Romanticism 1800-1860 International Movement

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Romanticism 1800-1860 International Movement Romanticism 1800-1860 International Movement • Historical events o French Revolution – overthrow of monarchy was considered as the start of a new age of liberation o Reaction against Enlightenment – Reason was considered limiting; it did not account for other parts of the human experience, especially emotions and the imagination Literary Origins (Poetry) • William Wordsworth (1798) The Prelude • Percy Bysshe Shelley • Mary Shelley • George Gordon Lord Byron William Wordsworth • Elder statesman of the Romantic Movement • The Prelude: Autobiographical, “The growth of a poet’s mind” o Powerful emotion recollected in tranquility Percy Shelley • Prometheus Unbound: Poem about Greek mythological hero who defied the gods. • Reinterpreted Lucifer/Satan as a Romantic hero in John Milton’s poem Paradise Lost about the Creation Story. • Drowned in a small boat accident Mary Wollestonecraft Shelley • Percy Shelley overshadowed by his wife who wrote the novel Frankenstein which is subtitled The Modern Prometheus . • The novel was written as part of a ghost story contest among famous Romantic poets to pass the time during bad weather. Frankenstein • The title character is the scientist who created the monster, not the monster himself. • Dr. Frankenstein is the modern Prometheus who defies morality by creating life unnaturally through his monster. • Like the original Prometheus, Frankenstein suffers for his transgression when his monster turns on him. Original vs. Hollywood George Gordon, Lord Byron • Famously handsome • Colorful character and ladies man who had countless affairs including with his half-sister • Most famous work was, Don Juan, a comic poem about a promiscuous adventurer. • Died while fighting in the Greek revolution for independence and is revered as a national hero. Byron Romanticism • No fixed doctrine • Themes: Out-of-the-box o Individualism o Emotion o Transgression o Extremes o Nature How did America deal with the Romantic Movement? Proto-Romanticism • Washington Irving: Sentimental, elegiac feeling for a past replaced by an uncertain future. Wrote “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” • James Fenimore Cooper: Mythologized nature that was being cleared and settled by the new nation. Wrote the Leatherstocking Tales: “The Deerslayer”, “The Last of the Mohicans”, “The Pathfinder”, “The Pioneers”, “The Prairie” Transcendentalists • Ralph Waldo Emerson: Used Romanticism to define a distinctive American literature in terms of individualism and a mystical connection to Nature. Wrote “Self-Reliance” and “Nature” • Henry David Thoreau: Applied and expanded Emerson’s ideas. Wrote “Walden” and “Civil Disobedience” Dark Romanticism • Authors explored the darker implications of Romanticism (e.g. Frankenstein) o Edgar Allan Poe: Dealt with gothic subjects. Invented the detective story. “The Raven” o Nathaniel Hawthorne: Explored the psychology of Romanticism “The Scarlet Letter”.
Recommended publications
  • Dark Romanticism in Edgar Allan Poe's the Fall of the House of Usher
    KASDI MERBAH UNIVERSITY - OUARGLA Faculty of Letters and Foreign Languages Department of English Language and Literature Dissertation Academic Master Domain: Letters and Foreign Languages Speciality: Anglo-Saxon Literature Submitted by: GABANI Yassine Title: Dark Romanticism in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of The House of Usher Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Master Degree in Anglo-Saxon Literature Publically defended On: 24/05/2017 Before the Jury: Mrs. Hanafi (Tidjani) Hind President KMU-Ouargla Dr. Bousbai Abdelaziz Supervisor KMU-Ouargla Mrs. Bahri Fouzia Examiner KMU-Ouargla Academic year: 2016/2017 Dedication I dedicate this work to my dear parents for their unlimited love, faith and support, I will not get to this point of my life without them. To my beloved brothers and sisters for encouraging and pushing me forward in every obstacle. To all my friends and colleagues who stood beside me in good and hard times. I Acknowledgements First of all, the greatest gratitude goes ahead to Allah who helped me to complete this study. Then, unique recognition should go to my supervisor Dr. Bousbai Abdelaziz for his great guidance, observations, and commentary and for his advice and expertise which he provided; for his generosity and help, especially for being patient with me in preparing the present work. I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the board of examiners for proofreading and examining my paper. Finally, I would like to express my thanks to all teachers of English Department for their advice and devotion in teaching us. II Abstract The dark romantic movement is a turning point in the American literature with its characteristics that influenced many American writers.
    [Show full text]
  • Mary Shelley: Teaching and Learning Through Frankenstein Theresa M
    Forum on Public Policy Mary Shelley: Teaching and Learning through Frankenstein Theresa M. Girard, Adjunct Professor, Central Michigan University Abstract In the writing of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley was able to change the course of women’s learning, forever. Her life started from an elite standpoint as the child of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin. As such, she was destined to grow to be a major influence in the world. Mary Shelley’s formative years were spent with her father and his many learned friends. Her adult years were spent with her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and their literary friends. It was on the occasion of the Shelleys’ visit to Lord Byron at his summer home that Mary Shelley was to begin her novel which changed the course of women’s ideas about safety and the home. No longer were women to view staying in the home as a means to staying safe and secure. While women always knew that men could be unreliable, Mary Shelley openly acknowledged that fact and provided a forum from which it could be discussed. Furthermore, women learned that they were vulnerable and that, in order to insure their own safety, they could not entirely depend upon men to rescue them; in fact, in some cases, women needed to save themselves from the men in their lives, often with no one to turn to except themselves and other women. There are many instances where this is shown throughout Frankenstein, such as: Justine’s prosecution and execution and Elizabeth’s murder. Mary Shelley educated women in the most fundamental of ways and continues to do so through every reading of Frankenstein.
    [Show full text]
  • Select Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley
    ENGLISH CLÀSSICS The vignette, representing Shelleÿs house at Great Mar­ lou) before the late alterations, is /ro m a water- colour drawing by Dina Williams, daughter of Shelleÿs friend Edward Williams, given to the E ditor by / . Bertrand Payne, Esq., and probably made about 1840. SELECT LETTERS OF PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY RICHARD GARNETT NEW YORK D.APPLETON AND COMPANY X, 3, AND 5 BOND STREET MDCCCLXXXIII INTRODUCTION T he publication of a book in the series of which this little volume forms part, implies a claim on its behalf to a perfe&ion of form, as well as an attradiveness of subjeâ:, entitling it to the rank of a recognised English classic. This pretensión can rarely be advanced in favour of familiar letters, written in haste for the information or entertain­ ment of private friends. Such letters are frequently among the most delightful of literary compositions, but the stamp of absolute literary perfe&ion is rarely impressed upon them. The exceptions to this rule, in English literature at least, occur principally in the epistolary litera­ ture of the eighteenth century. Pope and Gray, artificial in their poetry, were not less artificial in genius to Cowper and Gray ; but would their un- their correspondence ; but while in the former premeditated utterances, from a literary point of department of composition they strove to display view, compare with the artifice of their prede­ their art, in the latter their no less successful cessors? The answer is not doubtful. Byron, endeavour was to conceal it. Together with Scott, and Kcats are excellent letter-writers, but Cowper and Walpole, they achieved the feat of their letters are far from possessing the classical imparting a literary value to ordinary topics by impress which they communicated to their poetry.
    [Show full text]
  • WORDSWORTH's GOTHIC POETICS by ROBERT J. LANG a Thesis
    WORDSWORTH’S GOTHIC POETICS BY ROBERT J. LANG A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS English December 2012 Winston-Salem, North Carolina Approved By: Eric Wilson, Ph.D., Advisor Philip Kuberski, Ph.D., Chair Omaar Hena, Ph.D. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... iii CHAPTER 1 ........................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 2 ........................................................................................................................8 CHAPTER 3 ......................................................................................................................27 CHAPTER 4 ......................................................................................................................45 CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................65 WORKS CITED ................................................................................................................70 VITA ..................................................................................................................................75 ii ABSTRACT Wordsworth’s poetry is typically seen by critics as healthy-minded, rich in themes of transcendence, synthesis,
    [Show full text]
  • Analyse How Frankenstein and Blade Runner Imaginatively Portray Individuals Who Challenge the Established Values of Their Times
    Analyse how Frankenstein and Blade Runner imaginatively portray individuals who challenge the established values of their times. Mary Shelley’s epistolary gothic novel Frankenstein and Ridley Scott’s 1994 seminal science fiction film Blade Runner both, despite their vastly contexts imaginatively examine the fundamental nature of what it means to be human as they challenge the established views of their times. These cautionary tales warn us of the dangers of the unethical pursuit power through scientific advancement, man’s fear of mortality and the destruction of the natural world. In Frankenstein, The Modern Prometheus Mary Shelley challenges the 19th Century view that the power of science alone will advance the quality of human existence through the character of Victor. Shelley was a key figure in Romantic literary movement and Frederic Schlegel defined Romanticism as “literature depicting emotional matter in an imaginative form” and dark Romanticism became a sub-genre known as Gothic. Victor, an archetypal Gothic character, is propelled to scientific endeavour to attain personal grandeur through sinister means. He reveals Shelly’s underlying fears as seen when he states with overwrought emotive language and personal pronouns, "I believed myself destined for some great enterprise”. He reinforces his selfish motives through high modality in the lines “Wealth was an inferior object; but what glory would attend the discovery”, emphasising his desire for immortal fame. His egotism is highlighted through verb usage when he claims grandiosely “I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation” reflecting the themes of dark Romanticism.
    [Show full text]
  • British & American Literature: Romanticism to Modernism (The Long 19Th Century)
    Dept. of English & Comparative Literature, SJSU MA Exam Reading List: Group 2 British & American Literature: Romanticism to Modernism (the long 19th century) Description: This part of the MA exam focuses on major 19th century writers/texts from the U.K. and U.S.A. Students should have a general knowledge of the definitions and rules of the various forms and genres popular during the British Romantic and Victorian literary periods, as well as the American Romantic, Transcendentalist, and Realist movements. Students should also pay attention to how these forms and genres are used/deployed in different historical and cultural moments. Poetry: ● Lyrical ballad ● Odal hymn ● Elegy ● Sonnet (Petrarchan, Miltonic, Shakespearean) ● Broadsides Prose: ● Gothic Novel ● Historical Romance ● Bildungsroman ● Domestic Novel ● Detective Novel ● Serialized Novel ● Silverfork Novel ● Slave Narrative ● Short Story ● Sketch ● Tall Tale Students should also familiarize themselves with the general biographical, cultural, historical, and political for the various texts and their related periods. A review of the information included in the introduction and headnotes in most anthologies is sufficient; however, the Broadview anthologies offer the most current and diverse historical context on these periods. British: Romantic-era (1775-1835) and Victorian-era (1835-1902) Literature Charlotte Smith (1749-1806) Elegiac Sonnets (1795) William Blake (1757-1827) Songs of Innocence and Experience Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-97) Vindication of the Rights of Men, Vindication of the Rights of Woman William Wordsworth (1770-1850) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) Lyrical Ballads (1798 version), Preface to the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads Jane Austen (1775-1817) Pride and Prejudice or Northanger Abbey George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) Don Juan Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) “Prometheus,” “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty,” “Ozymandias,” “Mutability,” “England in 1819,” A Defence of Poetry John Keats (1795-1821) “The Eve of St.
    [Show full text]
  • The Lure of Disillusion
    The Lure of Disillusion RELIGION, ROMANTICISM & THE POSTMODERN CONDITION A manuscript submitted to Palgrave Macmillan Publishers, October 2010 © James Mark Shields, 2010 SHIELDS: Lure of Disillusion [DRAFT] i The Lure of Disillusion ii SHIELDS: Lure of Disillusion [DRAFT] [half-title verso: blank page] SHIELDS: Lure of Disillusion [DRAFT] iii The Lure of Disillusion Religion, Romanticism and the Postmodern Condition James Mark Shields iv SHIELDS: Lure of Disillusion [DRAFT] Eheu! paupertina philosophia in paupertinam religionem ducit:—A hunger-bitten and idea- less philosophy naturally produces a starveling and comfortless religion. It is among the miseries of the present age that it recognizes no medium between literal and metaphorical. Faith is either to be buried in the dead letter, or its name and honors usurped by a counterfeit product of the mechanical understanding, which in the blindness of self-complacency confounds symbols with allegories. – Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Statesman’s Manual, 1839 [R]eligious discourse can be understood in any depth only by understanding the form of life to which it belongs. What characterizes that form of life is not the expressions of belief that accompany it, but a way—a way that includes words and pictures, but is far from consisting in just words and pictures—of living one’s life, of regulating all of one’s decisions. – Hilary Putnam, Renewing Philosophy, 1992 SHIELDS: Lure of Disillusion [DRAFT] v [epigraph verso: blank page] vi SHIELDS: Lure of Disillusion [DRAFT] CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix INTRODUCTION 1 Excursus One: Romanticism—A Sense of Symbol 6 PART ONE: ROMANTICISM AND (POST-)MODERNITY 1. Romancing the Postmodern 16 The Forge and the Flame A “True” Post-Modernism The Two Faces of Romanticism Romanticism as Reality-Inscription Romantic Realism 2.
    [Show full text]
  • The Dark Romanticism of Francisco De Goya
    The University of Notre Dame Australia ResearchOnline@ND Theses 2018 The shadow in the light: The dark romanticism of Francisco de Goya Elizabeth Burns-Dans The University of Notre Dame Australia Follow this and additional works at: https://researchonline.nd.edu.au/theses Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA Copyright Regulations 1969 WARNING The material in this communication may be subject to copyright under the Act. Any further copying or communication of this material by you may be the subject of copyright protection under the Act. Do not remove this notice. Publication Details Burns-Dans, E. (2018). The shadow in the light: The dark romanticism of Francisco de Goya (Master of Philosophy (School of Arts and Sciences)). University of Notre Dame Australia. https://researchonline.nd.edu.au/theses/214 This dissertation/thesis is brought to you by ResearchOnline@ND. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses by an authorized administrator of ResearchOnline@ND. For more information, please contact [email protected]. i DECLARATION I declare that this Research Project is my own account of my research and contains as its main content work which had not previously been submitted for a degree at any tertiary education institution. Elizabeth Burns-Dans 25 June 2018 This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence. i ii iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This thesis would not have been possible without the enduring support of those around me. Foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor Professor Deborah Gare for her continuous, invaluable and guiding support.
    [Show full text]
  • Percy Bysshe Shelley's Conception of the Poet and Poetic Creativity
    IMPACT: International Journal of Research in Humanities, Arts and Literature (IMPACT: IJRHAL) ISSN (P): 2347–4564; ISSN (E): 2321–8878 Vol. 9, Issue 3, Mar 2021, 29–44 © Impact Journals PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY’S CONCEPTION OF THE POET AND POETIC CREATIVITY Ladan Farah Bakhsh Research Scholar, University of Warsaw, Poland Received: 12 Mar 2021 Accepted: 17 Mar 2021 Published: 31 Mar 2021 ABSTRACT Percy By she Shelley, as one of the pioneers of English Romanticism, depicts many of the school’s principles in his poems; typical motifs and themes that keep recurring in typical Romantic texts include imagination, nature, inspiration, individualism, revolutionism, emotionality, and nostalgia. These elements, which are also common in the works of the founders of British Romanticism, laid the foundation of an unprecedented way of literary aesthetics in the last years of the eighteenth century. Therefore, a thorough study of Shelley’s or any other Romantic writer’s works can yield a perfect picture of Romantic tenets and values in writing. In the present article the central questions of are: What are Shelley’s views regarding the poet, the process of writing, and poetic creativity? Can we consider Shelley as a Romantic critic? To answer the questions, the researcher draws upon Shelley’s ideas inserted in his “A Defence of Poetry” and highlights the relevant propositions and assertions proclaimed by the poet. This research shows that Shelley held individualistic and idiosyncratic criteria for appreciating and composing literary texts. Furthermore, like Blake, Wordsworth, and Coleridge, Shelley founded his writings on certain theories and expositions he expounded in a critical essay.
    [Show full text]
  • Utopian Desire in Percy Bysshe Shelley's Poetry
    E-ISSN 2281-4612 Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies Vol 2 No 8 ISSN 2281-3993 MCSER Publishing, Rome-Italy October 2013 Utopian Desire in Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Poetry Parastoo Salavati Department of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Foreign Languages, Sanandaj Payam-E-Noor University, Sanandaj, Kurdistan, Iran. E-mail: [email protected] Doi:10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n8p267 Abstract This study has considered the Utopian desire in Percy Bysshe Shelley's major poems. It describes Shelley's idealism and Utopian desire based on the creative power of love. Shelley's Utopia is an imaginary land in which love creates, while hatred brings about destruction. Shelley can be considered as the culmination of the Romantic Movement in English literature. He looks at nature primarily as a realm of overwhelming beauty and aesthetic pleasure. His works deal with the subjective world of ideals that is more real to him than the world of facts. He is a poet of idealism and love, a representative of hope and liberty, who desires to change the world to Eden before the fall of man. His idealism is based on the elimination of all sorts of tyranny and oppression to terminate a liberal and humane world. Since Shelley's Utopia is governed only by justice, love and beauty, good triumphs over evil when love dominates man's heart and society, because according to him, love is a harmonizing power that joins and supports the elements to bring about creation. Shelley’s seclusion from the world of men and his dissatisfaction and failure in the actual life lead him to a higher world that is created by poetry and ruled by love and beauty, a Utopian Land that affords relief from what is unbearable in the social world and is much more beautiful and more perfect than the external world.
    [Show full text]
  • The Last Man"
    W&M ScholarWorks Undergraduate Honors Theses Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 5-2016 Renegotiating the Apocalypse: Mary Shelley’s "The Last Man" Kathryn Joan Darling College of William and Mary Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Darling, Kathryn Joan, "Renegotiating the Apocalypse: Mary Shelley’s "The Last Man"" (2016). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 908. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/908 This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 1 The apocalypse has been written about as many times as it hasn’t taken place, and imagined ever since creation mythologies logically mandated destructive counterparts. Interest in the apocalypse never seems to fade, but what does change is what form that apocalypse is thought to take, and the ever-keen question of what comes after. The most classic Western version of the apocalypse, the millennial Judgement Day based on Revelation – an absolute event encompassing all of humankind – has given way in recent decades to speculation about political dystopias following catastrophic war or ecological disaster, and how the remnants of mankind claw tooth-and-nail for survival in the aftermath. Desolate landscapes populated by cannibals or supernatural creatures produce the awe that sublime imagery, like in the paintings of John Martin, once inspired. The Byronic hero reincarnates in an extreme version as the apocalyptic wanderer trapped in and traversing a ruined world, searching for some solace in the dust.
    [Show full text]
  • GERMAN LITERARY FAIRY TALES, 1795-1848 by CLAUDIA MAREIKE
    ROMANTICISM, ORIENTALISM, AND NATIONAL IDENTITY: GERMAN LITERARY FAIRY TALES, 1795-1848 By CLAUDIA MAREIKE KATRIN SCHWABE A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2012 1 © 2012 Claudia Mareike Katrin Schwabe 2 To my beloved parents Dr. Roman and Cornelia Schwabe 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisory committee chair, Dr. Barbara Mennel, who supported this project with great encouragement, enthusiasm, guidance, solidarity, and outstanding academic scholarship. I am particularly grateful for her dedication and tireless efforts in editing my chapters during the various phases of this dissertation. I could not have asked for a better, more genuine mentor. I also want to express my gratitude to the other committee members, Dr. Will Hasty, Dr. Franz Futterknecht, and Dr. John Cech, for their thoughtful comments and suggestions, invaluable feedback, and for offering me new perspectives. Furthermore, I would like to acknowledge the abundant support and inspiration of my friends and colleagues Anna Rutz, Tim Fangmeyer, and Dr. Keith Bullivant. My heartfelt gratitude goes to my family, particularly my parents, Dr. Roman and Cornelia Schwabe, as well as to my brother Marius and his wife Marina Schwabe. Many thanks also to my dear friends for all their love and their emotional support throughout the years: Silke Noll, Alice Mantey, Lea Hüllen, and Tina Dolge. In addition, Paul and Deborah Watford deserve special mentioning who so graciously and welcomingly invited me into their home and family. Final thanks go to Stephen Geist and his parents who believed in me from the very start.
    [Show full text]