Romanticismo in inglese

Materie:	Appunti
Categoria:	Lingue
Download:	111
Data:	30.07.2001
Numero di pagine:	2
Formato di file:	.doc (Microsoft Word)

GENERAL FEATURES

IMAGINATION: Blake gave the final blow to the age of the reason in considering imagination as the most important of the human faculties and in exalting the spirit over the body and the instinct and intuition over education. Consequentely the art consists no more in a reproduction of the reality but in an invention based on the poetic geniuos or prophetic spirit. In particular Blake uses imagination to create a symbolic language to refer to nature and God. In Wordsworth imagination has a very important role, which consists in the “capacity of colouring ” the reality presenting it in its numerous aspects as he says in the preface of Lyrical Ballads. Coleridge distinguished between two types of imagination which he called primary and secondary: the first is common to all human beings and consists in the faculty by which we perceive the world around us; the second is the poetic vision and consist in the faculty of modifing or recreating God’s creation. In particular in “the rime of the ancient mariner” through imagination he creates a fantastic world which is an allegory of the fall, repetance and salvation of man. As regards his Biografia literaria Coleridge defined imagination as “that willing suspation of disbelief”.
NATURE: a common feature of romantic poets is to consider nature as living organism of which man takes part: nature is a mirror of feelings and passions which shake man and by them he reaches an internal balance. In particular Blake’s characters reaches this balance through God’s knowledge, for the fact that he is present in nature and in animals like the lamb and the tiger, which correspond to mercyful and cruel features of God’s nature. For Wordsworth nature isn’t only a simple background but it’s endowed with spirit so he has a pantheistic wiew of nature, because for him everything reflects God’s presence in the world, and it becomes a sort of moral teacher. In particular in “Tintern Abbey” nature is a sort of consolation for the modern man and the poet for his superior sensibility is able to feel the contact with nature. While Wordsworth deals with the natural, Coleridge deals with the supernatural but with awareness of the overt presence of the real. As regard “The rime of the ancient mariner” the albatross’ figure represents the bond between man and nature, thus when he kills the albatross, nature rebels against him, nevertheless when he uncovers its beauty through the “slimy things”he can pray and consequently be reconciled with it. Thomas Hardy: the total immersion in nature and his belief that only in rustic life men can express their passions to the full, make Hardy a romantic. But, while for the Romantics Nature usually meant joy and consolation, for Hardy it came to mean something else, that is an hostile power, indifferent to men's destiny. Love, which is the basis of all his novels, and which is another romantic content, quite often ends in disillusion and failure, destroyed by institutions like marriage or by society and by Fate.