Romantic poetry

Materie:Appunti
Categoria:Inglese
Download:306
Data:19.04.2007
Numero di pagine:4
Formato di file:.doc (Microsoft Word)
Download   Anteprima
romantic-poetry_2.zip (Dimensione: 5.6 Kb)
trucheck.it_romantic-poetry.doc     27 Kb
readme.txt     59 Bytes


Testo

1800: Romanticism.

In these years there is the development of changes, which happened in the field of poetry, and new trends, like the gothic novel.
Intellectuals thinks more deeply all those things which were difficult to explain by means of reason like feelings (especially love) and mystery of birth and death, of life after death, the existence or non existence of God. There is the development of two groups of poets:

1. Graveyard School of Poetry.
- subject: death and life after death
- beginner: Edward Young, who wrote “Night thoughts”. → Night is the favourite setting of romantic poets. It is darkness and mystery.

An important author of the time was Thomas Gray who, like William Blake, is one of the precursors of Romanticism. The subjects of his poems are often Romantic in tone (melancholy attitude, preoccupation with death, love for ruins, graveyards and other solitary places.)
Foscolo was inspired by him and from the elegy he wrote even if they were different.
The elegy which Gray wrote was called “Elegy written in a Country Churchyard”.
In general, elegies were written to celebrate the death of someone and to underline his deeds (=gesta) but in this case, Gray wants to celebrate death of people in general. It isn’t dedicated to anybody in particular but it underlined the importance of all people.
It says also that there is nothing after death, no matter if you are an important person or not: all people are alike.
But…. Why Foscolo defended Graveyards? He thought that the grave can inspire the people to do things. On one side he wanted to stimulate the people to simulate the deeds of important names of the past and do something. Instead Napoleon, in these years, passed a law on cemeteries which was against Foscolo’s thoughts because it underlined the importance of a common graveyard.

Blake cannot be strictly considered a romantic poet: he belongs to the pre-romanticism. In fact, in his poems there are social themes (≠romanticism→individuality)

2. Revival of Ancient Poetry.
There is very little left about the origin of British poetry. In practise, what is left are only five elegies. Britain started having a literature like the other countries with Canterbury Tales.
There was a strong particular aim to find as much as possible the origin of the British poetry.
Always was connected with ballads, tales and songs which people liked a lot.

Scoop of the time: somebody said that he had found a collection of ancient poems written in Gaelic (like W. Scott and the Irish did) by Ossian. Ossian’s poems became famous in all Europe and influenced many authors but after 30/40 years they discovered that these poems were false: they were written by Mac Pearson and Ossian had never existed. …but… it was too late to stop the fashion that Ossian had started. One of the themes of the British poets was Middle Ages, which is expressed for instance in the adoption of the ballads (it was born in this time) and also in the use of songs.

CHARACTERISTIQUES OF ROMANTIC POETRY

• With the passing of time….Poetry became a poetry with perfect sounds and rhythm. The romantic poets rejected this and preferred more popular genres. They rejected reason and took in consideration what was against it. They dealt with feelings in general.
Feelings vs. reason

• They rejected the idea that knowledge had to be spread to everybody and they preferred the individuality (against the community of the age of Enlightenment.)

• Another element typical of the romantic poetry is imagination:
- against the rationalism
- Imagination ≠ fancy (=fantasia)
- it is the special faculty of the poets to go beyond the surface to see and to express things that ordinary people cannot see.
- The moment of inspiration is being attracted by something which in this moment became his own. There is an insight (=interiorizzazione). There could be different ways to be inspired: inspiration can be connected with memory or sense, especially sounds
- Imagination gives a shape to this insight. It is a means which through words help the poet to express what he felt inside (he felt more than common people)

→ romantic poets consider themselves special, they think to have special qualities like being intermediaries between men and God. They think to be superior. They shared some characteristics that God had: sensibility, sensitivity and the creative aspect.
→ romantic poets consider the previous poets of the 1700, like Pope, verse-makers. Pope wrote satires on the life of nobles, he was similar to the Italian Parini.

• The ugliness and the noise, that the Industrial Revolution had brought, were rejected by romantic poets in favour of nature:
- Nature vs. town
- It is the favourite setting to escape from noise, town and horror.
- Some romantic poets spent there the most of their life.
- It has an absolute value: it is beautiful, it is the source of spirituality and inspiration → it has a consoling(=consolatorio) value for men.

• The romantic hero:
- he is a rebel, a man with ideals.
- A fighter against the society. He fought for the values he believe in.
- In British literature is represented by Lord Byron who was the one who wrote long poems about romantic heroes: the romantic hero is also called the Byronic hero.

Esempio