Concetti Chiave
- The Industrial Revolution marked a shift from agriculture to industry in Britain, leading to urbanization, pollution, and exploitation of child and female labor.
- A new sensibility emerged in the late 18th century, transitioning from Augustan poetry's impersonal style to Romantic poetry's subjective and emotionally intimate focus.
- Romantic poets valued imagination as a tool to explore truths beyond reason, mediating between humanity and nature while critiquing societal evils.
- Romanticism celebrated the individual in solitude, elevating atypical, outcast, and rebellious figures, challenging societal norms and valuing natural behavior.
- Nature was revered as a divine expression and inspiration source, offering joy and comfort, while poetic techniques moved towards individualism and emotional expression.
In the 19th century there are manly three revolutions:
1. Industrial revolution:
● Starts at the end of 18th century
● Increasing of the population caused by better conditions of life
● Main inventions:
● Steam engine → pumping water out of coal mines
● Loom → cheaper products and growing demand for good
● Starts of industrialisation → pollution
● Switch of Britain from an agricultural country to an industrialised one.
● Start of exploitation of children and women because they could be paid less and were easier to control.
American revolution
New sensibility emerged in the second half of the 18th century.
Augustan poetry:
Subject: impersonal material;
Style: loud and noble eloquence;
Tone: intellectual;
Aim: immediate impact;
View of nature: abstract concept
Early romantic poetry:
Subject: subjective and autobiographical material. Interested in everyday life;
Style: reflective and lyrical eloquence;
Tone: intimately emotional;
Aim: generalised reflection;
View of nature: real and living being
Sublime:
Distinction between beautiful and sublime:
Sublime is a feeling related to the excitement of pain and danger, and it operates like terror. It is something that scares us but at the same time it attracts us to it.
Strongest emotions → pain and terror
Primary role in the process of poetic composition
The poets with imagination could see beyond the rìsurface of reality and with it discover a truth beyond the power of reason.
Recreate and modify the external world of experience
The role of the poet is to:
Mediate between man and nature
Point out the evils of society → giving voice to freedom, beauty and truth
In Augustan poetry, a child was seen only as someone who will grow up and become an adult. Childhood was only a necessary state which led to adulthood.
In romantic poetry a child is seen as purer than an adult because his soul is not corrupted by society and also by the civilisation. His uncorrupted sensitivity makes him closer to God.
In the augustan poetry the individual was seen only in the society, with his relationships with people.
Romantic see individuals in a solitary state.
Exaltation:
The atypical
The outcast
The rebel
Rosseau stated that the convention of civilisation imposed on the individual intolerable restriction, which led his soul to become corrupted and evil. Behaviour controlled by the customs, reasons and rules of the society.
Natural behaviour → uncontrolled and impulsive
Noble savage → romantic concept
→ it may appear primitive but he has got an instinctive knowledge of himself which can be superior than the one acquired by a civilised man.
Veneration of what is far by space and time.
Use of picturesque sceneries and unfamiliar customs and social life.
Expression of God in the universe and it is the main source of inspiration, as a source of joy, thought and comfort.
Breaking free form models and rules
Individual style, search of words and subject.
Familiar words were used the most and replaced difficult words. Symbols and images which at first had a decorative function now become a way to communicate feelings.
In romanticism there are two generations of poets:
I. Wordsworth and Coleridge
- Wordsworth → beauty of nature and ordinary things
- Coleridge → visionary topics, supernatural and mystery
II. Shelley, Byron and Keats → revolutionary spirit
Domande da interrogazione
- Quali sono le principali rivoluzioni del XIX secolo menzionate nel testo?
- Come si differenzia la poesia romantica dalla poesia augustea secondo il testo?
- Qual è il ruolo dell'immaginazione nella poesia romantica?
- Come viene visto il bambino nella poesia romantica rispetto alla poesia augustea?
- Quali sono le caratteristiche della tecnica poetica romantica?
Le principali rivoluzioni del XIX secolo menzionate sono la rivoluzione industriale, la rivoluzione francese e la rivoluzione americana.
La poesia romantica si concentra su materiale soggettivo e autobiografico, con uno stile riflessivo ed eloquente, mentre la poesia augustea si focalizza su materiale impersonale con uno stile eloquente e nobile.
L'immaginazione ha un ruolo primario nel processo di composizione poetica, permettendo ai poeti di vedere oltre la superficie della realtà e scoprire una verità oltre il potere della ragione.
Nella poesia romantica, il bambino è visto come più puro di un adulto, non corrotto dalla società, mentre nella poesia augustea è considerato solo come un futuro adulto.
La tecnica poetica romantica si caratterizza per la rottura con i modelli e le regole, uno stile individuale, l'uso di parole familiari e simboli per comunicare sentimenti.
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