Romanticism --> Blake, Wordswoth, Coleridge

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sense of responsibility to their fellow men: they felt it was their duty to use their poetry to inform and inspire others, and to change society. The literary background The literary background of the romantic movement is very complex. Romantic literature was very influenced by history and philosophical ideas. HISTORY: We can't talk about the Romantic season without involving history. Fresh ideals came to the force, in particular, the ideal of freedom, that it became natural to believe that the age of the tyrant might soon end. There is a very big change in the history of the world, by the succession of many events. During George III's reign, with the approaching end of the century, three important revolutions (American revolution, Industrial revolution and French revolution) changed the English context. American revolution: By the 1770s many colonists had become resentful of British rule, which imposed a strict control on trade. The rebels retained that the taxes were unfair, as the colonies had no political power ("No taxation without representation"). The Americans divided into Patriots, who wanted independence, and Loyalists, who wanted to remain part of Britain, and the War of Independence began in 1775. The Americans set up an army under the command of George Washington (1732-99) to face the stronger and better trained British army. On 4th July 1776 in Philadelphia, the Congress, made by the representatives from 13 of the colonies, signed the Declaration of Independence, largely written by Thomas Jefferson. The new republic of the United States of America adopted a federal constitution in 1787 and George Washington became the first President in 1789. French Revolution: conscious of anarchy across the English Channel, the British government feared similar outbreaks. The early Romantic poets tended to be supporters of the French Revolution, hoping that it would bring about political change; however, the bloody Reign of Terror that had followed shocked them profoundly and disillusioned their views. Industrial Revolution: Economic changes took place in England that would transform the country from an agricultural to an industrialised nation. These changes had a big impact in the relationship between man and nature. PHILOSOPHY: Besides the above mentioned historical events, other factors of great importance were: philosophical thought of such french writers as Voltaire and Rousseau with their attacks on privilege and social Imagination gained a primary role in the process of poetic composition. In order to catch the moral of life, poets want to get back to the beginning. Children were believed to be the only human beings who interact with nature without using reason, but just admiring it as they do. The poets want to adapt this attitude and to elaborate these feelings by using imagination and creativity. The poet is lending his voice to the voiceless. Blake was concerned with the political and social problems of his time: he supported in particular the principles of the French Revolution. He believed in revolution as purifying violence necessary for the redemption of man. Later, disillusioned, he focused his attention on the evil consequences of the Industrial Revolution. In his poems he sympathised with the victims of industrial society, such as children and prostitutes, as well as with the victims of oppression by institutions, such as orphans and soldiers stratification and their concern with nature; the german literary movement called "sturm und drang" which reached its climax in the 1770 and bring, for the first time, nationalism to light. The imagination English Romanticism saw the prevalence of poetry, which best suited the need to give expression to emotional experience and individual feelings. An almost divine faculty, imagination allowed the poet to re-create and modify the external world of experience. The poet was seen as a visionary prophet whose task was to mediate between man and nature, to point out the evils of society, to give voice to the ideals of freedom, beauty and truth. The reality at that time was marked by revolutions and rebellions, so the poets felt it was their duty to use their imagination with poetry to inform and understand human beings. Children, nature and the sublime For the world to be regenerated, the Romantics said that it was necessary to start all over again with a childlike perspective. The child started to be considered a very important object to study as a "gift", because it perfectly represents innocence, incorruption and freedom which make him be very close to nature and at the same time to God. Infact, Romantic verse was suffused with reverence for the natural world. The Romantics were inspired by the environment, and encouraged people to venture into new territories - both literally and metaphorically. In their writings they made the world seem a place with infinite, unlimited potential. The sublime A key idea in Romantic poetry is the concept of the sublime. This term conveys the feelings people experience when they see awesome landscapes, or find themselves in extreme situations which elicit both fear and admiration. The distinction between the beautiful and the sublime became main theme of 18th century aesthetics. Terror and pain are the strongest emotions and that there is an inherent pleasure in such feelings. William Blake It's one of the first Romantic poets and its poetry is very original and different from the others. He was not so interested in nature, instead his attention was upon political and social issues, especially the oppression of English society. London One of his greatest, this poem conveys Blake's view of the city, of the disease and suffering brought about by industrialisation. Starting from the layout (structure of the poem): rhythm scheme: ABAB, ABAB>>>constant and repetitive tone which is usually used to describe never ending situations, without possibility of stocking. Four standards and iambic tetrameter: each line is divided in four feet In this poem there is a strong pessimistic vision. In 1794, after the French revolution, Blake was enthusiastic about the new values spread by the revolution, but, seeing the bloody disasters caused by the Reign of Terror, his vision of world and human being became strongly pessimistic. I wander thro' each charter'd street Near where the charter'd Thames does flow And mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe. 5 In every cry of every Man, In every Infant's cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban, The mind-forg'd manacles I hear. How the Chimney-sweeper's cry The tyger is the symbol of evil. In that period in the tower of London, there was an exposition of animals coming from far places in the world. It's on this occasion that Blake saw a tiger and was inspired in writing this poem. In this poem Blake concerns religious issues. 10 Every black'ning Church appalls, And the hapless Soldier's sigh Runs in blood down Palace walls. But most thro' midnight streets I hear How the youthful Harlot's curse Blasts the new born Infant's tear, And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse. First stanza: Blake talks about the environment (including every street and nature) which is totally subjected to man's power. The protagonist is the poet himself and he tells his story is completely subjugated to this difficult situation. Second stanza: from the sense of sight to sense of hearing. (Infant: latinism which refers to very little children). Ban is a synonym of restriction that confine man's happiness and this restriction makes all men feel trapped with handcuffs. Third stanza: in the first line of the standard, there is a direct reference to poor children (Chimney). Appalls is a term that derives from "pall", funerary black decoration placed on the front door of churches which announces the death of a person. Blake is comparing the pall's black color to the black bodies of the children who died because of their job. It's a clear denunciation of the churches' actions on the death of people. Hapless is a term that derives from hopeless. The reference is to the soldiers who sacrifice their lives in a war abroad to the government and to the king in order to make them more powerful. That's completely unfair and Blake is denouncing all the authorities. Fourth stanza: Blake makes another denouncement concerning the habit of many married men to go ahead with other women and infect their wifes with the curse taken by the prostitutes. Marriage, in catholic vision, means children and fertility. But, Blake compares it to hearse which is a sort of chart (carro) used to transport the coffin from the graveyard to church, because married men brings The Tyger Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? 5 In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, 10 Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? 15 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? 20 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? The layout of the poem is composed by six stanzas, each stanza is composed by a tronchee (4 feet) Rhythm scheme: AABB, CCDD... But there are some deviation lines (4-5, 23-24). The most repeated symbol is the question mark: the poem consists of a series of questions that the poet himself asks to find out who has created such a dangerous animal like the tiger. Right at the beginning of the poem, Blake asks if the God that he prays for every day is good, why has He ever created the tiger? Javhee, the God in the old testament, is very tough and disrespectful, while the God who is told in the new testament of the Bible is forgetful. So man cannot truly understand the reasons for the events, but he can only assume that God can be good and bad at the same time. Man cannot fully understand the project of God by using only the reason. He can suppose it just using imagination and faith: religion. THE FIRE (line 6): it's a reference to classical mythology, in this case to the myth of Prometheus (a deity who stole the fire from the gods and gave it to menkind. From this transgression began the development of human history. With this reference, Blake wants to bring to light man's mistakes by trying to exploit nature with his reason, but he can't because only God has the power to control everything. WHIGS (line): BLACKSMITH: fabbro. In the final parts of the poem there is a sort of metaphor: Blake compares God to a Blacksmith who has made the tiger and all the other bad things. William Wordsworth Biography → Childhood: He was born in Cumberland, in the English Lake District in 1770. In 1791, he got a B.A. Degree from St. John's College, Cambridge, even if he wasn't an aristocrat and belonged to the middle class. →In France: In 1790 he travelled to France and his contact with the Revolution had filled him with enthusiasm for the democratic ideals, which he hoped could lead to a new and just social order. In 1792, he had a daughter, Caroline, from a French aristocratic woman, Annette Vallon. → The return in England: The brutal and destructive developments of the Revolution and the declaration of war between England and France in 1793 brought him to the edge of a nervous breakdown. He decided to return to England in order to find a safe place for himself far from the men' violence. →Last years: In 1795, he moved to Dorset with his sister Dorothy, who was his most faithful friend, and he got his safe place in nature. At the end of his life, he could finally focus all his time on writing, until death in 1850. →His works are basically and deeply connected with his life. Man and nature → Unlike Blake and others early romantic poets, W. doesn't concern his attention in historical events, but he reflects in his poetry the contact between nature and man. →During the Enlightenment, nature was considered as an object to exploit and to study by using reason. While in the romantic age, the contact between man and nature is a simple question of feelings: nature was something to be felt, not to be studied or controlled, in order to find the deep This poem records the experience of the walk the poet went for with his sister Dorothy, near their home in the Lake District. It is one of Wordsworth's most famous poems, in which he vividly conveys his love for nature. Layout The poem is composed of four stanzas and the rhythm scheme is ABAB,ABAB... Each line consists of an iambic tetrameter → Consonants and alliterations create the pattern of the poem. Main themes The poet is completely inside nature and it's like he can't move, but just looks and stares at the landscape around him. In the first three stanzas, the poet is in nature and he's staring at beautiful flowers In nature, the poet is completely overwhelmed by sensations and otions and he can't write. Only the eyes of his mind can clean up his vision and the poet truth of life → When a natural object is described, the main focus of interest is the poet's response to that object. → Wordsowrth thought that man and nature are inseparable. Man is a part of the natural world as an active participant in it. Nature was: a place which includes both inanimate and human each being part of the same whole a source of pleasure and joy the seat of the divine spirit of the universe (pantheistic vision: the belief of the presence of god in everything surrounding us). →The importance of the senses: Nature means for W. the world of sensory perceptions. Sensation, in particolar sight and hearing, lead to simple thoughts which later combine into complex and organised ideas. → The importance of memory: W. states that all genuine poetry takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity. When man is inside nature, he is completely overwhelmed by feelings and sensations and that is not the moment to write or to do something else. Only after having felt this experience in nature, the poet can relaborate his memories in a quiet atmosphere and can recollect what he has just felt, in order to transform his memories into a work of art → Through the re-creative power of memory and emotion is reproduced and purified in poetic form; secondly emotion "kindred" is generated. Only at that moment, the poet can decode his emotions and translate them into poetry. Daffodils I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats n high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils: 5 Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line 10 Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance (ne vedo in un'occhiata sola), Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Outdid the sparkling waves in glee; 15 A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company; I gazed - and gazed - but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: 20 For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant10 or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils. First stanza: →the poet is lonely → Loneliness, according to the romantic age, is considered as the most positive condition, because it is the best state to stay and to focus on nature. →Simile is introduced from the as: the poet is comparing himself to a cloud. As a cloud, the poet can fly into the sky while he's gazing at nature. can finally work out what he has just stared at, as it's said in the last stanza Blake vs Wordsworth: Nature is inside man and is the whole created by God. So, each element of nature can give joy and happiness. →Anyway, Blake asks himself why evil creatures, like tigers, existed. →Wordsworth, instead, believed that a close contact with nature was enough to reach happiness. Why was it so important for Romantic poets to use words linked to sensations? Natura can be known only through sensations and perceptions in order to make readers feel the same emotions felt by the poets in nature. SENSORIAL KNOWLEDGE What are the kindred emotions? Through the creative power of memory, the emotion is re-produced and purified in poetic form so that a second emotion, 'kindred' to the first one, is generated. →All at once, the poet sees a bunch of "golden" (yellow - exaggeration) flowers compared to the crowd (personification) →The crowd of flowers are beneathing the tree and are moving like waves in the breeze → In the romantic vision, the water and his movement in the sea as waves are very important elements Second stanza: →The stanza is introduced by another simile which compares the flowers to stars. →In the second line there is a space (scientific universe) reference which has always been a great interest for romantic poets for his mystery linked to the infinity → Stars and flowers are both part of the order of the universe and, thanks to interpretation, we can link this to the pantheistic vision. → Iperbole (line 11: ten thousand). Personification (line 12: heads). Third stanza: →The poet is still worshipping nature's elements. gay is a synonym of happy. Repetition of gazed. Fourth stanza: → It's the moment of the so called RECOLLECTION or REMEMBRANCE IN TRANQUILLITY → the poet remembers of his experience inside nature at home. He was completely overwhelmed before, but then very strong and pure images linked to his memory came to his mind and so he could then give a meaning of his experience. →THE POWER OF IMAGINATION: He can look at nature only with physical eyes, but also with mental eyes, thanks to the strength of his imagination. Summary of the common tragic experience of Romantic poets: From Revolution to Revelation: →With the end of the 18th century, many romantic poets had the illusion for a better future by welcoming the French R. and the Industrial R. → They were enthusiastic and enchanted by the new values and they firmly thought French R. would have changed justice and politics of their period. →Anyway, the terrible results of French R. disillusioned all the romantic intellectuals. → Starting from this big sense of loss and disillusion, many poets used religion to see beyond the material world: poets had to use the pure mind of a childlike perspective in order to catch the truth of life. It's a sort of judge of adulthood approach during the Enlightenment and the revolutions. Samuel Taylor Coleridge Biography →Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in Devonshire in 1772. He received an excellent education in the classics but he failed to graduate at Cambridge University. →After having had many troubles in the first part of his life, he then went to France to fight for the Revolution and then to America to build a utopian community inspired by French values, but he had failed there too → He finally came back home, in England, and started to work together with Wordsworth on the Lyrical Ballads. →Coleridge also produced Biographia Literaria (1817), a text of literary criticism and autobiography. Here he explained the dual task which he and Wordsworth had set themselves in the Lyrical Ballads. He died in 1834. Wordsworth and Coleridge →Wordsworth: the poet has to take inspiration from nature, from subjects of ordinary life and with his incredible ability to recollect the feelings from this experience in order to turn them into a work of art. →Coleridge: According to Coleridge, there are two types of imagination: → The primary imagination is meant as having feelings which all humans possess; → The secondary imagination, also known as the fancy, is owned only by the poets: it's the power of the poet to create a new complete reality by the use of metaphorical figures of poetry. →The main difference between mediaeval ballads and Coleridge's ones is the presence of moral lessons at the end of the romantic ballads. Description: in the first part, the poet introduces the argument of the ballad→The situation is not in a well-defined place and there is an old sailor (mariner) who stops a wedding guest going to the party VII STANZA: For Wordsworth, the poem is a result of something when you are relaxed → Here there is an opposite conception: according to Coleridge, the poet sometimes has difficulties telling the truth, because it is not always comfortable. The vision of Coleridge of the role of the poet is more stronger than Wordsworth's one: the poet not only can recollect the feelings from nature, but he can create them in a new and utopian world of fantasy, like a dream, starting from nature elements → his own task was to write about extraordinary events in a credible way. The Rime of Ancient mariner It's his masterpiece Taylor Coleridge. It's made up of seven parts. It is introduced by an 'Argument' containing a short summary of the whole poem and consists of two narratives: one is made up of the captions, which constitute the framework of the whole poem, the other is the poem itself. A mediaeval ballad →During the middle age, the authors' ballads were anonymous. The ballad was a sort of long narrative poem with dialogue plus narration. The language was usually quite simple and full of repetition, alliteration, onomatopoeic forms because it was born like a music which was sung by the poets with the auxiliary of an instrument: they were called skops (different from bards who used to write their stories) and they used to travel from a village to another in order to sing stories with supernatural elements. → The typical features of the ballad in the Romantic Age are the same as mediaeval ballads. Structure Starting from the title, we can appreciate this mediaeval expression of the ballad. →The ballad is divided into seven sections. →In Coleridge's ballads, there is a combination of dialogue and description and like the typical mediaeval ballad, each stanza is composed of four lines → Regarding the style, there are also refrains, repetitions and consonants written in archaic language. →REALISTIC AND SUPERNATURAL ELEMENTS ARE TOGETHER IN THE BALLAD Chapter 1: The killing of the Albatross An old, lonely Mariner appears from nowhere and forces one in a group of three people, on their way to a wedding party, to listen to his story → The Mariner's tale is about a sea voyage, which soon turns out to be a voyage with no return because of the uncontrollable powers of nature. →I STANZA: the protagonist is abruptly presented. Immediately, it's not an ordinary man who is stopped by the sailor. The man has glittering eyes and a long grey beard. →II STANZA: description of a real and concrete contest: in the middle of a wedding party. →III STANZA: "there was a ship..." are the key words to identify the starting point of the tail. "quoth" (v. 10): archaic, Spellbound: enchanted →IV STANZA: the mariner did a spell to the wedding guest → the first supernatural reference. →V STANZA: the mariner succeeded to have full control of the guest. There is also a reference to a child who is considered as a very good listener. →VI STANZA: repetition of the previous stanza. The wedding-guest is uncomfortable listening to the ancient mariner as he sits on a stone. "hath" v.16: said. →VII STANZA: The mariner begin his story and in the last two lines of the stanza, there is the description of the context of the story: kirk (old church), hill and lighthouse, all singles of a typical northland landscape. line: equator → VIII STANZA: the sun, the most important natural element, is personified. There is an internal rhyme (bright, right). From the top to the bottom is the voyage of the ship → a symbolic and religious voyage from heaven to hell. →IX STANZA: the ship was reaching the equator. →X STANZA: contest of the wedding party: all the guests were ready right there at their position waiting the bride who has almost reached the bridal altar. →XI STANZA: repetition which underlines the discomfort of the wedding-guest listening the story →XII STANZA: the personification of the storm like a huge bird chasing the ship with his overtaking wings. The bird (Albatross) was pushing the boat towards the south. THE WORST SIN OF THE ANCIENT MARINER IS THE MURDER OF AN INNOCENT ANIMAL, THE ALBATROSS → the worst crime possible that could ever be commited is to kill a God's creature and the mariner could be punished for good → his espiation established he must have tell his murder all over his journey. →XIII STANZA: Description of the sublime: the sea was in flame for the wind so the storm and the ship can't go in a right way → This situation is very dangerous but at the same time gives excitement. Then again the storm push the ship southward. →XIV STANZA: from a familiar landscape (hill, kirk, lighthouse) to a new and mysterious landscape. It's green and it is another reference to a supernatural atmosphere. →XV STANZA: →XVI STANZA: the repetitions and the onomatopoeic words emphasises the sound of the ice. THEMES The sin of the Mariner From the beginning, the unjustified murder of Albatross led to a different scenario → a lot of misfortunes started happening to all the sailors, to the ship and to the mariner. →The sea became very stuck and so the boat couldn't move → A phantom ship came towards the boat of the Ancient mariner in which we found two ghost characters (Life in Death and Death in Life) and they started playing dice with the mariner →When his crew died, the ancient mariner started gazing at the sea and saw marine monsters. But the mariner was not afraid of them because, even if they were dangerous, they were God's creature and he decided to respect them →After the change of attitude towards nature, the mariner travelled along path from north to the south and then came back home in the north. Summary of the chapter →While walking along a street, an old seaman stops one of three guests going to feast. The Wedding Guest tries to resist but he is stopped by the old man who starts to tell him his story. The Wedding Guest has no choice but to sit down on a rock to listen. →The old man explains that on one clear, bright day, he set out on a ship full of a happy crew. When they reached the equator, a terrible storm forced the ship southwards →Then the sailors reached a calm sea that was full of snow and glistening green icebergs as tall as the ship's mast. →The sailors were the only living things in this frightening world where the ice made terrible sounds. →Finally, an albatross appeared from the mist, and the mariners' 'hollo' to the bird replaced the "cracking, growling, roaring and howling" of the ice. All of a sudden the South wind started blowing and the ship moved northwards again, leaving the Polar Region. →At this point, the Wedding Guest notices that the old man looks grave and he asks why. The old man exclaims that he shot Albatross with his crossbow. Moral message →Literally interpretation: Committing a crime against nature means committing a crime against God and so you can be punished for your entire life → the message, or the warning if you like, that Coleridge want to express is to PAY RESPECT NATURE → it is shown a strong panthestic vision of nature because each element is a creature of God. →Religious interpretation (linked to the author's life): The ancient mariner is seen as a poet and he must be condemned because he challenges the God by creating a new imaginary world According to the romantic poets, they have the capacity of the secondary imagination which made them be able to create a new different reality from the God's one → So, Coleridge look at himself as a sinner because he's a poet → this can be linked to the physical suffering caused by the dependence of oppian which the poet translated this pain into poetry as a sin The theme of the sea: the voyage (a journey on water) → Starting from the mediaeval literature, the first epic poem of the northern Eroupe is BEOWULF (bewolf) which is focused on a voyage along the sea from Sweden to Denmark → The second important poem focused on reaching a place is The Tempest of Shakespeare → Again, Robinson Crusoe an Gulliver's travels (a dystopian novel which criticises the Augustan society) are both concerned on a journey by the sea → also in the 20th century novels with Virginia Woolf (To the lighthouse and The waves) in which masterpieces the voyage is interpreted as a rebirth.