M. Swedenborg
Date: 2015-10-07; view: 476.
1798 - 1832
the date is believed to be 1) the death of Walter Scott (poet &writer)
the beginning of romanticism 2) the 1st Reform Bill (issued by the British
“Lyrical ballads”Parliament which shows the changing
W. Wordsworthpriorities, a different set of interest)
S.T. Coleridge(later -> Victorian Era)
Predecessors of romanticism:
- ‘Elegy written in a country churchyard' T. Gray (the mood of melancholy; the speaker is lost in his feelings)
- James Macpherson “Poems of Ossion' ( a Scottish bard; moors, nostalgia, melancholy)
- Sentimental novel
- Gothic fiction
The term ‘romanticism' (at the end of XIX)
– name didn't appear while this époque last but when it was just finished
- primacy of emotions, feelings, sentiments
*Reaction to Age of Reason à not violent nor rebellious; gradual revolution; not as in Poland
*A. Popeà an idol for many romantic poets
KEY CONCEPTS FOR ROMANTICISM
1) feeling
2) individuality
(àa philosophical doctrine promoting rights of a human being)
Romantics had different attitude to art and the form of poems
3) different concept of nature
Pope:
- nature is mechanistic, static
- nature is the perfect organism, a clock, everything fits, a stable system, the role of a human being is to find the right place and stay there
~ people do not interfere into nature; they do not introduce anything new
~ nature is a sufficient organism; people are a part of it
~ the image of nature: it's not perfect or controlled; it's the mirror of human soul
* individuality- consciousness of being individual (what differs us from animals)
* letters, autobiographies, confessions, thoughts
* many works that can't be classified to a special type (sonnet, poem)
* for the romantics rules doesn't matter
* vision, spontaneity, feeling, emotions
* nature is static, mechanistic, a person has to find a place while a whole nature create one “machine”, sufficient organism
* leave nature to its own devices
SPECIFIC KIND OF A CHARACTER /HERO
à BYRONIC/ROMANTIC HERO
(Giaur) (comes from Germanic literature <Werther> prototype of rom. hero)
*leads life of comfort and ease
intelligent charming lack of motivation, no specific priorities and desires
to be happy but is not
- unhappy love
- intellectual mood
- desperate thinking
- nostalgia
Wertherà no compromises with facing obstacles; he'll never adjust; capitulation (often suicide in
the end)
à desperate, incessant and undirected journeyingà looking for the sense of life
à he cannot live in reality and cannot change
WYKŁAD 2
Most poets- men (women were active rather in poetry)
WILLIAM BLAKE
*individual of individuals
*1757-1827
* pre-romantic or 1st of the 1st romantics
* a poet, an engraver (a painter)
* a mystic and visionary
MYSTICISM
*an experience of visions (religious mostly) which connect us with the great world beyond life
(intuition, illuminations)
* the doctrine (divine intuition)
Mystics:
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