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Birth of Romanticism

ROMANTIC AGE

Cultural trends

CULTURAL TRENDS

Reaction to Classicism

  • refusal of the old order's ideas
  • independence of the artist
  • concept of "Genius"

Exaltation of the individual

  • individual at the center
  • exaltation of emotions

Distrust in progress

  • focus on melancholy
  • bad conditions of workers

Use of imagination

  • poet prophet
  • inward eye

Age of Revolutions

Political trends

American revolution

(1775-1783)

American Patriots obtain independence from British crown

French Revolution

(1789-1799)

political and ideological revolution

(1760-1840)

change completely the economy and the social structure of Britain

Industrial revolution

Social consequences

  • increase in the population
  • increasing poverty

New economy

  • Wealth of nations in 1776
  • starting point of capitalism

ROMANTIC LITERATURE

ROMANTIC LITERATURE

Romantic poetry

ROMANTIC POETRY

General features

  • Exaltation of nature -> as an organic living whole
  • Independence of the artist
  • The gift of the poet: the imagination
  • The concept of beauty

Pre-Romanticism

anticipated by

Features

  • re-evaluation of Nature over Reason
  • importance of feelings -> in contrast with the enlightenment
  • distrust in reason -> sadness and restlessness -> pessimistic conception of reality
  • exaltation of the individual (="I lyric")
  • in opposition to the neo-classicism

WILLIAM BLAKE

(1757-1827)

William Blake

General features

  • He was aware of the political and social issues, he supported the French Revolution -> egalitarian principles, purification from violence.
  • Then, disillusioned, he focused on the evil effects on man's soul of the Industrial Revolution -> he talked about the victims of the industrial society (=children, prostitutes, orphans).
  • He was also an artist -> he created a new kind of art which emphasized the power of the imagination -> he combined paintings and poetic texts (="illuminated printing).
  • He rejected the neoclassical literary style and themes.
  • He stressed the importance of imagination over reason and of the inner visions over observations of nature.
  • Poet Prophet -> he can see more deeply into reality and tries to warn man of the evils of society.

Works

The two phases of human life: Experience coexist with Innocence

-> "complementary opposites"

Works

Songs of Innocence

Songs of Innocence (1789)

  • Pastoral mode -> songs which celebrate the divine in all creation (nature)
  • Childhood -> symbol of innocence.
  • In the year of the outbreak of the French Revolution

The Chimney Sweeper -> interest in marginalised

Blake talks about children's conditions -> sold by their families to work, they risk their life everyday, they see their friends die.

DESPITE THAT, they have the dream to be free. They don't lose hope, typical of the period of innocence.

Songs of Experience

Songs of Experience (1794)

  • In the period of the Terror -> evil consequences of the revolution
  • "Experience" is identified with adulthood
  • another point of view on reality -> pessimistic vision of life

London -> contrast between the powerful institution of the city, the establish (monarchy and the church) and the commercial monopoly of the industries, and the poor conditions of the working class

The Chimney sweeper -> The Chimney Sweeper against the adult world: his parents, and also God, his priests (religion) and

the King (institutions) -> guilty of unconsciousness of the agonising misery in which children lived

WHILE the Chimney Sweeper is here conscious and disillusioned about his conditions

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

(1770-1850)

Exponent

Features of his poetry

Features of his poetry

Nature

  • The relationship between the natural world and the humankind is the center of his poetry

  • When the poet describes a natural object he focuses on the emotions that come from the observation of it

  • Man is a part of nature -> they are not separable things

  • Nature teaches men to love and to act in a moral way

  • The vision of Nature is inspired by Rousseau's thought

Feelings

  • His poetry follows a sequence based on experience, emotions and memory:

object -> poet -> sensory experience -> emotion -> memory (recollection in tranquility) -> kindred emotion -> poem -> reader -> emotion

  • The poet has a greater sensibility and the ability to penetrate the heart of things

  • Thanks to imagination he transmits his knowledge to the reader and in this way he shows men how to understand Nature and their feelings

  • His task consists in drawing attention to the ordinary things of life, where the deepest emotions and truths are to be found

Lyrical Ballads 1798

  • 1798- produced by Wordsworth and Coleridge

  • It is the Manifesto of English Romanticism -> he didn't want to follow the standards of 18th century poetry

  • Not elevated artificial language but simple and homely

  • The poet is a common man writing about what interests mankind

Daffodils

  • This poem records the experience of a walk the poet went for with his sister Dorothy near their home in the Lake District.

  • Beautiful (golden, fluttering, dancing, breeze) VS Sublime (in never-ending line)

  • Similes -> imagination

hyperbole -> sublime

personification -> loneliness VS company

  • Feelings in the moment VS self-consciousness

ROMANTIC FICTION

  • Meant for entertainment -> bad literature
  • GOTHIC NOVEL

ROMANTIC FICTION

Frankenstein

Frankenstein

Plot

  • Doctor Victor Frankenstein created a human being
  • The result is ugly and revolting
  • The monster was refused by his creator and the society
  • He became a murder -> also Frankenstein was murdered

Influences

Influences of science:

  • Contrast between the fear of revolution and the interest in revolutionary ideas
  • The monster is the embodiment of the theme of science and its responsibility to mankind

Literary influences:

  • Monster = Rousseau's natural man -> then he is corrupted by society
  • Frankenstein = Prometheus in mythology -> he stole the gods' fire
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