English Romanticism
in an Age of Revolutions
Late 18th-early 19th century
lecture
outline, Week #2
Open Campus ENG 103 - Spring
2003
http://www.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/eng103/Romanticism.htm
The period
[ie. next period Romantic period give dates!!]
was socially turbulent and imported revolutionary ideas created
social conflict, often along class lines. The
French Revolution had an important influence on the fictional
and nonfictional writing of the Romantic period, inspiring writers
to address themes of democracy and human rights and to consider the
function of revolution as a form of apocalyptic change. In
the beginning, the French Revolution was supported by writers
because of the opportunities it seemed to offer for political and
social change. When those expectations were frustrated in later
years, Romantic poets used the spirit of revolution to help
characterize their poetic philosophies.
The period
[ie. next period Romantic period give dates!!]
was socially turbulent and imported revolutionary ideas created
social conflict, often along class lines. The
French Revolution had an important influence on the fictional
and nonfictional writing of the Romantic period, inspiring writers
to address themes of democracy and human rights and to consider the
function of revolution as a form of apocalyptic change. In
the beginning, the French Revolution was supported by writers
because of the opportunities it seemed to offer for political and
social change. When those expectations were frustrated in later
years, Romantic poets used the spirit of revolution to help
characterize their poetic philosophies.
The world
seemed different in 1785. A sense of new, expanding possibilities —
as well as modern problems — transformed the daily life of the
British people, and offered them fresh but challenging ways of
thinking about their relations to nature and to each other.
Do
Outline French Revolution!!
BLAKE - Link to: The French Revolution - Apocalyptic Expectations: Overview
The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Age: Topic 3:
Overview. 2003
URL:
http://www.wwnorton.com/nael/romantic/topic_3/welcome.htm
"The
French Revolution - Apocalyptic Expectations: Overview." "The Romantic
Period: Topics." Norton Topics Online, Norton
Anthology of English Literature. W.W. Norton and Company, 2003
- 2005. 27 Dec. 2005 <
http://www.wwnorton.com/nael/romantic/topic_3/welcome.htm >.
Norton Topics Online:
http://www.wwnorton.com/nael/welcome.htm
The Romantic Period:
http://www.wwnorton.com/nael/romantic/welcome.htm
Norton Topics Online:
http://www.wwnorton.com/nael/welcome.htm
Blake: "The
French Revolution - Apocalyptic Expectations: Overview." "The Romantic
Period: Topics." Norton Topics Online, Norton
Anthology of English Literature. W.W. Norton and Company, 2003
- 2005. 27 Dec. 2005 <
http://www.wwnorton.com/nael/romantic/topic_3/welcome.htm >.
"Introduction." "The Romantic Period: Topics." Norton Topics Online,
Norton Anthology of English Literature. 2003
- 2005. W.W. Norton and Company. 18 Feb. 2005 <
http://www.wwnorton.com/nael/romantic/welcome.htm >. Rpt.
Cora Agatucci Reference Materials [Blackboard Learning System
course], Central Oregon Community College, 2005.
"Summary." "The Romantic Period: Topics." Norton Topics Online,
Norton Anthology of English Literature. 2003
- 2005. W.W. Norton and Company. 18 Feb. 2005 <
http://www.wwnorton.com/nael/romantic/review/summary.htm >. Rpt.
Cora Agatucci Reference Materials [Blackboard Learning System
course], Central Oregon Community College, 2005.
|
Later 18th Century
Roots of Romanticism
Immanuel Kant (German, 1724-1804)
>
What Is the
Enlightenment? 1784:
"Dare to know"
(sapere
aude > Horace)
Dare to reason independently & question authority - of
tradition, received knowledge, status quo (e.g. authority of Church, divine right of monarchs to rule, privilege of
aristocracy)
> Critique of
Pure Reason, 1781:
Questioned the power of Reason to provide the most
significant forms of knowledge. Feeling
might offer a powerful guide as individuals engage
in ethical struggle to locate and experience the
good.
Individualism: Authority may be located
in the self, rather than in society.
****************** |
"Sensibility"
(from Mid-18th c.)
Folklore & Popular Arts
of “uncultivated” “spontaneous” volk
[Grimms’ fairy tales, folk song & ballad]
Shakespeare: myth of popular, untutored, rule-breaking,
original “genius”
The “Romance”: colorful, adventurous, heroic, fantastic:
idealized / sensationalized views of life;
Medievalism
& Gothic Romance:
Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto (1765)
Literature
of “Sensibility”:
Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther (1774)
******************
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
(1712-1778)
”God makes all things good;
man meddles with them
and they
become evil” (1762)
A “Man of Feeling”
attuned to heart, emotion
Confessions
(1781-1788):
Claims Uniqueness;
Know [define, invent] thyself;
Childhood innocence, adolescent rebellion;
Civilization corrupts
Reveries of a Solitary Walker
(1782):
Tortured alienation in
sublime Nature
****************** |
Age
of Revolutions
1.
American Revolution (1776)
stimulated by Enlightenment ideas
Thomas Jefferson (U.S.A. 1743-1826)
Influenced by
Enlightenment
philosophy, Jefferson "believed that people who had
access to free education and had the support of
democratic institutions could best govern themselves"
(Davis 521).
In the "Declaration of Independence"
(1776), Jefferson constructed a rational, logical
three-part argument to support the American colonies'
revolution to obtain independence from England, founded
upon "self-evident truths about human equality and
the human rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness" that belong to individuals in "a state of
nature" (Davis 522).
2.
Industrial Revolution (1770-1840):
Invention,
Urbanization, Capital(ism) & Labor
Intro to "Perspectives:
The Industrial Landscape"
pp. 1818-1820
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-UK, 1747-1797)
The Interesting Narrative of the
Life
of Olaudah Equiano, or
Gustavus Vassa the African
(1789) - slave narrative
5.
*French
Revolution
(1789 -
1795)*
Rising Discontent of “Third Estate” against monarchy, church
1787-88: bad harvests, bread riots
July 14, 1789: Storming the Bastille
Phase
1 - Idealistic Hope &
Possibility:
1789 - 1792
“Liberte, egalite, fraternite!”
Declaration of Rights of Man:
individual rights, freedoms
Revolutionary
Reform in New Republic
Intro to "Perspectives:
The Rights of Man and
the Revolution Controversy"
p. 1347
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX |
William Blake
(1757-1827)
"I must invent my own system, or
be enslaved by another man's"
Intros to "William Blake" and
Songs of Innocence & Experience
pp. 1389-1391
& 1392-1393
Welcomed American &
French Revolutions as heralds of a new
millenium
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)
Authority of
(individual) visionary imagination
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"
"Holy Thursday"
pp. 1393, 1394-1395, 1397, 1398
Assigned Songs of Experience:
"The Clod & the Pebble"
"Holy Thursday"
"The Tyger"
"The Chimney Sweeper"
"The Sick Rose"
"London"
pp. 1402-1404, 1405-1406
xx
|
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
|
Mary Wollstonecraft
(1757-1797)
"In the celebrated Age of Reason,
with its emphasis upon liberty and independence,
[Wollstonecraft] argued, women had been left out of the
picture" (Davis 525). Wollstonecraft applies Enlightenment and revolutionary
arguments--originally intended to apply only to
disenfranchised men--to criticize social and economic
injustices to women.
A Vindication of the Rights of
Woman (1792) deplores the current inferior
state of female education, which "prepares [females]
only for
superficial conversation, shallow thinking, and
ornamental accomplishments" and ensures female
inferiority as less than rational creatures (Davis 525).
Instead, Wollstonecraft
demands recognition of women's "natural powers of
reason" and the development of these powers through
reformed female education that improves "our minds"
and prepares "our affections for a more exalted state" (Davis 525).
|
French Revolution:
“Radical”
Phase 2 & Disillusionment
1792 - 1795
1792-1795: Reign of Terror (Robespierre)
Violent
excess: 1000s guillotined, Regicide
Economic chaos
Nationalism & War
|
Napoleonic Era
(1804 - 1815)
Reactions against Reign of Terror, Regicide, France’s War
of expansion
Napoleon
rises to power in Army:
(universal conscription, upward social mobility)
1804:
Napoleon
crowns himself Emperor:
Dangerous
unbounded ambition:
betrays Revolutionary & Republican ideals
1815:
Napoleon defeated at Waterloo
French Revolution & Napoleon both inspire & haunt:
New beginnings, limitless human possibilities to make right,
regenerate the world
Desire to democratize, revolutionize literature
Dangers of excessive Reign of Terror, Napoleonic limitless aspiration, insatiable ambition, but
also…
Admire “Magnificent Failures” who take “road of excess”: glory of Imperfect (over)
reaching human visionaries who risk all
|
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:
common folk’s life-language,
original genius,
innocent child,
noble savage,
exotic past/places,
irrational, supernatural
sublime Nature
|
Literary “Romanticism”
Innovation & experimentation in subject, form, style
Mix genres, break “rules; “Organicism”
Poetry =“spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions”;
intuitive, inspired original genius
Ballads, Children’s & folk songs, common
language, simplicity, “natural” genius
Lyric Revival: personal expression of state of
mind, emotion, thought process of poet-speaker “I”
Poet-Seers turn inward
Individual authority, subjective experience, emotion &
intuition, visionary imagination
Solitary quests & dangerous self- exploration – reward:
higher wisdom & “invisible” truths
Satan, Prometheus, Cain: outlaws, rebels, outcasts,
non-conformists, exiles
Journeys into hell & human nature’s dark side, confront
“warring contraries”
The “Romance”: colorful, adventurous, heroic, fantastic:
idealized / sensationalized views of life
“Strange” stories of the
non-normative, original, imaginative, extra-ordinary
Settings: exotic, remote times & places
Worlds of fantasy, myth, dream, magic
Explorations of dark side of self & unconscious, the
hidden, subterranean
|
Charlotte
Bronte on sister Emily’s
Wuthering
Heights:
”…She did not know what she had
done;” creative artists “work passively under dictates [they] neither
delivered nor could question.”
|
xxxx
ENG 103
Home Page | Course
Info | Syllabus |
Course Plan
TV Meetings: Week #2
You are here: Romanticism
(ENG 103 lecture outline)
URL of this page: http://www.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/eng103/Romanticism.htm
Last Updated: 30 December 2005
Copyright
© 1997-2003, Cora Agatucci, Professor of English
Humanities Department, Central Oregon
Community College
Please address comments on web contents & links to: cagatucci@cocc.edu
For technical problems with
this web, contact webmaster@cocc.edu