English Romanticism

English Romanticism “The divine arts of imagination: Imagination, the real & eternal world Of which this vegetable universe Is but a faint shadow. -William Blake (1798-1832)

Causes of English Romanticism • Revolutions EVERYWHERE. • Going from an agricultural society to an industrial one. • Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems by Coleridge and Wordsworth • Hope in the dawn of a new era brought about by peaceful change.

Hope turns into dismay • Laissez Faire attitude placed on economics (child labor) • England too stubborn for change, rationalism useless • And a loss/abuse of nature

Qualities of English Romanticism • Perception and wonder of a child – Imagination, dream, and naturalness • Nature mirrors the human mind and truth. Brings about transformation • Questions tradition and authority while imagining happier, fairer, and healthier ways to live – individual liberty • Rejection of the public, formal and witty works of the Enlightenment. Personal, emotional, simple lyrical poetry

William Blake(1757-1827) • Lived a relatively normal life in London. • His work received little attention in his life. When noticed it was labeled as “weird.” • Created paintings to accompany most of his poems, often the paintings were NECESSARY. • Created the Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience: - Innocence: genuine love and naïve trust - Experience: disillusionment with man and society

Percy Bysshe Shelley(1792-1822) • Wrote at a very young age, got expelled after writing an atheist pamphlet. Estranged from family. • Rushed into courting and marriage. To marry Mary Godwin, daughter of famous radicals, he had to wait until his first wife Harriet drowned herself. • The couple had a child and were very involved with the great thinkers of the time. Related, through marriage, to Lord Byron. • Wrote numerous odes. • Shelley drowned at the age of 29 with Sophocles and Keats in his pockets.. • He was sailing and refused help from sailors when the weather got bad, • fascinated by the dark power of the storm.

Golden Age of RussianLiterature “Men do not accept their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and worship those whom they have tortured to death.” - Fyodor Dostoevsky (19th century)

Not just one style or movement, but a period of the greatest classic literature to ever come out of Russia. • Also a great period of Russian poetry. • Novels were massive and ran the gambit of emotions of the real world. • Most of this literature was Realist in subject, but also included: mysticism, brooding introspection, social commentary, and melodrama. Subject and Style

Not just a novelist, but a social and religious reformer respected all over the western world. • Born to aristocracy, he became bored with his life and gambled away much of his fortune as a young man. • Fought in the Crimean War which greatly motivated his writing. • Educated his serfs, tried to live as “holy” a life as possible • Spent his last thirty years attacking the Czarist government and the Orthodox Church. • War and Peace - - Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy(1828-1910)

1860-1904 – Born in Ukraine, grandchild of a serf who had bought his freedom • Playwright and one of the originators of the modern short story. • Father was religious fanatic, worked hard as a child. • Funded medical schooling by selling comic short stories. • Wrote very fast– a short story in an hour. • Relatively unknown until after WW1 when his works were translated to English. Anton Chekhov

Father was a financially successful doctor, pious mother took Fyodor on pilgrimages. • Went to military academy for engineering and developed a love of Russian and French literature. • Was arrested for being in a utopian socialist group, forced to be a foot soldier… this greatly influenced his later works • Considered “the next Gogol,” devoutly religious, but anti-semetic. • His works are fictional yet autobiographical, pre-date Nietzschian and Freudian ideas, and tackle the themes of freedom of choice, good vs. evil, socialism, and finding hope/religion/God. Fyodor Dostoevsky(1821-1881)

Victorian England “Credit is a system whereby a person who can not pay gets another person who can not pay to guarantee that he can pay.” - Charles Dickens (1832-1901) Repeat the mantra:ORDER AND PROGRESS!

Riots and Reforms • England’s upper class feared revolution in the 30s and 40s. • The rapid growth of industry brought the onset of slums and the poverty of the factory worker. • The middle class was growing and felt like they had no real power. A Reform bill was passed to give all property-owning males the right to vote. • A depression came in the 1840s when unemployment was high, bread unaffordable, and food shortages. Parliament was forced to repeal its tax on imported grains to prevent rioting.

Etiquette and Prudery • The upper class differentiated themselves from the other classes through strict rules of propriety. • Social etiquette, moral character, and gender roles were all required for one who wishes to be accepted to the finest social cliques. • Strange rules of conduct: No more than two vegetables should be served with an entrée. You may talk to friends in the vestibule of church, but not in the hall of worship. Never look over goods that you have no intention of buying Mourning garments should be made of parmatta silk or bombazine

PROGRESS PROGRESS PROGRESS! • Industrialization • Science - Huxley: science education - Dependence on basic units - Darwin + evolution - Space continuum w/ fields of energy - Conservation of energy • The maintenance of ORDER.

Doubts and Literature • Writers started questioning whether material comfort, rules and standards really satisfied human needs and wishes. • They questioned the harm that comfort brought to the environment and how empty and foolish the upper class was. • Authors, such as Charles Dickens, reflected on social issues in their novels and stories. Specifically, Dickens really emphasized the hollowness and superficiality of the wealthy. • Decadence Movement – a “beautiful and interesting disease”, also related to Aestheticism, this movement championed by authors like Oscar Wilde believed in “art for art’s sake.” Write for the sake of creating something beautiful, not to champion any causes whatsoever. Thought social etiquette of the time was ridiculous and satirized it.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) • Mother was a prominent poet, father a surgeon and a successful philanthropist. • Oscar helped found the Decadence movement while studying in Oxford. • Purely an aesthete, he lived for beauty and dressed rather flamboyantly. Gave lectures in the United States about the movement. • Married and had two sons… BUT he also started having homosexual affairs with a number of young men. • His relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas brought his downfall. Alfred’s father hated his son’s lifestyle and decided to ruin Wilde. Wilde went through a very public trial and served two years hard labor. Wilde never fully recovered and died of meningitis in Paris a few years later. • Much of his writing has subtle homosexual innuendo: ie. Very close male friends who find women difficult or insufferable

English Romanticism