lecture 4 Romanticism

The historical background at the end of the 18th – the beginning of the 19th century.
Characteristic features of the trend.
William Blake – the founder of Romanticism in English literature.
‘Lake School’ poets.
Revolutionary romanticism of G. G. Byron.
The revolutionary poetry of P. B. Shelley.
London romanticists.
W. Scott – the creator of the historical novel.

Main reasons
The formation of Romanticism took place before and after the French Revolution in 1789-1794.
The change in the social and political situation.
Literature- reflection of the dissatisfaction of the results of the French Revolution; disappointment caused by the bourgeois civilization and scientific progress.

2. Characteristic features
Bringing emotions and introspection to English literature; a new concentration on the individual – W. Wordsworth, S. T. Coleridge.
The reaction to urbanism and industrialization – a prompt to explore nature (the Lake Poets).

2. Characteristic features
Construction of highly idiosyncratic poetic creations - W. Blake.
Collection and adaptation of folk songs into a body of national poetry – R. Burns.
‘Second generation’ Romantic Poets flouted social convention and used poetry as a political voice – G. G. Byron, P. B. Shelley, J. Keats.

Peculiarities
A reflection of the process of the personality’s deviating from society;
The human being is isolated from the social system;
Living in the unique inner world, creating an ideal world according to wishes of the subjective soul;
The contradiction with the cruel reality of modern society;

The psychology of a personality
Expecting some changes;
Wishing something new;
Doubting about the transition from the old to the new;
The inner world results in the lyrical character of the Romanticism.

Estheticism
A lot of attention is paid to beauty;
The reality of life is recreated as something fine with the help of poetic fantasy;
Poetry – is a great means of influence;
Emotions and imagination – are the main things in poetic creativity;

Estheticism
Writers referred to symbols, allegory, grotesque;
Imagination – is the highest form of cognition; it penetrates into the mysterious world of beauty;
Art – is a source of spiritual self-development and the strength leading to revolutionary actions.

Main trends
‘Lake School Poets’ – W. Wordsworth, S. T. Coleridge
Revolutionary Romanticism – G. G. Byron, P. B. Shelley
London Romanticism – J. Keats, W. Hazlitt

Fiction - novels of fantasy
Sensibility – is a highlight in a novel;
A new world of ‘romances’- heroines are women, prone to imagining worlds beyond their appointed one;
‘Gothic novels’ – stories in distant times and places;
A different style of writing – the ‘comedy of manners’

‘Gothic novels’
A favourite setting – is Renaissance Italy;
Ann Radcliff’s “The Mysteries of Udolpho” – the classic gothic novel;
The notion of the sublime is central;
The sublime and the beautiful are juxtaposed: awful and terrifying vs. calm and reassuring;
Heroines are susceptible to supernatural elements – hypersensibility.

The comedy of manners
Jane Austin’s “Northanger Abbey” – a parody to the gothic novel;
Sensibility is less valued;
Novels are scathingly critical of the restrictive rural culture;
“Pride and Prejudice” – is a blueprint for much subsequent romantic fiction .

3. William Blake
Creative activity is connected with enlightening literature (the influence of ideas on the human mind);
Humanism is based on the support of the French Revolution: symbolic images reflect revolutionary mood of people;
Depiction of the human sufferings and inevitability of social changes;
“Songs of Innocence” and “Songs of Experience” – depiction of two contradictory conditions of a human soul.

4. Lake School Poets
William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey – lived in Cumberland, The Lake Region;
Expression of rebellious mood, praise of the French Revolution – disappointment by its results, loss of belief in active struggle;

4. Lake School Poets
W. Wordsworth – beauty and harmony in the soul of a simple human being; contradiction between a watching attitude to life and a sympathetic attitude to people;
S. T. Coleridge – a fantastic element, something strange, fearful and superior; the concept of imagination.

5. George Gordon Byron’s Revolutionary Romanticism
Poetic works are the reflection of rebellious mood of people;
Worshipping of enlightening ideals and classicism esthetics;
A thought about senseless modern reality;
Dream is about a human liberty, but the ideal of freedom is deprived of social concrete direction;
He contributed to form the modern stereotype of Scottish culture;
He was the highest earning and most popular author.

Creative activity
‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ – a broad critical survey of contemporary life that mirrors the poet’s own feelings;
Childe Harold – is a dreamer, leaving the hypocritical society for remote countries;

Creative activity
‘Don Juan’ contains satirical motive, lyricism and philosophic thoughts;
The contrast of ‘Don Juan’ is based on deeper economic sides of the society and is expressed in the form of contradiction between appearance and essence

6. Percy Bysshe Shelley
Pointed out actual problems of time;
Complex symbols, bright metaphors, associations of images are peculiar to Shelley’s poetry;
Belief in happy future and depiction of joyful pictures of free humankind;
Political rhymes are based on rhetorical devices;
‘Song to the Men of England’ – is an appeal to the people depending on the bourgeois regime.

7. London Romanticism
John Keats, William Hazlitt criticized bourgeois orders, the politics of English Tory;
The trend takes a middle position between different branches of Romanticism;
Radical reformations, defending human rights; progressive ethical and esthetic ideas;

7. London Romanticism
Poets are not revolutionary;
John Keats – is a master of sonnets and odes – ‘On Peace’, ‘Ode to a Nightingale’;
William Hazlitt writes outstanding critical studies of Elizabethan drama

8. Walter Scott
His creative activity is an important stage in the development of a literary process in England – it reflects transition from Romanticism to Realism;
W. Scott – is a creator of historical novel (reflection of life of different epochs);
He improves the composition of a novel and the way of depicting characters;