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BRITISH LITERATURE III

BRITISH LITERATURE III. FROM ROMANTIC QUEST TO VICTORIAN ANTI-QUEST. Kate Liu, Fall 2012. OUTLINE. General Introduction Romanticism William Blake About the Course. WHAT IS ROMANTICISM ? AND VICTORIAN SOCIETY?. WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THEM?

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BRITISH LITERATURE III

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  1. BRITISH LITERATURE III FROM ROMANTIC QUEST TO VICTORIAN ANTI-QUEST Kate Liu, Fall 2012

  2. OUTLINE • General Introduction • Romanticism • William Blake • About the Course

  3. WHAT IS ROMANTICISM? AND VICTORIAN SOCIETY? WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THEM? CAN YOU FIND THEIR TRACES IN TAIWAN/TAIPEI?

  4. ROMANTIC TAIPEI《浪漫台北》 Of/For Romance, Emotional, Passionate, Fanciful … 【金片子─愛臺北】首獎李承峻, 2011

  5. CONSTABLE, THE HAY WAIN, 1821 INTRODUCTION TO WESTERN CIVILIZATION (AN INTERPRETATION)

  6. ROMANTICISM IN CHINESE/TAIWANESE LITERATURE … • 李白 • 徐志摩 • 余光中、夏宇。。。

  7. THE VICTORIAN IN TAIWAN … • 英國維多利亞時期傢俱復舊展　淡水紅毛城展出 • (2011/12/08 11:57 (sourceNOWnews) • Google -- 維多利亞的相關搜尋 • 維多利亞女王 • 維多利亞校服 • 維多利亞的秘密 • 維多利亞酒店 • 維多利亞茶餐廳 • 維多利亞幼稚園 • 維多利亞酒店內湖 • 維多利亞花園 • 維多利亞一號 • 維多利亞港

  8. Victorian House • Victorian Gothic • (e.g. Jane Eyre and 庭院深深) IN POPULAR CULTURE

  9. OUR “VICTORIAN” SOCIETY • Social Earnestness (Pretentiousness) vs. Doubts • Rich vs. Poor • Sex as a Taboo and Discursive/Media Focus

  10. ANOTHER THING IN COMMON? QUEST AND ANTI-QUEST

  11. HISTORY • The Romantic Age 1798—1832 -- Industrial Revolution + 1789 French Revolution -- 1798 the publication of Wordsworth & Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads -- Byron’s death (1824) -- to Sir Walter Scott’s death (1832) & the passage of the first Reform Bill in the parliament. • The Victorian Age 1832 (– 1838-1870)-1901 • The early period (1832-1848): a time of social unrest • The middle period (1848-1870): a period of economic prosperity & religious controversy; • The last period (1870-1901): a period of decay of Victorian values. Workers’ Strike – 1811’s - 1818 The Romantics (2005) & The Victorians (2009) --Opening

  12. 1. MODERNITY (from medievalism, feudalism and agriculturalism to) A Society dominated by • Industrialism + Science • Capitalism • Secularization • Rationalization • Building of Nation-State Phases • 16th-18th centuries: early modernity • 19th century: classical modernity • 1901-1950’s – late modernity

  13. QUEST AND ANTI-QUEST Romantic Quest Victorian Anti-Quest frustration and transformation of quest Done through some extreme measures or vicariously • for love, self-identity, poetic beauty, natural supernaturalism, and individual freedom/heroism Instead of the holy grail, the objective is usually to reach beyond human limits.

  14. WOMEN’S POSITIONS AS OBJECT OR SUBJECT OF QUEST Jane Eyre Alice in Wonderland A girl’s quest? • Social critique (e.g. the religious hypocrisy of charity institutions) and a woman’s quest?

  15. ROMANTICISM QUEST FOR INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM AND POETIC IDEALS

  16. The Grand Manner (Joshua Reynolds) Reason // clarity // order // restraint Goodness // virtue // truth Moral Simple // austere // monumental Balanced // symmetric // geometric NEOCLASSICISM(MS. WEN-LING SU)

  17. THE ROMANTICS –(1) LIBERTY (BBC) • 19:02 Joshua Reynold vs. William Blake • “London” • Blake  the other radicals (e.g. Brissot) • 34:42 Wordsworth –Annette and their child –The Great Terror (killings of the supporters of the King) • 43:30 – Wordsworth, a wanderer in Nature • 47:30 – Wordsworth and Coleridge’s friendship and cooperation. • 51:00 – The Lyrical Ballads (poetry of and for individuals)

  18. THE ROMANTICS –(2) NATURE (BBC) • Opening • 1:30 – Age of industrialization; Man’s relation with Nature in an increasingly mechanized world • 3:40 – vision of Blake as a child – Child’s imagination vs. “Chimney Sweeper”

  19. THE ROMANTICS--FEATURES • Against Industrialism/Materialism • Idealistic, • Revolutionary, Iconoclastic, • [first generation] Sympathetic with Peasants • Quest for -- poetic imagination -- being one with Nature or -- some supernatural vision (the sublime).

  20. ROMANTICISM • (1) Subjectivism: poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings ” which expresses the poet’s mind. Emphasis on imagination. • (2) Spontaneity: This emphasis on spontaneity is opposed to the “rules” and “regulations” imposed on the poets by neo-classic writers • (3) Singularity: love for the remote, the unusual, the strange, the supernatural, the mysterious, the splendid, the picturesque, & the illogical. (source: teaching notes) • (4) Nature: As a source of spiritual replenishment and guidance.

  21. WILLIAM BLAKE

  22. an English writer, poet, and illustrator of the Romantic period; Had visions of angels as a child; 1787  the technique of "illuminated writing," or relief-etching. Songs of Innocence (1789) 1797 –Songs of Innocence and of Experience ("the two Contrary States of the Human Soul." ) Image source: http://members.aol.com/lshauser2/wmblake.html William Blake

  23. "Innocence" -- the state of the unfallen man; "Experience" -- man's state after the Fall. e.g. the two "Chimney Sweepers," the two "Nurse's Songs,“ the two "Holy Thursdays"; "Infant Joy" vs. "Infant Sorrow," "The Divine Image" vs. "A Divine Image.“"The Lamb" vs. "The Tyger" Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794)

  24. "Infant Joy" (1789) • Who are the speakers of this poem? What do they talk about? Can a baby be talking to its mother? • What are the functions of repetition in this poem?

  25. "Infant Joy" (1789) "I have no name, I am but two days old." What shall I call thee? "I happy am, Joy is my name." Sweet joy befall thee! Pretty joy! Sweet joy, but two days old. Sweet joy I call thee Thou dost smile, I sing the while-- Sweet joy befall thee.

  26. "Infant Joy" (1789) • the speakers—the mother and her baby (imagined to be speaking) • About its namelessness, and how it is named after its joy. • Repetition – a. How the mother is attentive and caring; b. The interchange (beyond words) between the baby and the mother.

  27. Infant Sorrow • 1. Who is the speaker, considering his/her usage of the words 'groaning,' 'weeping' and 'fiend.' What is his tone like? • 2. Again, pay attention to the sound effects. What do we make of the end rhymes? • 3. Why does the infant 'sulk' but not 'suck' upon the mother's breast? Are there any words with the same effects? • 4. Main idea: Is this infant seeking freedom, or just food, in all its struggling and striving and sulking?

  28. Infant Sorrow My mother groaned, my father wept;Into the dangerous world Ileapt,Helpless, naked, piping loud,Like a fiend hid in a cloud.Struggling in my father's hands,Striving against my swaddling bands,Bound and weary, I thought bestTo sulk upon my mother's breast.

  29. Infant Sorrow • 1. The speaker – an adult, who knows the parents’ hardship and what they think about a kid. • 2. the end rhymes– shows the contraries of the father’s weeping and the infant’s leaping, the latter’s loudness and its being in a cloud; struggling in the first two lines vs. ‘sulking’ in the third and fourth. • 3. 'sulk‘-- 'suck‘; ’best’– breast; • 4. Main idea: 1) Poverty dooms the family; 2) this infant seeks freedom against the constraints imposed on it.

  30. “INFANT JOY” & “INFANT SORROW”

  31. “INFANT JOY” & “INFANT SORROW” 1. Please try to compare the two poems both in terms of their line and sound patterns. 2. Is an infant ‘joyful’ by birth? Why is the infant in “Infant Sorrow” not 'sorrowful'? 3. Are there other ways of reading them? Can there be causes for sorrow in "Infant Joy" and spaces for joy in "Infant Sorrow"?

  32. “TYGER” AND “SICK ROSE”

  33. THE SICK ROSE O Rose, thou art sick! The invisible worm That flies in the night, In the howling storm, Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy, And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy.

  34. TYGER Tyger! Tyger! burning bright, In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare sieze the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

  35. TYGER (2) What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp? When the stars threw down their spears, And water'd heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

  36. Review/Quiz: Blake’s Poems • Your discussion: Wordsworth’s Short Poems • My Role: “Tinturn Abbey” and “Immortality Ode” NEXT WEEK

  37. REF (1) THE ROMANTICS –(1) LIBERTY (BBC) • Opening • 19:02 Joshua Reynold vs. William Blake • “London” • Blake  the other radicals (e.g. Brissot) • 34:42 Wordsworth –Annette and their child –The Great Terror (killings of the supporters of the King) • 43:30 – Wordsworth, a wanderer in Nature • 47:30 – Wordsworth and Coleridge’s friendship and cooperation. • 51:00 – The Lyrical Ballads (poetry of and for individuals) • 54:00 --”The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

  38. REF (2)THE ROMANTICS –(2) NATURE (BBC) • Opening • 1:30 – Age of industrialization; Man’s relation with Nature in an increasingly mechanized world • 3:40 – vision of Blake as a child – Child’s imagination vs. “Chimney Sweeper” • 51:00 -- Mary Shelley and Frankenstein

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