University of AL- Muthanna College of Education for Humanities Department of English
Third Year/ First course Romantic Poetry A’ida Th. Sallom
• Romanticism is an attitude or intellectual orientation that characterized many works of literature, painting, music, architecture, criticism, and historiography in Western civilization. • Romanticism can be seen as a rejection of the precepts of order, calm, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality that typified Classicism in general and late 18th-century Neoclassicism in particular. • Romanticism emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental. Romantic Poetry The late 18th to the mid-19th century Romanticism and Romantic poetry signify: • A deepened appreciation of the beauties of nature. • A general exaltation of emotion over reason and of the senses over intellect. • A turning in upon the self and a heightened examination of human personality. • A preoccupation with the genius, the hero, and the exceptional figure in general, and a focus on his passions and inner struggles. • A new view of the artist as a supremely individual creator. • An emphasis upon imagination as a gateway to transcendent experience and spiritual truth. • An obsessive interest in folk culture, national and ethnic cultural origins, and the medieval era. • A tendency for the exotic, the remote, the mysterious, the weird, the occult, the monstrous, and even the satanic.
Six great Romantic poets will be studied in this course with one poem for each to be scrutinized
1- William Blake's “The Lamb” and “The Tyger.” 2- William Wordsworth's “The Solitary Reaper.” 3- S. T. Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" 4- Percy Bysshe Shelley's “Ode to the West Wind.” 5- John Keats's “Ode to a Nightingale.” 6- Lord Byron's “In This Day I Complete My 36th Year.” The Lamb The Tyger
“The Lamb” • The title is well-intentioned, the lamb symbolizes Jesus. The traditional image of Jesus as a Lamb emphasizes the Christian values of gentleness, humbleness, and peace. • At the beginning of the poem, the speaker, a child, asks a rhetorical question, ―Little Lamb, who made thee?‖ He ponders about its origins: how it came into being, how it acquired its particular manner of feeding, its ―clothing‖ of wool, its ―tender voice.‖ • In the next stanza, the speaker answers his own question: the lamb was made by one who ―calls himself a Lamb,‖ one who resembles in his gentleness both the child and the lamb. The poem ends with the child giving a blessing on the lamb. • The image of the child is also associated with Jesus: in the Gospel, Jesus displays a special consideration for children, and the Bible‘s depiction of Jesus in his childhood shows him as honest and vulnerable. • This poem, like many of the Songs of Innocence, accepts what Blake viewed as the more positive aspects of conventional Christian belief. • The poem is typified as Romantic; the language is simple, the style is direct, but the meaning is very serious; symbolizing, a harmony between the lamb, man, God and nature. • It can also be said that the child is a symbolic image of Adam and Eve in their innocent form before their fall from heaven to earth. • Blake's theory of childhood stressed the notion that the child is born with a mind like a white sheet of paper, that is, the child is born without experience, yet, he does not stay in the same stage, he learns from every moment till he becomes mature man, transforming from the stage of innocence into the stage of experience.
The Tyger
“The Tyger” • In this poem, Blake asks the same question that he has previously asked in the "The Lamb," which is about the notion of Creation. • There are many descriptions of the tiger in this poem; his eyes are like small balls of fire, his heart is very strong with dread hand and dread feet. His brain is wide. That is why, the tiger is one of the strongest and cleverest animals. • Blake wonders whether the God who creates the lamb is the same One who creates the tiger?, Suggesting that there is no separation between good and evil, between gentle and fierce. The Creator is a mixture of the two, the same Creator who made the lamb made the tiger. It is this idea which makes the poem a universal one. • The poem is concluded with three images that describe "the myth of .the fall of Adam and Eve from heaven to earth ـــ "fall • The first image is associated with the tears that moves from the eyes to the cheek. The second image depicts the stars which fall from heaven to earth. These stars are called "the meteor." Finally, the third image portrays the rain that falls from heaven to earth. In fact, the movement of these three images "tears," stars" and "rain" is just like the fall of Adam and Eve from heaven to earth.
William Blake’s Philosophy of the two poems: Both Blake's "The Lamb" and "The Tyger" show the two contrary states of human soul. • In the first poem, Blake shows what innocence means, while in the second one, he shows how this innocence was corrupted and destroyed. • For Blake, all human beings are, in some sense, the children of a divine father but experience destroys their innocence. • Blake brings two sides, the good and evil, to create a real man who can regain paradise again after its loss by our father, Adam. This man, for Blake, is Jesus Christ.
Behold her, single in the field, Will no one tell me what she sings? Yon solitary Highland Lass! Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow Reaping and singing by herself; For old, unhappy, far-off things, Stop here, or gently pass! And battles long ago: Alone she cuts and binds the grain, And sings a melancholy strain; Or is it some more humble lay, O listen! for the Vale profound Familiar matter of to-day? Is overflowing with the sound. Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, ***************************************** That has been, and may be again?
************************************************** No Nightingale did ever chaunt More welcome notes to weary Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang bands As if her song could have no ending; Of travellers in some shady haunt, I saw her singing at her work, Among Arabian sands: And o'er the sickle bending;— A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard I listened, motionless and still; In spring-time from the Cuckoo- bird, And, as I mounted up the hill, Breaking the silence of the seas The music in my heart I bore, Among the farthest Hebrides. Long after it was heard no more.
• The Solitary Reaper is one of Wordsworth's most famous post-Lyrical Ballads lyrics. • The poet was inspired by the scenes of nature and the life of rustic people during his stay at the village of Strathyre in Scotland. He talks about a girl, a ―Highland lass‖, who is in a field alone: "single in the field". As she is harvesting her crops, she is singing a sad tune which echoes in the deep valley. The speaker asks us to listen to her tune or ―gently pass‖ so as not to disturb the smooth flow of the song. • Written in iambic tetrameter, four eight-line stanzas, each closing with two couplets and all written in octosyllabic lines, the poem proofs Wordsworth‘s theory how poetry ought to focus on the mundane and the commonplace. His main character here is a solitary girl, an adjective that sets her apart from people and hence brings her close to nature, a place that unfolds her creativity and art. She is reaping, binding and singing simultaneously. • Metaphorically, her tremulous voice haunts the distances, springs directly from nature and runs musically in the valley just like the water flow. • The visual image reflects the beauty of the lonely girl as well as the beauty of nature. • The auditory (hearing) image reflects the beauty of her voice and the sound of the water flowing in the valley. • Her charming voice is attractively compared to that of ―Nightingale‖ and ―Cuckoo‖, the speaker says that her sound is more welcome than any chant of the nightingale to weary travelers in the desert ―Arabian sands‖, and that the cuckoo-bird in spring never sang with a voice so thrilling in the ―Hebrides islands‖. ―Hyperbole‖ In Scotland, the harvest time is Autumn and there seems no singing bird that could break the silence of the nature. From last spring till this Autumn, no good voice like the girl's is heard. Her only voice has the ability to break the silence of and the. Auditory images: the voice of the two-birds and the voice of the girl break the silence of the nature. • Personifications the sounds have given the ability to break the silence. • In the third stanza, the poet shows inability to understand the words that the girl is singing and cannot understand its meaning. Nevertheless, the tone was sad and melancholic. He speculates that it might reflect sorrowful memories or certain battle in the past or could be a simple rural song about ―matter of today.‖ • Whatever she sings about, he says, he listened ―motionless and still,‖ and as he traveled up the hill, he carried her song with him in his heart long after he could no longer hear it. It would remain fresh in his memories. Furthermore, this unforgettable quality of the song proves its universal appeal.
• In the fourth stanza the poet sees the maiden bending on her sickle and keeps murmuring her sad song. He assures that what fascinates him in her song is not its content, but its emotional music. Though he does not understand what she says and why she sings in melancholy, he listens to her song, appreciates its tone, its expressive beauty and the mood it creates. This feeling "could have no ending". • Thematically, the poem praises the beauty of music and its fluid expressive beauty, the ―spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling‖ that Wordsworth identified at the heart of poetry. • Visual Images: 1- the image of the girl swings the sickle. • 2- the image of the listener on his horse walking up the mountain. Auditory image: The sound of the girl's song which hangs in the listener's heart for a long time and helps him to go on.
Apostrophe yon, Solitary girl SENTENCE listen And sings a melancholy strain s No nightingale did ever chaunt n
More welcome notes to weary bands v
Among Arabian sands a Breaking the silence of the seas s Will no one tell me what she sings w Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow p For old, unhappy, far-off things f Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain s I saw her singing at her work s The music in my heart I bore m
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834) • A poet, literary critic and Philosopher. • He participated with Wordsworth in writing The Lyrical Ballad, the most important platform of the Romantic Movement. • In 1817, he wrote ''Biographia Literaria‖, a remarkably significant work in literary criticism in the Romantic age. • He believed that poetry signifies the union of the heart and the mind and the poet is a gifted person who expresses his imagination through simple yet sophisticated poetic diction that seeks pleasurable purposes. • Like other Romantic poets, Coleridge estimated nature, supernatural, imagination, mythopoeia, past time and art. • He adopted the philosophy of "Transcendentalism'‗ that considered the human mind as an active entity in the sense that the external world cannot exist without a mind to observe it.
Kubla Khan: A Vision in A Dream
• written in 1797 and published in 1816, Kubla Khan was composed one night after Coleridge's experience of an opium due to his chronic sickness. • In a dreamlike description, Coleridge initiates the poem with bits of trees, forests, sacred river, caves of ice, greenery, and naturally beautiful scenes, all existed in a paradise-like place, Xanadu that encompasses Kubla Khan‘s great palace. • The poem symbolizes a supernatural atmosphere; however, it lacks any logical coherence of ideas and images. • It has the essence of poetry and dream because its aim is to delight, not to present the truth. • The romantic associations are concentrated within a short space to arouse a sense of wonder, mystery and awe.
Character: Kubla Khan Setting: Time and Place Xanadu is an ancient, idealized, luxurious and beautiful location with Chinese origins. It is the summer palace built by the Mongolian Emperor of China Kubla Khan, also called Shangdu. Kublai was the fifth Khagan (Great Khan), the grandson of Genghis Khan and the first Emperor of the Yuan dynasty in China.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced: Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail: And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean; And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war! The shadow of the dome of pleasure Floated midway on the waves; Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight ‘twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise. Summary and analyses • The speaker starts by describing the setting, a "pleasure dome.― and a river that runs across the land and then flows through some underground caves and into the sea. • He also tells us about the fertile land that surrounds the palace. The nearby area is covered in streams, sweet-smelling trees, and beautiful forests. • Then the speaker gets excited about the river again and tells us about the valley through which it flows. He makes it into a scary, haunted place, where you might find a ―woman wailing for her demon lover.‖ • He describes how the river leaps and smashes through the valley, first exploding up into a noisy fountain and then finally sinking down and flowing through those underground caves into the ocean far away. • The visual as well as hearing imagery provide the reader an immediate access to the place a way he can attractively comprehend its charm.
• The speaker then goes on to describe Kubla Khan himself, who is listening to this noisy river and thinking about war. • All of a sudden, the speaker moves away from this landscape and tells us about another vision he had, where he saw a woman playing an instrument and singing. The memory of her song fills him with longing, and he imagines himself singing his own song, using it to create a vision of Xanadu. • Toward the end, the poem becomes more personal and mysterious, as the speaker describes past visions he has had. This brings him to a final image of a terrifying figure with flashing eyes. This person, Kubla Khan, is a powerful being who seems almost godlike: "For he on honey-dew hath fed/And drunk the milk of paradise"
• Most of these images contain several contrasting components. • The dome is full of sun, but has caves of ice. • The water rises and falls, the river moves but the ocean is static. • The poet's delight would help create the pleasure dome, but visitors would pull back in dread. • The chasm is holy--and enchanted. • The man with the flashing eyes and floating hair is frightening because he has been to Paradise.
The River Alph • This big, dramatic river takes over most of the first half of the poem. The poet‘s descriptions of the river largely focus on how powerful it is. It gives us the poem's main images of the force and excitement of the natural world. While other places may be quiet or safe or calm, the river is noisy, active, and even a little dangerous. It is also always moving, traveling across the poem and across the landscape from the peaceful gardens to the faraway sea.
The Ocean • When it shows up in the poem, the ocean is a gloomy, mysterious and far-away place, it marks the end of the river. It's a dead-end, a place where there is no life or light. • The other settings in the poem tend to be active and alive. The forest is sunny, the river is noisy, the dome is warm, even the caves are deep and icy. The ocean, however is just an empty, open space. It might make us think a little bit of the Underworld, a place where things simply end.
The Caverns • The caverns are huge, frightening, cold, and fascinating. They appear in the poem for just a moment at first, as the place the river passes through. As things move along, however, we start to see that these caverns are important in this poem. They are the opposite of the warm, happy palace. They are dramatic, freezing, underground, and represent everything the pleasure dome is not.
Xanadu – a.k.a. The Pleasure Dome • This might sound a little more exciting than it really is, it just means a big, especially nice palace, with pretty gardens all around it. • The dome is a safe, sunny, happy place, it stands for all the majesty and the triumph of mankind, since it's the house of an emperor. However, when it is compared to the power and the immensity of nature, it might not seem so big after all.
Man and the Natural world The interaction between man and nature is a major theme for Coleridge. It's painted all over "Kubla Khan," as we go from the dome to the river, and then from the gardens to the sea. Sometimes he's focused on human characters, sometimes on natural forces. In fact, it's difficult to get away from this theme in this poem. Think of this tension as a tug-of war between humans and their temporary constructions (buildings) and the seeming permanence of nature.
Art and Culture Coleridge helps orient the reader by specifically mentioning music in a few places in "Kubla Khan." Even when he explicitly reference music, it's underscoring every line. Music is all over this poem in the sounds it makes and in the way it moves. Whether the sound is monks chanting in a cave, or the swelling of a symphony by the Abyssinian maid, it reflects charm and beautiful environment.