Paper-05
Name:
Ramiz M. Solanki
M. A.
Sem:- 2
Roll No.
27
Batch:
2017-19
Enrolment
No.2069108420180051
Paper No.
05 (Romantic Literature)
Assignment
Topic: Romantic Age
Email Id:
ramiz.solanki39@gmail.com
Submitted
to: Department of English MKBU
The
romantic period is a term applied to the literature of approximately the first
third of the nineteenth century. During this time, literature began to move in
channels that were not entirely new but were in strong contrast to the standard
literary practice of the eighteenth century.
How the
word romantic came to be applied to this period is something
of a puzzle. Originally the word was applied to the Latin or Roman dialects
used in the Roman provinces, especially France, and to the stories written in
these dialects. Romantic is a derivative of romant, which
was borrowed from the French romaunt in the sixteenth century.
At first it meant only "like the old romances" but gradually it began
to carry a certain taint. Romantic, according to L. P. Smith
in his Words and Idioms, connoted "false and fictitious beings
and feelings, without real existence in fact or in human nature"; it also
suggested "old castles, mountains and forests, pastoral plains, waste and
solitary places" and a "love for wild nature, for mountains and
moors."
The word
passed from England to France and Germany late in the seventeenth century and
became a critical term for certain poets who scorned and rejected the models of
the past; they prided themselves on their freedom from eighteenth-century
poetic codes. In Germany, especially, the word was used in strong opposition to
the term classical.
The grouping together of the
so-called Lake poets (Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey) with Scott, Byron,
Keats, and Shelley as the romantic poets is late Victorian, apparently as late
as the middle 1880s. And it should be noted that these poets did not recognize
themselves as "romantic," although they were familiar with the word
and recognized that their practice differed from that of the eighteenth
century.
According
to René Wellek in his essay "The Concept of Romanticism" (Comparative
Literature, Volume I), the widespread application of the word romantic to
these writers was probably owing to Alois Brandl's Coleridge und die
romantische Schule in England (Coleridge and the Romantic School in
England, translated into English in 1887) and to Walter Pater's essay
"Romanticism" in his Appreciations in 1889.
The
reaction to the standard literary practice and critical norms of the eighteenth
century occurred in many areas and in varying degrees. Reason no longer held
the high place it had held in the eighteenth century; its place was taken by
imagination, emotion, and individual sensibility. The eccentric and the
singular took the place of the accepted conventions of the age. A concentration
on the individual and the minute replaced the eighteenth-century insistence on
the universal and the general. Individualism replaced objective subject matter;
probably at no other time has the writer used himself as the subject of his
literary works to such an extent as during the romantic period. Writers tended
to regard themselves as the most interesting subject for literary creation;
interest in urban life was replaced by an interest in nature, particularly in
untamed nature and in solitude. Classical literature quickly lost the esteem
which poets like Pope had given it. The romantic writers turned back to their
own native traditions. The Medieval and Renaissance periods were ransacked for
new subject matter and for literary genres that had fallen into disuse. The
standard eighteenth-century heroic couplet was replaced by a variety of forms
such as the ballad, the metrical romance, the sonnet, ottava nina, blank verse,
and the Spenserian stanza, all of which were forms that had been neglected since
Renaissance times. The romantic writers responded strongly to the impact of new
forces, particularly the French Revolution and its promise of liberty,
equality, and fraternity. The humanitarianism that had been developing during
the eighteenth century was taken up enthusiastically by the romantic writers.
Wordsworth, the great champion of the spiritual and moral values of physical
nature, tried to show the natural dignity, goodness, and the worth of the
common man.
The
combination of new interests, new attitudes, and fresh forms produced a body of
literature that was strikingly different from the literature of the eighteenth
century, but that is not to say that the eighteenth century had no influence on
the romantic movement. Practically all of the seeds of the new literary crop
had been sown in the preceding century.
The
romantic period includes the work of two generations of writers. The first
generation was born during the thirty and twenty years preceding 1800; the
second generation was born in the last decade of the 1800s. The chief writers
of the first generation were Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, Southey, Blake,
Lamb, and Hazlitt. The essayist Thomas De Quincey, born in 1785, falls between
the two generations.
Keats and
Shelley belong to the second generation, along with Byron, who was older than
they were by a few years. All three were influenced by the work of the writers
of the first generation and, ironically, the careers of all three were cut
short by death so that the writers of the first generation were still on the
literary scene after the writers of the second generation had disappeared. The
major writers of the second romantic generation were primarily poets; they
produced little prose, outside of their letters. Another striking difference
between the two generations is that the writers of the first generation, with
the exception of Blake, all gained literary reputations during their lifetime.
Of the writers of the second generation, only Byron enjoyed fame while he was
alive, more fame than any of the other romantic writers, with perhaps the
exception of Scott, but Keats and Shelley had relatively few readers while they
were alive. It was not until the Victorian era that Keats and Shelley became
recognized as major romantic poets.
Characteristics
of Romantic Literature and Age
Rebellion
These
Romantics weren't ones to go along with the crowd. They passionately believed
in individuality and being true to oneself; hence the business about breaking
convention, above. Romantics celebrated rebellion. Walt Whitman saw himself as
rebelling against old traditions, creating a bold, new, specifically American
style of poetry. His poems celebrate the individual self above everything - his
most famous poem is called Song of Myself. We also see the theme of
rebellion in British Romantic Mary Shelley's famous novel, Frankenstein. In
it, Dr. Frankenstein's monstrous creation rebels against his master but is
still presented as a sympathetic character to the reader.
Nature
The Romantics
had a huge crush on nature. These guys (and sometimes gals) loved trees,
flowers, mountains, clouds, crags, birds…you name it. As long as it was
outdoors, they loved it.In nature, the Romantics found inspiration for their
poetry, wisdom, and straight-up happiness. If we went to the Romantics with a
diagnosis of depression, they'd tell us: "Forget meds; take a walk in the
park. Hug a tree. Talk to a bird. All you need is a little green."
Part of the
Romantics' obsession with nature had to do with the fact that they were living
and writing at the time of the Industrial Revolution. In the big cities, there
were factories springing up everywhere, and mechanized manufacturing processes
were changing society. People were moving further and further away from
nature.So the Romantics took it upon themselves to remind everyone of the
importance of nature. And how.
Heroism
Don Juan,
Prometheus, Frankenstein's monster: these are all heroes who were made famous
by the Romantics. The Romantics were great at creating larger-than-life,
unforgettable heroes. And that's because these poets (and novelists) were all
about telling the stories of people who rebelled, who fought for their ideals,
or who were just plainamazing lovers
(ahem). They loved to write about characters who stood out from the crowd.They
were so good at it in fact, that their particular brand of hero gets called the
"Romantic hero" or "Byronic hero" (after Lord Byron). Not
too shabby.
Emotion
Boy were
the Romantics a sentimental lot. A flower could move them to tears. An old
Greek urn could set them brooding for hours. These writers were flat out
obsessed with feelings.
In fact, one of the most famous definitions of poetry is the one that William
Wordsworth, the father of British Romanticism, gave us. He said that poetry is
the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from
emotion recollected in tranquility" (source).
The
Romantics' obsession with emotions has to do with what they were reacting against. Remember that
Romanticism followed on the heels of the Enlightenment, an intellectual
movement of the 17th and early 18th century that emphasized reason above
emotion, rationality above irrationality. The Romantics didn't agree with the
Enlightenment point of view (duh). rational way.
William Wordsworth as a romantic/nature poet
Wordsworth
was born in the Lake District of northern England, the second of five children of a modestly prosperous estate
manager. He lost his mother when he was 7 and his father when he was 13, upon
which the orphan boys were sent off by guardian uncles to a school at Hawks
head, a village in the heart of the Lake District. At Hawks head Wordsworth
received an excellent education in classics, literature, and mathematics, but the chief advantage to him there
was the chance to indulge in the boyhood pleasures of living and playing in
the outdoors. The natural scenery of the
English lakes could terrify as well as nurture, as Wordsworth would later
testify in the line “I grew up fostered alike by beauty and by fear,” but its
generally benign aspect gave the
growing boy the confidence he articulated in one of his first
important poems, “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey…,” namely,
“that Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.”
Wordsworth
moved on in 1787 to St. John’s College, Cambridge. Repelled by the competitive
pressures there, he elected to idle his way through the university, persuaded
that he “was not for that hour, nor for that place.” The most important thing
he did in his college years was to devote his summer vacation in 1790 to a long
walking tour through revolutionary France. There he was caught up in the passionate
enthusiasm that followed the fall of the Bastille, and became an ardent republican sympathizer. Upon
taking his Cambridge degree—an undistinguished “pass”—he returned in 1791 to
France, where he formed a passionate attachment to a Frenchwoman, Annette Villon.
But before their child was born in December 1792, Wordsworth had to return to
England and was cut off there by the outbreak of war between England and
France. He was not to see his daughter Caroline until she was nine.
Characteristics of Wordsworth’s Poetry
THE SPLENDOR OF
CHILDHOOD
In
Wordsworth’s poetry, childhood is a magical, magnificent time of innocence.
Children form an intense bond with nature, so much so that they appear to be a
part of the natural world, rather than a part of the human, social world. Their
relationship to nature is passionate and extreme: children feel joy at seeing a
rainbow but great terror at seeing desolation or decay. In 1799, Wordsworth wrote several poems about a girl
named Lucy who died at a young age. These poems, including “She dwelt among the
untrodden ways” (1800) and
“Strange fits of passion have I known” (1800), praise her beauty and lament her untimely death.
In death, Lucy retains the innocence and splendor of childhood, unlike the
children who grow up, lose their connection to nature, and lead unfulfilling
lives. The speaker in “Ode: Intimations of Immortality” believes that children
delight in nature because they have access to a divine, immortal world. As
children age and reach maturity, they lose this connection but gain an ability
to feel emotions, both good and bad. Through the power of the human mind,
particularly memory, adults can recollect the devoted connection to nature of
their youth.
THE POWER OF THE HUMAN MIND
Wordsworth praised the power of the human
mind. Using memory and imagination, individuals could overcome difficulty and
pain. For instance, the speaker in “Lines
Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” (1798) relieves his loneliness with memories of
nature, while the leech gatherer in “Resolution and Independence” (1807) perseveres cheerfully in the face of poverty
by the exertion of his own will. The transformative powers of the mind are
available to all, regardless of an individual’s class or background. This
democratic view emphasizes individuality and uniqueness. Throughout his work,
Wordsworth showed strong support for the political, religious, and artistic
rights of the individual, including the power of his or her mind. In the 1802 preface to Lyrical Ballads,
Wordsworth explained the relationship between the mind and poetry. Poetry is
“emotion recollected in tranquility”—that is, the mind transforms the raw
emotion of experience into poetry capable of giving pleasure. Later poems, such
as “Ode: Intimations of Immortality” (1807), imagine nature as the source of the inspiring
material that nourishes the active, creative mind.
THE BENEFICIAL INFLUENCE OF
NATURE
Throughout Wordsworth’s work, nature provides the ultimate good
influence on the human mind. All manifestations of the natural world—from the
highest mountain to the simplest flower—elicit noble, elevated thoughts and
passionate emotions in the people who observe these manifestations. Wordsworth
repeatedly emphasizes the importance of nature to an individual’s intellectual
and spiritual development. A good relationship with nature helps individuals
connect to both the spiritual and the social worlds. As Wordsworth explains
in The Prelude, a love of nature can lead to a love of
humankind. In such poems as “The World Is Too Much with Us” (1807) and “London, 1802” (1807) people become selfish and immoral when they
distance themselves from nature by living in cities. Humanity’s innate empathy
and nobility of spirit becomes corrupted by artificial social conventions as
well as by the squalor of city life. In contrast, people who spend a lot of
time in nature, such as laborers and farmers, retain the purity and nobility of
their souls.
No comments:
Post a Comment