English 109 - Cora Agatucci
Survey of Western World Literature: Modern

Print version: http://www.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/eng109/romanticism_print.htm 
Age of Revolutions &
European Romanticism
 (online outline) - ENG 109, Spring 2003
 URL of this webpage: http://www.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/eng109/romanticism.htm
Required Week #2 Background Reading in Davis:
“The Nineteenth Century: Romantic Self & Social Reality
 Timeline, Introduction & Maps (pp. 530-547)
See also Week #1 European Enlightenment (online outline)
URL: http://www.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/eng109/enlightenment.htm
Linked to ENG 109 Online Course Plan

Age of Revolutions

1. American Revolution (1776) stimulated by Enlightenment ideas

Thomas Jefferson
(U.S.A. 1743-1826)

2. Industrial Revolution (1770-1840): Invention, Urbanization, Capital(ism) & Labor

William Blake
(U.K. 1757-1827)

3. Rise of “Middle” Class, Growth of Literacy

4. Empire building >"Discovery & Exploration"
World Travel & Trade, Atlantic Slave Trade, Colonization, Cross-Cultural Contact
European Imperialism - Ideology of Racism

Olaudah Equiano
(Igbo-U.K., 1747-1797)

5. *French Revolution (1789 - 1795)*

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Rising Discontent of “Third Estate” against monarchy, church

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1787-88: bad harvests, bread riots

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July 14, 1789: Storming the Bastille

Phase 1 - Idealistic Hope & Possibility: 1789 - 1792

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“Liberte, egalite, fraternite!” 

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Declaration of Rights of Man: individual rights, freedoms

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Revolutionary Reform in New Republic

Mary Wollstonecraft
(U.K. 1757-1797)

William Blake
(U.K. 1757-1827)

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William Blake (1757-1827)
"I must invent my own system, or
be enslaved by another man's"

Intro to "William Blake"
(Davis et al. 865-868)

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Welcomed American & French Revolutions as heralds of a new millenium: "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom" > Blake

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Critique of evils & injustice of socio-economic-political & religious institutions; & hypocrisy of conventional morality

Songs of Innocence & Experience:
Shewing two contrary states
of the Human Soul
(1789-1794)

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Authority of (individual) visionary imagination

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Modes ("doors") of Perception:
"Innocence" (~children) &
"Experience" (~adults) see, understand world in fundamentally different ways
= "warring contraries"

Unfallen State of "Innocence"
associated with Childhood & its Joyful songs of uncorrupted energy

1. Visionary (knowing) > Close union with God & "true" divine nature
2. Wisdom = Intuitive understanding of Lamb's message
3. Infinite "Sensation" - innocent divine state not limited by 5 ordinary human senses
4. Love integrates self-others-God

Birth into & living in imperfect "fallen" world means children must grow up & "fall" into "Experience" - but as a necessary dialectical stage toward salvation / reunion with God.

Fallen State of "Experience"
associated with Adulthood, envisioned as inevitable & cyclical, and marked:
--"by loss of childhood vitality,
--"by fear and inhibition,
--"by social and political corruption,
--"by oppression of Church, State, and the ruling classes" (Longman 1392-1393).

1 & 2.  Division from close union with God and our "true" divine nature;
3. Reduction to Five Senses (vs. Infinite Sensation of state of Innocence)
4.  Wrath displaces Love, to fragment and throw into conflict self/others/God, (formerly unified / integrated elements of our "true" nature)
 

Imagination--esp. of visionary poets-- can recapture Visionary knowing, Wisdom, & joyous energy of "Innocence"

Happiness & hope (of children) can re-awaken, recall "fallen" (adults) to "true" divine nature & union with God

Compare / Contrast

Assigned Songs of Innocence:
 "Introduction" | "The Lamb"
"The Chimney Sweeper"
(Davis et al. 869-872)

Assigned Songs of Experience:
 "Introduction" & "Earth's Answer"
"The Tyger"
"The Chimney Sweeper"
(Davis et al. 872-875)

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French Revolution:
 “Radical” Phase 2 & Disillusionment
 1792 - 1795

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1792-1795: Reign of Terror (Robespierre)

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Violent excess: 1000s guillotined, Regicide

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Economic chaos

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Nationalism & War

Napoleonic Era (1804 - 1815)

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Reactions against Reign of Terror, Regicide, France’s War of expansion

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 Napoleon rises to power in Army: (universal conscription, upward social mobility)

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1804: Napoleon crowns himself Emperor

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Dangerous unbounded ambition: betrays Revolutionary &  Republican ideals

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1815: Napoleon defeated at Waterloo

French Revolution & Napoleon
 both inspire & haunt:

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New beginnings, limitless human possibilities to make right, regenerate the world

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Desire to democratize, revolutionize literature

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Dangers of excessive Reign of Terror, Napoleonic limitless aspiration, insatiable ambition, but also…

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Admire “Magnificent Failures” who take “road of excess”: glory of Imperfect (over) reaching human visionaries who risk all

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The “Romantic” Revolution

C18 Enlightenment Reason,  rationalism, scientific empiricism viewed as limited, superficial sources of knowledge 

Reject artifice, elitism of Neo-classical “decorum” & “imitation”

Critical of Industrial revolution, Middle Class materialism & exploitation of poor

New sources of inspiration:

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common folk’s life-language,

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original genius,

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innocent child,

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noble savage,

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exotic past/places,

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irrational, supernatural

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sublime Nature

Literary “Romanticism”
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Innovation & experimentation in subject, form, style

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Mix genres, break “rules; “Organicism” (> S.T. Coleridge)

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Poetry=“spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions” (>Wordsworth)
Intuitive, inspired original genius

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Ballads, Children’s & folk songs, common language, simplicity, “natural” genius
 

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Lyric Revival: personal expression of state of mind, emotion, thought process of poet-speaker “I”
 

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Poet-Seers turn inward

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Individual authority, subjective experience, emotion & intuition, visionary imagination

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Solitary quests & dangerous self- exploration – reward: higher wisdom & “invisible” truths

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 Satan, Prometheus, Cain: outlaws, rebels, outcasts, non-conformists, exiles

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Journeys into hell & human nature’s dark side, confront “warring contraries”

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The “Romance”: colorful, adventurous, heroic, fantastic: idealized / sensationalized views of life

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“Strange” stories of the  non-normative, original, imaginative, extra-ordinary

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Settings: exotic, remote times & places

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Worlds of fantasy, myth, dream, magic

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Explorations of dark side of self & the unconscious, hidden, subterranean

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