ROMANTICISM AND ITS MAJOR

POETS

WHAT IS ROMANTICISM?

NOT THIS

BUT THISWanderer Above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich

ROMANTICISM 1798-1832

A movement that affected literature, art, and intellect

Reaction against the elevation of reason and science above all else during the Enlightenment as well as the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution

WORDSWORTH’S PREFACE TO LYRICAL BALLADS REDEFINED: Who is the poet?

“He is a man speaking to men….with….a disposition to be affected more than other men by absent things as if they were present.”

What should he write about and how?“To choose incidents and situations from

common life, and to relate or describe them…in a selection of language really used by men.”

What is poetry?“The spontaneous overflow of powerful

feelings”

I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUDI wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and

hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the

breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly

dance.

The waves beside them danced; but

they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company: I gazed—and gazed—but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.

QUESTIONS What is the poet’s mood when he begins

his walk? What examples of simile,

personification, and sensory detail are there?

How does nature affect the poet? How does this scene of daffodils

continue to bring him joy?

FROM DOROTHY WORDSWORTH’S JOURNAL “When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow park

we saw a few daffodils close to the water side, we fancied that the lake had floated the seeds ashore & that the little colony had so sprung up— But as we went along there were more & yet more & at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road . . .  [S]ome rested their heads on [mossy] stones as on a pillow for weariness & the rest tossed & reeled & danced & seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the Lake, they looked so gay ever glancing ever changing. This wind blew directly over the lake to them. There was here & there a little knot & a few stragglers a few yards higher up but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity & unity & life of that one busy highway... —Rain came on, we were wet. ”

POETIC PROCESS Stage One: Observation—poet

observes and experiences powerful emotion

Stage Two: Recollection—poet recalls the emotion in tranquility

Stage Three: Filtering—poet filters that which is not essential

Stage Four: Composition—poet becomes “man speaking to men”

ROMANTIC VALUES Imagination Nature Symbolism and myth Emotion Self/Individual Hero artist Children Simplicity/Innocence Supernatural Reconcile contrary states of being

WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827) Only formal education in art;

apprenticed as an engraver 1789 published 19 poems in “Songs of

Innocence” and in 1804 published 26 poems in “Songs of Experience.” Each of the poems has its own engraving

“Illuminated painting” much like the illuminated texts of the Middle Ages

Etched in copper and then hand colored probably by his wife

Only 28 copies known to exist

ANALYSIS The central question is both poems is the concept of the

creator: “Little Lamb, who made thee?” “What immortal hand or eye/Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”

In “The Lamb”, images of the subject and maker are pure/childlike: “softest clothing wooly bright”, “tender voice”; “he is called by thy name”, “for he is meek and he is mild”; repetition of “Little Lamb” like childish inquiry

In “The Tyger”, images of subject and maker are scary/dangerous: “fearful symmetry,” “fire of thine eyes”, “deadly terrors”; “what the hand dare seize the fire”, “what dread hand? & what dread feet?”, “what dread grasp/dare its deadly terrors clasp?”; “what the hammer?/what the chain?.../what the anvil? What dread grasp” like a repetitive hammering

“What immortal hand or eye/could frame thy fearful symmetry” to “What immortal hand or eye/dare frame thy fearful symmetry?”—will and deliberateness of the maker

Blake’s contrary states of the soul: “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?”

Existence of good and evil in the same world, in the same beings, and created by the same maker

YOUR TURN Read through the two versions of “The

Chimney Sweeper” and analyze in what ways the speakers are similar and in what ways they are different.

How do these two poems embody Blake’s contrary states of the soul? Is one state preferable to the other?

What role does religion play in each? How is his work a critique of the

Industrial Revolution?

SAMUEL COLERIDGE (1772-1834) Co-authored Lyrical Ballads with William

Wordsworth Strong literary critic, poet, writer,

lecturer in his own right Once planned to establish an ideal

democratic community in America called “Pantisocracy”

Ended up addicted to laudanum (opium dissolved in alcohol)

KUBLA KHAN In preface to poem, he described

reading about Kubla Khan in a book and then falling into an opium-induced sleep where the visions he later wrote down appeared before him

When he awoke and began writing his visions down, he was called away and upon return, could only remember these remaining lines

Historical Kubla Khan founded the Mongol dynasty in China in the 13th century

ANALYSIS Where do dreams and visions come from? Do they

mean something? Stanza 1: Xanadu is a combination of real and

imagined (“Alph, the sacred river”), a “fertile” pleasure palace that is “sunny” with “gardens bright” and other sensuous delights built by a river that runs “through caverns measureless to man/down to a sunless sea.”

Stanza 2: “the deep romantic chasm” is seen as a “savage”, “holy”, and “enchanted” place where a woman could be wailing for her demon lover!

Chasm is “seething”, “breathing”, “forced”, “burst” and “’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far/Ancestral voices prophesying war!” The actions of humankind echoes the power of nature

Stanza 3: States of contrast: “sunny” pleasure dome with “caves of ice”; natural versus manmade; “floating” above ground versus underground caves; measured and planned versus the wild and uncontained

Stanza 4: Final vision of a woman with a dulcimer from another time; her song would enable him to build that “dome in air”; pleasure of vision is contrasted with a warning to “beware” and of another vision of “holy dread”—perhaps an image of the poet or of Kubla Khan?

And this is why we don’t do drugs, kids!

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792-1822) A radical who scorned orthodoxy

including religion and marriage Married Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin,

who later wrote Frankenstein Often in debt, having to move to avoid

creditors Felt radical social reform had to be

based on the redeeming power of love on people’s morals and imagination

Drowned in a storm when he was only 30

OZYMANDIAS Greek name for Ramses II of Egypt 13th

century BCE Why do people build monuments of

themselves? Consider the framing of the poem. Who

is the original teller of the tale? How is interpretation being used by narrator? Sculptor?

What literary devices are used to tell the tale?

What Romantic values are found?

LITERARY ELEMENTS Sonnet: 14 lines of iambic pentameter Alliteration: “traveller” “two”

“trunkless”; “stand” “sand” “sunk” Consonance: “vast” “trunkless” “visage”

“lies” Enjambment: carrying the sense of one

line over to the next“Tell that its sculptor well those passions

read/which yet survive”

ROMANTIC ELEMENTS Narrative frame/imagination:

“I met a traveller from an antique land” Permanence of art

“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone/stand in the desart”

“Nothing beside remains. Round the decay/of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare/the lone and level sands stretch far away”

Role of the artist/creator“Tell that its sculptor well those passions

read/which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things”

JOHN KEATS (1795-1821) Keats was originally apprenticed as a

doctor but dropped out to be a poet Did not begin writing poetry until 18

years old but was prolific Contracted same tuberculosis as that

which killed his mother and brother Fell in love with neighbor Fanny Brawne

but had a foreboding of early death Poetry embodied a wealth of “contrary

states” Died at age 24 of tb

ODE TO A GRECIAN URN

ANALYSIS Stanza 1: contrast of “quietness” and “slow time” with

“mad pursuit” and “pipes and timbrels”; “unravish’d bride”—innocent forever

Stanza 2: contrast of pain of never reaching goal with the fact that the lover will never fade/immortal; outside of time but also of experience

Stanza 3: Happiness is above the “breathing human passion…that leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d”; “forever piping…forever warm” yet will never be fulfilled

Stanza 4: Art stirs imagination of viewer beyond what’s there “What little town…is emptied of this folk…?”

Stanza 5: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty”--only quoted part or entire last two lines spoken by urn? Who does “ye” refer to? Meaning debated.

ROMANTIC VALUES Permanence of art:

“Do not grieve;/ she cannot fade, though thou has not thy bliss;/ For ever wilt thou love and she be fair!”

“Happy melodist, unwearied/For ever piping songs for ever new;/More happy love! More happy, happy love!”

Contrasting states of being “Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss…yet do

not grieve;/ she cannot fade, though thou hasn’t not thy bliss

Art as truth/ideal: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty”—that is all/ye know

on earth, and all ye need to know