Romanticism

Question 1

Romaticism time

Answer 1

Approximately 1785-1850

Question 2

Romanticism Characteristics

Answer 2

• Turn away from Enlightenment’s focus on rationality and classicist aesthetics
• Interest in the unusual and irregular
• Emphasis on emotions, the irrational, the uncanny
• Focus on the individual and its experience
• Belief in special ‘prophet-like’ nature of poet
• Nature becomes a central idea

Question 3

Romanticism Europe

Answer 3

Pan-European (e.g. Sturm und Drang)

Question 4

Historical Background Romanticism

Answer 4

The French Revolution
• Storm of the Bastille
• Reign of Terror
• Napoleonic Wars

—> highlighted the Power of the masses
—> demonstrated the potential for mass change in society

Question 5

Industrial Revolution

Answer 5

• Change mostly agricultural society to industrial society
• New poor working class
• Luddites à rebellion against mechanical looms (capital punishment for destroying one)
• Peterloo Massacre (1819)àShelley, “England in 1819”

• introduced new technologies to industries(including literature)
• made literature more accessible to lower classes
• poor working conditions led to feelings of discontent in society (reflected in the literature of the time)

Question 6

The Beautiful

Answer 6

• well-formed and aesthetically pleasing
• love
• harmony, smoothness, delicacy
• calmness
• Neo-classical

Question 7

The Sublime

Answer 7

• has the power to compel and destroy
• fear
• vastness, infinity, magnificence
• tension
• Romantic

Question 8

The Picturesque

Answer 8

• “like a picture”
• Rustic
• Variety of landscape and colours
• Appreciation of ‘untouched’ nature

Question 9

Romantic poets first-generation (names)

Answer 9

• William Blake
• William Wordsworth
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Question 10

Romantic poets second-generation (names)

Answer 10

• John Keats
• George Gordon Byron
• Percy Bysshe Shelley

Question 11

Romantic poets First Generation

Answer 11

• Influenced by French Revolution
• Sympathies with revolutionary ideas, but later disillusionment
• Turn to nature
• Interest in folk poetry and songs
(Wordsworth/Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads)
• Lake Poets (àLake District; Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey)

Question 12

Romanticism poets Second Generation

Answer 12

• Felt that the First Generation had ‘sold out’
• Anti-establishment
• Not conforming to society’s rules
• ‘Immoral’ and excessive lifestyle
• Interest in ‘darker’ topics (Gothic)

Question 13

William Blake

Answer 13

• Poet, painter, visionary and printmaker

Major Works:

• Illustrations (engravings):

• Illuminated Books:
- Milton
- Songs of Innocence and Experience

• Visionary Texts
- The Marriage of Heaven and He’ll
- The Book of Urizen

Question 14

Blake, Songs of Innocence and Experience

Answer 14

• Combination of text and illustrations
• Songs of Innocence: 19 poems; Songs of Experience: 26 poems
• Simple lyrical form
• Harsh criticism of child labour, slavery, oppression, negative influence of the Church
• Dark themes

Question 15

William Wordsworth

Answer 15

• Born in the Lake District —> Lake Poets (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey)
• Initial admiration of the French Revolution; increasingly apolitical —> nature as healing force; source poetry; strong connection between poet and nature

• Major works:
- The Prelude
- Lyrical Ballads (together with Coleridge)
• Poems in two Volumes “
- ”I Wandered lonely as a Cloud” (“Daffodils”)
- “Composed upon Westminster Bridge,1802”
- “Ode to Immortality”

Question 16

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Answer 16

• Strong interest in philosophy and utopian ideas (Pantisocracy; together with Robert Southey)
• Introspection, dreams (—> opium abuse)

• Major works:
- “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
- “Frost at Midnight”
- “Kubla Khan”
- “Christabel”

Question 17

Lyrical ballads

Answer 17

• Most poems by Wordsworth, only four by Coleridge
• Preface —> manifesto of Romantic poetry

Question 18

Neoclassical poetry

Answer 18

• Poetic diction; different from everyday speech

• Elevated and intellectual subject matter
• Depiction of allegorical figures, deities, etc.
• Focus on order, moderation and rationality
• Focus on form (heroic couplet)

Question 19

Preface to Lyrical Ballads (W. +C.)

Answer 19

• write like real people spoke
• write about everyday subject matter (—> depiction of children, farmers, poor people, mad people, etc.)
• Focus on feelings and emotions
• Freer form

Question 20

Preface to Lyrical Ballads: What is a poet?

Answer 20

• sensible
• enthusiasm and tenderness
• greater knowledge of human nature
• comprehensive soul
• rejoices in the spirit of life
• ability of conjuring up in himself passions

Question 21

Lyrical ballads: How is poetry created?

Answer 21

• “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”
• “emotions recollected in tranquility”
• initial subject/emotion is recreated in poet’s mind
• “a state of enjoyment”
• reader experiences a “complex feeling of delight”

Question 22

Romantic poets: Second Generation

Answer 22

• Felt that the First Generation had ‘sold out’
• Anti-establishment
• Not conforming to society’s rules
• ‘Immoral’ and excessive lifestyle
• Interest in ‘darker’ topics (Gothic)

Question 23

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Answer 23

• Husband of Mary Godwin Shelley
• Son-in-law of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft
• Unconventional and scandalous private life
• Close friendship with Byron
• Drowns
• Political/politically inspired writing —>Masque of Anarchy, The Revolt of Islam

Works:

• Prometheus Unbound (lyrical drama)
• Defence of Poetry (essay)
• Adonais (elegy for Keats)
• Ozymandias

Question 24

Ozymandias

Answer 24

• Sonnet; rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCE EFEF
• Ozymandias: variation of the Greek throne name of Ramesses II

Question 25

John Keats

Answer 25

• Humble background • Apprentice to an apothecary, studies medicine • Championed by Leigh Hunt ("Cockney School") • Dies of tuberculosis • Major works: • Poems • Endymion • **"Ode on a Grecian Urn"** • "Ode to a Nightingale" • "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" • "On Autumn" • Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems

Question 26

Negative Capability

Answer 26

when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason

Question 27

“Ode to a Grecian Urn”

Answer 27

• Form: 5 stanzas; quartet (abab) + sestet; iambic pentameter • Ekphrasis • Themes: Past/Time/Eternity, Art, Desire/Fulfilment

Question 28

George Gordon Byron

Answer 28

• Close friendship with the Shelley’s • Father of Ada Lovelace • Scandalous life style

Question 29

Caroline Lamb

Answer 29

“Mad, bad and dangerous to know.” (Caroline Lamb on Byron)

Question 30

Byron’s Death

Answer 30

• War of Greek Independence against the Ottoman Empire • Financial support for the cause • Died of violent fever in Missolonghi • 'Byron' still a popular name in Greece • Town of Vyronas named after him

Question 31

Romantic Poetry

Answer 31

• Use of everday speech for the period • About the common siutations and incidents in everyday life • Depiction of the lives of real people, e.g. children, farmers, etc. • Focus on feelings and internal passions • Freer form

Question 32

Second Poets Generation namens

Answer 32

• John Keats • George Gordon • Byron Percy Bysshe Shelley