1485-1660 - Renaissance Focused on complexities of human life on earth

1. 1485-1660 - RenaissanceFocused on complexities of human life on earth • 1660-1798 Restoration and Enlightenment • Neoclassicists: balance, order, logic, sophisticated wit and emotional restraint • Focus on: • society • the human intellect, avoiding personal feelings

2. By the end of the 18th century: • From - neoclassicism (order, balance, logic, reason) To -simpler, freer lyrics -subjects close to the human heart

3. Romanticism: 1798-1832 • Political and social changes • Spirit of revolution • Percy Shelley, as did others, referred to “the spirit of the age.” • new beginnings and limitless possibilities - guiding forces in the works of this time period. • Term “Romantic” coined after the time period.

4. Change in Subject of Poetry: • movement from form to feeling • from the outer world • to the individual poet. • fromthe actions of other men • to the experiences, thoughts, feelings of the poet.

5. Wordsworth - leading figure of Romantic Poetry. • Preface to the Lyrical Ballads • Collaboration with Coleridge • “…valued imagination and emotion over reason and stressed the importance of the individual.”

6. Wordsworth on poetry: “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” • -act of composition must be spontaneous • - arising from impulse, and free from all rules.

7. The lyric poem: • written in first person • a major Romantic form. • Epic works – • long works about the formation of self • a quest of his true identity and destined spiritual home. • Use of symbols: • conventional or public symbols • personal or private symbols

8. How is any of this true in the two Wordsworth sonnets? How do the two sonnets contrast? How are they similar? Other than following the structure of a Petrarchan sonnet, what devices does Wordsworth use in these poems?