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UNIT 48. ROMANTICISM IN GREAT BRITAIN. NOVEL AND POETRY, 7. CONCLUSION, 8.…

- - - - Romanticism = a revolution in how poets understood their art, its provenance, and its powers: ever since, English-language poets have furthered that revolution or formulated reactions against it.
      - WHY did it arise?
        
        Augustan Age (1st half 18C - Defoe, Swift etc) - focused on classical forms, but had given way to the Pre Romanic Age aka The Age of Sensibility (Johnson etc) as writers began to write about emotion, sentiment & characters' feelings (instead of action & plot)
        
        Perhaps also a backlash against Fr ideas of elegant, refined society - thought of as frivolous & artificial
  - - - V name different - most lit. movements names after monarch (Vict) or period (Med.Age)
        
        HOWEVER
        
        Despite rejecting genre, R as a movement consists in the recovery of previously neglected genres & forms - eg the Romance
        
        Also revived sonnet & ballad AND oversaw dev of new genres (historical novel, autobiographical novel - C & Oludah)
  - - - ALSO they didn't think of themselves as 'romantics' & wouldn’t have appreciated the term. EG Byron ('extreme' romantic) big fan of Pope - v classical
      - BUT: there are certain qualities which mark them as being different to predecessors:
        
        Shift of emphasis from man in society → man in solitude
        
        In solitude man can exercise his imagination. This encouraged a variety of poetic forms. spontaneity & inspiration also emphasised
        
        Dealt with Nature, Past & Exotic - way of escaping from an ↑ materialistic & ugly world where even Nature threatened by industrialism. ∴ turned to other times/places - eg medieval worlds/central Asia ...
        
        All affected (in different ways) by soc/pol changes & above all by FrRev- affected their attitudes towards life and ∴ towards writings. Also AmRev, Haitian Rev, unrest in Eng etc.
        
        Fascinated by the unknown: the dark side of life, fate & supernatural forces.
        
        Tendency to be “inward-turning” rather than “outward-looking”
        
        All (at least when young) radicals. 1st gen embraced initial aspirations of of FrRev & 2nd gen had close contacts with radical groups in England & European nationalist movements vs the tyrannies re-erected after the defeat of Napoleon.
- - - - Causes of ind rev. Geography, Colonies (slave plantations) drove innovations in cotton ind. Need to transport goods led to railway, roads, canals etc.
        
        PROBLEMS: Ppl → cities, overcrowding etc. Exploitation. Class system. Tensions: Luddite Riots (1779) artisans destroyed machinery. Peterloo Massacre (1819) - march for suffrage (Shelley - mask of anarchy).
        
        Imp developments: Reform Act 1832. Also ↑ in free trade.
        
        Tensions too overseas e.g. Haitian Rev (1791 - 1804) - leader Toussant Louverture - celebrated by W in a sonnet. ↑ debate about abolition. Slave trade abolished 1807.
  - - - Philosophers Edmund Burke & Thomas Pain discussed these issues (and influenced poets): Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) Burke condemned FrRev (history based on tradition / inheritance); T. Paine The Rights of Man (1791) deeply believed in change & progress.
        
        Popular conception of 'Romantics' is that they are indifferent to material world & immersed in beauty/nature - BUT many were activists - W & Shelley campaigned, Byron in HofL etc. So involved in criticism of society but escaped from it in writings (except eg Blake who wrote about it.
    - - Earlier 18thC poetry tried to imitate human life & instruct & give artistic pleasure to reader.
        
        In contrast, Wordsworth described it as the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings"
        
        Coleridge - imaginative process. Shelley: poetry should be product of unconscious creativity.
        All: should be spontaneous & free. (W thought emotions followed by reflection but the actual composition should be spontaneous).
      - Glorification of the commonplace - poetry made more accessible
        
        Wordsworth elevated modest/rustic life & plain style to the principal subject of poetry
        
        Coleridge also dealt with everyday but also wanted to find wonder in the violation of natural laws, so travels to distant past/faraway places & has sense of occult powers through talk of ancient folklore & superstition
      - Romantic poetry has become almost synonymous with Nature Poetry.
        
        Aim: to describe Nature for its own sake. Nature awakens emotions in the poet. ∴ thanks to Nature one can understand oneself
        
        Rugged power of nature v important - why certain ‘dramatic’ landscapes take prominence (Lakes, Alps)
        
        But also nature can be fleeting, delicate, vulnerable eg in John Clare’s poetry or W's many poems about flowers.
        
        BUT not all into nature - e.g. Byron NOT a fan - rebels against idea that nature is central & defends an earlier 18C idea that art is superior to nature. Blake - also not a fan of Ws’ emphasis on nature - criticises and rejects it.
      - Connected to nature (esp vast landscapes): power, overpowering, astonishment, magnitude, the unknown omnipotent power who created it.
        
        4. THE SUBLIME
        
        Can be terrifying too. DIFFERENT from beautiful, which is serene
        
        Central to R writers- emotion not just pleasant but can be awe-inspiring, terrifying & dangerous.Nature not ordered & easily understood.
        
        EG - importance of Alps & Lakes to W, & S's Mont Blanc.
      - When thinking about nature/the sublime, a natural Q: who made it? Hence: the supernatural (Would become fully developed in the subgenre of R - gothic novel)
        
        C esp well known for writing about supernatural. Eg in Lyrical ballads they agreed that W would write about nature & C about supernatural.
        
        Bryon also v interested in ghost stories - e.g. Manfred deals with a figure who wants access to the supernatural - but he also used ghosts comically e.g. in Don Juan - talks about being in a picture gallery in Norman abbey and the pics seeming to come alive
        
        Keats also used supernatural events with medieval settings that violate our sense of realism and natural order.
- - - - LIFE
        
        Grew up in LD in rural paradise. Wrote poetry from schooldays but really took off during trip to Alps in 1790.
        
        In Fr influenced by revolutionary fervour - developed hatred of tyranny & belief in democracy.
      - STYLE/THEMES
        
        Aimed to reunite realism & poetry (in Augustan Age realism restricted to prose)
        
        Inspiration: everyday life
        
        Simple, direct, clear, familiar lang (like everyday speech) -thought poetic diction was artificial & pompous. Was derided for this at time.
        
        Wrote in the literary tradition of the ballad. Themes: nature, childhood & the sublime. Thought that in nature man finds peace, truth & beauty - the manifestations of God.
        
        Tried to give voice to oppressed & marginalised (women, poor, children etc.)
      - WORKS
        
        1798 - published (with Coleridge) the The Lyrical Ballads (defined as beg. of Eng R)
        
        "Preface” of the 2nd edition has Wordsworth´s famous definition of poetry, ("spontaneous overflow”...) & theory that poetry should be written in “the language really used by men”
        
        Best known work: collection of poems published 1798 - 1807 - inc The Ode and Intimation of Immortality from The Recollections of Childhood, (world is presented through a child's eye). 1807 - published Poems, in Two Volumes (inc I wandered lonely as a cloud) + 2 narrative poems: The Prelude (1805) - autobiographical (relates to childhood & time in Fr) - & The Excursion (1814) - reflects on the solitary existence of the poet
        
        ↑ conservative in later life (sell-out?) poetry ↑ conventional
    - - LIFE
        
        Born Devon. Studied London then Cambr but never graduated. Inspired by new democratic ideals of the FrRev but later ↑ disillusionment. Most intellectual poet of the 1st gen? Died London 1834
        
        Suffered from chronic rheumatism & took opium for pain - lifelong addiction (explains why so much supernatural?)
      - STYLE
        
        Mystery & supernatural, also themes of nature/exotic places etc that were an expression of his heightened imagination. Unique literary style - uses alliterations, assonances, onomatopoeias and internal rhymes & repetitions that have a musical sound & recreate the unreal.
      - WORKS
        
        Friendship with W v imp. 4 poems inc. in Lyrical Ballads,, inc famous The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: Influenced by traditional ballads, it’s attractive & well structured. Tells how a curse falls on a ship after the killing of an albatross. Christabel also imp. - Gothic background, typically romantic: cold night, pale blue moonlight, deep forest, castle…. This poem later influenced Sir Walter Scott & Lord Byron.
        
        Kubla Khan is only a ‘fragment’ (54 verses), as vision came (opium) but he was interrupted & unable to remember it all. Despite this it's beautifully & carefully crafted, focusing on an exotic, forbidden world. Other poems: The Nightingale, Frost at Midnight, Dejections, an Ode, Love, Youth and Age.
  - - - WORKS:
        
        Most well-known = Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1789), - embraces radical subjects eg poverty, child labour & abuse, repressive nature of state & church, and right of children to be treated as individuals. Here he combined poetry & art, as text is ‘illuminated’ (B's words) by accompanying pictures & the verbal aspect is deeply interwoven with visual material. Also wrote The Lamb and The Tyger
        
        Eg in The Chimney Sweep - highlights injustice & brutality facing young children - innocent victims of exploitation AND victims of smoke of industrialisation. ∴ unites two R preoccupations: childhood; and impact of IndRev on natural world. Lots of metaphor - the boys were kept in ’coffins of black’.
- - - - LIFE
        
        Born London, he is the most important figure of Eng R - legendary figure, a rebel who shocked & fascinated society with his scandalous, flamboyant life. Eg: kept a bear as a pet whilst at Cambridge! & had an incestuous affair with half sister! & a man! In many ways inaugurated the cult of celebrity. Notorious for sexual exploits, & mired in debt & scandal, died young. Criticised other poets eg Southey/W - ‘little wits’&‘knaves & fools’.
        Branded a 'dangerous radical' in HofL. Travelled extensively in Europe as bored of Eng. Died aged 36 in Greece (awaiting battle)
        
        WORKS
        
        Despite short life, production is large enough to distinguish 2 periods: 1st 1815-1817 (difficult time in his personal life - seen in his aggressive satire) & 2nd from 1817 (more depth & more Cervantine sense of humour eg in Beppo (1818)
        
        Most Imp:
        
        Childe Harold (1818) made him v popular on continent as well as home. Written in Spenserian stanzas, it records the melancholy & emotions awakened in him by nature and art & his disgust with world & own self. Byron had the romantic conception of poetry as an emotional outlet
        
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    - - LIFE
        
        B. Sussex. Eton, Oxford. Friend of Byron - spent time in Italy together. Eloped with 16yr old Mary Shelley. Married her after 1st wife committed suicide. A rebel & dreamer & a very different poet from Byron (who, as more of a realist, had little in common with contemporaries). Shelley = idealist - dreamt of world based on love & freedom & believed in goodness of human nature. Died 1822 aged 30 in home of last 4 yrs: Spezia, Italy
        
        STYLE
        
        Mix of politics & philosophy. the most lyrical of all the Rs. more spontaneous than Keats and superior to Byron in the creation of pure beauty. Modern, sharp & energetic style.
        THEMES: beauty, nature, creativity, political liberty & imagination.
        
        WORKS
        
        Prometheus Unbound (1820) - a lyrical drama - considered his best work. Based on the Greek legend, it represents the climax of his hopes and optimism. Alastor or the Spirit of Solitude - an idealist man who searches for “the most perfect nature”, seeing this is not possible, he despairs and dies. also Julian and Maddelo, Queen Mab & The Sensitive Plant
    - - LIFE
        
        Born London, brought up by Grandmother. Began studying medicine - actually qualified but then decided to devote himself to poetry. 1817 published 1st poems but unsuccessful. Tried harder. 1818 brother Tom died of tuberculosis - same disease then attacked him later (Mum had died of this too). As his physical strength ↓ imagination ↑ & exceptional poetry in timeframe of just 6 yrs. Died Rome aged 26.
      - STYLE
        
        The apostle of beauty - saw in beauty the only source of truth & happiness & only way to fight evils of his time.
        THEMES: Nature, medieval ballads & Greek legends. Does not have interest in politics/social reforms & poetry lacks religious ideas. Just wants to present beauty of nature& give a poetic interpretation of man and life.
      - WORKS
        
        Endymion (1818) 1st great poem (though lukewarm reception). 4 books (4,000+ verses) & deals with Greek myth of Diana (the moon) falling in love with a shepherd.
        Reached artistic maturity in 1820: inc Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, Hyperion & his beautiful odes: To a Nightingale, to Autumn, to Melancholy.
        
        Grudging criticism (& much dismissal, eg famously by Byron). today he is one of the best-loved and most quoted of all English poets.
- - - - Now (since mid20C) regarded as Pre-R (due to the Britishness of R or Lyrical Ballads being chosen as the starting date?) BUT some argue he should be ‘7th poet’.
        V clear that he greatly influenced W, C & B - all even mad pilgrimages to house.
        Today: Scottish National Poet, Burns Night, Top Scot.
        Famous works: Holy Willie’s Prayer’, ‘My Heart is in the Highlands’, ‘My Love is like a Red Red Rose’ & ‘Auld Lang Syne’.*
- - - - Novels of mystery & imagination, & 1st imp manifestation of R in the novel (gothic -reference to architectonic style of Middle Ages). Medieval castles & convents, & nature (thunder, rain, noises in the night) used as source of terrifying elements. In opposition to Enlightenment ideals of order, decorum & rational control. Instead: nightmarish terror & violence.
        Main representatives: Ann Radcliffe & Matthew Gregory Lewis, Horace Walpole, William Beckford.
        
        6.1.1 Mary Shelley (1797-1851)
        daughter of radical philosopher William Godwin & Mary Wollstonecraft. Aged 16 eloped to Italy with Shelley. Wrote Frankenstein aged 19. 1st work of science-fiction. Superficially a Gothic novel, influenced by experiments of Luigi Galvani, concerned with destructive nature of power when allied to wealth. V influenced by nature too - the yr it was written was ‘without a summer’ due to volcano in Indonesia. Instantly popular.
        
        6.2 Jane Austen and the novel of social manners. Birth of novel seen in 1st half 18th C (Defoe, Richardson, Fielding) BUT Austen (1775- 1817) gave it distinctly modern character through treatment of ordinary people in everyday life. Subject matter = human nature.
        Novels deal with the domestic affairs - defined era of novel of manners & became timeless classics.
        Sense and Sensibility (1813) = an attack upon excessive emotionalism.
        Pride and Prejudice (1813) v witty, reflects on the importance of finding a husband. Details how P&P can overshadow & define 1st impressions. (Bridget Jones’ Diary)
        Mansfield Park (1814) - most serious. Discussion of religion and religious duty.
        Others: Emma (1815) - most consistently comic in tone. Matchmaking. (Clueless)
        Persuasion (1817) - the story of a 2nd chance
        Northanger Abbey (1817) = poked fun at gothic romantic fiction & conventional novels of polite society
        
        6.3 Walter Scott and the historical novel
        Born Edinburgh 1771 - creator of historical novel. Compiled legends & Scottish ballads & researched history & social life of Scotland. 1st - poet, but didn’t want to compete with Byron!
        Recreated atmosphere of past, scenery & events, historical figures etc. Characters v 3 dimensional.
        Famous works: The Waverley Novels, (most imp) Ivanhoe, The Lady of the Lake, Old Mortality.
        Was 1 of 1st English-lang authors to succeed internationally in own lifetime, - still popular today, lots of adaptations. However, had detractors - fell out of fashion in Modernist movt due to rambling & verbose style. However, big impact (Waverley station)
        
        6.4 Others
        Mary Wollstonecraft - Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790) - response to Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). 2 years later - Vindication of the Rights of Women - v imp text.