English 241: British Writers – November 8-12, 1998 – Week 13

The Romantic Period

Background

• French Revolution
• Shift from agriculture to manufacturing
• Two nations – large owner and wage worker

Romantics -- Information taken from pages 1261-1277 in the Norton Anthology of English Literature: Major Authors

• Term applied a half century later
• Refer briefly to American romanticism

• Concept of Poetry and the Poet

• Overflow of feelings – Wordsworth – source of the poem is not the outer world but the individual poet. Materials of the poem begin with the inner feelings of the poet; even external objects are first transformed by the author's feelings.
• Summary of the shift: outer to inner (18^th century); inner to outer (19^th century). Any problems with this shift. Is it accurate? Can people think differently?
• Spontaneity
• Act of composition should be spontaneous
• Keats: "if poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all"
• Nature poetry
• Commonplace
• Subject matter
• Word choice
• Supernatural

Approaches to Art as described in M.H. Abrams The Mirror and the Lamp

Mimetic Theory: Art as an imitation of the universe (mirror)

Pragmatic Theory: Aimed toward audience -- art has a purpose; it teaches and delights.

Expressive Theory: Focus upon the artist.  Art is the internal made external.  Objects are not equivalents of objects in external world -- they are projected equivalents of the writer's state of mind.   The writer must be true not to the object but to his or her human emotion.

Objective Theory: Looks at work in isolation -- art for art's sake.

The Tyger

• Number one on the list of the top 500 English poems anthologized.
• Think of the manner in which poet characterizes the Tyger.
• Contrast tigers and lambs.
• What does this poem say about the nature of God's creation?
• How might the Tyger represent the creative process?

London

• Connotations of the words are very important.
• Repetition of words is important
• Blames the Church and Government
• Children presented as victims of both the Church and their own families (last stanza).  The sins of the parents fall upon the children.
• Point of view is important -- Blake's perspective is at street level.

Lines Composed upon Westminster Bridge

• Completely different view of London than in Blake's poem
• Contrasting two poems reveals the importance of point of view.
• Note how Wordsworth uses a lot of nature imagery to characterize the city: "beauty of the morning," "fields," "sky,""sun,""valley, rock or hill,""river."

Eve of St. Agnes -- Class time will be devoted to a close reading of this poem.

• A poem of contrasts:
• cold/heat
• silence/music
• dream/reality
• religion/eroticism
• old age/youth
• Imagery is important throughout -- Observe how the first stanza emphasizes the cold weather.
• Four characters:
• Beadsman
• Angela - the old beldame
• Madeline - virgin who hopes to see a vision of her future husband
• Porphyro - lover of Madeline

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