Historial Background
Second half of the 18th century (1750-1800)
French Revolution (1789)
British colonies (1776)
Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme and Declaration of the Rights of Man
man are born free and equal
Slave trades abolished for British colonies in 1807 and slavery in 1833
but through slave trade England became rich
money was used by enterpreneurs to develop new mechanical contraptions -> contributed to Industrial Revolution
urban growth and social problems caused by unemployment, very low wages
diseases related to poor hygiene and starvation -> high level of mortality
escapism through drunkenness and prostitution
situation demanded for social reforms
continental Europe: workers’ uprisings -> peoples’ revolutions in 1848
England quiter for many reasons; one = Methodism
only violent movement: the one of the Luddites (dispossed craftsmen and textile workers because of breaking machinery)
Poor Laws whose main effects were to keep vagants (Landstreicher) from the roads (they got into workhouses)
middle 19th century: writers reflected social injustices
i. e. Charles Dickens, Benjamin Disreali, Elizabteh Gaskell, Charles Kingsley
extended, cause: working-class movement called “Chartism”
Charter of six demands: as voting for all men, every year, by ballot
died around 1848, 1914 five demands were granted
Great Famine 1846-48, consequence of potato blight
would not have happened without colonial structure
every corn that was produced belonged to English landlords
no humanitarian aid, despite Act of Union (1800)
population fell to half of its former in half a century
pure hatred (Hass/ Abscheu) of the English
Romanticism: General Introduction
started in England/Scotland and spread over Europe
mainly lyrical poetry and Gothic and historical novels
in England: second great period for lyrical poetry after Elizabethan period
word was not used until 1840s
refered then to characteristic features in the works of this time
= they did not think about themselfes as a school or group
“Romantic”: in 18th century wildly fantastic or picturesque
emphasis on originality and creative imagination
authors needed to be “inspired geniuses” -> break between ordinary humans and authors
emotions and sensibility instead of rationalism
themes: nature and wild landscapes, medieval elements
taste for marvellous (wunderbare) and sinister (unheimliche) explains Gothic elements
writers create popular tradition that fuels sense of national identity
turn to Greek origins of European civilisation
rebellion against prevailling (vorherrschend) order; associated with social protests
these features developed over time and are already introduced in previous periods
Romantic Poetry
published together Lyrical Ballads
his inspiration: wild nature of his native Lake District and his revolutionary enthusiasm
had an affair with a french woman, with one son, didn’t saw them due to French Revolution
showed wonder in everyday events
poem: “Daffodil” (Narizisse)
His definition of Poetry:
‘poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotions recollected in tranquillity’ (tranquillity=calm)
best known poems between 1797 - 1799, all supernatural romances marked by magical imagination
philosophical biography Biographia Literaria he distinguished between Fancy and Imaginstion
Fancy= mode of memory emancipated from time and space
Imaginstion = ‘the living power and prime agent of all human perception,
and . . . a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM’
Robert Southy
wrote one play with Coleridge
intended to set up community based on communistic values in Psennsylvania
fascination for Greece: ancient civilisstion and nation that was fighting against Ottoman Empire
(Byron went to fight in this fighting)
all left England and headed south
dark beauty, self-conscious immoralism
interest in South during a Grand Tour
epic poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage: first and instant success
rejected all institutions, also monogamy (first wife committed suicide because of that)
most otherworldly of all English Romantic poets
theory of poetry (literary criticism), derived from Plato!
essay: A Defence of Poetry
epic poems and verse dramas
drawn to Greece, Spenser and Milton
famous sonnet “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”
imagination and sensuality
literary criticism:
famous for his equation of Beauty and Truth (“Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty”)
“negative capability”: poet’s and reader’s capacity to receive what is written without questioning
odes: “Ode to a Nightingale”
discussed as novelist, but was also poet
poems are haunted by death
poem “Epitaph on a Tuft-Hunter” mocked snobbery
first book The Poetical Works of Thomas Little (1801)
moralizing poems
Irish Melodies based on folk tunes
writing range from lyric to satire! prose romance to history and biography
known in Europe as Walter Scott, Oritentalisinf narrative poem Lalla Rookh
social commitment on behalf of Irish and Black people
dedication to nature
exacerbation of sensibility
poems that described nature with great accuracy and filled with visionary mysticism
resented the encroachment of capitalism
exam question
main literary characteristics of Romanticism
main representatives
Literary Criticism: young, goldsmith, some novelists like fielding
Shelley: defence of poetry
thomas quincey, charles lamb
romantic prose
classical romantic: brontë sisters, frankenstein, and also sterne
development of poetry:
jacobean was continuation of elizabethan era in poetry at least
metaphysical poetry definition
dissociation of sensibility (other period exam question)
feeling and reason were dissociated
blake and burns
romantic: wordsworth and the others
——
Shakespeare: thinking about him reflection of age, embarrassment under classicism
political writings: women authors!
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