The Romantic Period

The Romantic Period 1780-1840

Previous Genre in British History • Neoclassicism: disciplined, precise, mature, thoughtful expression - reason, order, moderation. • Romanticism: Feelings and imagination, individuality, exploring the human soul, search for spirituality, emphasis on Nature

The Poets • William Blake (1757-1827) • William Wordsworth (1770-1850) • Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) • Lord Byron (1788-1824) • Percy Shelley (1792-1822) • John Keats (1795-1821) The Lake School poets The Younger Generation

1850 1770 1834 1772 1824 1788 1792 1822 The Poets - lifespan William Wordsworth (1770-1850) Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) Lord Byron (1788-1824) Percy Shelley (1792-1822) John Keats (1795-1821) 1795 1821

“The world is too much with us”-William Wordsworth, 1807 The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn. The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

“The world is too much with us”-William Wordsworth, 1807 The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

“The world is too much with us”-William Wordsworth, 1807 The world is too much with us; late and soon, A Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: B Little we see in Nature that is ours; B We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! A This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; A The winds that will be howling at all hours, B And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; B For this, for everything, we are out of tune; A It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be C A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; D So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, C Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; D Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; C Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn. D

Historical Background • 3 Monumental Revolutions: • The Revolutionary War (1775-1783) • The French Revolution (1789-1793) • The Industrial Revolution (1785)

Revolution • The imagination of the Romantic writers was preoccupied with the fact and idea of revolution. This was an age of new beginnings…limitless possibilities. • The Romantics would agree that theirs was a revolutionary age • science and technology, agriculture and industry • political revolutions dotting the map of Europe and North America • birth of “out loud” anti-government writing (Shelley’s Mask of Anarchy about the Peterloo massacre of political demonstrators in Manchester)

A Revolutionary Age… • both a spirit of cooperativeness (Wordsworth & Coleridge joint writings) and individualism • seeing the poet as “creators” of an age • the notion of writing in exile from centers of influence (The Lake School; Shelley and Byron in Italy) • a general tendency to believing in a more egalitarian and inclusive society (Keats: “every human might become great, and Humanity, instead of being a wide heath...with here and there a remote Oak or Pine, would become a grand democracy of Forest Trees” (Letter from Keats to Reynolds, 1818)

Revolution • The poets admired the French Revolution for its breaking from the restrictive powers of the past. What followed, Napoleon’s rise to tyrannical power, caused much disillusionment. • The younger generation of poets (Byron, Shelley, Keats) grew up in a society dominated by the repression of a series of Tory governments, apprehensive that every request for freedom might open the floodgates of revolution.

A Call For Social Change • Mary Wollstonecraft (remember her name) writes A Vindication of the Rights of Womanin 1792, asserting that women possess an equal intellectual capacity and talents as men and demanded a greater share of social, educational, and vocational privileges. • She was married to William Godwin, political theorist and novelist, considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and one of the first modern proponents of anarchist philosophy. Some regard him as the founder of philosophical anarchism and the first anarchist.

Reactions Against Industry & Science • Philosophy – reaction against rationalism, the view of the physical world increasingly dominated by science. • Industrial Revolution: The cotton gin, wool loom, steam engine, improved methods in mining and smelting ore, the factory system • The industrialists, merchants, land owners, etc. got rich • The poor got poorer

Nature • Nature--the wilder the better, preferably in the form of tempestuous seas or rugged mountains--became a source of mystical inspiration. • A setting, yes, but think of it more in the mind than in actuality (the concept of perfection of man in isolation…and thereby being a better citizen)

Significant Quotations • “I look around the world and everywhere find the same spectacle – the strong tyrannizing over the weak, man and beast. There is no place for virtue.” • Coleridge • “Hell is a city much like London.” • Percy Shelley

William Blake (1757-1827) • Life was simple, limited and unadventurous • Lower middle class (father a haberdasher), therefore, life with little learning, apprenticeships (to an engraver- later impact), self taught • Had job for while as illustrator, engraver • Never enjoyed much popularity in lifetime.

William Blake • What he has in common with the other (later) Romantics was a fierce rejection of reason, moderation, prudence--the great eighteenth-century virtues--a fondness for the French Revolution, and a belief that Milton was the great English model of a revolutionary poet struggling against tyranny.

Blake’s Major Works • Began to combine writing + art (with time-consuming process of engraving) - combination of words & design

Blake’s Engravings

William Blake • He was a man suspicious of the “advance of empire” and the impact that has on those left behind. • As a result, he was in tune with continental revolutionary forces and concerns....as he primarily presented the Songs of Innocence and the Songs of Experience (what we were/could be vs. what we are)

Blake’s Major Works • Songs of Innocence:what we could becultivate a tone of naiveté...rediscover the world as seen by CHILD • Pastoral in nature/design • Fostering, humanized landscape: echo of human song and laughter • Language a bit archaic (he wanted return to Elizabethans) • Somehow, faith is strong enough to transcend the power of the world

Blake’s Major Works • Songs of Experience: what we arefocus on the world’s adversity to be overcome in order to get innocence • Celebrate the ability to sustain or recover from loss of innocence • Attitude toward suffering--those frustrated and corrupted by suffering surrender to it • Those who seek freedom and keep vision alive, rebel • Some poems only about the suffering: the contrary image to the pastorals

Blake’s Attack on Empiricism: Neoplatonism • Shares Neo-Platonist idea that evil in the world is inherent in “generation” – i.e., in being born into the world • Result of “generation” is to confine man to 5 senses – woefully limiting his capacity for perception • Man can only be freed by Poetic Genius/Imagination – the capacity to comprehend realities beyond prison of senses

Neoplatonism • Posits a single source from which all existence emanates and with which an individual soul can be mystically united. • Plotinus taught the existence of an ineffable and transcendent one, from which emanated the rest of the universe as a sequence of lesser beings.

Neoplatonism • Neoplatonists believed human perfection and happiness were attainable in this world, without awaiting an afterlife. Perfection and happiness— seen as synonymous— could be achieved through philosophical contemplation.

Wordsworth & Coleridge • In 1798, two young English poets--William Wordsworth (1770-1850) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) published a book of poems called Lyrical Ballads. • In 1800 an expanded edition was published, with a preface--a kind of poetic manifesto--by Wordsworth. This is generally regarded as the official beginning of Romanticism in England.

Wordsworth & Coleridge • In his Preface, Wordsworth says that poetry is the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." • Revolutionary and new: personal, emotional, dealing with rustic subjects in simple, direct, passionate language.

Wordsworth & Coleridge • Wordsworth dealt with the intense feelings that nature inspired in him, with rural life, with the simple pleasures of ordinary experiences. • Coleridge gave voice to the Romantic fondness for mystery, the supernatural, the Gothic-- “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”

Wordsworth & Coleridge • Wordsworth spent his last twenty years as Poet Laureate, writing hideously boring sonnets about the history of the English church. • The Prelude focuses on certain "spots of time" in which outwardly trivial experiences (seeing a flock of sheep in the fog, for example) take on a magical significance for the young Wordsworth.

Wordsworth & Coleridge • The goal is to probe what most deeply matters to the inner being. • What most deeply matters, to Wordsworth, is the individual’s encounter with Nature. • We have come too late; the world has lost its innocence; science, technology, and business are ruining things.

“Tintern Abbey” • A lyric meditation on memory, guiding the reader through a series of emotional states.

“Tintern Abbey” • BACKGROUND. Wordsworth had first seen Tintern Abbey, an old ruin, in 1793. At the end of 1792 he had returned from France full of enthusiasm for the Revolution but grew dejected when England went to war against France. His friend William Culvert had asked Wordsworth to join him in a walking tour of southern England, but the two separated at Salisbury Plain. • Near Stonehenge, Wordsworth experienced a mystical restoration of faith as he saw visions of the ancient Britons. In a new mood of confidence and hope for the French republic, Wordsworth walked on alone to the valley of the Wye River where for the first time he saw Tintern Abbey.

“Tintern Abbey” • When Wordsworth began to write the poem, almost five years later, matters in France had deteriorated. In the meanwhile, he had read Godwin's Political Justice and written poems such as "The Cumberland Beggar" and "The Ruined Cottage" in sympathy with the poor. He had made a home with his sister Dorothy near Alfoxden and had started working with Coleridge. In June of 1798 William and his sister had just spent a week with Coleridge, preparing poems for the printer. • Then the Wordsworths took a "four-day ramble" to the Wye valley, where they viewed the abbey from the same vantage point Wordsworth had enjoyed five years before. In the poem Wordsworth recalls the scene and his formerly enthusiastic state of mind. He feels the poem arise spontaneously as he and his sister leave the Wye and continue their tour.

“My heart leaps up”William Wordsworth (1770-1850) My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky:So was it when my life began;So is it now I am a man;So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die!The Child is father of the Man;And I could wish my days to beBound each to each by natural piety.

Kubla Khan • Groups: • Sum up the plot as best you can…what happens in this poem? • The poem takes a turn at line 37…what is the new subject? • List any contradictions that you find. • How is this poem like a dream?

Kubla Khan • “Kubla Khan” is a quintessential Romantic poem: • The artist whose inspiration has driven him mad. • Exploration of dream • Hints of earthly paradise • Magic powers of poet set apart from society • Irrational sequence - fragmentary

The Younger Generation • Byron, Shelley & Keats • Never had a chance to grow old and boring (like Wordsworth & Coleridge) • All died young (a Romantic ideal) • Byron - 36 • Shelley - 30 • Keats - 26

Lord Byron • What a bio! • Born into aristocratic family, but familiar with poverty • VERY sexually promiscuous • Married, divorced, had incestuous relations with half-sister, got kicked out of England, had a couple illegitimate children, died fighting for Greek independence from Turks.

Lord Byron • "Byronic hero"-- a gloomy, self-absorbed, passionate non-conformist, who views ordinary people with contempt. • Best known for his long satirical poemDon Juan.

Lord Byron • Contempt for Wordsworth and Coleridge • Claimedpoetic allegiance to eighteenth century satirists like Pope. • His poetry is a bit more precise and old-fashioned

Lord Byron I would I were a careless child, A Still dwelling in my Highland cave, B Or roaming through the dusky wild, A Or bounding o'er the dark blue wave; B The cumbrous pomp of Saxon pride C Accords not with the freeborn soul, D Which loves the mountain's craggy side, C And seeks the rocks where billows roll. D I would I were a careless child, Still dwelling in my Highland cave, Or roaming through the dusky wild, Or bounding o'er the dark blue wave; The cumbrous pomp of Saxon pride Accords not with the freeborn soul, Which loves the mountain's craggy side, And seeks the rocks where billows roll. Iambic Tetrameter

Percy Bysshe Shelley • Byron’s friend, Shelley (1792-1822) died even younger, drowned in Italy at the age of thirty. • Another eccentric and rebellious aristocrat, hating any kind of conventional authority. • Poems are political, critical of the powers that be. • Wrote the quasi-Greek tragedy,Prometheus Unbound

Percy Bysshe Shelley • Defense of Poetry, - another of the great critical manifestos of Romanticism. • His later poetry was dense and intense, helped by the model of Dante (from whom he borrowed the terza rima form: three line stanzas linked by recurring rhymes…see “Ode to the West Wind”).

Group Work Explicate the following poems…in groups, answer the 6 questions (use your poetry handout to help figure out metrical structure) – you have 15 minutes! • She walks in beauty 36 • When we two parted 37 • Darkness 37 • To Wordsworth 40 • Ozymandias 42 • Ode to the West Wind 44 Byron Shelley

Byron – “She walks in beauty” She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies;And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes:Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless graceWhich waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens o'er her face;Where thoughts serenely sweet express How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,The smiles that win, the tints that glow, But tell of days in goodness spent,A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent!

Byron – “When we two parted” When we two partedIn silence and tears,Half broken-hearted,To sever for years,Pale grew thy cheek and cold,Colder thy kiss;Truly that hour foretoldSorrow to this.The dew of the morningSank chill on my brow - It felt like the warningOf what I feel now.Thy vows are all broken,And light is thy fame:I hear thy name spoken,And share in its shame. They name thee before me,A knell to mine ear;A shudder comes o'er me - Why wert thou so dear?They know not I knew thee,Who knew thee too well: - Long, long shall I rue theeToo deeply to tell.In secret we met - In silence I grieveThat thy heart could forget,Thy spirit deceive.If I should meet theeAfter long years,How should I greet thee? - With silence and tears.

Shelley – “To Wordsworth” Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know That things depart which never may return: Childhood and youth, friendship and love's first glow, Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn. These common woes I feel. One loss is mine Which thou too feel'st, yet I alone deplore. Thou wert as a lone star, whose light did shine On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar: Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood Above the blind and battling multitude: In honoured poverty thy voice did weave Songs consecrate to truth and liberty,-- Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve, Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be.

Shelley – “Ozymandias” I met a traveller from an antique landWho said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. Near them on the sand,Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frownAnd wrinkled lip and sneer of cold commandTell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.And on the pedestal these words appear:`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'Nothing beside remains. Round the decayOf that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Coldplay – “Viva la Vida” I hear Jerusalem bells a ringing Roman cavalry choirs are singing Be my mirror, my sword, my shield My missionaries in a foreign field For some reason I can't explain Once you go there was never, never an honest word That was when I ruled the world It was the wicked and wild win Blew down the doors to let me in Shattered windows and the sound of drums People couldn't believe what I'd become Revolutionaries wait For my head on a silver plate Just a puppet on a lonely string (Ooooh) Ah, who would ever want to be king? I used to rule the world Seas would rise when I gave the word Now in the morning I sleep alone Sweep the streets I used to own I used to roll the dice Feel the fear in my enemies eyes Listen as the crowd would sing: "Now the old king is dead, long live the king!" One minute I held the key Next the walls were closed on me And I discovered that my castles stand Upon pillars of salt, and pillars of sand

The Romantic Period