British Romantic Writers
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Transcript of British Romantic Writers
Romanticism – intellectual movement that was a reaction against the Enlightenment
Urged a revival of Christianity/Religion Liked art, music, and literature of
medieval times Used folk tales and medieval art to
solidify nationalism
Remember, 18th century….all about human reason
Romanticism is about emotion
Romantic artists were concerned about themselves Emotions Reactions to their
world Own individuality
Rejected 18th century predecessors’ emphasis on reason
Explored power of dreams and the subconscious
Were fascinated by subjects that science could not explain
New vision of nature
Marveled at the power, majesty, and inevitability of nature.
Natural universe was mysterious world of its own
Believed in “remoteness” of time or place
Inspired by ancient British Druids and medieval knights
Percy and Mary Shelley Samuel Taylor Coleridge – wrote Gothic
poems of the supernatural William Wordsworth – wrote, sometimes with
Coleridge about how humans lose their childlike imagination as they get older
Lord Byron – rebel Romanticist, who wrote about personal liberty and mocked his own beliefs in famous works such as Don Juan (1819)
John Keats
Showed the suffering of their souls
I am the eye which the UniverseBeholds itself and knows itself divine;All harmony of instrument or verse,All prophecy, all medicine is mine,All light of art or nature;_to my sonVictory and praise in its own right
belong“The Hymn of Apollo”
I met a traveller from an antique landWho said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold commandTell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,The lone and level sands stretch far away".
Son of aristocrat Expelled from Oxford
for atheist beliefs Married Mary
Wollstonecraft (named after her mother)
Encouraged his wife, Mary Shelley, to write fiction
Died mysteriously in 1822
Dr. Frankenstein creates monster in his lab
The book is a complex work of nature and science
The plot shows Mary’s concern that science is growing out of control
The story is a Romantic indictment of how science can deform nature.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
Founder of English Romantic movement
Witnessed revolutionary France and was inspired by the political idealism
In the latter part of French Revolution- the Reign of terror, a period of violent conflict between rival political factions, disturbed him.
Withdrew to the English countryside
1799 lived in Lake District (his poetry made it famous)
“Bliss was it, in that dawn to be alive.”
FIVE years have past; five summers, with the length Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a soft inland murmur.--Once againDo I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves 'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms, Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees! With some uncertain notice, as might seem Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire The Hermit sits alone.
And I will dare to tell,But in the lover's ear alone,
What once to me befell.
When she I loved looked every dayFresh as a rose in June,
I to her cottage bent my way,Beneath an evening-moon.
Upon the moon I fixed my eye,All over the wide lea;
With quickening pace my horse drew nighThose paths so dear to me.
And now we reached the orchard-plot;And, as we climbed the hill,
The sinking moon to Lucy's cotCame near, and nearer still.
In one of those sweet dreams I slept,Kind Nature's gentlest boon!
And all the while my eye I keptOn the descending moon.
My horse moved on; hoof after hoofHe raised, and never stopped:
When down behind the cottage roof,At once, the bright moon dropped.
What fond and wayward thoughts will slideInto a Lover's head!
"O mercy!" to myself I cried,"If Lucy hould be dead!"
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
Led an unconventional life Created mysterious and
gloomy heroes in his books Loved Romantic
melodrama Identified with Greek fight
for independence Died in 1824 while training
soldiers in Greece
She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And
all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellow'd
to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies. .
From “She Walks in Beauty”
John Keats (1795-1821)
Eve of Saint Agnes Ode to a
Nightingale Ode to Autumn
Died at the age of 25 from tuberculosis
In drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne'er remember Their green felicity:
The north cannot undo them With a sleety whistle through them;
Nor frozen thawings glue them From budding at the prime.
From “In Drear-nighted December”
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