Romantic Poetry （ 1 ） (1798-1832)

[The Lyrical Ballads collaborated by Wordsworth and ColeridgeThe death of Walter Scott]

I. Historical Background

Politically The most important

event is the French Revolution (1789), which at first gave British people great hope for a better future with rights and independence for all men but later brought them despair and nightmare.

I. Historical Background

“Declaration of Rights of Man” (1791-2) ---Thomas Pain

“Inquiry concerning Political Justice” (1793) ---William Godwin

“A Vindication of the Rights of Woman”(1792) ---Mary Wollstonecraft

I. Historical Background

Ideologically

the principle of Ration was giving way to an individualized, free, liberal, imaginative attitude towards life; a tendency to turn or escape from the tumultuous and confusing Here and Now

Economically the great Industrial

Revolution: • continued fast

changes both in the country and in the cities; • many farmhands driven out of land into the

city;• women and children employed as cheap

labor;

I. Historical Background

• new machines set up, rendering many out of work;

• growing disparity between the rich and the poor;

• expansion abroad continued: (America), Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India, the West Indies and other nations

II. Literature

Prose• familiar essays of journals and newspap

ers (Charles Lamb, Lee Hunt, de Quincey)

• literary criticism/reviews as authority (Charles Lamb, Lee Hunt, de Quincey)

• novelists: Jane Austen, the realist Walter Scott, the 1st historical novelist/ ro

mantic poet

Poetry the Age of (Romantic) Poetry; the voice of the agedeveloped from sentimental and gothic literature1. differences between 18th-century and 19thcentury; between Neoclassicism andRomanticism:• reason vs passion• reason vs imagination • commercial vs natural

II. Literature

• industrial vs pastoral

• present vs past

• society vs individual

• order and stability vs freedom

• decorative expression vs simple and spontaneous expression

II. Literature

2. New Poetic Features A. language: simple, everyday life

speech, common vocabulary and accent, dialect (Wordsworth, Blake);

B. form: Lyrics---sonnet, ode Narrative---ballad (instead of

mock epics, romance)

II. Literature

C. subject: Nature

the rural/pastoral

the past/historical

the alien/exotic, oriental

the supernatural/mysterious (dreams or

dream like)

II. Literature

the personal the common/low class the revolutionary/justice the patriotic

D. purpose: lyrical (emotional)

confessional visionary/prophetic

II. Literature

E. Principles /ideas: imagination

“the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, which originates in emotion recollected in tranquility”

Preface by Wordsworth

3. Schools of Romantic Poets:

A. Pre-romantic poets

Robert Burns: Scottish dialect, ballads

William Blake: mysterious, philosophical, visionary

Songs of Innocence Songs of Experience Marriage of Heaven and Hell

B. Lakers/Lake Poets (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, 2 Poet Laureate) radical youth; conservative old

age; long lifeWilliam Wordsworth: Nature, country, poor people, anti-industrialization Lyrical Ballads (Prelude) Nature & country poems

II. Literature

Samuel Coleridge:

mysterious/demonic, dreamy, oriental, visionary

The Rime of Ancient Mariner

“Kubla Khan”

C. Satanic school: rebellious, revolutionary,

romantic, short life George Gordon Byron: r

omantic, revolutionary, satiric, proud, angry,

“Byronic Hero”

Don Duan Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage Manfred

III. Text Study

Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” ( p. 103)

Theme: Through describing a scene of joyful daffodils recollected in memory, the poet hopes to put illustrate his theory of poetic inspiration --- “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, which originates in emotion recollected in tranquility”

III. Text Study

Image: dancing daffodils

“fluttering”, “dancing”, “tossing”, “dance”,

“danced”, “dances” “sprightly”, “glee”, “gay”,

“jocund”, “pleasure”

III. Text Study

Metrical pattern:

a short lyric of 4 sestets (a quatrain-couplet)

of iambic tetrameter lines rhyming

ABABCC

III. Text Study

Structure: 1st stanza occasion 2-3rd stanza happy sensation

at the sight of the dancing flowers

4th stanza happy sensation experienced again

at the memory of the scene

Stanza Summary:

1. The speaker was wandering like a lonely

cloud when he encountered a field of dancing daffodils beside a lake.

2. Stretching endlessly along the shore the

flowers danced happily.

III. Text Study

3. The waves of the lake danced merrily, but the daffodils outdid them in glee, and the poet could only be happy in such a joyful company.

4. Since then, the memory of the happy scene would often come back to refill him with pleasure.

Questions for Next Week:

“The World Is Too Much with Us” p.116-7 1. What is the theme, i.e. the meaning, of t

he first line? 2. What romantic ideas does it advocate? 3. What type of sonnet form it is? 4. What romantic spirit does it represent? 5. Paraphrase the poem in your own words.

“Ode on a Grecian Urn” p. 109-1101.What is the theme of the poem?2.What is the rhyme scheme?3.What romantic feature does the poem

reflect?4.Summarize each stanza in one or two

sentences.“The Tiger” p.1151. What is it about?

Questions for Next Week:

“The Tiger” p.115

1. What is it about?