The responses of Romantic
poets to French Revolution (what is the difference ideologies between first and
second generations?
Identify
romantic ideology?
لما يسالون عن ideology طبعا نروح قوقل ترجمة ونترجم ويطلع غلط
كونا طلاب ادب انجليزي حنا اكثر ناس نعرف ان الكلمة لها معنى معجمي ولها معنى سياقي
مثل الشعر الرومانسي
لا تروحون وترجمون الكلمة عربي ابدا بالمنهج لان بيعطي معناها المعجمي
لازم نبحث عنها كمعنى سياقي وهذي ما تكون الا انجلش تو انجلش
لان يترجمها ايدولوجية
والمعنى اللي نبيه هو:
idealogy= ia a set of beliefs, especially the political beleifson which people, parties, or countries base their actions.
من خلال هالشي شنو نفهم ؟
انه توجه سياسي لناس او مجموعة منهم لكن لهدف واحد او مصلحة وحدة
هالشي يذكرنا بشنو ؟
اختلاف وجهات النظر بين الجيل الاول والثاني للشعراء والسبب فيه
جابتر 2 بدايته اختصاصيية بهالنقطة
الاختلاف عرفناه وهو ان كان فيه مؤيدين للثورة حولوا لتاييدهم للاصلاح يعني غيروا رايهم
وهم الجيل الاول
اما الجيل الثاني فهو مع الثورة قلبا وقالبا
وهذا ما جاء فيها :
The first generation' of Romantic writers:
Blake, Wordsworth and Coleridge,
The 'second generation':
Shelley, Keats, and Byron,
The second generation died relatively young.
The social backgrounds of the two groups:
Of the first generation: All three had contact with radical groups who met to discuss the revolutionary ideas of Godwin and Paine
Of the second generation: Byron and Shelley both lived in exile, from which they criticized the reactionary character of English society.
If there was a difference in social class between the two generations of writers, there was also a difference in historical experience.
The Europe inhabited by the second generation was very different from Europe in the 1790s, the decade during which Wordsworth and Coleridge began to publish.
لما يسالون عن ideology طبعا نروح قوقل ترجمة ونترجم ويطلع غلط
كونا طلاب ادب انجليزي حنا اكثر ناس نعرف ان الكلمة لها معنى معجمي ولها معنى سياقي
مثل الشعر الرومانسي
لا تروحون وترجمون الكلمة عربي ابدا بالمنهج لان بيعطي معناها المعجمي
لازم نبحث عنها كمعنى سياقي وهذي ما تكون الا انجلش تو انجلش
لان يترجمها ايدولوجية
والمعنى اللي نبيه هو:
idealogy= ia a set of beliefs, especially the political beleifson which people, parties, or countries base their actions.
من خلال هالشي شنو نفهم ؟
انه توجه سياسي لناس او مجموعة منهم لكن لهدف واحد او مصلحة وحدة
هالشي يذكرنا بشنو ؟
اختلاف وجهات النظر بين الجيل الاول والثاني للشعراء والسبب فيه
جابتر 2 بدايته اختصاصيية بهالنقطة
الاختلاف عرفناه وهو ان كان فيه مؤيدين للثورة حولوا لتاييدهم للاصلاح يعني غيروا رايهم
وهم الجيل الاول
اما الجيل الثاني فهو مع الثورة قلبا وقالبا
وهذا ما جاء فيها :
The first generation' of Romantic writers:
Blake, Wordsworth and Coleridge,
The 'second generation':
Shelley, Keats, and Byron,
The second generation died relatively young.
The social backgrounds of the two groups:
Of the first generation: All three had contact with radical groups who met to discuss the revolutionary ideas of Godwin and Paine
Of the second generation: Byron and Shelley both lived in exile, from which they criticized the reactionary character of English society.
If there was a difference in social class between the two generations of writers, there was also a difference in historical experience.
The Europe inhabited by the second generation was very different from Europe in the 1790s, the decade during which Wordsworth and Coleridge began to publish.
اهني يوضح ان الشعراء الرومانسين
انقسموا الى مجموعتين
المجوعة الاولى (عاشت الثورة
الفرنسية من بدايتها الى انتهاءها وهزيمة نابيلون في معركة واتلرو ونفيه )
الجيل الاول هذا في بداية الثورة
صارت عنده امال وايد في انه تصير ثورة في انجلترا وتغير الاحوال
لان الثورة الفرنسية اطاحت بنظام
الملكية وهالنظام نفسه كان في انجلترا وكان ظالم
لكن بعد ما انتهت الثورة شافوا
ان فرنسا من سيء الى اسوء بعد ما طاحت 
د الديكتاتوري نابليون
د الديكتاتوري نابليون
اللي قرر انه يحتل اوروبا ودخلهم
في حروب مع انجلترا نفسها
فاهني قالو لا
اقضب مجنونك لا يجيك الاجن منه
ههههههههه
ودعوا الى الاصلاحات وانتقاد
الاوضاع فقط لان ووردسوورث واحد منهم
يشوف ان الشعر ممكن ما يغير
المجتمع بشكل جذري
ولكنه يغير في المواقف
والاتجاهات اللي بالتالي راح تغير بالمجتمع
اما الجيل الثاني من الشعراء فما
عاشوا الثورة
وكانوا شباب عكس الجيل الاول
الشيبان
فكان فيهم ثورة ورغبة في عمل
تغيير كبير واهمه عمل الثورة
لانهم شافوا بس نتيجة الثورة
الفرنسية وما عاشوها وهي التخلص من الملكية
عشان جذي الجيل الثاني ثوري
اما الاول فارتد عن فكرة الثورة
اللي ايدوها في البداية يعني apostasy
Romantic
literature of the first generation was wartime literature. Britain was
continuously at war from February 1793 until the Battle of Waterloo in June
1815. There were revolutions across Europe in the 1790s. After war broke out
between Britain and France in February 1793 sympathy for Revolutionary ideals
was not just unpopular, it was treasonable. So fear of revolution and the
conditions of war led to suppression of public meetings and censorship of the
press. However, the attitude of some in Britain who were enthusiastic about the
Revolution changed as events unfolded in France. These were the crucial events
in turning many, including Wordsworth and Coleridge, away from their initial
sympathy with the aims of the French Revolution to opposition to it.
The historical situation was different in the decade during which Shelley, Keats and Byron began to publish. The war had ended at Waterloo in 1815, but divisions and tensions came back to the surface in Britain. The war had affected Britain's sources of supply and the effects of this were worsened by a series of bad harvests in the 1810s. Organized breaking of the machines that were replacing the workforce in the weaving and lace industries had occurred in 1811.
The historical situation was different in the decade during which Shelley, Keats and Byron began to publish. The war had ended at Waterloo in 1815, but divisions and tensions came back to the surface in Britain. The war had affected Britain's sources of supply and the effects of this were worsened by a series of bad harvests in the 1810s. Organized breaking of the machines that were replacing the workforce in the weaving and lace industries had occurred in 1811.
__________
As we have seen from Shelley's England in 1819', the 'Peterloo Massacre' was in some ways the climax of the economic and political discontent of the immediate postwar years (see p.9). Following Peterloo, the government introduced legislation (The Six Acts') further restricting the right to hold meetings and the freedom of the press.
Wordsworth had been a sympathizer with the early ideals of the Revolution but his change of mind and his eventual acceptance of government employment was seen as a retreat into conservatism and as a betrayal of the democratic ideals of the Revolution to the reactionary forces of the British Establishment. Shelley, Keats and Byron all accused Coleridge and Wordsworth of 'apostasy', that is of having changed sides. (The original apostate was Lucifer, who was an angel but who fell and became Satan.) Byron, Shelley and Keats were themselves all too young to have lived either through the Revolution itself or the reaction.
Byron and Shelley both had links with such radical groups. Both chose to live in exile for personal and economic reasons, and exile became an element in the stereotype figure of the alienated, withdrawn, brooding hero of Byron's writings. Shelley represents two influential stances towards post-war Europe, as we have already seen in his poem England in 1819': a kind of utopianism, projecting everything forward into a hopeful future.
So the difference between the first and second generations of Romantic writers can be seen as the difference between the point of view of wartime and post-war writers. We can examine this difference by looking at a pair of poems. Both these poems are sonnets and I think they both attempt to put the phenomena of war and conquest into a different, longer perspective, whether natural, mythological or historical.
As we have seen from Shelley's England in 1819', the 'Peterloo Massacre' was in some ways the climax of the economic and political discontent of the immediate postwar years (see p.9). Following Peterloo, the government introduced legislation (The Six Acts') further restricting the right to hold meetings and the freedom of the press.
Wordsworth had been a sympathizer with the early ideals of the Revolution but his change of mind and his eventual acceptance of government employment was seen as a retreat into conservatism and as a betrayal of the democratic ideals of the Revolution to the reactionary forces of the British Establishment. Shelley, Keats and Byron all accused Coleridge and Wordsworth of 'apostasy', that is of having changed sides. (The original apostate was Lucifer, who was an angel but who fell and became Satan.) Byron, Shelley and Keats were themselves all too young to have lived either through the Revolution itself or the reaction.
Byron and Shelley both had links with such radical groups. Both chose to live in exile for personal and economic reasons, and exile became an element in the stereotype figure of the alienated, withdrawn, brooding hero of Byron's writings. Shelley represents two influential stances towards post-war Europe, as we have already seen in his poem England in 1819': a kind of utopianism, projecting everything forward into a hopeful future.
So the difference between the first and second generations of Romantic writers can be seen as the difference between the point of view of wartime and post-war writers. We can examine this difference by looking at a pair of poems. Both these poems are sonnets and I think they both attempt to put the phenomena of war and conquest into a different, longer perspective, whether natural, mythological or historical.
_________________________
Writing and reading in history?
هذي شي بسيط جدا الاثنين متعلقين بالتاريخ
الاولى معناها شي انكتب في التاريخ وهالشي يحتوي وجهة نظر
الكاتب مثل الشاعر اللي حب انه يعبر عن هالفترة اللي يعيشها بطريقته الخاصة
يعني اللي ينكتب شي خاص بمفهوم هالفترة اللي عاشها الكاتب
بس لما نجي نقرا الصورة تكون مختلفة تماما يعني لا الزمن زمانا ولا الحياة هي نفسها
عشان جذي لما كاتب يكتب عن قضية العرق مثل شكسبير في اوثيلو هو كتب هالشي كتعبير وتسجيل لشي عادي وموجود في مجتمعه بس لما الناس اللي بعده واللي بعده واللي بعده الين الحين مراح يفسرون اللي كتبه بنفس الاتجاه اللي هو كتب فيه
لان افكار الناس تتغير والحياة تتغير مع الوقت
وهالشي مجرد فهم وهم حاطولنا في الكتاب مثال وهو
england 1819 لما نشرح هالنقطة نقول ان النص او العمل الادبي لازم تكون عندنا خلفية تاريخية عن الوقت اللي انكتب فيه لانه وخاصة الشعر في الفترة الرومانسية مراح نفهمه بدون لا نعرف شنو صار فيه
بعدين نشرح القصيدة من هالناحية نفس شرح الكتاب لها
>>يعتبر سؤال عن historical context
للقصيدة نفسها بعد
In this poem we have to know some of historical events to understand it. The very title of the poem advertises its relation to a particular time n history, and it does refer to things, events or people outside itself much more than Wordsworth and Clare poem (The Previous Poem we looked at).
1819 was the fifty-ninth year if the reign of George III, who was indeed adjudged mad by the clinicians of the day. He died the following year and was succeeded by his son who had reigned as regent since 1810. The sons of George III are the ‘princes’ of line 2. The ‘senate …. unrepealed’ (line 12) refers to the British Parliament, whose electoral system was regarded as corrupt by those who advocated its reform. In particular, the poem alludes (in line 7) to violence against the people. In August 1819 troops were sent in to dispel a large but peaceful demonstration for parliamentary reform in St Peter’s Fields in Manchester. Eleven people were killed and more than four hundred injured in an event which known as the ‘Peterloo Massacre’. The poem sees economic exploitation and violence as interrelated – it yokes them together in the phrase ‘starved and stabbed’. Blood and money are linked again in the later phrase ‘golden and sanguine laws’ (line 10). They ‘tempt and slay’ because the government had used agents provocateurs to incite uprising.
The anger at the government and the monarchy evident in this sonnet explains why it published in 1839, after Shelley’s death. The poem takes the part of the ‘people’ against the powers of the state. But although it may be in part written about a ‘people’, who are largely illiterate, it surely is not written to them. The arresting opening of the poem may seem quite like that of speech. After that its vocabulary is much more varied: ‘sanguine’ and ‘slay’ (line 10) are versions of the much blunter terms ‘blood’ and ‘stabbed’ in lines 6 and 7. The later terms seem though to be more like euphemisms than synonyms. The start of the poem gets its effect from monosyllables; later these are set against longer, Latinate words: ‘liberticide’, ‘unreplead’, ‘illumine’, ‘tempestuous’.
Well, it goes right down to the level of the single word. Even single words in Romantic texts can be charged in a way we may not notice. For example, the term ‘democracy’ is fairly uncontroversially used as the name for a good and desirable state of affairs in modern societies, though definitions vary greatly. In the late eighteenth century, however, to be a ‘democrat’ was to be a supporter of the French Revolution.
How poetry changes society?
لانه يسلط الضوء على الظواهر او الممارسات الخاطئة
يوعي الناس لشي غافلين عنه
يحرك مشاعرهم
يغير مواقفهم
وبجذي لما تتغير المواقف تصير تغيرات جذرية
لا ننسى نحط امثلة عن هالشي خاصة ووردسوورث + شيللي
لانهم تكلموا عن هالنقطة
Writing and reading in history?
هذي شي بسيط جدا الاثنين متعلقين بالتاريخ
الاولى معناها شي انكتب في التاريخ وهالشي يحتوي وجهة نظر
الكاتب مثل الشاعر اللي حب انه يعبر عن هالفترة اللي يعيشها بطريقته الخاصة
يعني اللي ينكتب شي خاص بمفهوم هالفترة اللي عاشها الكاتب
بس لما نجي نقرا الصورة تكون مختلفة تماما يعني لا الزمن زمانا ولا الحياة هي نفسها
عشان جذي لما كاتب يكتب عن قضية العرق مثل شكسبير في اوثيلو هو كتب هالشي كتعبير وتسجيل لشي عادي وموجود في مجتمعه بس لما الناس اللي بعده واللي بعده واللي بعده الين الحين مراح يفسرون اللي كتبه بنفس الاتجاه اللي هو كتب فيه
لان افكار الناس تتغير والحياة تتغير مع الوقت
وهالشي مجرد فهم وهم حاطولنا في الكتاب مثال وهو
england 1819 لما نشرح هالنقطة نقول ان النص او العمل الادبي لازم تكون عندنا خلفية تاريخية عن الوقت اللي انكتب فيه لانه وخاصة الشعر في الفترة الرومانسية مراح نفهمه بدون لا نعرف شنو صار فيه
بعدين نشرح القصيدة من هالناحية نفس شرح الكتاب لها
>>يعتبر سؤال عن historical context
للقصيدة نفسها بعد
In this poem we have to know some of historical events to understand it. The very title of the poem advertises its relation to a particular time n history, and it does refer to things, events or people outside itself much more than Wordsworth and Clare poem (The Previous Poem we looked at).
1819 was the fifty-ninth year if the reign of George III, who was indeed adjudged mad by the clinicians of the day. He died the following year and was succeeded by his son who had reigned as regent since 1810. The sons of George III are the ‘princes’ of line 2. The ‘senate …. unrepealed’ (line 12) refers to the British Parliament, whose electoral system was regarded as corrupt by those who advocated its reform. In particular, the poem alludes (in line 7) to violence against the people. In August 1819 troops were sent in to dispel a large but peaceful demonstration for parliamentary reform in St Peter’s Fields in Manchester. Eleven people were killed and more than four hundred injured in an event which known as the ‘Peterloo Massacre’. The poem sees economic exploitation and violence as interrelated – it yokes them together in the phrase ‘starved and stabbed’. Blood and money are linked again in the later phrase ‘golden and sanguine laws’ (line 10). They ‘tempt and slay’ because the government had used agents provocateurs to incite uprising.
The anger at the government and the monarchy evident in this sonnet explains why it published in 1839, after Shelley’s death. The poem takes the part of the ‘people’ against the powers of the state. But although it may be in part written about a ‘people’, who are largely illiterate, it surely is not written to them. The arresting opening of the poem may seem quite like that of speech. After that its vocabulary is much more varied: ‘sanguine’ and ‘slay’ (line 10) are versions of the much blunter terms ‘blood’ and ‘stabbed’ in lines 6 and 7. The later terms seem though to be more like euphemisms than synonyms. The start of the poem gets its effect from monosyllables; later these are set against longer, Latinate words: ‘liberticide’, ‘unreplead’, ‘illumine’, ‘tempestuous’.
Well, it goes right down to the level of the single word. Even single words in Romantic texts can be charged in a way we may not notice. For example, the term ‘democracy’ is fairly uncontroversially used as the name for a good and desirable state of affairs in modern societies, though definitions vary greatly. In the late eighteenth century, however, to be a ‘democrat’ was to be a supporter of the French Revolution.
How poetry changes society?
لانه يسلط الضوء على الظواهر او الممارسات الخاطئة
يوعي الناس لشي غافلين عنه
يحرك مشاعرهم
يغير مواقفهم
وبجذي لما تتغير المواقف تصير تغيرات جذرية
لا ننسى نحط امثلة عن هالشي خاصة ووردسوورث + شيللي
لانهم تكلموا عن هالنقطة
Shelley's
definition of poetry is extremely broad. He states that: Poetry is the record
of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds'. When we read
through A Defence of Poetry we begin to note that poetry' seems less a
distinct mode of writing than a powerful effect produced by many different
kinds of written texts and by many different kinds of authors. We have already
noticed the way in which Shelley talks about 'the poets' embodying of power'.
Poetry in Shelley's essay, is something which has to do with a 'power', something
which has effects, on individual thought, on public opinion generally, thus on
society, and, finally, on history.
For Wordsworth Poems could not in
themselves change the social and political circumstances attacked in the
Preface, but they might tae he first step towards changing them. They could do
so by changing the attitudes. Fundamental change would require a fundamental
change of attitudes.
How do you find Romantic writing? Social criticism/ politics, or both?
طبعا الاثنين لان الكتابة الرومانسية كانت في فترة
فيها ثورات وهالشي سياسي وصار فيها مطالبات في الاصلاح
او الثورات >>مع امثلة مثل england 1819
london
وثورة صناعية وهالشي غير من تركيبة او النسيج الاجتماعي صار فيه طبقات غنية وطبقات فقيرة
والناس صارت تبيع عيالها عشان الفلوس
chimney sweeper
حطيت هالنقاط مع بعض لانهم نفس الفكرة
باقي الاشياء في موضوع ثاني
قبل هذا اللي يبونه من السي دي
فيها ثورات وهالشي سياسي وصار فيها مطالبات في الاصلاح
او الثورات >>مع امثلة مثل england 1819
london
وثورة صناعية وهالشي غير من تركيبة او النسيج الاجتماعي صار فيه طبقات غنية وطبقات فقيرة
والناس صارت تبيع عيالها عشان الفلوس
chimney sweeper
حطيت هالنقاط مع بعض لانهم نفس الفكرة
باقي الاشياء في موضوع ثاني
قبل هذا اللي يبونه من السي دي
ان شاء الله يكون واضح
طبعا للفهم
لحد يقولي وايد
تعبت وانا اكتبه
لحد يقولي وايد
تعبت وانا اكتبه
Nowadays, Romantic is often used to refer to a popular form of the novel
which explores aspects of romantic love through its own special conventions and
vocabulary. The sense of ‘romantic’ as in romantic love is relevant to the use
of ‘Romantic’ in Romantic writing. So too are the associations of the word
romantic with yearning, the mysterious, the irrational, and with transcending
every day reality; but the word ‘Romantic has a specialized as well as a
colloquial sense. The medieval or Renaissance ‘romance’ as a literary form
which had as its subject exotic or far-fetched stories of knights and ladies
and adventures.
The term ‘romantic’ began to be used in English in the early nineteenth century to refer to a belief that life could be lived by ideals rather than rules. ‘Romantic’ also came to be used to describe a group of writers from around the turn of the eighteenth century whose work demonstrated such a belief and who were thought in retrospect to have other characteristics in common.
Romanticism has been described as a European movement which came to affect all the arts in the first half of the nineteenth century. It is a very generalized way of claiming coherence for a vast range of culture practices; nevertheless, in retrospect resemblances can be seen between what different writers and artists were producing in different parts of Europe and these resemblances seen as a strong enough to amount to a movement.
‘Romantic’ writings produced in the period from about 1780 to 1836. It defined as a response to the political revolutions of the last decade of the eighteenth century, or as a reaction to Classicism (that is to rules of writing drawn from the example of ancient Greek and Latin texts). The first is the definition which relates the writing to its historical context; the second is a formal or aesthetic definition.
British Romanticism was defined as poetry – not prose, and only very rarely non-fictional prose. What is more, ‘Romantic poetry’ was regarded as mostly having been written by just six male English poets: William Blake, William Wordsworth, S.T. Coleridge, Lord Byron, P.B. Shelley and John Keats. Poetry by women in the period as more or less ignored. Romantic poetry was discussed in relation to brad, ambitious terms like ‘Imagination’ and ‘Nature’.
Romantic writings are texts which form a period of great social, political and cultural change. A larger historical movement of Romanticism as being from Revolution to Reform.
A Romantic work is usually lyrical and tries to convince its reader that it is peculiarly expressive and cannot be paraphrased. Romanticism ‘as an aesthetic category parallel to neo-Classicism’. In this aesthetic, the expressive is privileged over the mimetic. An expressive view of writing (or of any art) is one that supposes the work of art to be representing primarily the state of mind of the artist.
The description of the work of art possessing ‘organic unity’ betrays their influence: organic unity is the notion that the work of art has to be the way it is and can be no other way. These are broadly the characteristics of the Romantic poem.
So Romanticism on the one hand might describe particular kind of writing, on the other it might describe some of the writing from a particular period. This kind of writing relates to ‘imagination for the view of poetry, nature of the view of the world, and symbol and myth for poetic style’. These elements are commonly identifies as key element in Romantic writings.
In Romantic texts, celebration the ideals of gender and race, may be to say that art which have value is beyond politics and history. It is the political or historical kind of approach on contrasts with ideal approach. For example, in writing about the Romantic writers’ interest in nature, their turning from the neo-Classicism of the eighteenth century, and their use of symbol and myth, Wellek draws attention to a visionary or prophetic strain present in one way or another in Romantic writing.
The interest in the women writers in this period really began only after feminism had had made a political impact in the 1970s.
Literary texts are seen as part f a political word rather than separate from it. We have to understand the argument about how they should be read. We read in history just as texts are written in history. There is importance of the historical contexts in which texts were written.
The poem therefore exemplifies the concept of ideology in three ways: (1) that a set of beliefs such as religion (the idea of resurrection) can be seen as an ideology; (2) that such a set of beliefs may not serve the best interests of the believers (the sweeps); (3) that a writer such as Blake, in trying to make sense of his experience of the world may produce work which has its own ideological interests. Romanic writings could be seen as working as Napoleon’s ideologies, ‘the propaganda’ or ‘Public relations’.
Shelley’s ‘England in 1819’ was written when the poet was living far away from England and not published until twenty years later. Shelley’s later radical poems were not published in his lifetime because booksellers feared government persecution and imprisonment. In other hand Blake’s lavishly illustrated books were too expensive for most people to buy.
The male Romantic writers interest to differentiate their writings from those of the popular female writers of the day and mark this as ‘masculine’, and by doing so to preserve their male authority.
Thier imagination tended to signify some thing visionary and it is some thing different. The power of imagination is to heal and restore, to supply the faith which had earlier been lost after the disappointments of the French Revolution. The close of ‘Composed by the Side of Grasmere Lake’ is a good example of the imaginary making sense of real condition. The poem imagines a mysterious voice able to bring ‘tranquility’ to ‘earth’s grounding field’. Imagining a ‘Great Pan’ who can resolve a problem is one way of being able to make sense of a difficult world.
The term ‘romantic’ began to be used in English in the early nineteenth century to refer to a belief that life could be lived by ideals rather than rules. ‘Romantic’ also came to be used to describe a group of writers from around the turn of the eighteenth century whose work demonstrated such a belief and who were thought in retrospect to have other characteristics in common.
Romanticism has been described as a European movement which came to affect all the arts in the first half of the nineteenth century. It is a very generalized way of claiming coherence for a vast range of culture practices; nevertheless, in retrospect resemblances can be seen between what different writers and artists were producing in different parts of Europe and these resemblances seen as a strong enough to amount to a movement.
‘Romantic’ writings produced in the period from about 1780 to 1836. It defined as a response to the political revolutions of the last decade of the eighteenth century, or as a reaction to Classicism (that is to rules of writing drawn from the example of ancient Greek and Latin texts). The first is the definition which relates the writing to its historical context; the second is a formal or aesthetic definition.
British Romanticism was defined as poetry – not prose, and only very rarely non-fictional prose. What is more, ‘Romantic poetry’ was regarded as mostly having been written by just six male English poets: William Blake, William Wordsworth, S.T. Coleridge, Lord Byron, P.B. Shelley and John Keats. Poetry by women in the period as more or less ignored. Romantic poetry was discussed in relation to brad, ambitious terms like ‘Imagination’ and ‘Nature’.
Romantic writings are texts which form a period of great social, political and cultural change. A larger historical movement of Romanticism as being from Revolution to Reform.
A Romantic work is usually lyrical and tries to convince its reader that it is peculiarly expressive and cannot be paraphrased. Romanticism ‘as an aesthetic category parallel to neo-Classicism’. In this aesthetic, the expressive is privileged over the mimetic. An expressive view of writing (or of any art) is one that supposes the work of art to be representing primarily the state of mind of the artist.
The description of the work of art possessing ‘organic unity’ betrays their influence: organic unity is the notion that the work of art has to be the way it is and can be no other way. These are broadly the characteristics of the Romantic poem.
So Romanticism on the one hand might describe particular kind of writing, on the other it might describe some of the writing from a particular period. This kind of writing relates to ‘imagination for the view of poetry, nature of the view of the world, and symbol and myth for poetic style’. These elements are commonly identifies as key element in Romantic writings.
In Romantic texts, celebration the ideals of gender and race, may be to say that art which have value is beyond politics and history. It is the political or historical kind of approach on contrasts with ideal approach. For example, in writing about the Romantic writers’ interest in nature, their turning from the neo-Classicism of the eighteenth century, and their use of symbol and myth, Wellek draws attention to a visionary or prophetic strain present in one way or another in Romantic writing.
The interest in the women writers in this period really began only after feminism had had made a political impact in the 1970s.
Literary texts are seen as part f a political word rather than separate from it. We have to understand the argument about how they should be read. We read in history just as texts are written in history. There is importance of the historical contexts in which texts were written.
The poem therefore exemplifies the concept of ideology in three ways: (1) that a set of beliefs such as religion (the idea of resurrection) can be seen as an ideology; (2) that such a set of beliefs may not serve the best interests of the believers (the sweeps); (3) that a writer such as Blake, in trying to make sense of his experience of the world may produce work which has its own ideological interests. Romanic writings could be seen as working as Napoleon’s ideologies, ‘the propaganda’ or ‘Public relations’.
Shelley’s ‘England in 1819’ was written when the poet was living far away from England and not published until twenty years later. Shelley’s later radical poems were not published in his lifetime because booksellers feared government persecution and imprisonment. In other hand Blake’s lavishly illustrated books were too expensive for most people to buy.
The male Romantic writers interest to differentiate their writings from those of the popular female writers of the day and mark this as ‘masculine’, and by doing so to preserve their male authority.
Thier imagination tended to signify some thing visionary and it is some thing different. The power of imagination is to heal and restore, to supply the faith which had earlier been lost after the disappointments of the French Revolution. The close of ‘Composed by the Side of Grasmere Lake’ is a good example of the imaginary making sense of real condition. The poem imagines a mysterious voice able to bring ‘tranquility’ to ‘earth’s grounding field’. Imagining a ‘Great Pan’ who can resolve a problem is one way of being able to make sense of a difficult world.
Poetry is not to be seen as referential, not part of a language of
reason. The language of a Romantic poetry may be so powerful as to inhibit your
own thinking. It leaves you – in other words – absorbed in the poet’s imagining
of his or her relation to the real world. So perhaps, part of Romantic ideology
is that in celebrating powers such s vision or imagination, it suspends
rational question
