Romantic Poetry

1. Romantic Poetry William Blake, John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley

2. Outline • Introduction: • Jane Eyre: from the Romantic to the Victorian • The Romantics • Group Work0417 • John Keats & the odes • 2) “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (Notes) • 3) “To Autumn” • 4) “Bright Star” • Percy Bysshe Shelley 5) “Ozymandias” • Lord Byron: “She Walks in Beauty” (for reference) • Mid-Term Exam William Blake “The Chimney Sweeper” (next time)

3. Quest & Bildungsroman Story of Quest Bildungsroman Story of growth, coming of age, involving different stages such as childhood, youth and maturity (longer than “story of initiation) Before 19th century: picaresque novel (episodic) Victorian bildungsroman: more dramatic and usu. an orphan (see more here) • Originated in epic [Odyssey] & Arthurian legends [quest for the holy grail]. • Basic elements: a hero in an adventure or journey for a grand cause, overcoming obstacles • Romantic Quest: for Freedom, Vision & Imagination

4. Jane Eyre as a Quest Story & Bildungsroman Romantic Quest Victorian Bildungsroman How does she grow and develop? What are the social factors that shape her? Does she grow beyond her social constraints or become a docile social subject? • What is her goal? • Does she attain her goal? Is it possible for her as a woman to attain it?

5. Rochester as a Romantic Hero “The sweet wind from Europe was still whispering in the  refreshed leaves, and the Atlantic was thundering in  glorious liberty;  my heart, dried up and scorched for a long time,  swelled to the tone, and filled with living blood--my being longed for renewal--my soul thirsted for a pure draught. I saw hope revive--and felt regeneration possible. From a flowery arch at the bottom of my garden I gazed over the sea--bluer than the sky: the old world was beyond;  clear prospects opened thus:-"'Go,' said Hope, 'and live again in Europe…” Chap 27 Audio Ref: Romantic Hero (below)

6. Rochester as a Romantic Hero • Showing affinity to Nature • Intelligent, passionate and sensitive to others’ feelings • Trying to defy social constraints and rules Rebellious, isolated, wandering, etc. • Compromised by the social circumstances

7. The Romantics - Eternity (BBC documentary) Opening Shelley 20:00 Byron 29:45 Keats 39:15 The Romantic Poetry 35:40 Keats 55:15 Ozymandias April 19, 1824 was for Tennyson ‘a day when the whole world seemed to be darkened for me’. On a rock, close to his home, he carved the words ‘Byron is dead.’ (Cronin 105)

8. William Blake (1757-1827) Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) Willliam Wordsworth (1770-1850) John Keats (1795-1821) -- died at the age of 25 Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) -- died at the age of 29 Lord Byron (1788-1824) –age 36 The Romantics: The Big Six Mary Shelley30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) Emily Bronte 1818-1848 Charlotte Bronte 1816-1855

9. Romanticism vs. Victorianism

10. Romantic Age First Generation: The emphasis on • Idealism & Quest • Nature and correspondence between Nature and human nature; Wordsworth (also US – Whitman, Dickinson) • Common people—Wordsworth, Blake (“The Chimney Sweeper”) • “Natural Supernaturalism” –Coleridge and Blake: Art (“Tiger”), Imagination & Vision (“Kubla Khan” “The Rime of Ancient Mariner”) • Feeling(“spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling” “emotion recollected in tranquility”) • Individualism (e.g. “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” and “Sick Rose”)

11. Romantic Age 2nd Generation: The emphasis on • Feeling • Art & Imagination (e.g. “Ode on a Grecian Urn”) & Vision • Individualism & Quest for the remote (myth) • Breaking down more boundaries (e.g. the sensual, the moral); • against authority (“Ozymandias”)

12. Victorian Poetry More dramatic, less visionary—sometimes sadder

13. Group Work

14. John Keats (1795–1821) Norton See Bio below

15. John Keats • October 31, 1795-February 23, 1821; died at the age of 25 of tuberculosis . Published only 54 poems. • Originally a surgeon (apothecary-surgeon) and changed his mind in 1813-1814. • Literary Creation: 1816 – 1821 [love with Fanny Brawne 1818- the odes 1819] w/ problems of poverty • 1820 –symptoms of TB; • 1821 -- "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." • Major Ideas: Life as “the Vale of soul-making.” Shakespeare with “negative capability” (like a chameleon變色龍—imaginative identification with the other).

16. “Ode to Psyche” “Ode on a Grecian Urn” “Ode to a Nightingale” --art 5. “Ode on Indolence” 6. 'To Autumn‘ 4. “Ode on Melancholy” She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;    And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips  Bidding adieu and aching Pleasure nigh,    Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips… Keats’ Great Odes • Journey to (or Quest for) artistic eternity and transcendence and return to the mortal world

17. Ode on a Grecian Urn Norton See definition of Ode below

18. Odes • Lengthy • Serious in subject matter • Elevated in its word choice and style • Elaborate structure in stanzas • The Horatian ode - “To Autumn” • uniform stanzas • same metrical pattern • more personal, meditative, & restrained

19. Ode on a Grecian Urn • Pay attention to a) the form of address (apostrophe) and the object of address in different stanzas, which imply the speaker’s different relations with the urn; • Pay attention to the use of metaphors in calling/describing the urn; • The two sides of the urn: their differences and similarities • The closing lines—how to interpret them.

20. STANZA I Blue—metaphor; red– sound Underline-- rhetoric skills: questions Thou still unravish'd bride ofquietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? (1) What men or gods are these?Whatmaidens loth? Whatmad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

21. Blue—metaphor; Red – sound Underline-- rhetoric skills: Imperative, concession, repetition STANZA II Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold Lover, never,never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal--yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

22. Blue—metaphor; Orange – sound Underline-- rhetoric skills: Exclamation; repetition STANZA III Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearied, For ever piping songs for ever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, For ever panting, and for ever young; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

23. Blue—subjects; Orange – sound Underline-- rhetoric skills: Exclamation; repetition STANZA IV Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To whatgreen altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? Whatlittle town by river or sea shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? And, little town, thy streets for evermore Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

24. Blue—metaphor; Orange – sound Underline-- rhetoric skills: Exclamation; repetition STANZA V O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,"--that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

25. Ode on a Grecian Urn • Using apostrophe to speak to the Urn in order to enter its realm (the realm of art and permanence); • The process: question empathy confirmation  differentiation between the human and the artistic.

26. Ode on a Grecian Urn • Using apostrophe to address and speak to the Urn in order to “enter” its realm (the realm of art and permanence); • The Emphathic（神入﹚/Ekphrastic (讀畫／藝術作品) Process: 1) approach: question understanding  confirmation  2) differentiation between the human and the artistic • A Creative Process: * After all, the urn is just an ancient utensil; Keats creates its “artistic” meanings by teasing out the dualities between time and timelessness/frozen moments, sound and silence, thinking and thoughtlessness, the static and the eternal.

27. Note (1) • Tempe and Arcady:considered as heavenly paradise in Greece, frequently mentioned in pastoral poems; symbol of artistic realm. • Sylvan – of the forest; shady

28. Note (2) • Ekphrasis: poetic writing concerning itself with the visual arts, artistic objects, and/or highly visual scenes (source) • Examples: “Musee des beaux arts” “Ozymandias” “My Last Duchess” • Issues: • art and life; • different languages of art (an inter-art approach): temporal/kinetic arts (verbal, filmic) art vs. static (visual vs. plastic) • Possibilities of re-creation with different messages.

29. Ode on a Grecian Urn as an Ekphrastic poem • Keats first appreciates the values of plastic art which eternalizes one (frozen) moment; • With the reading of the funeral procession, he places it back to the temporal flow. • There is then a contrast between the urn’s beauty and truth, and those of humans’ mortal world.

30. To Autumn: Questions for Discussion • What stage of autumn is described in each stanza? What images are associated with each stage? • What qualities described here are associated in other Keats poems with the world of imagination? • Compare this poem with “The Grecian Urn. How would you describe the tone of each?

31. To Autumn Growing Fruits 1.SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;   To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,   And still more, later flowers for the bees,   Until they think warm days will never cease,  For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

32. 2 . Harvesting Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep, Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twinéd flowers: And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

33. 3. Music (of transience & departure) Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,   And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn   Among the river sallows, borne aloft     Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;  Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft   The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;     And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

34. Stanza 1: Paraphrased • Metaphors of the autumn: “close bosom-friend of the maturing sun,” “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” • “him”  the sun • “bless with fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run ”  bless the vines that run round the thatch-eves with fruit • “load and bless”: Autumn and the sun not only load but also bless the vines with fruit. The effects of using the word bless may include autumn’s benediction over the ripening of the fruits and its power to enrich the fertility of nature. • “To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees” To bend the moss’d cottage-trees with apples  The apples become so numerous that their weight bends the trees. • “to set budding more ”: -ing form suggests activity that is continuing • “And still more ” suggests the mushrooming of flowers • Use of flashback : line 9 - line 11(cause and effect are reversed)

35. Stanza 2 • Autumn: lax or resting; the stage of slowing down; personification of autumn as a reaper or a harvester • “sound asleep,” “Drows'd ”  Autumn is listless and even falls asleep • “Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours ”: The end of the cycle is near. The squeezing of the apple cider is nearly finished (“the last oozings”)

36. Stanza 3: the beauty of autumn • Keats blends living and dying, the pleasant and the unpleasant, because they are crucial elements of the mixed nature. • Mention of “spring”: 1. representing process; the proceeding flow of time (like the “summer” in stanza 1) 2. Spring is a time of rebirth of life which contrasts with the seemingly dying autumn of stanza 3. • “the soft-dying day”: Its dying also creates beauty (as the following lines present) • “While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue ”: the setting sun casts a “bloom” of “rosy hue” over the stubble left after the harvest • “And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn”: sheep will be slaughtered in autumn (Note: why is Keats using the term “lambs” rather than “sheep”?) • “And gathering swallows twitter in the skies”: The swallows are gathering for their winter migration  suggesting that the autumn will cease

37. Letter to J. H. Reynolds • Keats wrote a letter to his friend J. H. Reynolds after he wrote "To Autumn." • “How beautiful the season is now -- How fine the air. A temperate sharpness about it. Really, without joking, chaste weather -- Dian skies -- I never lik'd stubble-fields so much as now -- Aye better than the chilly green of the Spring. Somehow a stubble plain looks warm -- in the same way that some pictures look warm -- This struck me so much in my Sunday's walk that I composed upon it. “

38. Images:Stanza 1 • Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,”&“Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun”) • Personification • Besides maturing sun, other words and phrases that suggest maturity  And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;  To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

39. Images:Stanza 1 • A repetitive listing of ripening indicates that Keats might designed it on purpose—to show the bountifulness of autumn • Autumn and the sun not only load but also bless the vines with fruit.  the effects of using the word bless • at the end of the stanza, Autumn and the sun make so many flowers bud late in the season that the bees have become confused (Until they think warm days will never cease, For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.)

40. Images:Stanza 2 • “harvested grain, a partially harvested field, apples being pressed to make cider” the countryside during autumn • “sitting careless; sound asleep; Drows'd; keep / Steady; with patient look” Autumn at rest • Autumn watching over the work

41. Images:Stanza 3 • “the soft-dying day,”“mourn,” “sinking,” “dies,” • words and phrases that suggest death or dying • Indicates that “Autumn is leaving”

42. Images:Stanza 3 • Autumn's music: of birds and insects • Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn” “And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;” “Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft” “The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft” “And gathering swallows twitter in the skies”

43. Images:Stanza 3 • “And full-grown lambs bleat from hilly bourne;” –between lamb and sheep “Hedge-crickets sing;” “And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.” • connotations of transition and departure

44. Grecian Urn --> The timelessness of the urn --> Ideal v.s. Real (canst not leave… nor ever can… never, never…) --> Greater passions depicted on the urn --> Looks at the urn from without; imaginations --> Addresses the urn and speaks to it as an observer --> Conclusion: beauty v.s. truth To Autumn --> Ripeness of the harvest --> Laziness of the Autumn --> Imageries of death and passing. Structure

45. Grecian Urn Apostrophe - direct address (18) Many questions Theoretical questions and statements What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty’ To Autumn Apostrophe - aids in the imagery (8) More descriptions, less questions Retrospective, calm, reflective, unhurried Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, / Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Tone

46. Grecian Urn Narrator is emotionally involved in the narration There is a constant question on art and life, reality and imagination Speaks to the urn and asks for a response Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss Though winning near the goal -- yet, do not grieve; To Autumn Narrator is less emotionally involved, but is very observant Does not flee from the reality Appreciates Nature as it is Narrator contemplates a lot (speaks to himself) Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? and now with treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. Different Perspectives on Mortality

47. Concluding Questions • Are the speakers’ questions resolved in the poems? If not, what are the effects of these unanswered questions? • How do the speakers approach the complexities and mysteries of life, art, and nature? • Do art and nature really offer us more than our perception of reality? Or are we the ones defining the meaning of art and nature?

48. Sources • Newman Libraryhttp://newman.baruch.cuny.edu/digital/2000/c_n_c/c_07_romanticism/reading_keats.htm • Brooklyn College http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/autumn.html

49. “Bright Star” Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—Notin lone splendour hung aloft the nightAnd watching, with eternal lids apart,Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,The moving waters at their priestlike taskOf pure ablution round earth's human shores,Or gazing on the new soft-fallen maskOf snow upon the mountains and the moorsNo—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,To feel for everits soft fall and swell,Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,And so live ever—or else swoon to death. hermit Cosmic, religious cleansing gazing

50. “Bright Star” • Paradoxes? Between steadfastness and mortality (unrest, fall and swell, death) No, yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,To feel for everits soft fall and swell,Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,And so live ever—or else swoon to death. 2. Poetic Form? abab, cdcd, efgfhh Between Shakespearean (rhyme) and Italian sonnet (form)