B British Romanticism / Victorian Literature I

Question 1

British Romaticism
infos

Answer 1

14th century: old vernacular language of France
14th century: verse narratives about knights, heores (written in the vernacular instead of in Latin)
17th/18th century: narrative about heroic deeds (roman)
18th century: Friedrich von Schlegel defindes a new kind of poetry which would replace the older, classical concepts (“romatisch”)
19th century: critics in England began to relate the notion of “romantisch” (romantic) to English poets who had written from the end of the 18th century to about the 1830s

Question 2

British Romanticism
basics

Answer 2

• 1780s-1830s
• counter movement to Enlightenment (aufklärung -> Verstands Bewusstsein)
• against neo-classical tradition / 18th century poery (writing good/new poetry not in regard to what was written before)
• political context: French Revolution (abolishing monarchy)
• relationship/link between the individual and nature
• sublime nature
• methapor for human nature
• individual striving for new knowledge, insights about the self and the essence of being (coming to these insights by writing poetry)

Question 3

British Romanticismn
the Big Six

Answer 3

• William Blake
• William Wordsworth
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge
  => Main representatives of the ‘first generation’ of Romantic poets
• George Gordon Lord Byron
• Percy Bysshe Shelly
• John Keats
  => main representatives of the ‘second generation’ of romatic poets

Question 4

British Romanticism
first generation of poets

Answer 4

• William Wordsworth & Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote lyrical ballads together (preface)

Question 5

Preface to Lyrical Ballads
william Wordsworth
charcteristic of good poetry

Answer 5

“For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: and though this be true, Poems to which any value can be attached were never produced on any variety of subjects but by a man who, being possessed of more than usual organic sensibility, had also thought long and deeply.”

-> intense feelings “recollected in tranquility”

Question 6

I wandered Lonely as a Cloud
WIlliam Wordsworth
plot

Answer 6

The speaker begins by describing how he once wandered alone, feeling as lonely as a cloud drifting through the sky. While walking near a lake, he unexpectedly comes across a field of golden daffodils, dancing in the breeze along the shore. The daffodils appear to stretch endlessly and seem to move in harmony with the waves of the lake, though the flowers appear even more joyful.

The sight fills the speaker with wonder and happiness, even if he doesn’t fully appreciate it in the moment. Later, when he is alone or feeling low, the memory of the daffodils returns to him, bringing comfort and joy. This recollection “fills his heart with pleasure” and reminds him of the beauty and peace found in nature.

Question 7

I wandered Lonely as a Cloud
info

Answer 7

-> overflow of emotions
- - nature as teacher (moral force)
- natrue as spiritual force and source of inspiration
-> can have an uplifting effect when the individual is depressed
-> can help the individual come to terms with metaphysical questions
-> can inspire poetic creativity (metapoetical elements of the poem, prominence of the lyrical I)

Question 8

I wandered lonely as a cloud
poetic steps in the poem

Answer 8

• simple and common language (describes what he sees)
• ordinary life (could occur in everyday nature)
• emotions and spontaneity (emotions, how it makes him feel)
• imagination and creativity (expresses how he feels through poetry)
• poetry as a reflection of a poet’s mind
• unity of a poem with nature

Question 9

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Answer 9

• 1772-1834
• his poems are not finished
• interested in psychology
  -> extreme states of mind, eg. in nightmares
• strong focus in the individual
• ‘The dark side of romanticism’: The Gothic

Question 10

Christabel (narrative poem)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
plot

Answer 10

Christabel wanders into the woods at night to pray and meets Geraldine, a mysterious woman who claims to have escaped abductors. Christabel brings her back to her father’s castle. Once inside, Geraldine begins to show strange and possibly supernatural behavior. In Christabel’s room, she casts a mysterious spell over her.

The next day, Geraldine charms Christabel’s father, Sir Leoline, while Christabel feels increasingly disturbed. She tries to speak out but is silenced by Geraldine’s influence. The poem ends abruptly, unresolved, with Geraldine’s true nature still unclear.

Question 11

Christabel (narrative poem)
infos

Answer 11

• situations which evoke extreme emotions (terror, horror)
• loss of control (reign of the physical, instinctive instead of the rational) and the crossing of established boundaries
• (taboo) subjects: death, decay, fear, sexuakity, power, …
  -> typical features: sublime nature, darkness, night, castles/monasteries, dungeons, supernatural occurrences, fainting heorines, femmes fatales

Question 12

William Blake
London

Answer 12

• differences from Wordsworth and Coleridge
• 1757-1827

London:
- exploitation of a city and the people
- focus of the observing individual but in a very different enviroment
- images drae attention to social problems and negative aspects of human nature
- political “message”
- strong idea of imagination
-> used to convey certain messages

Question 13

London
William Blake
plot

Answer 13

In “London”, the speaker walks through the streets of the city and describes a bleak and oppressive atmosphere. He hears sounds of suffering everywhere — the cries of children, the sighs of the poor, and the despair of soldiers and prostitutes. The poem emphasizes how institutions like the Church, the monarchy, and industrial society contribute to widespread misery. Blake portrays London as a place of emotional, spiritual, and physical confinement, where even natural human feelings are “chartered” (controlled or restricted).

Question 14

To Autumn
John Keats

Answer 14

• 1795-1821
• features of second generation romantic poetry

To Autmn:
- effacement of the individual (“you”/ apostophe instead of focus on lyrical I)
- direct recreation of sensory impressions from nature for the reader ( use of sound effects like alliteration)
- no apparent mediation, explanation of interpretation in the poem

Question 15

To Autumn
plot

Answer 15

To Autumn is a three-stanza ode in which the speaker reflects on the beauty and richness of the autumn season.

In the first stanza, autumn is described as a season of ripeness and abundance—fruit is swelling, crops are ready for harvest, and nature is full of life.

In the second stanza, the speaker personifies autumn as a calm, graceful figure seen resting in fields, watching apples ripen, or working alongside the harvest.

In the third stanza, the poem shifts focus to the sounds of autumn—the soft music of gnats, lambs, crickets, and birds—suggesting a gentle fading of the year and the approach of winter.

Question 16

John Keats
View on poetry/the poet

Answer 16

• poetry should not try to find explanations, solutions for everything (Negative Capability)
• the poet should habe no self: i.e. he should be able to absorb everything around him, be it good or evil, light or dark, foul or fair: he should be able to feel into the essence of the other persons, and things in nature (-> the camelion poet)

Question 17

British Romanticism
summary

Answer 17

first gen:
- focus on the individual, their subjective preception and emotional development
- importance of nature as spiritual, moral and creative force affecting the individual

second gen:
- effacement of the self in poetry/focus on seemingly unmediated impressions
- wider range of topics

-> potential political implications can be found in both generations

Question 18

The Victorian Age
infos

Answer 18

• Queen Victoria’s reign 1837-1901

some key issues of the Victorian age:
- the role of women (from the ‘angle in the house’ to the ‘New Woman’)
- industrialisation, growing class divisions and struggles for political participation
- growth of the British Empire
- new technologies and changing preception of the world (e.g. railway, photography, telegraphs)
- fear of ‘degeneration’ especially towards the end of the 19th century
-> changing attitiudes towards gender roles and sexuality, inlcuding the emergence of the ‘new woman’
-> the gothic literature of the late 19th century, such as Bram Stokers “Dracula”, often explored themes of degeneration, duality and the dark side of human nature

Question 19

Victorian Literature

Answer 19

• stands fpr the values of the Victorian society
• main genre: the novel
• reading audience: predominantly middle class
  -> working class didn’t have time nor money for novels
  -> upper class felt like this was somthing beneath them
• theatre often rejected as ‘popular entertainment’ (not seen as literature; theatre as a inferior form of literature compared to poetry or novels)
• > cf. also the Romantics ‘anti-theatrcial prejudice’ (theatre is not interesting from a literary perspective, rather from a social one

Question 20

Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë
plot

Answer 20

The novel begins when Mr. Lockwood, a tenant at Thrushcross Grange, visits his landlord Heathcliff at a nearby estate called Wuthering Heights. Intrigued by the strange and gloomy household, Lockwood asks his housekeeper, Nelly Dean, to tell him its history.

Nelly narrates the tragic story of Heathcliff, an orphan taken in by Mr. Earnshaw. Heathcliff grows close to Earnshaw’s daughter, Catherine, but is mistreated by her brother, Hindley, after Mr. Earnshaw dies. Catherine loves Heathcliff deeply but chooses to marry Edgar Linton, a refined neighbor, for social status. Heartbroken, Heathcliff leaves and later returns wealthy, seeking revenge on everyone who wronged him.

Heathcliff manipulates and ruins the lives of the next generation—Catherine’s daughter Cathy, Hindley’s son Hareton, and Edgar’s nephew Linton—in a cycle of cruelty and bitterness. Over time, however, Cathy and Hareton form a bond, offering hope and healing.

The novel ends with Heathcliff dying, seemingly reunited with Catherine in death, and the younger generation preparing to move forward in peace.

Question 21

Wuthering Heights as a Victorian Novel

Answer 21

• complex plot structure: diametrical opposition of the two houses Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grnage and the families associated with them
• plot spans two generations of these families
  -> readers are encouraged to looks for correspondences between the different characters
  -> encourages active reader involvement (readers have to thiink along while reading the novel)

Question 22

Wuthering Heights as a Victorian Novel
Realism

Answer 22

• use of regional dialect for local colour (Joseph)
• highly complex narratives structure:
  -> firs-person narrator Mr Lockwood reports the first-person narrative of the servant Mrs Dean (he is an outsider, she knows the other characters personally)
  -> additional ‘quotatioon’ of embedded texts like Chatherine’s diary
• creates authenticity, sometimes play with narrative unreliability

Relism connected with neo-Gothic elements
- traditional Gothic devicces (like ghosts, remote castles as setting, complex villians, sublime nature) are modified and/or given new meaning
- can be used to reflect cultural ancietes of the time

Question 23

Wuthering Heights
What is the role of Mr Lockwood in the excerpt?

Answer 23

• outer narrator, who tells the story through his journal based on that he observes and what he learns from Nelly Dean, the inner narrator
• as a newcomer to the area, he offers a neutral, outsider viewpoint because he doesn’t have pre-knowledge