Intro to British Lit Survey II

1. Intro to British Lit Survey II Walters

2. Defining “Literature” Longman Anthology: “…a range of artistically shaped works written in a charged language, appealing to the imagination at least as much as to discursive reasoning. Me: “Creative expression through language.” That includes a myriad of forms that are all diversely situated—culturally, socially, personally, philosophically, politically, spiritually, and the list goes on… Literary texts can be almost anything, and whether it is literary sometimes depends on how we read it. The texts themselves, then, are dynamic.

3. Defining “British” • First “Britons” were Celtic people in the British Isles and the northern coast of France. Germanic tribes (Angles and Saxons—later Anglo-Saxons) moved in during the 5th and 6th centuries. • As Anglo-Saxon culture grew more dominant in southern and eastern regions, the old British (Celtic) peoples were pushed west toward Wales and Ireland (independent kingdoms for centuries) and north toward Scotland. • Through a long series of linguistic and military developments, invasions, etc., the Anglo-Saxons appropriated the term “British,” and by the 17th century, English monarchs ruled Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, calling their entire region “Great Britain.” • Today, Great Britain includes England, Wales, Scotland, and with Northern Ireland, the nation is called “The United Kingdom”—the Republic of Ireland earned its independence in 1922. • By “British,” this course will refer loosely to the whole of the British Isles, including Ireland as well. Divorced from this context, though, the word is politically charged and potentially offensive.

5. THE REVOLUTIONARY ROMANTICS English 212 Walters

6. Season of Revolution • American Revolution (1776-1783) • French Revolution (1789-1815) • Industrial Revolution • Steam engine/cotton gin/factory system/growth of cities/ironworks/market economy • Agricultural Revolution • Enclosure/clearances (improved agricultural output but dislocated families) • Organized Labor • Emancipation • Women’s Rights/Children’s Rights

7. (Less than) Romantic Britain: A Culture Ripe for Revolution In the midst of a shift from agricultural economy to early industrial capitalism. • Great Britain pop: • 5 million in 1750 • 14 million in 1831 • No adequate sanitary systems • 6’ streets, crowded • High infant mortality • Avg. life span: 39 • Air pollution from coal burning • People beginning to advocate for social relief rather than just spiritual relief (Blake’s “Holy Thursday”). Class consciousness growing among the discontented workers. • Women are disenfranchised and slavery still persists. Feudal economy transitioning into market economy and industrial capitalism. • Monarchy and old patriarchal social structure (feudal: inherited, landed aristocracy) still dominant, but revolutionaries championing an emergent social structure built upon the rights of man, social mobility, equality, and constitutionality.

8. French Revolution “…a sudden, cataclysmic overthrow of a monarchy surrounded by high culture, and the eruption of new social order that no one knew how to “read.” New, challenging, and often contradictory energies reverberated across Britain and Europe. Enthusiasts heralded the fall of an oppressive aristocracy and the birth of democratic and egalitarian ideals, a new era, shaped by “the rights of man” rather than the entailments of wealth and privilege, while skeptics and reactionaries rued the end of chivalry, lamented the erosion of order, and foresaw the decline of civilization” (7).

9. French Revolution: Quick and Dirty History • Tory: a conservative (monarchy, absolute authority, aristocratic). • Whig: a liberal progressive (rights of man, democratic leanings, constitutional sympathies). • 1789: Storming of the Bastille • Monarchy overthrown in 1792. Louis XVI guillotined in January 1793, Queen Marie Antoinette in October. • Reign of Terror (Robespierre) until 1794. • Declares war on Britain in 1793. • France announces support for revolutions abroad. Invades Netherlands in 1793, German states in 1794, Italy in 1796, Switzerland in 1798. • Napoleon named First Consul in 1799. Declares himself Emperor in 1804. Wages Napoleonic wars all over Europe. • Napoleon defeated at Waterloo in 1815 after disastrous Russian campaign.

10. Reaction in England • Government clamps down on political expression that hints of revolutionary sentiment. • War with France in 1793 throws English revolutionaries into a quandary. National pride vs. revolutionary ideals. • Parliamentary reform stifled in 1790s. • Emancipation stifled. • Even moderates were accused of being Jacobins (sympathetic to revolutionary France) and so they were silenced. • Suspended Writ of Habeus Corpus in 1794, which means anyone suspected of a crime can be jailed indefinitely (no due process). • Gagging Acts of 1795, Combination Act of 1799 • Government spies (Coleridge and Wordsworth were followed by spies who thought they were revolutionary conspirators). • All this in the name of patriotism. This is the scene of the first generation Romantic writers. The idea of patriotism is fraught with divergent tension (Revolutionary? Traditional?)

11. Shift from “Neoclassical” Perspective to “Romantic” Perspective Neoclassical Romantic Intuition, Imagination, Emotion, Idealism, Subjectivity Revolution. Order is horizontal and boundaries are permeable. Nature: subject/object interaction. Fluidity. Poetic inspiration, catalyst toward intuitive truth. Poetry (romantic “I”) penetrates/violates/obscures/reworks order. Inclusive (poor, mad, women, children) The only thing keeping us from flying is our minds’ inability to make it so. Prometheus: A hero, a model for resisting tyrants, for inspiration • Rationality/Logic/Objectivity • Established Order (chain of being). Tradition. • Nature: purely external, fixed and rigid, hierarchical. Poetry reflects order. • Exclusive/Elitist • “If God wanted us to fly, he’d have given us wings.” • Prometheus: Usurper and over-reacher

12. Imagination  “Romance” • Imagination itself becomes the subject of reflection and debate. • Imagination an almost divine power that shapes and filters experience and expression. Exhilarating, empowering, seductive, and also terrifying and dangerous, all at once. • Keats: “The Imagination may be compared to Adam’s dream—he awoke and found it truth.” Imagination might just shape/alter objective reality. Lines between objective/subjective begin to blur. • Adynamic, synthetic force. Coleridge: The Imagination shows itself in “the balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities.” • Synthesis  empathy  change?

13. Imagination  Romance (contd.) • Imaginative literature becomes both escapist and ultimately realistic. • Romance: “a tale of wild adventures in war and love” (Samuel Johnson). A story about faraway places, ancient times, fantastical adventures. • Johnson also defined “Romance” as “a lie; a fiction.” The power to delve not only into “enchanted dreams and inspired visions, but also into superstitions and spells, delusions and nightmares” (11). • Women writers sometimes tend to be more skeptical of Imagination’s powers—favor rational thought. Others, like M. Shelley, embrace its seductive power. • Imagination is inherently revolutionary—refuses to be bound by codes, traditions, or power structures.

14. Romantic = Revolutionary! • New forms (throwing off/building upon poetic tradition) • New literary markets • New voices (intensely subjective “I”; the bard; the disenfranchised) • New poets (women) • New politics • New spirituality • New geography • New social dynamic

15. Prometheus: A Thematic Lens for our Consideration of British Lit and Culture • A Titan, brother of Atlas. Sided with Olympians in their overthrow of Titan Cronus(Atlas punished and made to hold the globe). • Taught humans architecture, astronomy, mathematics, navigation, medicine, metallurgy, etc. (much to Zeus’s chagrin) • Tricked Zeus into claiming the blood and bones of the sacrificial bull • Steals fire from Olympus and delivers to humanity • Chained to cliff in Caucasian mountains, vulture pecks at his liver every day, it heals every night.