THE ROMANTIC PERIOD
Romanticism, valued feelings (Heart),
against the Neo-Classical Age which valued reason (Head).
|
Classical
Age prefers |
Romantic
Age prefers |
|
Reason Intellect Head |
Feelings Intution Heart |
Romanticism word is derived from Old French
word ‘Romans’ (a group of tribes from Latin). It is against the
Neo-classical Decorum. German poet, Frederic Schlegel, used the word
‘Romantic’ for the first time. F.L.Lucas in his book “The decline and
fall of the Romantic Ideal(1948)’ gave 11396 definitions.
The Romantic Movement (1798-1837)
which began in the late 18th century predominantly in England during
the reign of George III, was an artistic and intellectual movement.
The Romantic age is usually considered
from the publication of Lyrical Ballads in 1798 to accession of Queen
Victoria in 1837.
It is called “the age of revolutions”. The spirit behind Romantic Movement
was the same that had led to the American Revolution 1776 and the French Revolution
in 1789 and was lead in England to the Reform Bill in 1832. Liberty, equality, and fraternity is the powerful motto
of the French revolution.
The
Romantic Movement began in 1798 with the publication of Lyrical Ballads, a book of poems by Wordsworth and Coleridge.
The era of Romantic Revival was
especially an age of poetry. The Romantic Poets are generally classified into
two generations
1. First Generation Poets – Inspired by Battle of Bastile and French
Revolution- consisting of Wordsworth,
Coleridge and Southey were grouped together as Lake Poets.
2. Second Generation Poets– Inspired by
Peterloo Massacre- especially Keats,
Byron and Shelly, were inspired
by the French Revolution as ideal, not as a social event. All of them are died
at early age.
Quotes:
Ø
“Romantic
is a liberation in literature” - Victor Hugo.
Ø
“Addition
of Strangeness to beauty’’ -Walter Pater.
Ø
“Romanticism
is disease, Classicism is health” -Goethe.
Ø
“Withdrawal
of outer experience to concentrate on inner” -Abercrombie.
Ø
“Romantic
revival is the ‘Renaissance of Wonder’ and Mystery’’ -Watts Danton.
Ø
"The
spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings", which the poet then
recollect[s] in tranquility"- Wordsworth.
Ø
"Poetry
is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the
expression of personality, but an escape from personality."- In
"Tradition and the Individual Talent-" T.S. Eliot.
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Lake Poets: Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey are called as
Lake poets. Term coined by “Jeffery Francis” in Edinburgh Review (1817) |
Wordsworth
(1770-1850)
He was born at Cockermouth, Cumberland
in Lake District on 7th April, 1770. The democratic ideals of French
Revolution inspired him. He fell in love with a French girl Annette Vallone,
and had a daughter. He had a sister named Dorothy, with whom he lived at
Grasmere. In 1802 he married his cousin Mary Hutchinson. He was made Poet
Laureate in 1843.
According to Keats “His Poetry is
Egoistic Sublime”. He was abused and criticized by Jeffery of the
Edinburgh Review. He died of a chill on April 23, 1850 at Rydal Mount at his
home and was buried in the Grasmere Churchyard. He was the “Bard of Rydal
Mount”, “Harbinger of nature”, “High priest of
Nature” and regarded as “Patriarch of Letters”. He was universally esteemed as the “Grand Old Man
of English letters”. Mathew Arnold
says, “His poetry is the reality, his philosophy is the illusion”
1. Descriptive Sketches
2.
An Evening Walk – both were his early poems published in the
university.
3.
Lyrical Ballads
(1798) –there were 23 poems in this book.
Coleridge contributed 4 poems. The first poem is Coleridge’s: “The Rime of
Ancient Mariner” and the last poem is Wordsworth’s
“Tintern Abbey”.
Great poems:
a) Tintern Abbey 1798: its full title is “Lines Composed
a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a
Tour. July 13, 1798”. The listener is his
sister Dorothy. Opening
line: “Five
years have past; five summers, with the length, Of five long winters! and again
I hear; These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs”
b) The Idiot Boy 1798- ballad, story of Betty Foy’s disabled son who is naïve and loved by
society.
c)
We are Seven 1798: discussion between an ‘’adult poetic speaker’’
and a "little cottage girl" who believes that her two deceased
siblings should be counted among her family members.
Famous line:
“I met a little cottage Girl:
She was eight years old,”;
------
"How many are you,
then," said I,
"If they two are in
heaven?"
Quick was the little maid's
reply,
"O master! we are
seven."
d) The Thorn 1798: The poem begins with the speaker’s description
of an old thornbush perched high on a mountaintop. A sea captain nattting the story of a woman ‘Martha Ray’ and her dead
child who is buried beneath the thorn.
e) A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal 1798 - the last poem in a short sequence known as the "Lucy poems," in which a speaker expresses his love for (and grief over) a mysterious,
idealized woman.
Other impotant poems in it:
Anecdote for
fathers, Lucy Gray, Kitten at Play, Tables Turned,
Four poems by
Coleridge in Lyrical Ballads 1798:
1. The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner
2.The Foster
Mother’s Tale
3.The Nighingale: A
Conversation Poem
4.The Dungeon
4. Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800) – Regarded as “Romantic Manifesto”, prose
work of Wordsworth, which is considered a piece of criticism. In his “Theory of Poetic
Diction” he advocated to use common language in poetry. He says “Poet is a man speaking to men”. ‘Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge’.; ‘Poetry is
the first and last of all knowledge’; ‘Poetry
is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings taking its origin from
emotions recollected on tranquility’ (see
criticism notes)
5. The Prelude or, Growth of a Poet's Mind; An Autobiographical Poem
(1799,1805,1850) – written in blank
verse. It is a complete record of his development from his childhood days
to the period of maturity. He never gave it a title, but called it the "Poem
to Coleridge" in his letters to his sister Dorothy Wordsworth. He
described the Prelude as “a poem on the growth
of my own mind” with “contrasting views of Man, Nature, and Society.” He
began it in 1798 at the age of 28 and continued to work on it throught his
life. It was first published as two-part poem in 1799; later as 13 books poem
in 1805; finally, as 14 books poem in 1850 after his death. Its present title
was given by his widow Mary Huchinson. He coined the term “Spots of Time”
(i.e., Ordinary events described as extraordinary.) Famous lines: “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive” (about the early
years of French Revolution).
6.
Recluse – the Prelude was intended to form a part of
this work, which was never completed.
7.
The Excursion – part of recluse, unfinished poem runs in 9
books. It is based on the poet’s love for nature.
8.
Two Volumes of
Poems (1807) – his remarkable lyrics included in
these two volumes are:
a) The Solitary Reaper 1807- melodious song sung by a Scottish girl while
reaping.
b) I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud 1807 -Known
as Daffodils
c) Ode on the Intimations of Immortality -from
Recollection of Early Childhood, It is the high-water mark of poetry in the 19th
century-said Emerson.
d) The Leech-gatherer or, Resolution and
Independence- famous line: “I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy, The sleepless
Soul that perished in his pride;”
e) Ode to Duty.
Other Great Poems
1. The Sparrow’s Nest
2. My Heart Leaps Up- Also known as ‘The Rainbow’. Famous line in it: “The
child is the father of the man”
3. To the Cuckoo
4. The Affliction of Margaret or Ruined Cottage
5. Laodamia - based on
Trojan War.
6. Michael - pastoral
poem, describes the lonely life of a shepard Micheal, his wife and his only
child Luke.
7. Character of Happy Warrior-
8. The Cumberland Begger-
9. It is a beauteous evening calm and free - sea side walk with his illegitimate daughter Caroline.
10. London, 1802- It’s an encomium and is dedicated to John Milton. Opening line- Milton! thou shouldst be living
at this hour:
|
Encomium is a
speech or piece of writing that praises someone or something. |
“Wordsworth’s
poetry is egoist sublime”- Keats
Sonnets of Wordsworth: He wrote 523 sonnets. In his sonnets he mainly
follows the Petrarchan Form.
1. Sonnet composed Upon Westminster Bridge,
September 3, 1802.
2. On Milton…sonnet on sonnet
3. The world is too much with us.
Play: “Borderers (1795-97)”– his only verse drama(tragedy)
Note:
To the skylark -by
Wordsworth
To a skylark -by
Shelley
Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
He was the schoolmate of Charles Lamb.
He formed close friendship with Southey,
with him he formed ‘Pantisocracy’ in America.As a poet he is regarded
as the highest priest of romanticism. Because of his ill-health he was addicted
to opium.
He is a man of grief(sorrows), who
makes the world glad. His wife Sara
Hutchinson appears as ‘Asra’ in his poetry. It was said that at the age of 5,
he read “The Bible” and “The Arabian Nights” and was profoundly inspired by
them.
Coleridge himself has said that ‘poetry should be
either good sense or music’
and ‘the best words in the best order’
Wordsworth said ‘He was the most wonderful man that I have known’
Lamb said, ‘An archangel slightly damaged’.
1. Lyrical Ballads – the most important is ‘The Rime of Ancient
Marnier’. It is eloquent of the contrast between the two, Wordsworth was a
realist, and Coleridge was a romantic idealist.
2. The Rime of the Ancient Marnier: Poem in seven parts. Mariner killed
albatross and by this curse he faced a lot of problems during the voyage.
Famous lines: “Water water everywhere, nor a
drop to drink.”; “Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor
motion; As idle as a painted ship, Upon a painted ocean.”
“He prayeth well, who
loveth well. Both man and bird and beast”
Closing line is “A
Sadder and a wiser man he rose the marrow man”
3. Christabel 1816 – it remains unfinished. A long poem about a
pure young girl (Christabel) who fell under the spell of a sorcerer in the
shape of a woman named ‘Geraldine’. It is a fragment which evokes dark
superstition, mystery and horror. Scott was so charmed by its music that he
adopted it for his Lay of the Last
Minstrel.
4. Kubla Khan – Sub title is: “A Vision in a dream, A
fragment”. It is a dream allegory but remains incomplete. It was composed
in a dream after taking Opium. He fell asleep after reading Samuel’s “Purchas
His Pilgrimage”, wokes up and wrote few lines till he was disturbed by a “person
from Porlock”. Hedescribes ‘Xanadu’ and emperor KublaKhan of China.
5. Frost at Midnight- At night, speaker sits beside the cradle of his son and recollects his
boyhood.
6. France: An Ode
7. Ode on Dejection- addressed to Sara, his wife.
8. The King’s Tomb- a beautiful epitaph.
9.
The Nightingale: poet sits on a bridge and listening to a melancholy bird, nightingale.
10.
The Mad monk: parody of
Wordsworth’s Immortality Ode.
Prose
1. Biographia Literaria – it is considered as his critical work. He coined the term “willing
suspension of disbelief’’ (sacrifice of realism and logic for the
sake of enjoyment. Ex: In Telugu Movies of Balakrishna, He stops a train by
tapping his thigh or beating 100 villains). He described the difference between
Fancy (lower, passive and mechanical) and Imagination (higher,
creative and extracts hidden ideas). Coleridge
defined “Imagination as the esemplastic power”. (see criticism notes)
2. Lectures on Shakespeare – published posthumously
3. Table Talk - published posthumously
4. Sibyllian Leaves
5. Aids to Reflection- he wrote it on the subject of philosophy
6. Remorse – a play on the recommendation of Byron,
Tragedy.
7. The fall of Roberspierre-historical drama, a 3-act play(poem) by
Southey and Coleridge.
Pantisocracy –a term used for Utopian society, proposed by
Coleridge & Southey
Robert Southey:
He was the
youngest of Lake Poets. He was appointed Poet
Laureate in 1813. (since the death of Dryden)
1. Joan of arc- is an epic poem.
2. Thalaba the Destroyer- about Arabian enchantment. Thalaba a Muslim, destroys kingdom of
Magicians.
3. The Fall of Robespierre – a historical drama written in collaboration
with Coleridge
4. A Vision of Judgment (1821)– a violent attack on the works of
Byron., written to commemorate the death of George-III and his entry into
heaven.
5. Life of Nelson- is a biography. (prose work)
6. Three Bees – a popular nursery tale
7. He wrote biographies: Life of British
Admirals, Life of Nelson, Life of Welsey, Life of Cowper
8. Curse of Kehama, about Indian Superstitions
9. Madoc—A legend of Welsh prince, who discovered the western world, sailed to
America in 12th century.
10. Roderick— a tale of the last of the Goth
11. Southey wrote “Wat Tyler” --- based on the
Peasant’s Revolt of 1381
|
Satanic School: coined by Southey,
to criticize the satanic spirit of pride of Byron, Shelley and their
followers. |
Lord Byron
(George Gordon Byron) 1788-1824:
He had a great personal beauty,
combined with the physical deformity of a club foot. He died of fever. The name
of Byron’s half-sister was Augusta. In Switzerland he came in contact with
Shelly and had a love affair with Jane Clairmont, Mrs. Shelly’s step-sister. He is the
National hero of Greek. His last words are: “Now I shall
go to sleep”.
1. Hours of Idleness – His first collection of poems, it was
bitterly condemned in the Edinburgh Review
2. English Bards and Scottish Reviewers (1818) – he criticized the modern writers for
neglecting heritage from Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden and Pope., He attacked
Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey.Fools are my
theme, let satire be my song.
3. Child Horald’s Pilgrimage (1812)– written in 4 cantos-spencerian stanzas
describing his travels and the most striking thing is that the character of its
hero was Byron himself. He awoke one morning and
‘found himself famous’ because of this work.
4. The Vision of
Judgment (1822) – a political satire against
Southey (A Vision of Judgement), written in Ottava Rima.
5. Don Juan – his masterpiece, autobiographical, a
picaresque novel in verse. Written in Ottava Rima, 16 cantos, (17th
is unfinished). Begins with a famous line: “I
need a Hero”.
6. Beppo (1818)- subtitle: A venetian story, a lady’s
husband returns who is absent for years.
7. The Dream – his best lyric which describes his
frustrated love for Miss Chaworth.
8. Manfred-(poem) Ghost story, contains supernatural
elements.
9. Cain-Tragedy, parody of Paradise Lost.,
Cain is an angel in it. Written in Cain’s point of view.
Byron is called as the Romantic Paradox.
His famous romantic poems: ‘When we two Parted’; ‘Farewell If Ever Fondest Prayer’
‘Lament of Tasso’; The last words of Byron are “Now I shall go to sleep”
Percy Bysshe
Shelly:
He was born on 4th August, 1792. He
wrote a pamphleton “The Necessity of Atheism’ and was expelled from the Oxford
university. He married Mary Godwin. He spent the last 4 years in Italy, where
he was drowned in the gulf of Spezzia and died in July8, 1822 and was cremated in
the presence of Byron with whom he had been living. He was influenced by the
ideas of Plato in his poetry.
1.
Queen Mab 1813- it was written at the age of 18. About
the vegetarian diet. Inspired by his teacher, Elizabeth Hitcheon…It is
dedicated to ‘Harriet Westbrook’(his first wife)
2.
Alastor or The
Spirit of Solitude1815- his first great
poem. Alastor means avenger. Autobiographical.
3. Revolt of Islam-
4. Hyme to Intellectual Beauty-
5.
Rosalind and
Helen – this is a gloomy and confused tale
of two women who become mothers outside marriage.
6. Adonias: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats,
Author of Endymion, Hyperion, etc. - an elegy on the death of Keats. Winter is come and gone, but grief returns with the
revolving year.
7.
Julian and
Maddalo-
sums up a conversation between Julian (Shelly) and Maddalo (Byron).
8.
Prometheus
Unbound– a lyrical drama in 4 acts. (Aeschylus and Elizabeth Barrette Browning wrote Prometheus Bound). In Greek mythology, Prometheus challenges gods
to give fire to humanity.
9. The witch of Atlas
10. The Masque of Anarchy- calls for freedom and non-violence. It inspired David Henry Thoreau’s
Civil Disobedience (which inspired M.K.Gandhi).
11.
Epipsychidion – a love poem.
12.
Ozymandias- Sonnet, inspired by the statue of
Ramesses-II at British museum.
13.
Hellas – a lyrical drama was inspired by the Greek
proclamation of independence.
14.
The Cenci – a tragedy, Italian story. Dedicated to
Leigh Hunt. Beatrice is heroine in it.
15.
The Triumph of
Life - left incomplete by his death
16. A Defense of Poetry (1821) – wrote with Mary Shelly. It is an essay,
prose work, finest piece of criticism. Written in response to Thomas Love
Peacock’s Four Ages of Poetry. Famous line: “Poets
are the unacknowledged legislators of the world”. His essay
differentiates between Reason and Imagination.
17.
Peter Bell the
Third – the satire on Wordsworth.
18.
Zastrozzi- His Gothic novel
19. Hell -is a short poem contains famous line: Hell is a city much like London
20.
Loan & Cythna: The Revolution of the
golden city A vision of 19th century (1817).It is withdrawn and reprinted as ‘The Revolt of
Islam’
21.
England (1819) : A vision of future revolution
of working class, a sonnet
22.
Ariel to Miranda was inspired by
Shakespeare ‘The Tempest’
Lyrics
1.
To a skylark – famous lines: “Hail
to Thee Blithe spirit”, “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest
thought”. “we look before and after, and pine for what is not”
2. Ode to the West Wind – his remarkable ode, written in Terza Rima.
Famous lines: “If winter comes, can spring be
far behind…?”; “I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed”
3. The Cloud – three of them were the great Nature lyrics…
“I change but I cannot die”
4. Ode to Liberty
John Keats
(1795-1821):
He was appointed at the age of 15 as
surgeon, but his central interest was in poetry. His friend Cowden Clarke gave
him a copy of Spenser’s Faerie Queen which greatly influenced his poetic art.
Leigh Hunt exercised a wholesome influence in giving a shape to his growing his
poetic powers. He died of consumption in February 1821. On his tomb are carved,
according his request, the words: ‘‘Here lies one whose name was writ in water”. He
once hopefully remarked “I think I shall be among English poets after my death”
Keats poetry is the best illustration
of Negative Capability (it
implies the poet has no individual of his own). The most dominant quality of
Keats poetry is Sensuousness.
Egoistical Sublime: A sublime suffered with self. Term was coined
to show the genious of Wordsworth. (Wordsworth has this Egoistical Sublime).
Keats used it in a letter to Richard Woodhouse (27 Oct 1818).
Keats defines his own poetic identity
as a “Chameleon Poet”
Famous Poems:
1. Imitations of Spenser Poems – he dedicated it to Leigh Hunt
2.
Endymion (1818) – dedicated to Thomas Chatterton (Marvelous
boy). It was severely criticized in The Quarterly Review and Blackwood
Magazine. It is a long poem based on the Greek myth Endymion, A Shepard, loved
by Moon goddess, Selene. This poem is partly based on Dryden’s ‘The Man in the Moon’
and Fletcher’s ‘The Faithful Shepherdess’. ‘A thing of
beauty is joy forever’ – Endymion
3. Isabella or The Pot of Basil (1818)– it is based on Boccaccio’s Decameron.
Tale of a young woman whose family intend to
marry her to "some high noble and his olive trees", but who falls for
Lorenzo, one of her brothers' employees. When the brothers learn of this, they
murder Lorenzo and bury his body. His ghost informs Isabella in a dream. She
exhumes the body and buries the head in a pot of Basil.
4. Lamia- it is the story of a serpent woman (a child
eating demon) who turns into a beautiful woman. It derived from Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy
5. The Eve of St. Agnes – a love poem centered on Madeline and
Porphyria.
6. Hyperion (1818-19)– it is written in the style of
Milton’s Paradise lost, unfinished poem. Based on Titonomachia (Titan Battle).
7. On first looking into Chapman’s Homer: a
sonnet 1816, tells about his astonishment while reading the
works of the ancient Greek poet Homer as freely translated by Elizabethan
playwright George Chapman.
His Famous Odes:
1. Ode to Nightingale: He wants to follow a Nightingale with his poetry, opening lines are “My Heart aches, and drowsy”. He refers to the untimely death of his
brother Tom, “where youth grows pale, and
spectre-thin, and dies”
The term
synesthesia comes from the Greek for syn (together) and anesthesia
(sensation). Acoustic information may become olfactory, for example, so that
music has a certain smell. People with synesthesia have an automatic and
involuntary blending of senses. A blending or confusion of different kinds of
sense-impression, in which one type of sensation is referred to in terms more
appropriate to another is called synesthesia. Ex: Keat’s Sunburnt mirth is an excellent example of synaesthesia in
Keats' imagery, since Flora, the green countryside, etc. are being experienced
by Keats through drinking wine in his imagination. (In Keats' Ode to a
Nightingale)
2. Ode on Grecian urn – famous lines: “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
are sweeter”. ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty-that is all Ye know on earth and
all ye need to know.’ – Ode on Grecian
Urn.
3. Ode to Psyche:
Psyche is roman
goddess. According to Keats, Psyche is the personification of human soul.
4. Ode on Melancholy: influenced by Robert Burton’s
“The anatomy of Melancholy (1621)”
5. Ode to Autumn: Famous lines are “Where are the songs of spring?
Ay where are they?”
His Greatest
sonnet: On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer- his reaction after reading Homer.
His poetic Drama: “Otho the Great”: A tragedy
in 5 acts- about Otho, the
emperor of Germany.
His Greatest
ballad: La Belle Dame Sans Merci (= beautiful lady without mercy) -one of the
most perfect of English ballads. He expressed his love to fellow poet, Fanny
Burney, but rejected his love.
In His letter to his brother, Keats says “If poetry come
not as naturally as the leaves of tree, It has better not come at all”
|
Negative
Capability: Great
poets must not solve conflicts. Some uncertainties best left upon to
imagination. Keats gives a prime example of this as “Shakespeare”.
Egoistical
Sublime: (= sublime suffered with self) The writers who
lack Negative Capability seem to suffer from Egoistical Sublime. Keats accused Wordsworth of presenting the
world through subjective perspective. |
Other Poets
Thomas Moore
1. Irish Melodies
2. Lalla Rookh- romance.
Leigh Hunt: He is an early
romantic poet., friend of Keats., editor of “The Examiner (1808)”, Associated with
Cockney School. He brought Shelly and Keats together
and introduced them to the public. His
well-known poem is
1. Abou Ben Adam – pretty moral sentimental poem familiar to
school boys.
2. Men, Women and Books
|
Cockney School: refers to a group of poets and essayists
writing in England in the second and third decades of the 19th century. The
term came in the form of hostile reviews in Blackwood's Magazine in 1817. Its
primary target was Leigh Hunt, but John Keats and William Hazlitt were also
included. |
John Clare: Hewas apeasant poet. He died in a mad house.
1. The Shepherds Calendar
2. The Village Minstrel
3. The Rural Muse
Jane Porter
1. Thaddeus of Warsaw
2. Scottish chiefs
John Keble
1. Christian Year
Walter savage Lander
1. Gebir – famous poem
2. Imaginary Conversations- conversations between historical people of Greece and Rome.
Thomas Love
Peacock
1. Nightmare Abbey- his best-known novel
2. Four Ages of Poetry (1820)- well known critical work provoked Shelly to write Defense of Poetry.
Attacked Romanticism. About the origin and development of poetry in 4 ages. (i)
Iron Age- about rude warriors, (ii) Gold Age- about noblest works (iii) silver
age- artificial, imitations only (iv) Brass age- poetic decay.
Peacock says, ‘A poet in our
times is a semi-barbarian in a civilized community. He lives in the days that
are past. His ideas, thoughts, feelings, associations, are all with barbarous
manners, obsolete customs, and exploded superstitions. The march of his
intellect is like that of a crab, backward.”
Prose
Fanny Burney (1752-1840): She was the first of the women novelists. Called as “Mother of fiction” – by Woolf.
1.
Evelina – the subtitle of this novel is: The History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into
the World.
2.
Cecilia or Memoirs of an Heiress
3.
Camilla or a picture of youth
4.
The wanderer or the female difficulties.
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797): Wife of Godwin, Mother of Mary Shelly.
1.
Thoughts on the education of daughters (1787)
2.
A vindication of the Rights of Man: political
pamphlet.
3.
A vindication of the Rights of Woman: in response to
Rousseau’s “Emile or On Education”
4.
Maria or The Wrongs of Woman (1798): sequel to “A
vindication of the Rights of Woman. Story of an upper-class woman, Maria,
imprisoned by her husband. Focused on legal disadvantages to women.
Charles Lamb:
He is regarded as the Prince of
English Essayists of 19th century. Coleridge was his
classmate. His sister Mary Lamb murdered her mother in a fit of madness. Lamb
remained a bachelor and he devoted his whole life to the welfare of his sister
who often appears in his essays Bridget Elia.
1. Tales from Shakespeare – written for children in collaboration with
his sister, Mary Lamb.
2. Adventures of Ulysses
3. Essays on the Tragedies of Shakespeare
4. Essays of Elia (1813)– well known work, published under the
pseudonym of Elia. (Elia is a clerk, colleague to Lamb) published in
London magazine. First essay in it is South Sea House
5. Dream Children
6. John Woodvil – a tragedy (play)
7. Remorse- unfinished tragedy
8. A Tale of Rosamund Gray – a novel
9. Dissertation on Roast Pig- “you don’t
need to burn a whole house to roast a pig”
William Hazlitt: As an essayist, he stands next to Charles
Lamb. His ambition was to become a painter. Well-known for humanistic essays.
1. RoundTable (1817)- essays
2. Table Talkor Original Essays of Men and Manners–
essays
3. My first acquaintance with the poets- essays
4. The Spirit of the Age or Contemporary Portraits- character sketches
of 25 men.
5. Biography of Napoleon
6. The Plain Speaker -essay
7. LiberAmoris
8. New Improved Grammar of English Language
9. Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays – literary criticism
Thomas De
Quincey: It was Oxford that he began taking opium to
relieve neuralgic pains and continued its use throughout his life.
1. The Confessions of an English Opium Eater – is one of the strongest figures in the
history of English letters.
2. Literary Reminiscences- - appreciated famous
literary figures- critical work
3. On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth- on murder of King Duncan in Macbeth
4. Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts
5. Lake Reminiscences or recollection of lake
poets- biographies of lake poets
6. The English Mail Coach
7. Autobiographical Sketches
8. Encyclopedia
|
Historical Novel: György Lukács, in his The Historical Novel, argues that Scott is the
first fiction writer to write historical novels. It is"a novel set in
past, attempts to show social conditions of a age, with actual historical
characters or a mixture of fictional and historical characters" Ex: Scott’s Waverley (1814) and Rob Roy (1817) ; Leonie Greg Tolstoy's War and Peace. |
Sir Walter Scott:
Scottish author and
poet. He
is known as “Wizard of North”. He was born a year after Wordsworth and a year
before Coleridge in Edinburgh. He declined the offer of Poet Laureateship and recommended Southey for the honor. French poet Gerard Sand described him as, “The poet of
the peasant, soldier, outlaw and artisan”
1. The life of Napoleon: 9 volumes work
2. The Lay of the
Last Minstrel – a metrical
romance (a long romantic tale in verse). The meter chosen was that of
Coleridge’s Christabel.
3. Marmion
4. The Lady of the Lake
5. Rokeby
6. The Lord of the Isles
7. Talisman
8. Ivanhoe: A romance- set in 12th
century England
9. Waverly (1819)- its sub-title: ‘Tis Sixty years Since’-
his first novel and was immediate success. Historical novel tale of Jacobite
rising in 1745.
10. The Heart of Midlothian: nobleness of the Scottish peasant girl.
11. The bride of Lammermoor – compared to Romeo and
Juliet.
Note: Life of Sir Walter Scott was written by his son-in-law, John Lockhart
Jane Austen:
She wrote 6 novels. The main theme of her
novels is matrimonial happiness.
1. Sense and Sensibility (1811)- first novel, initially titled as “Elinor
and Marianne”. Story of Dashwood sisters Elinor (who has good sense,
judgment) and Marianne (who has sensibility, emotions) who failed in love.
Telugu movie- “Priyuralu Pilichindi” is based on it
2. Pride and Prejudice (1813)– Originally titled “First Impression”.
Opening line: “It is a truth universally
acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want
of a wife.” Story of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, and his five
daughters Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty and Lydia and their desire to get her
daughters married. “A man searching for a wife
or a woman for a husband”.
3. Mansfield Park (1814)-satire on Slave Trade-
wealthy people’s corruption and exploitation. Centered on Fanny Price, a 9-year-old girl, who had taken from her
parents, raised at a
rich house in Mansfield Park.
4. Emma (1815)- Austen
wrote at the beginning of the novel, “I am going to take a heroine whom no one,
but myself will much alike’. Story of
Emma Woodhouse. Rich, handsome and clever heroine lives with her widowed father
in an estate. Austen
says, “Three or four families in a country village is the very thing to work
on, and I hope you will do a great deal more, and make full use of them while
they are so very favorably arranged.”
Theodore Francis Powys (1875–1953) –
published as T. F. Powys – was a British novelist and short-story writer. He is
best remembered for his allegorical novel Mr. Weston's Good Wine (1927), where Weston the
wine merchant is evidently God. Powys was influenced by the Bible, John Bunyan,
Jonathan Swift and other writers of the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as
later writers such as Thomas Hardy and Friedrich Nietzsche.
The title of
T.F. Powys’ Mr. Weston’s Good Wine, a novelistic allegory, was taken
from Emma. A character in the novel has the name Mr. Weston; in chapter 15 is
the sentence: "She believed he had been drinking too much of Mr. Weston's
good wine, and felt sure that he would want to be talking nonsense."
5. Northanger Abbey (1818) –it is a Parody of Gothic novel. a
satire on horror novels, published posthumously. Catherine Morland,
inexperienced village girl, never left her home, visits Mr&Mrs Allen’s
house read many gothic novels, feels confused and frustrated. Famous line, “Oh! it’s only a novel!”
6. Persuation- published posthumously. Story of Anne Eliot,
who breaks her engagement with a novel officer, Wentworth, because she was
persuaded by her Bady Russel. Novel ends with their marriage.
7. Her unfinished novels:
a. “The Watsons”
b. “Sandition”
( code: S P M E N P)
John Lockhart
1. Adam Blair
2. Life of Sir Walter Scott. – very famous biography
Maria Edgeworth
1.
Castle of
Rockrent (1800) her first novel first historical, first
regional, first anglo irish novel, first bighouse novel, first saga novel, first
to use unreliable narration
2.
Belinda (1801): about inter racial marriage, Jane Austen's heroines.
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