English Literature: Pre-Romanticism, Romantic Age, William Blake, Oscar Wilde

Pre-Romanticism: The Age of Transitions

Age of Revolutions: 1760 - 1789

Age of revolutions: 1760 - 1789 -> historical background

New king > George III - with him 3 main revolutions took place:

• American war of Independence (lost 13 colonies), French Revolution, Industrial Revolution

Industrial Society

Industrial society:

• Mushroom towns: small towns built near the factories - built for the workers
• People moved from the countryside to the city > but there wasn't enough space
• Problems: lack of hygiene, lack of public services, very polluted and crowded

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This is why they started to have feelings of fantasy and passion > = Romanticism

• Working conditions: the workers had awful working situations
• Low wages (paid poorly), women and children had no rights > paid less and exploited
• Long working hours, the routine was monotonous > also cruel discipline
• Life expectancy: the poor lived < 20 years > diseases, heavy drinking, incessant toil (= fatica)
• They drank to cope with the alienation and the problems of their society

The Romantic Age

Romanticism: New Ideas and Attitudes

Romanticism: period in which new ideas and attitudes arrived in reaction to Enlightenment

• Differences between Romanticism and Enlightenment:

Romanticism
Enlightenment
Imagination and emotions were emphasized
Reason and objectivity were emphasized
Focused on subjective and irrationality
Focused on impersonal material
No: harmony, order, balance, calm, reason
Elevated subjects (not realistic)
Great interest in the relationship with nature
Great interest in science and technology
Rejection of poetic diction > more spontaneous
Poetic diction: periphrasis, words from Latin

• New sensibility > they tend to go VS reason and everything that was dominant in 18th century

Idea of Sublime by Edmund Burke

Idea of Sublime: by Edmund Burke: "A Philosophical Enquiry"

Mist of fear, horror and terror of the infinite, terrible, enormous > it gives a sense of danger

• There is also obscurity and mistery (es: flowers are beautiful - tall oaks are sublime)
• For the beautiful - colors: yellow, green, red - for the sublime: black, brown, purple
• Obscurity, terror, introspection > are element taken from Gothic - used in Gothic Novels

The effect of Sublime > is astonishment - it's the strongest emotion that the mind can feel

• Other than feeling astonishment > lesser effects are reverence and respect
• The person that likes sublimity is more important than the sublime object
• It's the opposite from beautiful: the beautiful object is more important than the perceiver

• Very different from rationality and pragmaticism -> NOT like Robinson Crusoe
• Sublime in nature: people compare themselves with something bigger (nature) > astonished

Þ
Collegamento con arte: Romanticismo e Sublime usati anche nei dipinti (con natura)

Romantics' New Interests

Romantics' new interests

• Humble and everyday life > surrounded by nature - so in the countryside (soul and nature)
• There is a new concept of nature > it's a real and living being (almost like a God)

" It's the source of inspiration and sensations > it's opposed to reason
It's considered an expressive language > natural images are like a language
The poet uses natural images as a mirror > to talk about human feelings and him

• Society (= polluted city) is viewed as a trap > humas are only free when they are in nature

Exaltation of emotion and senses - over reason and intellect

• They liked impulsive and unrestrained behavior

oo There is emphasis on individual: strong subjectivity > individual is seen as a solitary state

• Exaltation of the rebel > the outcast and the atypical > not the reasonable good person
• They started to like the desolated + revival of the past (= Gothic)
• They were fascinated by the irrational, mysterious and exotic
• There was a cult for the exotic > they like what was far away (in space and in time)
• Imagination and childhood were fundamental > they escaped the reality

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Inward eye was superior to reason > eye that looked inside the poet (= feelings)

• Children were considered to be purer > they were untouched by civilization

" They hadn't come in contact with society yet > like Rosseau said
" They used imagination more than adults

• People had to admire childhood more > especially because in their society:

Children were exploited and treated like adults > they would work at young age

• The poet needs to be more like a child > use imagination to write romantic poems

William Blake

William Blake: Poet, Visionary, Engraver

William Blake
Poet, visionary and engraver: 1757 - 1827

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He was a supporter of French Revolution > because he was a political freethinker > radical

• He wanted the abolition of slavery and loved egalitarian principles (= French revolution)

o He was a visionary (like a prophet) > he tried to warn people about evils of society

• He thought that the artists should be the guardian of the spirit and imagination

As an artist he took inspiration from Raphael and Michelangelo (copied men bodies)
He combined text with pictures > illuminated printing

• He went beyond material society > he wanted to imagine a better world

" That's why he hated Industrial Revolution - and its consequences

o He used a lot his imagination > he illustrated many of his poems = illuminated printing

· Imagination (= Divine Vision) is the mean to know the world > beyond materialism

" Only God, the child, and poets share the power of vision (to create things)
They can see more deeply into reality

• He wrote about the reality of London > prostitutes, slavery and poverty as well
• He took inspiration from the Bible

o He had a strong idea that dualism characterized men's life > complimentary opposites

• The possibility of progress is situated in the tension between the opposites

" There is no progress if one gains supremacy over the other

• The two opposites states coexist in humans and in God

o Style: simple structure (language and syntax) with complex symbolism

• Everything was a symbol > also a lamb, tiger, London streets, chimney sweepers
• Child = innocence - Father = experience - Christ = higher innocence

Songs of Innocence (1789)

Song of Innocence (1789)

o Written before the French Revolution happened: it deals with childhood and innocence

• He talks about a child because it's closer to the original state of harmony with nature

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Narrator: a shepherd who receives inspiration from a child > pastoral mode and simple
The world of innocence (childhood) is full of joy and happiness

Songs of Experience (1794)

Song of Experience (1794)

o
Written during the Terror in France > the poems pair the ones in Song of Innocence

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Narrator: a bard who questions the themes in the Song of Innocence

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It's not as simple > more complex and pessimistic > not innocent anymore

• Experience - it's identified in adulthood > you get another point of view from it
• The world of experience (adulthood) is full of cruelty and injustice

The Chimney Sweeper

The Chimney Sweeper:

0
Main theme: the exploitation of children > the difference is shown in the two Songs

O
Key images: the cry "weep" + darkness + Angel > there is irony to criticize the institution

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Symbols: innocence > lamb, happy, dance, sing

Collegamento con scienze: benzopirene si trova nei camini > molti spazzacamini sono morti

Song of Innocence: The Chimney Sweeper

Song of Innocence:
When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry " 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!"
So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head
That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved, so I said,
"Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."

And so he was quiet, & that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping he had such a sight!
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, & Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black;
And by came an Angel who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins & set them all free;
Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing they run,
And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.

Then naked & white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.
And the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father & never want joy.

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark
And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm;
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

Song of Experience: The Chimney Sweeper

Song of Experience:
A little black thing among the snow,
Crying "weep! 'weep!" in notes of woe!
"Where are thy father and mother? say?"
"They are both gone up to the church to pray.
Because I was happy upon the heath,
And smil'd among the winter's snow,
They clothed me in the clothes of death,
And taught me to sing the notes of woe.
And because I am happy and dance and sing,
They think they have done me no injury,
And are gone to praise God and his Priest and King,
Who make up a heaven of our misery."

London

London:

O
Main theme: the causes of man's lack of freedom

O
Key images: "the mind-forg'd manacles" > 3 victims: chimney sweeper, soldier and prostitute

O
Devices: repetitions + metaphors + hyperbole

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Collegamenti con storia e realtà: industrializzazione, guerra e prostituzione

I wander thro' each charter'd street,
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow.
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,
In every Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear

How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls

But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse

William Wordsworth

Wordsworth: First Generation Romantic Poet

William Wordsworth
Poet from the 1° generation of Romantic poets (= Wordsworth and Coleridge) > theorise poetry

0
He was born in the English Lake District (he loved walking) > he's one of the two Lakes poet

o He was famous during his life > he supported the ideas of French Revolution

• Because of war he had to leave France > he had a nervous breakdown, nature helped him
• He started to live with his sister Dorothy > she was his most faithful friend

She copied his poems > and recorded their life in a Journal > we have insights

o He met Samuel Coleridge: they became friends + wrote together the Manifest of Romanticism

• 1798/1800: "Lyrical Ballads" > it contained "Preface" - Manifesto of English Romanticism

He wrote an autobiographical poem > "Growth of a Poet's Mind" - published after his death

O
O
He talked about ordinary life > and used a common language - they had a charm of novelty

O
When he became old > he stopped supporting radical ideas > he became a conservative

O
His relationship with nature: many emotions and sensations arise from the contact with nature

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Men and nature are inseparable > humans are an active participants of nature world

• Nature is a source of joy and pleasure > nature comforts men > pantheistic view
• Nature is intended as sensory perceptions > they lead to simple thoughts, then complex

The Process of Creating Poetry

o The process of creating poetry > memory is essential > it's explained in the Manifesto
1. object -> 2. poet has a sensory experience of the object > 3. he feels an emotion
4.
Recollection in tranquility: when he is in tranquility he thinks about the emotion he felt
5. When he remembers he feels a kindred emotion -> 6. with this he can write the poem
7. The reader when he reads the poem > feels a similar emotion

• Poem is the active relationship of present + past experience, through power of memory

o The poet: he's a man speaking to other men > he has a stronger sensibility

• He's not saying that the poet is superior > but he has a greater sensibility + enthusiasm

The Preface to Lyrical Ballads

The Preface:
A Certain colouring of imagination
The principal object, then, which I
proposed to myself in these poems was
to choose incidents and situations from
common life and to relate or describe
them, throughout, as far as was possible,
in a selection of language really used by
men; and, at the same time, to throw
over them a certain colouring of
imagination, whereby ordinary things
should be presented to the mind in an
unusual way; and, further, and above all,
to make these incidents and situations
interesting by tracing in them, truly
though not ostentatiously, the primary
laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as
regards the manner in which we
associate ideas in a state of excitement.
Low and rustic life was generally chosen,
because in that condition the essential
passions of the heart find a better soil in
which they can attain their maturity, are
less under restraint, and speak a plainer
and more emphatic language; because in
that condition of life our elementary
feelings co-exist in a state of greater
simplicity, and, consequently, may be
more accurately contemplated, and more
forcibly communicated; because the
manners of rural life germinate from
those elementary feelings; and, from the
necessary character of rural occupations,
are more easily comprehended; and are
more durable; and lastly, because in that
condition the passions of men are
incorporated with the beautiful and
permanent forms of nature. The
language, too, of these men is adopted
(purified indeed from what appear to be
its real defects, from all lasting and
rational causes of dislike or disgust)
because such men hourly communicate
with the best objects from which the
best part of language is originally
derived; and because, from their rank in
society and the sameness and narrow
circle of their intercourse, being less
under the influence of social vanity they
convey their feelings and notions in
simple and unelaborated expressions.
Accordingly, such a language, arising out
of repeated experience and regular
feelings, is a more permanent, and a far