English topics
British Romanticism
The Industrial Revolution in 1769 and The American war of Independence
in 1776, influenced England from a political and economic point of view;
instead the French Revolution Influenced the ideology of the British. The
feelings caused by these three events are expressed in the Romantic
period. Etymology Romanticism comes from the adjective “Romantic”
used in the 17th century with a negative meaning to indicate fantastic
and unrealistic things.
In the 18th century with the revaluation of supernatural it acquires a
positive meaning in contrast with reason and rationality of the
Enlightment.
The main Romantic Age covers an important period in the literary,
philosophical and political history of Europe, a period that extends
approximately from the last decade of the 18th century to the middle of
the 19th.
Romanticism represents a reaction against the neo-classical and
rationalistic ideal of the18th cenutry, and a movement towards a deeper
realization of the emotional and imaginative aspects of the life of man.
Therefore there is the rediscovery of imagination, that is the true source
and instrument of all higher knowledge..
Whereas Enlightenment thinkers value logic, reason, and rationality,
Romantics value emotion, passion, and individuality.These values
manifested themselves in literature in several important ways.
The Romantic poets insist over and over again that poetry that is the most
philosophic of the writings the first and the last of all knowledge and that
“no man can ever be a great poet without being at the same time a great
metaphysician”. That is to say that the main function of poetry is to
discover the inner reality of things or what lies behind the appearance
of sensuous phenomena.
Distrusting sense experience and relying on the inner life of the
imagination, the typical romantic poet naturally incline to mysticism, or to
the exotic, the strange, the ureal, the marvellous, the abnormal.
He seeks to escape from actuality and becomes a dreamer and an
individualist.
Art is highly prized in this period, because it is considered the product of
the individual creation. The artist is as a genius.
Nature, rural life and pastoral imagery make common subjects for poetry.
So the Romantic poets wrote poetry that expresses a feeling of nostalgia
through introspection and melancholy.
Meditation, titanism and individualism are very important in this period.
We usually divided the Romantic poets in three different generations:
The Early Romantic poets -They are: Thomas Chatterton (1752 - 1770)
Robert Burns (1759 - 1796) William Blake (1757 - 1827) The First
generation- They are: William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850) Samuel T.
Coleridge (1772 - 1834) The second generation They are: Lord Byron
(1788 - 1824) Percy B. Shelley (1792 - 1822) John Keats (1795 - 1821)
Important events: In 1798 Wordsworth and Coleridge published “The
Lyrical Ballads”, (manifesto of English Romanticism). In the preface of this
opera Wordsworth established the basis of Romanticism; in particular he
answered to these questions: What is poetry? “I have said that poetry is
the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from
emotion recollected in tranquillity” What is a poet? “He is a man speaking
to men: a man endued with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and
tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more
comprehensive soul; a man with his own passions and
volitions” What is the best language to describe both of them? “The
principal object was to choose incidents and situations from common life
in a selection of language really used by men to throw over them a
certain colouring of imagination” “Low and rustic life was generally
chosen, because in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find
a better soil and speak a plainer and more emphatic language” Some
notices about W. Wordsworth He was born in Cocker mouth, near Lake
District, and in the peace and the beauty of this country he found
inspiration for his poetry. His works are: “The Prelude”; “Poems in two
volumes”; “The excursion”. His themes are: Nature as: Countryside
opposed to the town Active force Source of feelings child.
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