I poeti romantici inglesi

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Data:	22.01.2001
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LIFE
POLITIC -SOCIETY
POET
IMAGINATION
NATURE
STYLE
OTHER
WORKS
BLAKE
Visual artist (engravings). Uncompromising artist.
In favour of the Revolutions. Criticism of society (oppressive)
Denounces oppression
Only source of knowledge. Dream = symbol of imagination (→ Blake = visionary poet; Chimney Sweeper I: dream = sort of escape and hope)
Dialectical opposition of the contraries (ex. innocence/ experience): they co-exist in the same person or situation; they can never be reconciled
Apparently plain and simple. Complex symbology (colours, dreams…). Critic of élitist concept of art, but at the same time → poems difficult to read
1) The Lamb
2) The Tyger
3) Chimney Sweeper I and II
4) London
WORDSWORTH
Lake District. Friendship with Coleridge. Appointed Poet Laureate and awarded honorary degrees
Committed in the cause of the French Revolution → nervous breakdown (divided political loyalties between England and France)
Man speaking to men = ordinary man with more imagination, more easily affected by experiences and able to communicate his experiences. Lyrical Ballads = subjective poetry of the self
Preeminent in poets
Countryside (opposed to the noisy towns).
Source of inspiration (best feelings inspired by nature).
Life-force
Common language to express ordinary events, humble and rustic life → spontaneity of feelings. Critic of elevated and aristocratic language
Memory: through it he could live simple situations again →
1) Preface to the Lyrical Ballads
2) I Wandered as Lonely as a Cloud
3) The Solitary Reaper
4) Composed upon Westminster Bridge
5) Biographia Literaria
COLER
I
DGE
Restless man dissatisfied with society. Addicted to opium. Unfulfilled genius
Dissatisfaction with society. Friendship with radicals. Pantisocracy (ideal democratic community in America)
Prophet, magician
Preeminent in poets
Exotic and fantastic nature. Supernatural visions
Conciliation of the opposites
1) Kubla Khan, or a Vision in a Dream (composed in an altered state of mind: hallucinatory)
BYRON
Poor conditions → noble and rich. Exclusive schools, Grand Tour, sudden success, women, scandal → exile → Italian years (met Shelley and Mary Godwin). Death in Greece
Disdain of the world and the crowd. Reject of conventions and rules.
In favour of Greek independence (Byron = one of the leaders of the revolution)
Byronic hero (passionate, moody, restless, mysterious, individualist and rough, but attractive; autobiography). Poet = isolated from men and society
Admiration for nature’s greatness in opposition to man’s weakness. Solitary and sublime places where he mingles with the Universe and the infinite → great pleasure Descriptions of Europe: distant and exotic lands (those Byron visited).
Childe Harold → first-person narrator, archaic language/ conversational tone. Met the Romantic taste
He has not lived in vain: there is a force in him stronger than the corruption of the world and death. Poetry makes immortal
1) Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
SHELLEY
Born in a rich family. College → “mad Shelley” (against schoolmaster’s tyranny)→ expelled. Met the radical Godwin and married his daughter Mary.
Italian years (Italian landscapes → poetical inspiration).Tragic death during a storm in Leghorn
Violent opposition (→ England in 1819) against tyranny and injustice.
He was a dreamer, an utopian thinker → Isolation projecting a better world → Titanism: the poet challenges the cosmos
Poet → more sensibility and imagination than other men (→ Wordsworth and Coleridge), able to express the truth in the form of beauty → sees the reality of the present and perceives the future → he is a prophet.
Poet = law-giver of civil society (he makes men perceive and desire the beauty of order and holiness) → poet’s task = help mankind
Poetry is the expression of imagination (synthetic and organic, unlike reason, analytic and mechanical). Poetry makes immortal what is beautiful and best in the world (→ Byron) and is the centre of knowledge
Refuge from the disappointment of the world.
Veil that hides the truth of the Divine Spirit
Various forms, great technical ability
1) A Defence of Poetry (Something Divine)

2) England in 1819 (year of the Peterloo massacre)
KEATS
Born in London. Abandoned a medical career for literature. His mother and one brother died of tuberculosis. Strong critical review of his allegorical poem Endymion (cult of beauty). He contracted tuberculosis (so he couldn’t marry) and died
He wasn’t interested in politic: his poetry is not subjective or autobiographical; experience is not the substance of his odes.
Poet → has the “negative capability”: he can experience mysteries and doubts denying his certainties and personality to identify with the object of poetry
Belief in the supreme value of imagination, which made Keats a Romantic poet. World of poetry = artificial, imagined by the poet.
Great part of his work is a vision of what he would like the world to be like (→ Shelley).
What strikes his imagination most is beauty
Romantic fondness for unfamiliar and strange, and for the remote in place and time.
He didn’t identify landscapes with subjective moods: no pantheism (→ Wordsworth), no mystery (→ Coleridge)
Beauty finds expression in the melodic verse and in a sensuous and hypnotic language.
Beauty = truth.
Beauty (mainly Classical beauty) strikes imagination; it is the ideal of all art.
Physical beauty/ spiritual beauty (the one of love and friendship → produces a deeper experience)
1) Ode on a Grecian Urn