First Generation Romantics

Brittani Powell Dr. Matthew DeForrest ENG435/ TR 930-1045 March 1, 2010 Individualism First contemporaries Ro piece of musictics The Ro gentlemans gentlemantics were kn testify for their aim of the unusual and old-fashi 1d in their numbers because they were in a precise unusual and old-fashioned state of mind when writing their metrical composition. The romantics were experimental generators and they lived during a actuall(a)y tough conviction period, and itshowed in their meter. The romantic period had the shortest bearing span of any literary era in the English language. It lasted 43 historic period, beginning from 1789 to 1832.It started during the French r development and ended during the parliamentary emends, which established a foundation for which inactive exists in modern day Britain. There were sextuplet study Romantics, and they were split into two genesiss. The send-off generation consisted of William Blake, William Wordsworth, and Samuel Taylor Coleridg e. The second generation consisted of Percy Bysshe, John Keats, and George Gordon, Lord Byron. These poets were considered old-fashionedbecause they were the commencement ceremonyly to experiment with this direction of writing. There was no one before them, so for modulate they had to look back to the then(prenominal) for influence.Even when inventing a naked style of writing there still has to be somewhat influence. It is very hard to come up your own completely original literary style. They admired the cook of Milton and Shakespeare very often. all the first generation romantics felt those two were the best poets and admired their style. Shakespeare and Milton were very old poets and they influenced the Romantics so their poems came off very old-fashioned and out dated. They use very old English that was hard for peck to comprehend, making some people feel the writings were unusual.The Romantics were known for their theories on the connection in the midst of constitut ion, the mind, and the imagination. The English Romantics accepted the reality of the link between man and nature in the form of the homophile imagination as the basis of human arrangement, rejecting the scientific initiation view onmaterialism. Imagination is a force, or energy, that allows such(prenominal) a connection to be made. William Blake motto the human imagination as essential to human understanding of the world they live in he saw reality as a mental construction. According to Blake and the other Romantic poets, once the energy of imagination is used effectively to control the connection between man and nature, the individual gains freedom from the restrictive bonds of sterile thought. The first generation romantics are characterized by their shift in style and font manner from the Neo Classicalist. The use of satire is rare and the Romantics run for to focus on sidetrackicular aspects of target areas, people, and events instead of the fundamental nature of ob jects, people and events.One of the nearly important deeds pertaining to the change of style during this time was William Wordsworths Preface to lyrical Ballads, which demonstrates Wordsworths particular motivations for how he writes the musical Ballads. Notably the subjects of these poems, are incidents and situations from roughhewn life verses the normal neoclassical subject of incidents and situations from elevated life, like Alexander Popes Rape of the Lock, which is approximately the aristocracy and not the common people (Norton 266).Wordsworth as well changes the style of his verse when he states, The reader will find that personifications of abstract psyches rarely occur in these volumes and, I hope, are utterly rejected as fair device to elevate the style, and rise it above prose, and there will also be found in these volumes little of what is usually called poetic phraseology I have take as much pains to bend it as others ordinarily talk to produce it this I ha ve make for the reason already alleged, to bring my language near to the language of men, and further, because the pleasance which I have proposed to myself to impart is of a kind very divergent from what is supposed by many person to be the proper object of poetry (Norton 267). Wordsworth and other first generation poets take a illustrious step away from their Neo Classical predecessors by embracing the common people and the common language. First Generation romantics also believe in the possible ability of dreams to clarify reality, as seen in Coleridges Kubla_ Kahn_. as well as _Kubla Kahn_,presents a different kind of characterization of the poet.The narrator states, I would induce that dome in air, which shows the narrators desire to use his lyric combined with his imagination to create a poem, which is unlike the characterization of the poet in Rassles(Norton 448). In _Biographia Literaria_, Coleridge distinguishes imagination from fancy and even separates imagination f urther by distinguishing between primary and secondary imagination. Romanticism is often associated with radical individualism, and much Romantic poetry focuses on the struggles of the individual will to break or exceed its kind and metaphysical bonds. Millenarianism, on the other hand, consists of the expectation of the fulfillment of Gods providential design, in which the place left for individual human place is limited if not nonexistent.The French Revolution could thus be viewed every as the work of heroic individuals struggling for liberty or as an act of God. The role of an individual as shown in Samuel T. Coleridges phantasmal Musings, is to know thyself he starts the poem reflecting his Unitarian ideas about the independence of God, who is fairish now One but at the same time He is everything we bottomland feel and see and he equals God with Love. There is one Mind, one omnipresent Mind, Omnific. His more or less holy name is Love (Lines 105-106). Coleridge repeats t wo time one to emphasize the Unitarian Idea of the oneness of God. In the lines19-23 he speaks about the disaster of the war, the fight between France and England. A sea of farm animal bestrewed with wrecks, where mad embattling interests on each other rush/ With unhelmed rage Tis the terrific of man. You can imagine how terrible the situation was. It was like a foreboding(a) vision, but a necessary vision because after it 1000 years of peace had come. According to Coleridge after that God will judge all the nations, Our noontide Majesty, to know ourselves, parts and proportions of one wondrous whole (Lines 127-129). aft(prenominal) this time of violence, a new better time came. The thoughts of the major part of the romantic poets are influenced by the French Revolution when they wrote about organized religion or other topics.Although at first some writers like Coleridge had a positive view of this violent period, later they changed their opinions because the results were not what they had expected. All the relations between the prophecies and the periods of violence did not come true and they felt disappointed. The French Revolution and the Unitarian tendencies of Coleridge is the key to understanding the major parts of his works and indispensable to understanding his religious point of view. Wordsworths poetry is distinguished by his straightforward use of language and meter and his natural and often conversational themes and imagery. This is not to say, however, that Wordsworths ideas are simple.He unites several ideas by means ofout his poetic works, including the enormousness of the natural world, transcendentalism and interconnectedness, religion, morality, mortality, memory and the power of the human mind. Wordsworth began publishing in 1793, at the age of 23, with a solicitation of poetry about a tour he took in the Swiss Alps Descriptive Sketches. Wordsworths poetry was a little ahead of its time however, it instigated Romanticism in Englan d through its emotional nature and its allusions to nature. His work has had a profound legacy on the Victorian and twentieth-century literature as well. Yet his ultimate goal was the cash advance of mankind through the discovery of an individuals own joy and emotions.Percy Bysshe Shellys first major poetic work was _Queen _Mab. This poem was written early in his career and serves as a foundation to his system of revolution. Shelly took William Godwins idea of necessity and combined it with his own idea of ever-changing nature, to establish the theory that contemporary societal evils would dissolve naturally in time. This was to be join with the creation of a moral mentality in people who could ensure the ideal goal of a perfect society. The ideal was to be reached incrementally, because Shelley (as a result of Napoleons actions in the French Revolution), believed that the perfect society could not be obtained immediately through violent revolution.Instead it was to be achieved through natures evolution and ever-slap-uper numbers of people becoming honorable and imagining a better society. _Queen _Mab was infused with scientific language and naturalizing moral prescriptions for an oppressed humanity in an industrializing world. William Blake, a panther and poet, and one of Englands most famous literary figures. A great predecessor to the Romantics, Blake was a revolutionary and visionary artist and his work stand for a decisively new direction in the course the optic Arts. He expressed an individualized view of humanity that became important to Romanticism. His poetry is described as highly individual in style and proficiency (Lawall, ed. , 540).To relate to his readers, Blake uses different voices and puts forth his own ideas about human existence. In his poem, The Little Black Boy, Blake uses the voice of a black male child who is mixed on how he is different than the white male child. The reader is probably painfully aware of the societys judgment s of black people during this time. The black boy concludes by seeing himself as a protector to the white boy, Ill shade him from the heat till he can bear / To dip in joy upon our fathers knee (Lawall, ed. , 544). Instead of understanding that white means good and black means bad, the black boy comes up with a new meaning for his black skin (Lawall, ed. 541).Blake uses emotion in his poetry to enhance the readers reaction to his works. He also looks to expo sort outhe inner thoughts of the human being. Blakes individualism within his poetry portrays the ideology that Romanticists sought to convey during this time period. The specialty of William Blakes work is that he uses numerous literary techniques and devices to articulate his thoughts. He created such literary work because he was a creative thinker, fully conscious of the realities and complexities of experience, especially the poverty and oppression of the urban world where he spent his most of his life. Still today, his art istic and poetic creations are valued in British culture.The first generation Romantics accepted reality of the link between man and nature, and man as an individual, in the form of the human imagination as the basis of human understanding, rejecting the scientific world view of materialism. The Romantic writers attempted to discover hidden unity between man and nature. It is imagination a force, or energy, that allows such a connection to be made. The realization of this interdependent relationship carries with it a kind of freedom for the individual. William Blake saw the human imagination as essential to human understanding of the world he saw reality as a mental construction. The Romantics insist the importance of the individual. Brittani Powell Dr.Matthew DeForrest ENG435/ TR 930-1045 March 1, 2010 Individualism First Generation Romantics An Annotated Bibliography Damrosch, David, and Kevin Dettmar*. * *The Longman Anthology of British Literature. * untried York Pearson Long man, 2006. Print. This textual matteron British Literature describes the distinction and conviction the first generation of the Romantic writers felt on individualism. The reservoirs give a young approach to the study of Romantic Literature edited by scholars in the field. Major prose works are included in their entirety, together with a wealth of poetry and drama, from Blakes Songs of Innocence and of Experience to Byrons Manfred and beyond.The first generation Romantics and their Contemporaries of The Longman Anthology of British Literature is a comprehensive and thoughtfully position anthology that offers a rich selection of Blakes commentaries and influences on the Romantic period. The text also includes Perspectives, Companion Readings, and and Its Time sections which show how major literary writings interrelate with and respond to various social, historical, and cultural events of Great Britain in the Romantic period. With a generous representation of fiction, drama, and p oetry, the second edition includes major additions of important works and an expanded illustration program.This text is distinctive in exploring the perspective of the first generation writers and their take on individualism. *Greenblatt, Stephen, and M. H. Abrams. * *The Norton Anthology of English Literature. * New York W. W. Norton, 2006. Print. The eighth edition of The Norton Anthology of English Literature text comprises six volumes, exchange in two sets of three. The first set includes the volumes The Middle Ages, The Sixteenth ampere-second and The Early Seventeenth Century, and Restoration and the Eighteenth Century the second set includes The Romantic Period, The Victorian Age, and The Twentieth Century and After. The writings are arranged by informant, with each author presented chronologically by date of birth.historic and biographical information is provided in a series of head-notes for each author and in introductions for each of the time periods. Dickinson, Kate Letitia*. *William Blakes Anticipation of the Individualistic Revolution. * Philadelphia R. West, 1978. Print. * This text on William Blakes Anticipation of the Individualistic Revolution describes Blakes struggle for individualism. The author describes Blakes perspective and full descriptive criticisms on Blakes works. Wordsworth, William, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Richey, and Daniel Robinson. Lyrical Ballads and Related *Writings * Complete Text with Introduction Contexts, Reactions. Boston Houghton Mifflin, 2002. Print. This collection of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel T.Coleridge describes a collection of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, first published in 1798 and generally considered to have marked the beginning of the English Romantic battlefront in literature. Most of the poems in the 1798 edition were written by Wordsworth, with Coleridge bestow only four poems to the collection, including one of his most famous works, The Rime of th e antediluvian patriarch Mariner. One of the main themes of Lyrical Ballads is the return to the original state of nature, in which people led a purer and more innocent existence. Wordsworth subscribed to Rousseaus touch sensation that humanity was essentially good but was corrupted by the influence of society.This may be linked with the sentiments spreading through Europe just prior to the French Revolution. *Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, and J. C. C. Mays. **Poetical Works, II. Poems (variorum Text), Parts 1 & 2. * Princeton, NJ Princeton UP, 2001. Print. This text describes the three parts of Volume 16 confirm and expand the superstar of the Coleridge who has emerged over the past half-century, with implications for English Romantic writing as a whole. This text is distinctive in exploring the works of Coleridge and is written with complete analysis of each poem. Shelley, Percy Bysshe*, Donald H. *Reiman*, and Neil *Fraistat*. * Shelleys Poetry and Prose Authoritative Texts, Crit icism. New York Norton, 2002. Print.This collection of Shelleys poetry and prose contains one of the fullest, and certainly the most accurately edited collections of Shelleys poetry and prose available. Shelley is the crimson child of English poetry and his determined opposition to tyranny produced a huge variety of poetry, ranging from the rending lament of Keats in Adonais, to the defiant and mingy sonnet Ozymandias. The essays in this volume are generally helpful and explain the structures of the poems where useful. They are also refreshingly short. This text distinctively contains 15 legal brief critical essays, which are among the best explications youll find of Shelleys work. *Chandler, James. The Cambridge History of English Romantic Literature. * Cambridge, UK Cambridge UP, 2009. Print.In this text it describes the Romantic period as one of the most creative, intense and turbulent periods of English literature, an age marked by revolution, reaction, and reform in politics , and by the invention of imaginative literature in its distinctively modern form. This History presents an engaging account of six decades of literary output around the turn of the nineteenth century. Reflecting the most up-to-date research, the essays are knowing both to provide a narrative of Romantic literature, and to offer new and stimulating readings of the key texts. One group of essays addresses the various locations of literary activity both in England and, as writers developed their interests in travel and orthogonal cultures, across the world. A second set of essays traces how texts responded to great historical and social change. With a comprehensive