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1700
Philosophy of 19th Century
Reaction against Enlightenment
1750
≠
1800
romantic (adj.)
1850
A philosophy that the world could be understood through rational, scientific thought and reason.
Challenges traditions and traditional thinking
believed EVERYTHING could be understood through empircal science/reason
reduced spirituality to reason/science
Industrial Revolution (IR)
Anxiety for what this means for the laborer/ human
Reaction against the "cold science" of Enlightenment
Reaction against dehumanization of Industrial Revolution
Prioritized:
over rationality/inquiry
Concerned about loss of beauty, humanity, spiritual self and natural world
We should not examine nature; we should commune with it; nature will be our creative inspiration
allusion = reference to other works of literature
Keats expects his reader to have a working knowledge of the classics
Frequently references classical mythology
Clarity of Plot
>
Beauty/Rhythm
Keats' speaker often gets "side tracked" when providing a description or a history
professional failure:
2nd Generation
1st Generation
Wordworth
Coleridge
Blake
Byron
Shelley
Keats
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.
Outside
expansive
interior
downward gaze
human as machine
Personifying the star
Self is organic
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.
Mixing of reality and the marvelous
Star as knight:
- separate from society
- alone with lady/love
dream
oppose "cold reason" of IR
Star gazing down on people
Contrasts:
"Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast"
Human
"Ripening breast"
Ripen -> Fruit
Sexual climax as death (French: "le petite morte" = little death)
Ripen -> Rot
as example: don't worry, you weren't supposed to have read this
Porphyro sneaks into Madeline's families' castle in the night
Porphyro and Madeline from opposing/enemy families
they run away together
Keats is less concerned with attacking the IR
He wants to escape it
Madeline's castle is a stark contrast to the urban factories of the IR
Knights, Damsels & Magic
a story originally in a Romance language
translated into French
Medieval (adj.) of Middle Ages (n.)
5th Century: fall of Western Roman Empire)
to the 15th century: Renaissance and Age of Discovery
Usually about Arthurian Legend
- knight (gentleman warrior) from King Arthur's court
- separated from court
- adventure (involving supernatural)
- reward: return to court, wealth and happiness/marriage to idolized woman
- concerned with the social rules of behavior:
- chilvary in love and battle
courage
honor
service
knight/prince saves the damsel in distress
- through battle
- often with supernatural
rewarded with marriage
making fun of a source
by exaggerating its characteristics
Prince as hero
-incapable
- mean
Monster as villain
- here, Shrek is the good guy
- fights with wits, not violence
Princess as beautiful/desirable
- damsel in distress has no hair
- real princess is an ugly monster
Lancelot (a knight) is on a quest
opportunity to save a "damsel in distress"
heroic battle to save the "damsel"
"damsel" = sometimes men need rescue, too (but not a reward for Lancelot)
"courage in battle"
- kills wrong people
"You killed the bride's father!"
Top priority of the Romantics
Liberated humans to dream
but...
can't save us from harsh realities
forces us to confront limits of imagination
contrast between imagination and reality
is often disappointing
waiting for holy vision of the perfect man
The Eve of St. Agnes
(the patron saint of chastity):
if Prophyro were a cat cake
Knight in Shining Armor
gentleman/warrior
courteous
honorable
kind
noble
reckless
myopic
morally questionable
physical description:
"pallid, chill, and drear!"
lost most of his family to illness
- nursed brother as he died of Tuberculosis
- died at age 25 of Tuberculosis
Sexual desire = precursor to death
(or cold, death-like emptiness)
Vitality
Mortality
Madleine disappointed to wake to real Prophyro
asks him to become like figure of her dream
- images of stars, roses and violets
- they consummate relationship
death and darkness
XXXVII
Return to Reality = Death
Lovers leave together = happy ending
- rising storm (the coldness we saw at the beginning of the poem)
- castle dissolves around them
Lovers in Keats rarely get their "happily ever after"
'Tis dark: quick pattereth the flaw-blown sleet:
"This is no dream, my bride, my Madeline!"
Tis dark: the iced gustss still rave and ebat:
"No dream, alas! alas! and woe is mine!"
A chain-droop'd lamp was flickering by each door;
The arras, rich with horsemen, hawk and hound,
Flutter'd in the besieging wind's uproar;
And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor.
And there are gone; ay, ages long ago
These lovers...into
That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe,
And all his warrior-guests, which shade and form
Of witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm,
Were long be nightmar'd. Angela the old
Died palsy-twitch'd, with meagre face deform;
The Beadsman, after thousand aves told,
For aye unosught for slept among the ashes cold.
'cold hill's side'
'I met a lady in the meads'