The Romantic Period
- 1798-1832
- Began with French Rev and ended w Parl reforms of 1832
- Publication of a collection of poems called Lyrical Ballads, a collaboration bt WW and SC,
marked beg of Romantic Period
- First Generation: Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge
- Second Generation: Byron, Shelley, Keats
- Political upheavals during time pd include French Rev, Rise of Nap Bon, England’s war agst Nap,
who was defeated at Waterloo in 1815
- To meet your Waterloo-to be completely and finally defeated
- Eponym- word that comes from a person’s name: guillotine named after Joseph-Ignace Guillotin,
who promoted a 1789 law requiring executions by “means of a machine.” He believed this
machine would be more efficient and humane.
- Laissez faire: economic policy that stated let the people do as they please
- Industrial Rev in England saw formation of factories
- City pops increased which caused more desperate living conditions
- Rich landowners took over communal farming lands which resulted in many landless people who
migrated to the city
- The romantic poets responded to social and econ changes caused by rapid industrialization and to
governmental policies that ignored the probs of the poor
- Romantic: signifies a fascination w youth and innocence, a questioning of authority and tradition
for idealistic purposes, and an adaptation to change
- Romanticism is characterized by seven general features:
- It turned away from the 18th cent emphasis on reason and artifice. Instead it embraced imagination
and naturalness.
- It rejected the public, formal, and witty words of the previous century. It focused on poetry that
spoke of personal experiences and emotions, often in simple, unadorned language.
- The use of the lyric as a form that best suited the expression of feeling, self revelation, and the
imagination.
- Wordsworth urged poets to adopt a democratic attitude twd their audiences; though endowed with
a special sensibility, the poet was always “a man speaking to men”
- Turned to past or inner dream world that they felt was more picturesque and magical than the ugly
industrial age
- Believed in individual liberty and sympathized w those who rebelled agst tyranny
- Thought of nature as transformative; they were fascinated by the ways nature and the human mind
mirrored the other’s creative properties.
- W defined good poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling”
- W focused on rural life instead of city bc in the country “the passions of men are incorporated w
the beautiful and permanent forms of nature”
- The Romantics called nature-poets—misleading
- R poets used unadorned lang to explore significance of commonplace subjects, the beauty of
nature, and the power of the human imagination
- Blake: “I will not reason and compare; my business is to create”
- W defined a poet as “a man speaking to men”
- Augustan poetry vs. Romantic Poetry: A poetry celebrated order, hierarchy, and enlightened rule;
R celebrated personal feelings, individual rights, and common lang
- R poets found a way through the imagination to fulfill poet’s traditional role as “prophet, priest,
and king” in a time of change.
- Gothic Lit: stories set in gloomy medieval castles that deal w eerie supernatural
- Intention of Gothic lit to make reader’s blood run cold
- Major writers include Horace Walpole (Castle of Otranto), Ann Radcliffe (Mysteries of Udolpho),
Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre), Emily Bronte (Wuthering Heights), and Coleridge (Rime)
- Byronic hero: devastatingly attractive yet fatally flawed
- Youthful rebellion- James dean
- Brando (motos, leather jackets, sullen demeanor)
- Lonely and misunderstood; short lives; reckless; wounded manhood
Blake
-
Began artistic training at 10
Apprenticed to engraver at 14
Artist and engraver all of his life
Work didn’t receive much attention during his lifetime
Readers consider him and his work weird, confused, or mad
Today, Blake is considered a great artist in the fullest sense
Believed if we see w the imagination, we see all things in the infinite. But if we see only w
reason, we see only ourselves
- “I know that his world is a world of imagination and vision”
- Purpose of Blake’s art was to change the way people “see” and thus to open up new worlds to
them
- “I will not Reason and Compare; my business is to Create”
- Provided many illustrations
- Printed most of poetry himself using engraving methods he created
Blake’s Poems: Exploring the Contraries
-SOI and SOE, which combined the two
-He believed innocence and experience were the two contrary states of the human soul
- Innocence was a state of genuine love and naïve trust toward all humankind, accompanied by an
unquestioned belief in Ch doctrine
- Blake believed Christian doctrines were being used by the Church and govt as a form of social control to
encourage passive obedience and acceptance of oppression, poverty, and inequality
- Experience was profound disillusionment with human nature and society.
- One sees the cruelty and hypocrisy, but is unable to imagine a way out
- Organized innocence is ones sense of the divinity of humanity coexists with oppression and injustice,
though involving continued recognition of and active opposition to them
The Tyger
- Apostrophe: a figure of speech in which speaker addresses absent or dead person, abstract quality,
or something nonhuman as if it were present
- Apostrophe, 6 equal stanzas (quatrains w two sets of rhyming couplets), parallel structure (4)
quickens pacing, rhetorical questions (2-4), repetition (first and last stanzas), symbolism (tyger)
- Symmetry- similarity of form on either side of dividing line; balance
- What does the tyger represent? A strong revolutionary energy that can enlighten and transform
society; a positive but dangerous force; destructive forces of nature
- Image in first two lines: flame-like color of tyger’s stripes through trees of forest
- Pronoun use: He is the creator of the tyger (Ch doctrine God)
- Elliptical construction: Line 7 omits words, restated, “On what wings does the creator dare to rise
up or hope to create such a creature as the tyger?” Line 8 adds the word the—if omitted, “What
hand dares to create such a creature?”
- Most of the rhetorical questions remain unanswered
The Lamb
- reflects fascination w Bible and struggles to answer: Why do humans do evil? Why do evil people
sometimes prosper? Why does God allow innocent people to suffer?
- Believed that without contraries there is no progression; Pair Tyger and Lamb as concept of good
and evil
- The Lamb has often been read as a statement of Ch faith
- Lamb associated as symbol for Christ
- This contrasts with his other poems which show Christ as an active fighter against injustice
- Speaker is child; tone at beg is childlike and innocent
- Rhyming couplets; two stanzas; repetition; parallel structure emphasize innocence of creator, child
speaker, and lamb
- Archaic lang adds to Biblical nature
The Chimney Sweeper (SOI)
- 6 stanzas; 2 sets of rhyming couplets per stanza
- Speaker: young boy; Tone: naïve, innocent, childlike
“Could scarcely cry weep weep weep”—this is the child’s attempt to mimic chimney sweeper’s
cry. This contrasts with SOE
- Speaker tries to cheer himself and fellow chimney sweep, Tom Darce
- Presents concept of God as a loving father who will reward them with endless joy in heaven if
they do their duty here now
- Irony: discrepancy bt naïve tone and desperate plight
- Poem illustrated Blake’s position on plight of poor
- Tom Darce’s dream: teaches a moral lesson; if you do your duty, you will be rewarded
- Symbol: “locked up in coffins of black”- represents death, the confines of the chimney for the
sweep, the death of the innocence of childhood
- Irony: “So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.” This is a child’s point of view. An adult
point of view realizes that doing one’s duty is no guarantee of an earthly reward; Death is prob
only release for child
The Chimney Sweeper (SOE)
- 3 stanzas, 2 sets of rhyming couplets per stanza
- Speaker: young boy older than SOI; Tone: bitter and resentful
- “Crying weep weep in notes of woe!” This differs from SOI bc speaker regrets what his parents
have done to him. This illustrates his suffering
- Blake uses colors to suggest innocence and experience; “A little eblack thing among the snow”—
black thing is the little sweeper has been blackened by the soot and experience; among the snowthe little sweeper was once clean and white, as innocent as snow
- The chimney sweeper blames his parents, god, and the govt for his exploitation
- “they clothed me in the clothes of death/ And taught me to sing the notes of woe”
- Last line: “Who make a heaven of our misery” helps to illustrate the bitter tone
A Poison Tree (SOE)
- 4 stanzas of two sets of rhyming couplets
- Parallel structure: stanza one- all ines start with I pluz a verb; the effect of this is the sentences seem
emphatic and childish
beginning of stanzas 2-4 all begin with And
- speaker identifies two ways of handling anger
- Express it—get it over with and done; Suppress it
- Speaker suppressed anger and his foe at the poisoned apple and died
- Symbol: poison tree= speaker’s growing anger
- Foe is victim bc eats apple and dies; speaker is victim bc allowed anger to fester and possess him
- Speaker represents Blake’s idea of good and evil
- Speaker is good by expressing anger to his friend; evil by allowing anger to grow to point that he
poisons apple and gives it to foe
- Theme: repressed anger can poison both the enemy and the person who harbors it
- Tone: bitter; Allusion: temptation of Adam and Eve
-
Wordsworth
- collaborated with Coleridge on Lyrical Ballads
- Poet Laureate of Victorian Era
- Distinguishing quality of his work comes from simple delight in nature of experience itself and in
mind’s capacity to shape erveryday experience into something lasting and poetic
Literary Terms
- Blank verse- poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter
- Ode- a long lyric poem with a serious subject and elaborate stanza structure
- Epigraph- quote on title page of a book or a motto heading a section of a work
- Paradox- statement that seems contradictory but is true
Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey
-An abbey is where priests lived
- lyric poem—the meditation (convo with himself about nature)
- the poem is considered to be a meditation bc W meditates on nature, attributing to it divine or
transcendental powers
blank verse gives poem informal quality
- utilizes verse paragraphs of alternating length
- first P, poet unifies his long clauses w rep of word again. The function of the P is to establish the
time interval bt the speaker’s visits and to describe the scene
- In second P, W makes his thought easier to follow by repeating blessed mood. The P is unified by
the description of the value of the speaker’s memories.
- Third P describes how speaker relies on these memories
- Fourth P gives history of speaker’s responses to nature
- Fifth P returns to presence of speaker’s sister and landscape as experienced through her
- Poem is definitive statement of some of the Romantic ideas
- July 1798, W and sis Dorothy went on a vigorous walking tour in southern Wales. This became
the basis for the poem.
- He had been to the abbey five years prior to this tour
- W wrote the poem in his head as he went on the tour
- Termed a “Conversation Poem”—a deep, personal meditation
- In opening verse P, a peaceful mood is created through the diction
- Poem shows a deep and abiding love and respect for nature
- Imagery: dark sycamore tree, plots around the cottage, green orchard thickets, hedgerows, green
farms, smoke wreaths
- As he recalls the scenes while working “mid the din of towns and cities,” the memories have
restored his balance, made him a kinder and more generous person, allowed him to gain insight
into the meaning of life; lost his harmony, so has to go back to nature to regain it
- Apostrophe: “O sylvan Wye! Thou wanderer…”
- He describes his past relationship with the landscape: in his youth he loved the natural world with
a passion, accepting what he saw at face value; he now senses something sublime in nature that
interfuses with the mind of man
- Lines 88-93 describe a change in speaker’s attitude: he is no longer recklessly passionate. He has
a deeper understanding of both nature and himself
- “The still, sad music of humanity” line 91 paradox
- The poet sees his senses, mind, and conscience as interrelated: sensory images are central to his
being; they anchor his thoughts and moral decisions
- Line 111 indicates a shift—poet addresses Dorothy
- Gives advice to sister on viewing nature
- Nature is a source of substance and inspiration= THEME
Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known
- One of Lucy Poems- series of 5 written in Germany in 1799
- Speculation on who lucy was; became a symbol of universal experience of love and loss
- 7 stanzas (quatrains) with abab rhyme scheme
- quatrains 1-5: speaker tells of riding on horseback to cottage of beloved and watching moon sing
ever lower as he approaches
- Original tone: happy but with a sense of urgency
-
Quatrains 6-7: tone shifts to ominous; pace quickens
Moon drops behind cottage and speaker is overcome w fear that his beloved has died
Contrasts: day and night, activity and stillness, ascent and descent
Theme: love and loss
How do the contrasts contribute to the theme? When a person loves deeply, they fear the loss of
love or death of loved one. The natural build up to central contrast of love and loss.
She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways
- 3 quats with abab rhyme scheme; Lucy poem
- Images from nature express appreciation for a woman whose artless beauty and inner purity make
her rare and memorable
- She is a pre of the Romantic ideal of womanhood: lives solitary life close to nature; far from
corrupting influences of the city; not rich or famous; not widely admired; fair and pure
- Mood begins somewhat nostalgic
- Mood changes to that of sadness in stanza 3 when speaker states that her death has touched him
profoundly
- Two contrasting figures of speech are: “A violet by a mossy stone/half hidden from the eye”
(metaphor), “Fair as a star, when only one/is shining in the sky” (simile), The violet is shy and
obscure; the star is brilliant and striking; speaker suggest she embodies both qualities for him
A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal
- 2 quats with abab rhyme scheme
- speaker’s beloved is dead
- She seems like a timeless creature
- The speaker’s own spirit is sealed; his fears are stilled since his beloved has become a fixed part of the
eternal cycle of nature; he is emotionally numb
- Slumber—sleep; final sleep—death
- Seal—to close off—coffin image or tomb
- The speaker is deadened to feeling; woman is physically dead
- Both are sealed off from living
- Paradox: “Rolled around in earth’s diurnal course/ with rocks, and stones, and trees”; Death is the
ultimate stillness; the dead are rolled round in earth’s diurnal course—process of nature continues
Composed Upon Westminster Bridge
- Italian sonnet (octet + sestet)
- Abbaabba cdcdcd
- Poem praises quiet shimmering beauty of London in early morning light
- Personification: in octet, city is personified as wearing the beauty of the morning like a garment
(simile); In sestet, sun river, and houses are personified (houses sleep, city’s heart is still)
- Paradox in last line: A powerful city peacefully at rest; heart cannot be alive and still at same time
- Tone: enthralled; glorifies city by describing its majesty; admiration
The World is Too Much With Us
- Italian Sonnet
- Abbaabba cdcdcd
- World is thought of as the material world—money, objects, status, symbols, power, competition
- Sonnet written in 1807 when W realized his imaginative powers were beginning to fail; no longer
able to respond to nature with youthful passion
- Sonnet laments the tendency to get caught up in material considerations of the world at the
expense of the soul or deeper self
- Tone (1-8) restrained disapproval; this is evidenced by the line “we are out of tune”- bitter
- Tone shifts in middle of line nine, signaled by phrase “Great God!”
- Tone then becomes angry, exasperated, and demonstrative
- Them: Humanity ahs given up its most important gift, nature in return for so called process of
civilization
- Allusions: proteus and triton (mythological sea gods)
- Speaker proclaims he would rather be a pagan than cut off from nature; pagans more in tune with
nature
- Imagery: sea images—The sea that bares her bosom (person); the allusions to mythological sea
gods, winds howling at all hours (person), like sleeping flowers (simile)
Coleridge
- committed to developing utopian colony in America
- Wrote Lyrical Ballads w W in 1798
- Believed W was best poet of age and hid in his shadow
- Middle period 1800-1811 produced lectures on Shakespeare and Biographia Literaria. These
became foundation for 20th cent literary theory
- Addicted to opium and laudanum
- Kubla Kahn was prob written in out of a drug induced dream
- Rime of the Ancient Mariner written for Lyrical Ballads
- In Lyrical Ballads, made a poetic division of labor based on their interest in two powers of poetry:
to rep ordinary events and objects in unfamiliar way to make fresh and interesting; to make
believable the unfamiliar and strange
- C’s task was to write about persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic; yet so far as
to transfer to form our inward nature a human interest and semblance of truth sufficient to procure
for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which
constitutes poetic faith