Romanticism, Victorian age, Modernism, Postmodernism

ROMANTICISM (1780S-1830S)

Romantic movement constitutes the nucleus of the change. It is about how the people perceive

themselves in society. Before Romanticism, poetry was an imitative poetry: then, with these new

ways of writings created by Romanticism, artists finally stop imitating the writers of the past, both in

form and content aspects. Now artist have to develop their own new ideas to literature.

ROMANTIC POETRY

❖ first generation poets: Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth

❖ second generation poets: Byron, Shelley, Keats

ROMANTIC NOVEL

❖ Walter Scott, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley

THE ROMANTIC IMAGINATION

There are 3 events/revolutions that influenced this literary period:

➢ the American Revolution (1765-1783)

➢ the French revolution (1789)

➢ th

the Industrial revolution (the 19 century)

The first 2 revolutions have much to deal with the concept of freedom.

American revolution

The was a revolution made by the colonies of north America. It represents

the first event of independence in the history of the British colonialism, a great movement of

freedom and also a great loss for the power of the British empire.

French revolution

The was based on principles of freedom, equality, fraternity.

Industrial revolution

The is not related with the concept of freedom, but the opposite, so the

concept of exploitation (of women, children, poor people), urbanisation of England.

These 3 revolutions were important for the development of the romanticism for the idea of freedom

and restriction that were fundamental in the shaping in this romantic imagination. There were a new

sensitivity and a renewed standard, so there was a spirit of renovation in contrast with the

conservative ideals of the past

basis

The of romantic imagination is based on:

→ Emotions

→ imagination

→ fantasy

→ everything related to the emotional sphere, rather than to the rational sphere.

Another important element that characterizes the romantic imagination is the focus on literary

Nature.

attention shifts from urban civilization to the contact with Romantic poets needed to

escape from restrictive, exploiting, unhealthy environment of the metropolis, of the cities, of the

urban setting to escape into something that was considered to be healthier, more open, closer to

emotions where there was Nature.

Literature is no more regarded as a metropolitan activity based on social life and relations, but a

solitary occupation in contact with Nature = the idea of man, a person who social with another

person is not appreciated, the importance is given to the single experience and not experience of

people within a group with another people.

Romantic poems are focus on (topics/subjects/issues):

• Not the man of the city BUT the humble peasant, simple and noble by nature (the individual

over society)

• Childhood

• Nature (storm, wind, raging sea…)

• Personal feelings, emotional sphere (emotions over reason)

• Interest in the past => the Middle Ages and ancient literatures

So, romantic poets glance on:

• The world of ordinary people

• The world of the supernatural (dreams, nightmares, folly, use of drugs)

• The exotic (distance in place and time => unknown places and civilizations)

→ Romantic poetry: First generation poets: Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth

WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827)

He is a preromantic poet and represents the link between the Age of Sensibility and Romanticism.

He is active both in poetry and visual arts and he considered imagination the thing through which

man could know the world. Imagination means “to see more, beyond material reality, into life and

things”. The poet became a sort of prophet, visioner who can see more deeply into reality and also

who can put in contact with divinity through imagination.

Exuberance and success became his purposes to pursue.

Blake's two most important works are

The Songs of Innocence

❖ (1789) => it deals with childhood as the symbol of innocence

Songs of Experience

❖ (1794) => it shows a more pessimistic view of life; the themes are the

experience and the adulthood.

→ Romantic poetry: First generation poets: Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850)

He introduced Romanticism in England with Coleridge and they together produced a collection of

Ballads”

poems called “Lyrical (1798) which is the first collection of English romantic poetry.

The second edition of 1800 also contained Wordsworth’s famous Preface, which was to become the

Manifesto of English Romanticism. th

He was against the artificial and elevated language of the 18 century poetry, according to him, the

language should be simple.

Wordsworth says that nature is the teacher of humanity. It presents all sort of events that make you

understand that you don’t live alone, you can’t rely only on yourself, you also have to think about

nature and other human beings that are on the planet.

emotions, tranquillity

His poetry is based on recollected in and there is a re-creative capacity of

memory=> memory is a major force in the process of growth of the poet’s mind and moral

character.

He is a man with a greater sensitivity and knowledge of human nature and his task is to teach people

to improve their feelings.

Topics of his poetry are:

♦ Incidents and situations from common life described in everyday language

♦ Imagination has to present common things as if they were unusual

♦ Nature is good and close to the Divine (peasants are better because they receive their

sensations from nature)

♦ Natural beauty perceived through physical sensitivity (eyes and ears)

♦ There is an Intelligent Presence of the infinite being in Nature

→ Romantic poetry: First generation poets: Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth

SAMUEL COLERIDGE (1772-1834) dreams symbolism,

Coleridge was an opium eater and creates works that are made of and like “The

Rime of the Ancient Mariner” *, in contrast with Wordsworth who dedicates his attention to

nature.

There are two distinct faculties of the mind:

Fancy

 = concerned with the mechanical operations of the mind. It deals with the

accumulation of data given by memory and provides a mechanical combination (association

of ideas)

Imagination

 = mysterious power, vital and transformative. It dissolves and dissipates the

data given by memory and finds hidden ideas and meanings in order to recreate. It generates

and produces forms of its own. We have a distinction between “primary” and “secondary”

imagination:

1. Primary imagination = unconscious perception, innate in the powers of the mind and

common to all people

2. Secondary imagination = superior faculty reserved to the artistic genius; a conscious use of

this perception in order to create (ex. a poem)

*The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner (1834) => a narrative poem of symbolic adventures

characterized by the combination of visual, exotic, factual, magic elements: fire and ice (= desire and

rejection); moonlight (= peace of mind); skeleton of a ship (= death in life); thirst (= the curse for

punishing an act of natural violation, i.e. the killing of an albatross)

Khan”

In “Kubla (1816) => he used sexual images as description of a “sunny pleasure-dome” (=

allegory of artistic creation)

In “Christabel” (1816) there are mysticism and presence of the demonic, both in the moral and

sexual sphere.

→ Romantic poetry: Second generation poets: Byron, Shelley, Keats

GEORGE GORDON BYRON (1788-1824) rebellious.

He represents the symbol and model of the Romantic spirit: handsome, sensitive and

He represents revolt against convention (society, tyranny, injustice).

Harold’s Pilgrimage”

The first work which makes Byron famous was “Childe (1812-1818). He as a

Romantic poet and obviously he couldn’t be indifferent to the beauty of the Nature. The “gothic”

trend emerges very powerfully from his verse tales, irresistible passions and rebellion.

Byronic hero,

Byron wants to create an image of himself which is similar to hero: the a mysterious

man with horrible secret in his past; he never forgives and never repents. His beauty and his power

of fascinating make him irresistible to women. Manfred Beppo: A

In addition to Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812-1818), he wrote also (1817);

Venetian Story Don Juan

(1818); (1820-24)

They have exotic or historical settings where Nature is always present with passion.

→ Romantic poetry: Second generation poets: Byron, Shelley, Keats

JOHN KEATS (1795-1821)

He conceived poetry as something absolute, as the only reason for life. Poetry doesn’t contain a

Beauty

message, but only reproduces what his own imagination suggested to him. is the central

theme; he thinks that the poet’s task lies in search of beauty both in man and in nature.

senses,

Beauty is perceived through the which are the instrument by which man can escape from

the ugliness of reality.

There is the daily experience of pain, death, decadence=> Life is transient, as beauty and youth,

while art and poetry are permanent.

→ Romantic poetry: Second generation poets: Byron, Shelley, Keats

P.B. SHELLEY (1792-1822)

He is considered a rebel with revolutionary and anarchical ideas; he refused social conventions,

customs and traditions. Necessity of Atheism”

He wrote a pamphlet on “The (1811) and was expelled from Oxford.

freedom love,

Shelley believed in the principles of and which he regarded as remedies for the

faults and evils of society.

His lyrical poetry is characterized by remorseless quest. He was a visionary skeptic who found he

could not reconcile heart and head.

→ The romantic novel: Walter Scott, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley

WALTER SCOTT (1771-1832) historical novel

He is a Scottish writer. He uses the to express the need to find a national identity.

The reconstruction of the past mixes up history with fiction, romance, strong passions (revenge,

remorse).

He uses folklore, superstition and legends; and a dialect to give the flavour of popular speech.

Walter loves nature (especially wild and isolated places).

He is an unusual romantic writer:

 he never wrote about himself and his feelings and his characters are no projection of himself

 he uses in his novels supernatural elements but he constantly suggests that there must be a

rational explanation for them

The writer’s historical novels are:

Waverly

❖ (1814)

Ivanhoe

❖ (1819)

→ The romantic novel: Walter Scott, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley

JANE AUSTEN (1775-1817)

Jane Austen belongs to the last generation of Romantic writers but she is totally anti-romantic.

She reflects in her novels the English country society she lived in. Her novels deal with ordinary life of

middle-class or rural gentry in provincial towns (no industrialized cities, no wild nature settings).

She is a novelist who with social pretensions and ambitions, balls, gossips, marriages, hopes and

fears offer her the material for her novels.

novels of manners

Jane wrote and the most important theme is the marriage where characters,

especially women, confront with the ambiguities and conditions of social context.

Her novels are:

Sense and Sensibility

❖ (1811);

Pride and Prejudice

❖ (1813);

Mansfield Park

❖ (1814);

Emma

❖ (1816);

Northanger Abbey

❖ (1818)

GOTHIC NOVEL horror

The term Gothic novel broadly refers to stories that combine elements from and

Romanticism th

(at the end of 18 century). The Gothic novel often deals with supernatural events, or

events occurring in nature that cannot be easily explained or over which man has no control, and it

typically follows a plot of suspense and mystery.

Today, the Gothic continues to influence the novel, the short story and poetry, and provides a major

source of themes and elements in film making.

The most constant features of Gothic novels are: great importance given to terrifying description,

ancient setting, use of supernatural being, very complicated plot and a sense of mystery pervading

everything.

Aristotele thinks that the power of tragedy lies in its evocation of pity and fear and in its capacity to

purge these emotions (catharsis)

Edmund Burke believes that the representation of danger and pain can provoke a delightful horror.

The sublime is the strongest emotion we can feel and is mainly produced by sense of infinity and

terror (contemplation of wild nature or medieval architecture, historical ruins…)

Gothic authors are: The Castle of Otranto

♦ Horace Walpole, (1764) => it’s the precursor of the genre. There

are an exotic Italian castle, supernatural events, love and death, violent emotions and

passions; The Mysteries of Udolfo

♦ Ann Radcliffe, (1794) => it’s based on a persecuted heroine

representing the typical bourgeoise sensibility that at the end predominates over the

usurping villain. Definition of good and evil according to the social standards of the time

The Monk

♦ Matthew Lewis, (1796) => influence of macabre German novels inspired by the

Sturm und Drang and by Goethe’s Faust. There are demonic figures and terrifying ghosts;

Frankenstein

♦ Mary Shelley, (1818) => a proto-science fiction on the origins of life the

ethical responsibilities of science. We have loneliness, refusal, rebellion and a sublime setting.

VICTORIAN AGE (1837-1901)

The Victorian age is the period of the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901). It was a period of peace,

growing in economy, and political expansion. The growing in economy is due to development of

industry (invention of machineries: the stream engine) and improvement of transports; so, England

shifts from a rural economy based on agriculture to an urban economy based on industrial activities

and this, led to a huge migration from the countryside to urban/metropolitan places.

doctrines

There are some economic that support free trade and capitalism:

greatest happ