summer's morning in the sultry smoke of noisy London?' (1/2/3).

After the first scene which began with 'On the pavement hot' (3) Mary Robinson used the word 'Now' in lines (9/15/18/20/23/27/29/35/39), which broke the poem into short prose passages. Truly the poem is full of various words and meanings that recorded information about the daily life in London, with the use of repetition such as the previously mentioned word 'Now' and repeated line endings such as 'trade' (5/15), 'door' (6/17), 'feet' (16/31) and 'cries' (13/33) which are part of the rhyme scheme.

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Mary Robinson used specialized poetic diction, periphrasis and over-reliance on adjectives, which are the characteristics of the language of eighteenth century poetry. And the poem is full of new scenes with new characters, sounds, places and objects such as 'The sooty chimney boy' (4), 'the sleepy house maid' (6), 'The milk-pail rattles' (7), 'The din of hackney-coaches, wagons, carts' (10), 'Knife-grinders, coopers, squeaking cork-cutters' (11), 'the hunger giving cries' (12), 'neat girl' (19), 'shops' (24), 'the smart damsel' (25), 'the passenger' (25), 'the lamp-lighter' (29), 'The pot-boy' (32), 'the old-clothes-man' (33), 'The porter' (39) and finally 'The poor poet' (41). Mary Robinson tried to capture the activities of daily life in London 'the industrial city' by using various words and meanings which described different characters, jobs, places, objects and sounds 'The poem's method is basically to list what is seen and heard'.

Upon Westminster Bridge by William Wordsworth

Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty. This City now doth like a garment wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky, All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep.The river glideth at his own sweet will - Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still.

Wordsworth's poem is a sonnet composed of fourteen lines, written in iambic pentameter with the rhyme scheme 'abbaabbacdcdcd'. The poem is full of cheerful images like 'fair' (1) 'majesty' (3) 'beauty' (5) 'bright and glittering' (8) 'beautifully' (9) 'calm' (11) 'sweet' (12) 'mighty' (14). The poet's voice is clear throughout the poem. He began the poem by saying "Earth has not anything to shew more fair" (1) and this is a conflicting statement because he is a romantic poet who is giving nature's qualities to the city, while denying that earth can give a fairer scene. In the third and fourth line, Wordsworth is more fascinated by the loftiness of the scene and continuo his admiration by using simile in 'The city now doth like a garment wear'(4).

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In the last four lines of the octave, Wordsworth gave freedom to the city limits by expanding the view in the morning which is 'silent, bare'(5). He gave more space to the scene by mentioning 'Ships, towers, domes, theaters and temples' (6) beginning in the sea and reaching the sky then spreading to the fields. In the end of the octet he portrayed that entire scene in 'the smokeless air' (8) removing the real situation of the industrial city which is normally covered by the smoky of factories.

In the sestet, Wordsworth describes the beauty of the rising morning sun as if it was alive! 'Never did the sun more beautifully steep' (9) and shining over 'valley, rock, or hill' (9). In the following two lines, Wordsworth stated that he never saw or experienced such a tranquil view and then he used personification by giving life to the river ' The river glideth at his own sweet will' (12). Finally, Wordsworth ended the poem by describing the city of London which is full of houses as a heart which is 'lying still' (14) Therefore Wordsworth gave the city life when all people were a sleep with no working factories or smoke.

London by William Blake

I wandered through each chartered street, aNear where the chartered Thames does flow, bA mark in every face I meet, cMarks of weakness, marks of woe. d

In every cry of every man, cIn every infant's cry of fear, dIn every voice, in every ban, cThe mind-forged manacles I hear: d

How the chimney-sweeper's cry eEvery blackening church appals, fAnd the hapless soldier's sigh eRuns in blood down palace-walls. f

But most, through midnight streets I hear gHow the youthful harlot's curse hBlasts the new-born infant's tear, gAnd blights with plagues the marriage-hearse. h

- Language: the language that Blake has used in London is mainly negative, because he uses dark, gloomy adjectives such as blackening, hapless, plague.

- Structure: The lines are short and this makes the poem more compact, helping to get to the point quickly. It also makes the rhymes more noticeable. It is written in iambic tetrameter. It is written in four stanzas with the rhyme scheme as outlined beside the poem.

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- Social background: William Blake presents his poem as a social protest against the suffering of those who lived in the city during the time of the revolutions. It deals basically with the difficulties and hard life of the time, seeing only the worst side of it, and reflecting Blake‘s extreme disillusionment. Blake lived during a period of intense social changes, being a witness of the transformation of an agricultural society into an industrial one. First stanza: the first two lines of the poem include one of the basic ideas of what Blake is trying to show, using a great variety of images: a corrupt city in which everything is owned even the river, and a city where nobody can be free. The repeated word 'chartered' was used as a metaphor to mean that even those things that are impossible to be controlled by humans such as a river, are easily controlled when power and wealth are involved. Then the poet, once again, uses repetition 'And marks in every face I meet / Marks of weakness, marks of woe' to get his aim, which is, basically, causing on his reader the impression that the whole of London society, without exception, are included in his poem. The use of 'every face' is the best example.

Second stanza: Living in a city like the one described in the lines above, it is, living in a city where everything is owned by others, the ones to whom you work for long hours, often being exhausted, but without escaping from poverty. It is obvious, then, that what the speaker is hearing is the cry of every man and the cry of every infant (In western-civilization, man has always been believed to be the stronger sex, and only permissible to cry in the most desperate of situations). Another image is the use of the expression 'mind-forged manacles' that the speaker hears in 'every voice' and 'in every ban'. The terrible situation, in which Londoners were obliged to survive in, induces them to think that there was no option and that their way of living was the only one possible.

Third stanza: Blake is showing the relation between the oppressed and the oppressors. In the first case 'how the chimney-sweeper’s cry / Every blackening church appalls', Blake is protesting about the poor young children that were sent to work, breaking their innocence and childhood, and without any institution, not even the church, is trying to stop and prevent it.

Fourth stanza: finally, 'the new born infant’s tear' who has been born from a 'youthful harlot’s curse' who at the same time, is going to 'blight with plagues the marriage hearse'. New birth at this time is not a happy event but a continuation of the cycle of misery, and the wedding carriage is seen as a 'hearse' leading to a kind of death, perhaps of innocence or happiness. According to critics, there were two kinds of 'harlots' at this time, there was the commonly known (streetwalker) selling her body for money to survive, and the second was the eighteenth century wife and mother who was selling her body, mind and soul for survival.

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Q Which of the three poems of London is most useful to historians?

Mary Robinson's poem because it provides a lot of information and details about the city of London, from daily life to people, jobs names, places and so on.

Novelty and Nature

Q- Why does Wordsworth claim that the lives and language of the rural poor are suitable for poetry?

They provide for the essential passions of the heart a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, they are less under restraint, and they speak a plainer and more emphatic language. And because in that condition of life, our elementary feelings coexist in a state of greater simplicity and the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful forms of nature.

Their language is suitable because such men of the rural poor always communicate with the best objects from which the best part of language is originally derived, and because of their rank in society and the sameness and narrow circle of their intercourse being less under the influence of social vanity, they convey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions.

According to Wordsworth, the lives of the people in the countryside (rural) and their language provide a very suitable environment for the emotions (passions) of the poet's heart, in order that they reach awareness (maturity), and because rural people speak a simpler and emphatic language.

Wordsworth and Coleridge rejected the learned and highly sculpted forms of eighteenth century English poetry and brought poetry within the reach of the average man by using normal, everyday language in their poetry (leveling of language).

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Children and the Romantic lyric

Anecdote for Fathers by William Wordsworth

I have a boy of five years old;His face is fair and fresh to see;His limbs are cast in beauty's moldAnd dearly he loves me.

One morn we strolled on our dry walk,Or quiet home all full in view,And held such intermitted talkAs we are wont to do.

My thoughts on former pleasures ran;I thought of Kilve's delightful shore,Our pleasant home when spring began,A long, long year before.

A day it was when I could bearSome fond regrets to entertain;With so much happiness to spare,I could not feel a pain.

The green earth echoed to the feetOf lambs that bounded through the glade,From shade to sunshine, and as fleetFrom sunshine back to shade.

Birds warbled round me---and each traceOf inward sadness had its charm;Kilve, thought I, was a favoured place,And so is Liswyn farm.

My boy beside me tripped, so slimAnd graceful in his rustic dress!And, as we talked, I questioned him,In very idleness.

"Now tell me, had you rather be,"I said. and took him by the arm,"On Kilve's smooth shore, by the green sea,Or here at Liswyn farm?"

In careless mood he looked at me,While still I held him by the arm,And said, "At Kilve I'd rather beThan here at Liswyn farm."

"Now, little Edward, say why so:My little Edward, tell me why."---"I cannot tell, I do not know."---"Why, this is strange," said I;

"For, here are woods, hills smooth and warm:There surely must one reason beWhy you would change sweet Liswyn farmFor Kilve by the green sea."

At this, my boy hung down his head,He blushed with shame, nor made reply;And three times to the child I said,"Why, :Edward, tell me why?"

His head he raised---there was in sight,It caught his eye, he saw it plain---Upon the house-top, glittering bright,A broad and gilded vane.

Then did the boy his tongue unlock,And eased his mind with this reply:"At Kilve there was no weather-cock;And that's the reaon why."

O dearest, dearest boy! my heartFor better lore would seldom yearn,Could I but teach the hundredth partOf what from thee I learn.

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This poem seems to be a hybrid of lyric and narrative and in this poem there is a narrator and another character with a speaking part (the narrator's son)

Q What is the difference between the narrator and the child?

The narrator can't gain from his son any rational answers to his question, because the child doe's not speak the language of reason spoken by the adult, therefore the narrator cannot prompt his son to give an answer that will satisfy his rational expectations. 'The poem displays two view points which are not opposed but simply different'.

Q Give some interesting points about the poem?

The poem gives a voice to a marginal figure ' a child'.The dialogue in the poem is about an adult and a child who agree to differ.

Blake's songs of Innocence and of Experience (important)

The main theme of the poems in this work came from Blake's belief that children were born innocent, but they lost their "innocence" as they grew older and were influenced by the beliefs and opinions of adults and the ways of the world. Therefore, they grew to become experienced, and when this happened, they could no longer be considered innocent.

The poems from "Songs of Innocence" were written from an innocent child's perspective. Those from "Songs of Experience" were written from the perspective of a more experienced person who had seen all of the evil in the world and had, in a way, become bitter towards it.

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The Chimney Sweeper' by William Blake

1. When my mother died I was very young,2. And my father sold me while yet my tongue,3. Could scarcely cry weep, weep, weep, weep,4. So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

5. There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head6. That curled like a lambs back was shaved, so I said.7. Hush Tom never mind it, for when your head's bare,8. You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair

9. And so he was quiet. and that very night.10. As Tom was a sleeping he had such a sight11. That thousands of sweepers Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack12. Were all of them locked up in coffins of black,

13. And by came an Angel who had a bright key14. And he opened the coffins and set them all free.15. Then down a green plain leaping laughing they run16. And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.

17. Then naked and white, all their bags left behind.18. They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.19. And the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,20. He'd have God for his father and never want joy.

21. And so Tom awoke and we rose in the dark22. And got with our bags and our brushes to work.23. Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm24. So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

The chimneysweeper who is speaking is one who has had experience in the business for some time. He is trying to give advice to a new chimney sweeper little Tom Dacre. In lines (5 to 8) the older chimneysweeper is telling Tom that his hair can’t be ruined if it is shaved and that it is nothing to cry about because it is part of the job. Later that night, when they went to bed, Tom had a dream in lines (11-12) Here the coffins are used to represent the chimneys that the little boys have to shimmy through. Blake writes in lines (13-14) here the angel that comes to save the boys is the angle of death. The angel is setting them free because they are going to heaven. The angle tells Tom that if he does his work and is a good boy that God will take care of him. (19-20). Blake then goes on to write 'So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm' (24). this line is very ironic because that is what the little boys think, however, the children do not know that they will die young from an unpleasant death because of this job. By saying this, Blake illustrates how he sees the world through the eyes of a child.

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Nurse's Song by William Blake 

1. When voices of children are heard on the green2. And laughing is heard on the hill,3. My heart is at rest within my breast4. And everything else is still

5. Then come home my children the sun is gone down6. And the dews of night arise7. Come, come leave off play, and let us away8. Till the morning appears in the skies

9. No, no! Let us play, for it is yet day10. And we cannot go to sleep11. Besides in the sky, the little birds fly12. And the hills are all covered with sheep

13. Well, well go and play till the light fades away14. And then go home to bed15. The little ones leaped and shouted and laughed16. And all the hills echoed.

This is a narrative poem and it has a narrator 'the nurse'. A nurse (maid) is usually an authority figure for children, the person who is in charge, but here the nurse gives in to children; the children get their own way, and the nurse is happy to let the children follow their desires, so there is no need to overthrow her authority, rather, there is mutual agreement that one can do what one wants. Desire is not threatening, the outer world not frightening. The poem presents a vision of correspondences, of harmony, first; between the nurse and the children. We hear the voices of both the nurse and the children, in dialogue. Secondly, between the children and the landscape 'the hills echo their laughter'.

Q Compare the dialogue of Anecdote of Fathers with Nurse's Song?

Both poems are dialogues between an adult and a child or children, and both children present a rational understanding, but for the children in the 'nurse's song' there is a big difference in the significance claimed for their way of understanding.

- The experience 'nurse's song' is much shorter, and there is no narrative sequence, it contains one voice ' the nurse', and like most of the songs of experience, the poem is a monologue rather than a dialogue.

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A Poison Tree by William Blake

I was angry with my friend.I told my wrath, my wrath did end.I was angry with my foe.I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,Night and morning with my tearsAnd I sunned it with smilesAnd with soft deceitful wiles

And it grew both day and nightTill it bore an apple bright.And my foe beheld it shine,And he knew that it was mine.

And into my garden stoleWhen the night had veiled the pole:In the morning glad I seeMy foe outstretched beneath the tree.

Q What is the form of the poem, what logic does it follow?

The formal models of the poem seem to be hymns or nursery rhymes. Each line is a self-contained semantic unit. The poem progresses simply by the repeated use of the word 'and'.

The poem is composed of four-line stanzas (quatrains) and regular rhyme scheme. First, there are no similes. This poem works with metaphors and symbols. The opening stanza is very simple and straightforward. It tells that the speaker or narrator of the poem was angry twice once with a friend and once with an enemy. With the friend, he shared his feelings 'I told my wrath' and that solved the problem and ended his anger. But with the enemy 'or foe' he tried a different tactic 'I told it not, my wrath did grow'. In the second stanza, this process of hiding his anger and letting it grow becomes a series of metaphors connected with the idea that the anger becomes a 'poison tree' like a real tree, needs sun (smiles) and water (tears) and so on. The fact that this is, however, a symbolic tree, is made obvious by statements like 'it grew both day and night'

Eventually, the tree produces an apple. The tree symbol joins a long tradition, because Blake knew the Bible well, and Eve is supposed to have plucked an apple from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and given it to Adam. This caused their expulsion from Paradise, making that tree a kind of 'poison tree' too. Drawn by the beautiful fruit, the enemy steals and eats the apple, and then lies 'outstretched beneath the tree'

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Introduction by William Blake

Piping down the valleys wildPiping songs of pleasant gleeOn a cloud I saw a child.And he laughing said to me.

Pipe a song about a Lamb: So I piped with merry cheer, Piper, pipe that song again--So I piped, he wept to hear.

Drop thy pipe thy happy pipeSing thy songs of happy cheer,So I sung the same againWhile he wept with joy to hear

Piper sit thee down and writeIn a book that all may read--So he vanished from my sightAnd I plucked a hollow reed.

And I made a rural pen,And I stained the water clear,And I wrote my happy songs,Every child may joy to hear.

The poem draws on the conventions of the pastoral, it is a dialogue, but there does not seem to be any kind of power play between the piper and the child. But the poem does not follow the rules of the pastoral, for example the 'hollow reed' is not used to make a flute as is usual in pastoral, but a pen.

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Chapter Two: Versions of Romantic writing

* The romantic British writers are divided into two groups, the first generation: Blake, Wordsworth and Coleridge. The second generation: Shelley, Keats and Byron. The Romantic literature of the first generation was wartime literature. The writers of second generation died relatively young. The historical situation was different during which the second generation began to publish.

- The difference between the point of view of wartime and post-war writers.

Romanticism: the term romantic began to be used in English in the early nineteenth century to refer to a belief that life could be lived by ideals rather than rules. Romantic also came to be used to describe a group of writers from around the turn of eighteenth century whose work demonstrated such a belief and who were thought in retrospect to have other characteristics in common.

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Composed by the side of Grasmere Lake by William Wordsworth

Eve's lingering clouds extend in solid bars Through the grey west; and lo! these waters, steeled By breezeless air to smoothest polish, yield A vivid repetition of the stars; Jove, Venus, and the ruddy crest of Mars Amid his fellows beauteously revealed At happy distance from earth's groaning field, Where ruthless mortals wage incessant wars. Is it a mirror?--or the nether Sphere Opening to view the abyss in which she feeds Her own calm fires?-But list! a voice is near; Great Pan himself low-whispering through the reeds, 'Be thankful, thou; for, if unholy deeds Ravage the world, tranquility is here! '

Q Compare this sonnet with Wordsworth's 'upon Westminster Bridge'?

Both share the absence of people, and the same technique of personifying that which is inanimate.

Q What suggests that this is a poem which is about war?

The poem refers to 'incessant wars' (8) and to 'Mars' (5) which is called the red planet, and the 'ruddy crest' (5) may also suggest blood.

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Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveler from an antique landWho said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,Tell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.And on the pedestal these words appear --"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"Nothing beside remains. Round the decayOf that colossal wreck, boundless and bareThe lone and level sands stretch far away.'

In this poem there are three voices: the initial narrator, the traveler and the quoted words of Ozymandias 'the name Greek travelers gave to the Egyptian Pharaoh Rameses the second, the poem is concerned with fabled power.

The speaker recalls having met a traveler from an antique land who told him a story about the ruins of a statue in the desert of his native country two vast and trunk-less legs of stone stand without a body, and near them a massive, crumbling stone head lies half sunk in the sand. The traveler told the speaker that the frown and 'sneer of cold command' on the statue's face indicate that the sculptor understood well the passions of the statue's subject, a man who sneered with contempt for those weaker than himself, yet he fed his people because of something in his heart 'The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed'.

On the pedestal of the statue appear the words 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings / Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!' But around the decaying ruin of the statue, nothing remains, only the 'lone and level sands' which stretched around it, far away. It indicates that Ozymandias has vanished almost without a trace.……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Gender and authorship: basically women were not allowed to write poetry, therefore many women writers turned to novel writing such as Jane Austen.

* Mary Wollstonecraft: she is a liberal woman who attacked the situation in which women's education fitted them only to get husbands; she considered women's education at that time as enslaving. For Wollstonecraft, the gendering of education is primary: education enforces and sustains the gender distinctions in society.

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Women and the novel

Two characteristics of romantic writing are dwelling on the private experience of the self and a desire to transcend the social world. Wordsworth called the lyrical 'Ballads' experiments and Shelley called his poem 'The Revolt of Islam' an 'experiment on the tamper of the public mind'. But Jane Austen does not seem experimental in her forms, or to experiment with the content of her fictions, but rather with discriminating among the various languages of a social world she accepts.

Women and poetry

The Rights of Woman by Anna Lætitia Barbauld

Yes, injured Woman! rise, assert thy right!Woman! too long degraded, scorned, oppressed;O born to rule in partial Law's despite,Resume thy native empire o'er the breast!

Go forth arrayed in panoply divine;That angel pureness which admits no stain;Go, bid proud Man his boasted rule resign,And kiss the golden sceptre of thy reign.

Go, gird thyself with grace; collect thy storeOf bright artillery glancing from afar;Soft melting tones thy thundering cannon's roar,Blushes and fears thy magazine of war.

Thy rights are empire: urge no meaner claim,-Felt, not defined, and if debated, lost;Like sacred mysteries, which withheld from fame,Shunning discussion, are revered the most.

Try all that wit and art suggest to bendOf thy imperial foe the stubborn knee;Make treacherous Man thy subject, not thy friend;Thou mayst command, but never canst be free.

Awe the licentious, and restrain the rude;Soften the sullen, clear the cloudy brow:Be, more than princes' gifts, thy favours sued;-She hazards all, who will the least allow.

But hope not, courted idol of mankind,On this proud eminence secure to stay;Subduing and subdued, thou soon shalt findThy coldness soften, and thy pride give way.

Then, then, abandon each ambitious thought,Conquest or rule thy heart shall feebly move,In Nature's school, by her soft maxims taught,That separate rights are lost in mutual love.

The title indicates a call for revolution, but in the final stanza it reveals a call for the conventional relationship between the sexes, that both live in peaceful equality, and women returns to her conventional role.

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The figure of the poet / A Defense of Poetry by Shelley - Read

Q in the first quoted paragraph, on what basis does Shelley claim that poetry is the most important of the arts?

For language is arbitrarily produced by the imagination, and has relation to thoughts alone; but all other materials, instruments, and conditions of art have relations among each other, which limit and interpose between conception and expression.

- The first quoted paragraph speaks about the superiority of poetry as the art that employs language. Language has a more immediate relation to 'thoughts alone' than the media of any the other arts.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Q according to the second quoted paragraph, what poetry can do?

Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar; it reproduces all that it represents, and the impersonations clothed in its Elysian light stand thenceforward in the minds of those who have once contemplated them, as memorials of that gentle and exalted content which extends itself over all thoughts and actions with which it coexists.

- The second quoted paragraph speaks of the way that we can be made to see familiar things anew ' defamiliarization'.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Q What is the function of poetry & the poet in the third quoted paragraph?

The most unfailing herald, companion, and follower of the awakening of a great people to work a beneficial change in opinion or institution, is poetry. At such periods there is an accumulation of the power of communicating and receiving intense and impassioned conceptions respecting man and nature. The person in whom this power resides, may often, as far as regards many portions of their nature, have little apparent correspondence with that spirit of good of which they are the ministers. But even whilst they deny and abjure, they are yet compelled to serve, that power which is seated on the throne of their own soul. It is impossible to read the compositions of the most celebrated writers of the present day without being startled with the electric life which burns within their words. They measure the circumference and sound the depths of human nature with a comprehensive and all-penetrating spirit, and they are themselves perhaps the most sincerely astonished at its manifestations; for it is less their spirit than the spirit of the age. Poets are the hierophants of an un apprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

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-It speaks about the social power of poetry and how can it affect society.Chapter Three: Defense of poetry

Romantic poetic criticism & theory concerning three principals/arguments

1- The appropriate kind of language for poetry2- The poetic imagination and its relation to language3- The relationship between poetic language and politics

The leveling of the language

Q Why were Wordsworth views considered so controversial?

Wordsworth's 1802 preface was considered as a radical, even revolutionary document, because it was thought that his revolutionary character resided not merely on the claims made about the language of 'low' and 'rustic' people, but also in the social and political implications of such assertions.

Wordsworth argued against the received idea of poetic language as refined, perfected mode of eloquence available only to those with an education in previous literary models (Wordsworth's leveling of poetic language).

Imagination and the figure of the poet

* Coleridge argued on the correct definition of (fancy and imagination).

Imagination is (the plastic, shaping power), it dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to re-create, idealize and to unify. It is a vital (living, positive transforming) principle directed at a world which is described as essentially fixed and dead.

Fancy is artifice, as in the diction of much eighteenth century poetry, a faculty which merely shuffles the (fixed and dead) elements of the material universe around. It has no other counters to play with but fixities and definites.

Q How doe Wordsworth and Coleridge define the figure of the poet?

According to the theory of creative imagination, both of them viewed the poet as exceptional with divine nature, and according to Coleridge, the poet embodies the whole soul of man, therefore he is able to transform the world.

Q How does Shelley define the figure of the poet?

Shelley sees the figure of the poet as someone who embodies 'truth', and the poet is a kind of prophet or a member of the social and cultural savant-grade, who can see the future.

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Chapter Four: Women writers and readers

* Maria Edgeworth at the age of 15 worked on a translation of a French text and she wanted to publish the text after finishing it, but her father was persuaded by a friend to forbid this publication, because of the perceived danger that she will turn into 'Literary lady': a woman who will not make a good wife or mother.

The politics of sensibility

One of the strongest influences on cultural expectations of gender in the Romantic writing period was the continuing influence of the eighteenth century cult of sensibility (the cult of feeling arose in the eighteenth century in response to philosophical theories that investigated the power of feeling to communicate directly between people).

- Conduct literature: a literature that functioned in the regulation of women's reading and writing. Conduct books were published as advice manuals for women offering instruction on social and domestic behaviour. Conduct literature was a means by which views on the debate and concern about femininity and women's role in society could be expressed. On example: James Fordyce's Sermons to Young Women.

The hierarchy of genres

Women writers worked in a range of genres, producing poetry, journalism and didactic or children literature as well as novels. The reason for this spread of work was partly financial, because few women writers could hope to maintain a middle-class lifestyle on the money they could earn from novels.

* Although many women entered the public arena through poetry and other literature forms, but the novel properly gave the largest number women the the chance to become authors.

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Chapter Five: Reading the Prelude

* The Prelude is along poem written by Wordsworth and it is much concerned with memory, and crucially with memories of the 1790s, the decade revolution.

The Prelude as narrative

Wordsworth's Prelude: the poem is lyrical in that many of its most memorable sections concentrate on the actions and feelings of an individual at a unique or typical moment. But at the same time, it is a narrative, because it tells the story of Wordsworth's early life.

- The Prelude is autobiographical, but it is not strictly autobiography, because it messes out many of the chief events that are expected from a biography or autobiography. For example: there is no mention of Wordsworth's courtship or marriage

'Tintern Abbey' and the 'spots of time': memory and imagination

Tintern Abbey is a meditative poem written in blank verse and in the first person. The poem can be analyzed as describing a landscape, but it locates it in time as well as space (landscape poems give descriptions of a landscape only at the beginning and at the end) and the poet later revealed that the poem was not written in front of the location, therefore the poem is principally concerned not with space at all but with time.

- Three important points about Tintern Abbey:

1-Imagination and memory are crucial in a way they relate to nature2-The poem refers to a specific time and space but goes on to elude the location3-The poem depend on addressing another person to validate the experience it records.

The Prelude and 'spots of time'

The Prelude contains a collection of memories of childhood incidents and activities in which nature seems to exist for the purpose of educating the child.

Q Why did The Prelude needed to be written?

Wordsworth's poem has been seen as a secular version of the Christian scheme of Eden such as fall and redemption that Milton treats in Paradise Lost. In the Prelude memories of childhood would represent a lost Eden. Paradise Lost is a poem that attempts to understand the loss of Eden (the fall) and offer

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consolation. In Wordsworth's poem as a whole there is a desire for a regained wholeness.

Chapter Six: Romantic verse Narrative

'Romance' in Romantic narrative

- Romance inherited by Romantic writers involves the following things:

1- Idealized love between rather idealized characters2- Medieval and / or exotic settings3- Adventures and dangers faced during difficult journeys or quest for an ideal.4- Fantastic or implausible events and resolutions of problems.

La Belle Dame sans Merci (The Beautiful woman without Mercy) Keats

The poem has two versions: one published during his life time in a journal called The Indicator and one after his death, copied by Brown, an associate of Keats.

Q after reading the poem, identify the romance conventions it is employing?

The poem seems to be very much in the romance tradition. The language is stylized, an imitation of medieval romance. It seems much nearer to the gothic strain of romance than that employed by female novelists such as Austen.

* The poem is presented by a (the narrator) who meets a knight and hears of how he has met and become 'in thrill' to a lady. This lady is an idealized figure in the sense that she seems supernatural, from another world.

Q Are there any differences in the two versions in the representation of the relationship between the 'knight' and 'lady'?

* In the first line of stanza 9:

Brown text (And there she lulled me asleep) the figure of the lady as a 'fatal woman', an 'enchantress' the lady 'lulls' the knight to sleep.

Indicator version (And there we slumbered on the moss) the two figures fall asleep together, therefore the nightmare vision cannot be attributed to the lady, and is more likely produced by the knight’s own imagination.

Q Discus the nightmare vision presented to the knight?

The feeling left at the end of the poem is surly one of a male protagonist having fallen into a kind of dream, or having had a vision of an idealized female, the effect of which is to leave him in a psychological and physical alienated state.The process of falling in and out of a vision might well be the main point of the poem. Keats may well be employing romance to dramatize a process which is

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frequently represented by romantic poets (the experience and subsequent departure of a vision of the ideal)The Eve of St Agnes / Keats

The poem explores the human desire for the ideal within the context of a romance (a love relationship).

Q Is Madeline a self-deluded figure 'hoodwinked' by her own imagination? Or is she a victim?

Madeline was a 'victim' of her own delusion in the hope of love and the desired husband. And Porphyro used her belief in the superstition of St Agnes's Eve and succeeded in seducing Madeline. But according to Keats, Madeline's belief in a superstitious idea captured her heart and mind with a phony promise of an idealized dream. Therefore Madeline is a victim not merely of her own imagination but of the actions of her supposed ideal hero.

Alastor / Shelley

* The poem is an allegory (symbolic story) which depends on the figure of the poet in the search for the ideal.

Summary: the poem is about a young poet who travels east, he rejects an Arab maiden who secretly likes him. Then he reaches a valley in Kashmir, sleeps and dreams of a beautiful 'veiled maid' who sings and plays to him. He dreams that they embrace. He awakes to find himself alone, and then quests for the beautiful maid of his vision, whom he has mistaken for a reality.

* There is a narcissistic aspect of the poet’s ideal. The poet cannot find his imagined ideal in the world: it cannot exist in the world, and it is merely the reflection of his own mind.

Q Discuss the character of the Arab maiden?

The Arab maiden is to remind us that if the poet had not succumbed to an unrealizable quest for the ideal he would have been able to find love and companionship.

* Alastor utilizes one of the greatest strengths of Romantic verse narrative: its dialogic nature: in a verse narrative it is possible to juxtapose different voices or points of views, to set them in conflict or dialogue with each other.

* Keats poems presented a kind of dialogue between different view points: idealism versus rationalism, the imagined world vesus the physical world.

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Chapter Seven: Gender and Poetry

Gender and poetry (Wordsworth: a poet is 'a man speaking to men')

In the masculine tradition, women were located as passive, quasi-natural objects. They were passive objects while men are active speaking subjects.

To Melancholy by Charlotte Smith

Q What is the setting of the poem?

The setting is (a gothic landscape of shadows and strange sounds) and it's very important to the mood of the poem.

Q Hoe did the poet used nature in the poem?

Nature reciprocates the speaker's feelings. Smith used personification 'autumn spreads her … veil'; 'the wood 'sights', the wind is 'saddened'. Therefore nature became a mirror for the speaker, in reflecting and fostering her melancholy.

Q Who is the speaker in Charlotte Smith poem?

The speaker is a proponent of sensibility (the poet) because the poem itself has been generated out of a personal negative experience.

The Grave of Poetess by Felicia Hemans's tribute to Mary Tighe

Q After reading the poem 'The grave of poetess', describe what Hemans thinks are the most important characteristics of Tighe's writings?

According to Hemans, Tighe's poetry 'song' is characterized by 'sorrow' and her life by weeping 'How often didst thou weep'. Her poetic voice conforms to the demands of feminine discourse in that it is 'not loud, but deep' as in deeply felt. Her thoughts are described as 'tender' and elevated 'high'.

Floating Island by Dorothy Wordsworth

Q How is nature represented in the first stanza of the poem?

It could be summed up by the word 'harmonious' with a balance in in nature.

Q what is the relationship between the speaker and the neutral scene in the second and third stanzas?

The poet shifts from the general to the particular and from neutrality to emotion. The poet's 'I' is invoked for the first time when the floating island comes into

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being, which suggests that the speaker's subjectivity may in some way be identified with the existence and fate of the island.

Chapter Eight: Romantic allegory

Allegory as a mode of writing and reading

- Allegory: 'saying one thing while meaning another' Allegory presupposes that language can communicate meanings in subtle, indirect ways. It is a literature in which a text appears to contain multiple meanings 'layers of meaning'. Or contain figures, images and symbols which appear to point to meanings other than those which are most obvious and immediate. Therefore it is a text that possesses 'depth' that can inspire its readers.

The four Levels of allegory

1-Literal level: the actual story and events on the surface as they appear. Stories derive from myth; therefore there is a strong link between allegory and myth.

2-Ethical level: the moral meaning, therefore this level is traditionally seen as pertaining to the morality of each individual human being.

3-Historical level: it concerns the manner in which the story sheds light upon and relates to the social and political events of the day.

4-Apocalyptic level: the religious or spiritual meaning, and the conflict between good and evil.

Romantic writings and allegory

Q What are the view points of Romantic writers towards allegory?

Romantic writers such as Wordsworth and Coleridge considered allegory as an inferior form of poetry, because allegorical writing is far too restrictive and manipulative to constitute great art. They regarded allegory as a mode of literature which attempted to manipulate its readers by restricting the possibilities of meaning within the story it presented. Black states that 'Vision or imagination is a representation of eternally exists, really and unchangeable. Fable or allegory is formed by the daughters of memory'.

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Chapter Nine: Colonialism and the exotic

Coleridge and the Orient (Kubla Khan)

- Cultural stereotype: a fixed, immutable image of a people and is customs.

* According to Jones (1772), European culture was marked by reason, whereas Oriental culture exemplified imagination in a superior degree.

Q Discuss the war of ideas within Coleridge?

Coleridge had two contracting view points, one extolling 'admiring' Hindu mysticism, and the other commending Christian political radicalism.

Q What indicates that Kubla Khan is an orientalist poem? (Important)

Following in the tradition of eighteenth century orientalist narratives, the orient of Kubla Khan is represented as a place of magical beauty and power, but also of tyranny, eroticism and danger. These were qualities of contemporary stereotypes about the orient. Kubla Khan is the type of oriental tyrant in search of power over his dominion. The sonnet 'Ozymandias' by Shelley can be compared to Kubla Khan, because both empires end in ruins, therefore the work of artists is more eternal than the tyrants rule.

Alastor by Shelley

Q Compare Kubla Khan by Coleridge with Alastor by Shelley, is there a resemblance in the way each poem represents the relationship between East and West?

In these orientalist narratives both Coleridge and Shelley represent the relationship between east and west as gendered, that is to say, as a European man falling in love with, or being seduced by, a fascinating oriental woman, who leaves her lover disappointed and broken hearted.

The Corsair by Byron

Q How did Byron represent Conrad in the poem?

Byron portrayed Conrad as a disappointed idealist 'a man of loneliness and mystery', a kind of fallen angel who has turned into a free-booting pirate, pledged to wreak havoc with Turkish shipping and resist the stern power of the local Turkish Pasha. His only virtue lies in his faithful love for his wife Medora.

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Q Discuss Conrad's (chivalric European code of honour) in contrast to Gulnare's oriental conduct?

Conrad's code of honour is a paradigm of aristocratic virtue, but it is hopelessly ineffectual in practical situations. He is willing to allow himself to be killed brutally by Seyd simply because he has lost the game. On the other hand, Gulnare throws all codes of honour to the winds but in so doing effectively puts an end to Seyd's tyranny and rescues Conrad.

Q Explain cultural opposition East / West in the inversion of gender and class in the poem 'the Corsair'? (The reverse of gender roles)

A strange inversion of gender and class takes place as Gulnare exchanges her passive 'womanly' qualities for those of a revolutionary male, and Conrad adopts a passive stance, allowing himself to be led by the dominant Gulnare.

Q Why did Byron's contemporary British readership found the character of Gulnare son fascinating?

For contemporary readership, Gulnare represents an exorbitant and horrifying character, creating an identical character to that of the best Gothic villains.

Q Explain how did the official ideology of European imperialists was betrayed in the poem 'the Corsair'?

The military and sexual tactics of Conrad and his band represents the 'official' ideology of European imperialists (white men saving brown women from brown men) But the outcome of Byron's poem represents betrayal and an inversion in the ideology of European imperialists because Gulnare rescued Conrad from prison (brown woman saving white men from brown men – only to seduce them away from their white women).On the other hand, Medora's tragic death made it clear that Conrad has turned Turk and betrayed the values of his own culture.

Q Compare and contrast Byron's description of Medora and Gulnare in terms of cultural stereotyping?

Byron represented Medora as the domestic faithful wife, therefore characterized by passivity, sensitivity and fidelity, so she represented a positive picture of western women, on the other hand, Byron represented Gulnare as an unfaithful woman and a seducer with heady charms. And when Gulnare assassinated Seyd, she broke the rules of allowable feminine behaviour and became 'unsexed'; therefore she represented a negative picture of Eastern women.

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Poetry techniques & important definitions

Poetry Techniques:

1- Selection of speaker: It can be the poet himself, or a character, a thing

2- Sound:

-Alliteration: repetition of sounds, usually the first letters of successive words, or words that are close together, for example: 'Flashed flickering forth fantastic flies'

-Assonance: a repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds.

-Onomatopoeia: a word that seem to imitate the sound or sounds associated with the object or action, for example, ' cuckoo/ buzz'

-Rhyme: an echo of a similar sound, usually at the end of a line of poetry, such as 'O fleet, sweet swallow'.

-Rhythm: a pattern of beats or stresses in a line of poetry creating a sense of movement, such as the iambic rhythm, for example: 'I went across the road and bought a pair of shoes'

3- Imagery: a special use of language in a way that evokes sense impressions (usually visual), many poetic images function as mental pictures that give shape and appeal to something otherwise vague and abstract, for example 'yonder before us lie / Deserts of vast eternity'

4- Figurative language.

-Metaphor: an image in which on thing is substituted for another, or the quality of one object is identified with another, for example, the sun becomes ' the eye of heaven'.

-Simile: an image in which one thing is likened to another, the similarity is usually pointed out with the word 'like' or 'as' such as 'my love is like a red rose'.

-Personification: writing about something not human as if it were a person, for example, 'Busy old fool, unruly sun'.

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Ballad: originally a song which tells a story (narrative), often involving a dialogue, and characteristically the storyteller's own feelings are not expressed, for example, the Lyrical Ballads: a collection of poems by Wordsworth and Coleridge.

Blank verse: a term specifically used to describe verse in unrhyming iambic pentameter.

Narrative: the telling of a series of events (either true or fictitious). The person relating these events is the narrator, but in poetry it is referred as the speaker.

Dialogue: a spoken exchange between characters, usually in drama and fiction but also sometimes in poetry.

Epic: a long narrative poem dealing with events on a grand scale, often with a hero above average in qualities and exploits.

Elegy: a poem of loss, usually mourning the death of a public figure, or someone close to the poet.

Ode: a poem on a serious subject, usually written in an elevated formal style, often written to commemorate public events.

Diction: the writer's choice of words. Poetic diction might be described for instance as formal or informal, elevated or colloquial.

Refrain: a line or phrase repeated throughout a poem, some times with variations, often at the end of each stanza.

Sonnet: a poem of fourteen iambic pentameter lines with varying rhyme schemes originally composed of an octave and a sestet, often expressing two successive phases of a single thought or sentiment.

Octave: a group of eight lines of poetry, often forming the first part of the sonnet.

Sestet: a group of six lines of poetry, often forming the second part of the sonnet.

Quatrain: a group of four lines of poetry usually rhymed.

Tercet: a group of three lines in poetry, some times referred as a triplet.

Turn: a distinctive movement of change in mood or thought or feelings. In the sonnet, the turn usually occurs between the octave and the sestet.

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Pun: double meaning or ambiguity in a word, often employed in a witty way. Puns are often associated with wordplay.

Couplet: a pair of rhymed lines, often used as a way of rounding off a sonnet; hence the term 'closing couplet'.

Heroic couplet: iambic pentameter lines rhyming in pairs, most commonly used for satiric or didactic poetry, and particularly favored in the 18th century.

Rhyme scheme: a pattern of rhymes established in a poem. The pattern of rhymes in a quatrain for instance, might be 'a b a' or 'a b b a'.

Caesura: a strong pause in a line of verse, usually appearing in the middle of a line and marked with a comma, semi-colon, or a full stop.

Enjambment: the use of run-on lines in poetry. Instead of stopping or pausing at the end of a line of poetry, we have to carry on reading until we complete the meaning in a later line.

Ellipsis: omission of words from a sentence to achieve brevity and comparison.

Epigram: witty, condensed expression. The closing couplet in some of Shakespeare's sonnets is often described as epigram.

Metre: a measurement of a line of poetry, including its length and its pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.

Foot: a unit of metre with a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables, which forms the smallest unit of rhythm in a poem.

Poetic inversion: reversing the order of normal speech in order to make the words fit a particular rhythm, or rhyme, or both.

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Questions to analyse any poem

1. What kind of poem is it?

Is it a lyric or narrative or sonnet and so on?

2. What does it talk about?

Does it talk about society, politics, love, landscape, nature and so on?

3. Who or what is speaking?

Is it the poet or another character?

4. What is the form of the poem?

How many lines or stanzas? Are the lines short, long or equal?

Identify the sound techniques in the poem such as rhyme scheme, rhythm, alternation, assonance and so on?

5. Identify figurative language or imagery in the poem?

What are the poetic images in the poem and types of adjectives such as colorful or dark words? Identify personification, metaphor and simile?

6. Identify repetition of lines or ideas or words?

Such as the word 'and' which combines the lines together.

7. What is the importance of the title?

Does it shape the way in which we read the poem?

8. Discuss the last verse paragraph or stanza?

What does it add to the poem? Does it summaries the theme of the poem?

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