Romanticism Bellarsi -Monday 7 November 2011 -Introduction Authors William Blake ; William Wordsworth ; Samuel Taylor Coleridge ; Percy

Byssche Shelley ; Keats. Books DAY A., Romanticism + Selected Poems by the five authors. Why poetry ? Poets, more than any other literary persons, invent their own language. Its one of the densest of arts. Form of expression whose size on paper is in reverse proportion to its ramifications. The process of engaging with poetry is as important as mastery of the period. Fills a gap. Why these five authors ? Limited time available, and because they are towering figures of English Romanticism. They encapsulate complementarity in diversity. Exam Oral examination in June. Material studied in class, question on Days book, and analysis of a poem read individually. Romanticism Why is romanticism a complicated concept ? It roughly extends over a century : 1760-1860. A production that did not develop at the same rhythm everywhere in Europe. Problem of periodicisation across Europe. England and Germany : hubs. Exchange between countries : how, and when did English Romanticism influence the others. And the other way round. Who influenced who ? Internal genesis of the movement. Phenomenon of accretion, sedimentation, addition. Literary movements have several branches articulated around the same root. Precursors : John Milton, James Thomson, Thomas Gray, Edward Young.

The term. None of the romantic writers would have label themselves as such. Romanticism is a term coined in Germany by the Schlegel brothers around 1800 (Romantisch). Romance : in the sense of love, feeling. But also quest. Linked to the romance element of the Middle Ages. It suggests emotion, courtly love, questing. Romanticism <> Classicism. Working definition of romanticism, a very complex movement : - (In part) Reaction against the predominance of reason that stems from the Enlightenment. But they still use reason to enrich their vision of the world. They were interested in nature, science, technology, etc. - Inner quest, but which also extends to the rest of society. - Social questioning. Reaction against the social structures of the time. And the changes brought by the invention of the steam engine. Increased urbanisation, increased poverty, increased disparities between cities and the country. Move from an agrarian society to an urban one. - Huge political changes : French Revolution and the shockwaves it sent throughout the continent. - Affirmation of individual subjectivity and assertion of a vision that defies the standards of the time. ! Artists before that period were under the patronage of the powerful. They were commissioned by kings, lords, etc. - Romanticism is a very early kind of avant-garde because of the artists independence. - Primacy of imagination, mind, spirit. A force that is superior to reason, a faculty capable of structuring reality in a deeper way, capable of establishing connections between elements of reality. Capable of linking the material and the immaterial. It decodes reality more truly than reason. => - Imagination > Analytical thinking. - Definition of imagination varies among the various authors. But whatever their definition, it is a strong reaction against John Lockes vision of the world1. The Romantics are closer to George Berkeleys philosophical view2 and to German philosophers such as Kant. - Theory of knowledge. How do objective and subjective interact ? How does mind shape reality ? - Idealism (the mind imprints reality) >< Empiricism (reality imprints the mind). - Nature. Preoccupation with nature begins with the romantics. What is nature ? What is our place in it ? Romanticism sees nature as sacred and indispensable. Paradox : if youre interested in nature, you have to study its laws (objective, rational, empirical). - Deification of art. Deification of reality itself. Even if romantics rebel against organised religion, the notion of the sacred is an essential preoccupation. The divine in physical, everyday reality. How to move from a vertical (transcendent) to a horizontal (immanent) vision of the sacred. Pantheism. - Definition of key concepts varies : Blakes Nature is not Wordsworths Nature. - Variety of styles in which Romantics write. Variation even occurs within an authors own work. They all challenged classical models, but they used a wide range of forms :
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Empirical philosopher. The mind is a blind slate upon which sense and impression register. Romantics do not believe the mind is empty. The mind influences reality, it contains in itself the potential to influence and change reality. ACTIVE faculty. 2 There is no perceived without the perceiver. 2

Ballads, Epic tales, Epic poems, Narrative poems, Ode, etc. No unity of style. Versatile. Romanticism affected all the arts : literature, but also music (mostly in Germany : Schubert, Beethoven, Brahms) and painting (in Britain : Constable, Turner). Even garden landscapes were affected by the movement. Poet as Visionary, and unacknowledged legislator of the world.

BLAKE Blake : pre-romantic or romantic ? Hes a romantic, because we already have a number of major elements that link the major precursors of romanticism together. Esoteric and coded verse. Main themes Political rebellion ; Energy ; The mind ; The senses ; Religion ; Spiritualisation of experience ; The poet as visionary. Extremely personal type of verse. Language that breaks away with the models of classicism. It breaks away from strict crossodic3 molds such as the iambic pentameter. Romantics will experiment with form and language. William Blake (1757-1827) Lived in London for most of his life. Very long and productive life. He worked as a printer and an engraver. He worked by himself. He did not collaborate with other poets of the period. He was totally unrecognised in his day. Today, he is considered as one of the most important poets in the English language. There remains shadowy areas about Blakes life. But he did not make heavy use of hallucinogenics (unlike Coleridge ?). He did, however, have spontaneous visions that an 18th century mind would have considered a Godly vision, or would have contributed to Blakes categorisation as a madman in his time. -Monday 14 November -Working definition : see Virtual University. Why is Blake convenient as introduction to Romanticism ?
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Related to verse 3

He exemplifies the richness of the movement, its complexity and its diversity. Diversity ? Blake has written lyrics, ballads, and other short forms. Beside the short form, he has also written prose : aphorisms, maxims, slogans. He then moved on to monumental epic poems. The short poems are rehearsing ground for these vast poems (Milton, The Four Zoas, Jerusalem). Also the varied rebellion against conventional aesthetic forms : moments in which the verse is regular, but in others the verse is excentric and unpredictable. Prosody4 is extremely individual. Prolific engraver and printer. The two art forms were not separated for him : they were meant to be in constant correspondence with one another. Sometimes the text is included in the engraving. Blake is a city poet, he spent most of his life in the borough of Landbeth. Isolated poet. Individual soul. So ahead of his time that people thought of him as a madman. Why is Blake sometimes seen as a pre-romantic ? Because the official establishment of the movement occurs in 1798, with Wordsworth and Coleridges Preface to Lyrical Ballads. However, Romanticism and its main orientations already existed and were put in practice by Blake twenty years before. Marriage of Heaven and Hell Title Play with contraries : Heaven >< Hell. Dialectic movement at the heart of Blakes work : A + (- A) are put together to make a synthesis. Incorporating the notion of Energy in the composition. Very important component. Rejection of stasis and stagnation. For Romantics, established forms were dead forms. Constant renewal. Sort of manifesto for Blakes universe. Indispensable tool to grasp his work. Context Blake was very interested in religion, spirituality. Also, concepts of apocalypse and rebirth. A number of his monumental epics are seen as apocalyptic pieces : death of one world and birth of another. Some categorise him as gnostic, form of heretic Christianity. Others say he focused on the Old Testament. Others still see a transformation of Hindu myths in his writings.
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Verse form 4

Personal mysticism : heavily reliant on dialectic movement. Situating Marriage : it is an answer to the Swedish mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg, who, according to Blake, did not go far enough in his considerations on Good and Bad. Introductory poem Anti-Bible. Quasi-Biblical figures. Aphorisms (good tool to analyse the Songs) Paragraph 4 : Good = Reason = Heaven // Evil = Energy = Hell. But Blake is not a dissolute man like Byron. He was law-abiding (except for a minor case) and quite moral. This definition of Good and Evil has to be kept in mind when comparing The Lamb and The Tyger. So here : Angels are passive, positive. Devils are active, energetic, negative. The voice of the Devil Good voice here. Body (material) & Soul (immaterial). Dialectic pair that will also affect Songs of Innocence/Experience. Energy & Reason. Dialectic pair. Paragr. 8 : God of traditional Christ. will repress Body & Energy. Soul is linked to the material body and the senses. Perception is important. Reason binds Energy, it is the limit. Energy is eternal delight. Sacred value. Paragr. 13 : if you restrain desire, its not necessarily due to moral pressure but to weakness and passivity. Life & Energy is the condition of existence. Redeemed state / Fallen state. Paragr. 44 : If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man, infinite. Paragr. 32 : there is relative perception, absolute perception, but it is transformed by imagination. Everything is holy (parag. 92). We perceive it in the Fallen state, while we should consider the world in the Redeemed state (corrected perception). Innocence and experience are linked to perception, to vision. The vision is enlarged (or hindered) by imagination (or lack thereof).

Mental prison. Songs of Experience The Sun Flower Allegory for Man. Roots in darkness, earth. But longs to reach the light, the sun. Impossible to reach it. Sun-Flowers centre : like an eye. Organ of vision. Longing for the cleansing of the doors of perception, and a new type of awareness. See Aldous Huxleys The Doors of Perception : experimentation with hallucinogenics. -Monday 21 November -Last week : the groundwork was laid to analyse Songs of Experience/Innocence. Perception is of the essence. Cleaning the doors of perception is essential for him. Two contrary states of the human soul expressed by these songs. The dialectic play between oppositions is something that affects you as a reader. These poems are very popular, they are taught in schools, but they also appear deceptively simple. Their content is actually far more complicated than appears on the surface, as is the method used to read them. How do you read them ? One could read the two books side by side, because there are opposites (both intros, both nurses songs, etc). It implies a very different reading experience. Vertical reading, or horizontal reading. Blake himself shifted certain songs from volume to volume : some wouldve been in Innocence in earlier editions and then were transferred to Experience. It is not because a song is in Experience that there are no elements of Innocence. Example : The Tyger : is it actually an animal of evil, or is the song more nuanced than that ? Another layer of complexity is added by the prints. They were conceived parallel to the actual poems, so what role do they play into the perception ? How do they mitigate one another ? Example : Night. Golden dominant colour in the print. Light and darkness reconciled. The aspect of the picture is as calming as the verse itself. At other times, things are a bit more complicated. In The Tyger, you get the impression that it is ferocious and dangerous. But if you look at the animal in the actual print, it does give a somewhat softer vision. Medium : are we to understand the term Songs as a poetic image, or did Blake have the musical aspect of his poems in mind ? A number of artists have tried to set the songs to music, and one of the most interesting examples is the American poet Allen Ginsberg.

It is an infernal answer to religious hymns by Wesley and Watts5. Some songs seem to be immediate answers to these hymns. Are these poems meant to be read or sung aloud. The Songs in themselves actually challenge the kind of linear reading associated with the dualist intellect which Blake is denouncing. Not only content, also form is a subject of change and defiance on Blakes part6. The form embodies content, it embodies the intellectual battle that the reader will be going through whilst reading the text. Importance of questioning. A number of poems suggest answers, but no one-dimensional answers : interpretation may differ significantly. There is a deconditioning of experience. The perceptual element is central to the pieces, and must be taken into account if one wishes to analyse them thoroughly. One must pay attention to the poetic mindscape : they refer to states of mind. Two contrary states of the human soul appear on the frontispiece : important clue indicating that each and every element in the poems is a symbol of a state of mind ; it is a mapping of the psyche. Contrary to later poets (Wordsworth, Keats, ), Blakes verse is cryptic. Why ? Either a consequence of uncertain social times (French Revolution, etc.), or is it a task asked of the reader to make real efforts to understand the pluridimensional aspects of the poems and cleanse the doors of perception. Also, a notion of transcendence confers it eternal status : it addresses readers across the ages. The Songs of Innocence and Experience Blake attacks the dualistic mind, dualistic rationality7. What now passes as truth, was once but only imagined . What is finite (the grain of sand) turns out to be an infinity. So there is no clear cut opposition between Innocence and Experience ; indeed, not only are we talking about ethical realities, social realities, inner realities, there is also a sense of incompleteness. The combination of both Songs might be the true way to redemption. A spiritual war that ends up in a synthesis in which true, pure innocence triumphs. But it is a child-like state: associated with joy of being in the world, ability to see more than meets the eye, associated with imagination that children are capable of before the corruption of adulthood. Unfallen perceptual state. OTOH, it can also mean being nave, vulnerable, unable to defend itself. Also, a lack of critical intelligence. So it needs the corrective of experience to attain true innocence, in the sense of chosen innocence. A stage in which you have the kind of rebellious character to change things and fight for what is lost in childhood, to strive for a true integration of imagination, intellect and bodily desires. Might be a variation on the Bible. For Blake, sin is a mental state that is socially conditioned. And you can emerge from it, without the help of God. Interestingly, the dialectic between Innocence and Experience forms part of Blakes (and many other Romantic authors) unorthodox religiosity. Detranscendentalisation of God. Close reading of the Songs
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Popular 18th century hymn writers Form is but an extension of content , Robert Creeley 7 Predominence of reason, empirism : a grain of sand is a grain of sand. 7

1) Contrast The Lamb vs. The Tyger Difference in rhythm. In L the tone is mild (sometimes conversational), whilst in T it is a hamering one. It presents a stark contrast with John Dryden or Alexander Popes regular meter. The poetic voice is different. L is calmer, nave than Ts voice, where the voice is adult. But who is speaking ? Is it Blake himself, or does he give the floor to a multiplicity of voices. Is the narrator the poet or not ? In Lamb: questions in the first stanza, followed by (nave) answers. In Tyger, there are only questions. It contributes to the insecurity of the reader, and also leaves the door open to multiple possibilities. Nave answers are no longer on the agenda. The Lamb has a far more child-like symmetry, and mirrors in many ways the religious hymns of the time. In T, some images might upset the views of established religions: God also created the (evil?) Tyger. The Lambs passages dost thou know?: it doesnt know who made him. softest clothing; tender voice: spiritual light? making all the vales rejoice: lamb is a herd animal. It is in harmony with the whole of creation, spiritual joy echoes from valley to valley. Opposition to the Tygers individualism. Ill tell thee: is it Blake speaking here? Is it the voice of God? The shepherd? / The Lamb needs a guide, he needs a response to the question who made thee?. He is meek and mild: submissiveness. The Lamb is also meat for slaughter, a sacrificed animal. He became a little child: becoming innocent is possible. I a child: literal? Or is it an inner, symbolical child? Repetition of the last two lines: nursery rhyme. paradise-like picture, lack of corruption. BUT defenceless, submissive, nave. World at peace only out of lack of awareness. Too comfortable as a vision. The Tygers passages8 burning bright: different kind of brightness than wool. Evokes the tigers fur. And fire: of destruction, or purification? forests of the night: opposed to the meadows, the mead. Daylight turns to darkness. Symbolism of the forest: mind, and place of evil and magic. what immortal hand or eye could: conditional or reproach: how could this happen? fearful symmetry: mental quality of the animal applied to its physical appearance. skies and deeps: totally different organisation of space. Geography that is far more threatening, because it is considerably vaster. Intimacy (Lamb) is transformed in something gigantic. on what wings dare he: who is he? immortal hand: of God? Or is it another kind of immortal hand? The artists. heart began to beat: life of the Tyger, or is it a reflexion of the poems rhythm, representing the hearts elemental beating. The poem also suggests a kind of unstopping heartbeat that accounts for the effect that the poem has on you. Why is it that we are much more fascinated by the Tyger than by the Lamb? what the hammer, what the chain: factory work of the industrial revolution. Vocabulary
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Profusion of one syllable words that add to the abruptness 8

related to the burgeoning industrial world9. Furnace is negative, or is it positive? In addition to industry, the furnace can also refer to social upheaval. Psychological dimension added to the social, literal dimension. deadly terrors: negative, or does it refer to challenges that deserve to be embrassed. stars throwing down their spears: the whole of creation weeps. Heavenly and water mixed. Did he smile his work to see?: he is not capitalised! Is he the God of Creation, or is he a mortal figure (the artist!). Are we presented with a kind of Tyger of Wrath, wisdom, and Horses of Instruction, linked to tradition? Is it the limited mathematical order of the Enlightenment that is evil? dare frame: full circle with first stanza. Is the Tyger a creature of evil disturbing our faith in Gods immortal hand? Or is it a symbol of the kind of devil we saw in the Proverbs of Hell10. Are we the Tyger? Are we the Lamb? 2) The Blossom On the surface, extremely simple lyric. One or two syllable words. The blossom supposes a flourishing flower, a positive connotation. Joyful creation (merry sparrow, leaves so green) that is personified and functions in harmony with all its constituent elements. The cradle: cradle of human heart. Feeling of closeness and intimacy. A flower seeing a bird of joy, cradling and nestling in comfort near the human heart. Happy blossom contrasts with the sobbing. Also contrast because the happy creation hears sobbing near the bosom. Why would a bird sob unless he is caged? 3) The Laughing Song Verse embodies the argument. A human property, laugh, is attributed to the whole of human creation. Water, fire, air, rocks: all elements of creation are involved. Human attributes are given to the landscape, which is personified. Lively green: vivid, lively forest. Children connecting with the rest of creation. Scene in which harmony reigns. Eternal delight, unrestrained joy, except for painted birds: birds are implied to be artificial. Simplicity of rowdy children. -Monday 28 November -Did not attend classes (Nurses Song, Holy Thursday, etc.) -Monday 5 December -9 10

Anvil, furnace, hammer, chain, etc. Positively connotated : revolution, social change, rebellion against establishment. 9

Ms. Bellarsi absent. -Monday 12 December 2011 -4) The Little Black Boy One of the most commented songs, because very controversial. Very different reading in Victorian times and today. As with the Chimney Sweeper, there is problem with the synchrony of our analysis. Hierarchy between white (higher) and black (lower) or more subtle reading. Context: concept of white superiority. Empire. Slavery. Is Blake accepting the conventions of the time? I am black, my soul is white. On the one hand, Blake equalizes white with black, but he still sees white as the standard. It seems progressive for the time, but the black boy needs to be legitimised as a white boy. black as if bereaved of light. Note as if: it indicates semblance, but not reality. Light supposes an underlying motive, not only on a literary level. White as an angel is the English child: ! angels are ambiguous in Blakes mythological vocabulary. It also implies naivety. Second stanza: humanisation of the black child. He has a typical child-mother relationship. Third/fourth stanzas: connect with light. Indeed, the song is not as nave and sentimental as it seems. The rising sun: it is the light of God. But what kind of God are we talking about? It marks rebirth, resurrection, etc. The east is associated with new life, and the west with death. The light gives heat away but we are, as men, ephemeral (a little space). We are not ready to receive the divine light from the start: it is a process. We are here on Earth to learn. As if it were a temporary prison (or school?) during which we get accustomed again to being in harmony with the world. the sun-burnt face is but a cloud. CLOUD: they pass, they are but very temporary. They shade or hide the sun, but here their most important symbolical meaning is that they mutate, they are not solid objects, they have no eternal essence. It is more an appearance than an essence. The black boy is more adapted to bear the suns beams11. He shields the white boy from it until he is ready for it. Implies that the white boy is much less mature than the black boy to receive the truth. And round the tent of God like lambs: equality.
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Symbolical: the divine truth. 10

When I from black and he from white cloud free: CLOUD is also associated with prejudice. The use of we levels the field between white and black. It challenges the established distinctions of the time. And be like him and he will then love me: cause of postcolonial criticism, but there are clues as to the symbolical weight of such a verse. He may be referring to the white lamb, whose significance in Blakes mythology is evident. The ambiguity remains as to the tone: sadness, or hopefulness, or even ironic. In the latter case, it indicates that this revolution of the spirit will not happen soon, and will be tainted by experience. There is no implication that the white boy is superior, spiritually at least. Gnostic12 interpretation: both boys have to emerge from their body to reach spiritual light. CLOUD of the body. Multidimensional poem. The symbols used carry on different meanings and mutate throughout the text: the cloud can be interpreted in various ways. Shading the white boy from the light, but helping him to receive it. But when does he receive it? In life or in death? The tent of God? Does it come up after we have lived all our life (the west). Metaphorical death. See poem Morning. The war of swords and spears Dewy tears Supposes rebirth after death. Revolution possible through a cleansing of the senses, or can it only be achieved through death. See also Night: evokes reconciliation, challenges the hierarchies of the time, the prejudices. It would be strange for Blake to submit to the conventional ideas of the time, especially concerning racial questions. 5) The Little Boy/Girl Lost and The Little Boy/Girl Found in Innocence Shifted numerous times between Experience and Innocence. Wandering child figures feature prominently in Blakes works. They lose their way quite often. It refers to disorientation in which we find ourselves. Boy Lost & found Less cryptic than Night or Little Black Boy. Absent parents in earthly life, but spiritual parent is present. The father leaves the little boy behind and abandons him in the noxious darkness of ignorance. In the Boy Found, it is not his physical father but his spiritual father who brings back the light. The mother, who seeks her child, is very disoriented, at least as equally confused as the child.
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Seen as a form of heretic Christianity. One of the main tenets pervading Gnosticism is that we are cut off from divine life by imprisonment in the body. 11

Important for Girl: absence of earthly parents, presence of spiritual parents. Little Girl Lost Symbols in common with Night: lion, ruby tears, etc. Starts in a much more formal manner than Little Boy Lost. Complexity vs. simplicity. Stanza 1, 2: the tone is completely different from other Innocence songs. It is actually closer to Experience. It is a voice of nature telling us about a transformation. It may fit better there. The entire Earth shall awaken out of sleep. It will seek to reconnect with the divine. Clearly, a sort of apocalypse, a cleansing of a radical kind. Is this cleansing of the doors of perception to be accomplished here and now, or through death and resurrection. The Earth gets transformed and arouses out of sleep13. The impossible is made possible: a reconciliation is made between infertility and fertility: desert becomes garden. Garden mild strongly evokes the Garden of Eden. Lexical echoes from one song to another: in the southern clime references The Sunflower. Seven summers old: very long search. Symbolism of seven is not chosen innocently, it is very significant: journey, moving forward, searching. Underneath this tree; Do father, mother weep? Where can Lyca sleep?: SLEEP of death? Which mother? Which father? Real parents or spiritual parents? Where supposes that the girl looks for a home. Stanza 7: Reversal. If her heart does ake, let Lyca wake: physically or spiritually? Sleep that corresponds to Harmony and Fusion like Night because she will have found reconciliation with the spiritual principle. Stanza 8: The moon is heavily associated with feminity, fertility. It is also associated with wolves14. Wilderness beneath the thin veneer of civilisation. It governs the tides, and the Lunar calendar was used to order the crops. Its also a symbol of poetic fertility, of inspiration. Throughout the poem: question remains about the sleep: is it literal sleep or death. Stanza 9: beasts that come from the deepest recesses of the mind. Suggests repressed possibilities. The kingly lion is linked to Jesus, he walks over sacred land. Stanza 10: Tygers are not only ferocious creatures, they also provoke creation and inspire. Again reconciliation: the dark forces of the psyche is reconciled with the innocence. Stanza 13: Clothes hide our essential nature. They are metaphorical clothes, representing the masks we wear in so-called civilised societies. Return to elemental life.
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Mind-forged manicals, ignorance, prejudice, etc. Lyca is a wolf name. 12

The Little Girl Lost It doesnt seem that Lyca aches because of her parents. Instead it reinforces our suspicion that the ache is not of a physical kind. Here, the parents are looking for the child but its as if they are not aware that they are missing something, and only realise that when they find the child. Allegory of Gods Kingdom with animals. Once more we have a fusion of opposites. Sort of apocalypse, reconciliation, reality beyond purely analytical senses. Led to the cave where the lion, tyger, and rest of wild beasts reside. Suggests a mental journey. And to this day they dwell, in a lonely dell, nor fear the wolvish howl, nor the lions growl. Are they with the daughter? Or separated from her? Anyhow, the mental process has been completed. Fear is not part of the equation. Is it that the parents are reassured because the child has been joined with the spiritual principle in death? Is it that the child is sleeping but not dead? Are they reunited with the child or separated from it? All the possibilities remain open. At least we know that the child has found her real place, and as a result the parents are at peace too. What is the nature of this child? Literal child, or is it a metaphorical child. The child is the soul, the deepest essence of the human being going home. It is as if the wandering soul has found her true home. Mysterious poem that is multidimensional, in which Blake challenges the readers critical mind. Form: one- or two-syllable words. Very short stanzas, very short verses. Translates a determined advance, inexorable march. Chase, spiritual hunt at work. Hypnotic force. Obsessive rhythm there very reminiscent of The Tyger. Highly complex meaning conveyed by a very simple form. Very liquid and long sounds, but they are also not abrupt. The pace is nearly military in some instances. -Monday 19 December 2011 -The Sick Rose Very simple poem, but in depth it displays very complex themes. Engraving: suggests a kind of flower that is still in full bloom, but it is on the verge of being rotten. Is it a poem to passing beauty? Is beauty being destroyed by the invisible worm of life?

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Decoding the elements: the worm of time destroying youth. Sickness is the irreversible passing of time. There are other ways of analysing the poem. Storm: very negative. Linked to the world of hyper-rationality. Is it the invisibility of cunning, or deceit that is at work? Worm is the symbol of a mental faculty. The rose could be seen as blossoming imagination, destroyed by the pressure of reason, rationality. Reason usurps all the other senses. Is the hyper-rationality of the Enlightenment destroying imagination. The red rose is a symbol of the female sexual organ. Invisible worm is the male sexual organ. Deflowering by sexuality. Purity is stained by sexuality. Destruction is more present than creation in this poem. If the rose were pure innocence, wouldnt it be another colour than red? In white, for example, like in The Lily. The rose is also the symbol of love. A number of the Songs of Experience depict love through possessiveness. The worm is often linked to that possessiveness in Blakes mythology. It eats up, devours something that it shouldnt. Passion fades away with time. The Garden of Love Turns out to be a garden of hell due to oppressive religion! Religion repressing genuine desires, genuine feelings. In Proverbs of Hell: anything that is repressed as energy, breeds pestilence. It becomes a source of stagnation. Unsatisfied energy leads to cruelty. Vicious cycle: the priests repress others energies because their own energy is repressed. The Little Vagabond Very serious attack on established religion. Not surprisingly, it is followed by London. Forlorn, childish figure who doesnt find its way, and who doesnt find the expected refuge in the Church. The Church is cold: literally, but of course also morally. The Ale house is pleasant and warm: not a place for a child to be. But its the only place where you can survive if you are one of the street urchins. Despite the exploitation in the Ale house. Its not a very pleasant place to live, or to work. I can tell where Im used well. Very poignant: the child is not nave, he knows hes used and realises it. But he prefers the way he is being exploited in the Ale house, than in the Church. Sarcastic tone, grim laughter. Second stanza: if the Church were to offer warmth, the child would come back to religion and willingly pray. Not with a sense of moral conviction, rather a social obligation. Social

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warfare. Third stanza: birds in the spring is an echo to Songs of Innocence. See: Spring. Nursery rhyme, simple structure, but very effective. It conveys the energy and bounciness of the children. Unimpeded movement. Here: lost exuberance, lost enthusiasm. Different rhythm. Modest dame Lurch15, who is always at Church. Shes seeking solace from the dreariness of existence, but whilst shes at Church, her children are turbulent and the only way to control them is to punish them. Children are portrayed as victims of society. Human beings with a mind, an imagination, and with rights. This sounds pretty obvious in our times, but children were considered as little more than objects in Victorian England. Fourth stanza: blasphemy. God like a father, like the father that he is not. He is a selfish old man, in Heaven, ignorant of human suffering. If God truly were worried about his creation, he would encourage the Devil, because he would actually be better. He keeps you warm, he gives you drink. The Devil is more humane, and Human. He is closer to human needs. Sarcasm. Resignation. Bitterness. Aim: provoking a reaction. The Divine Image (p31)/The Human Abstract (p124) Divine Image In Blakes system, everything revolves around FOUR: intellect, body, emotion, ? FOUR supreme values: mercy, pity, piece & love. Interestingly, these are values of the divine, but theyre also qualities of the human form. The absolute dwelling in the human breast. All must love the human form/in heathen, turk or jew: symbols of universal values. Isnt that too beautiful a portrait? It feels too good to be true. Human Abstract Charity, compassion, pity are very hypocritical values. They occur only punctually, because we did not make you poor. If there were social equality, there would be no need for charity. In an ideal world, charity would be superfluous. If the divine image show positive values, but also negative. If you want to experience peace, you have to know fear. Cruelty, Humility as a counterpart to pity and charity. Church cares more about the social status quo than genuine social justice. If the absolute is present in every human, do you need the priest? Very different from the Church who says I will interpret God for you. The mystery of religion breeds fear, cruelty. It breeds humility as a virtue in exchange for charity. A sort of religious system that is based more on the social game of power, rather than rules that should govern genuine spirituality. The Church is always linked to darkness, shade, mystery. It is through this that you can
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La bigote qui trane lEglise 15

control the crowd. The tree of deceit cuts human beings from the divine. It oppresses humans. Human brain: the seat of (excessive) intellect. The Enlightenment did not solve social inequality. Within us, not in Heaven, there is a mechanism that leads to cruelty, fear and oppression by the creation of mystery. As a tool of oppression. Human form divine. Infant Joy A new born infant. Addressed by its mother. Strange: the play on voice. How does a two day old express itself? Its the voice of the adult superimposing itself on the voice of the infant that the latter doesnt yet have. Bonding between infant and mother. Again, simplicity on the surface, but complexity in the subtext. Joy of an adult expressed on behalf of the child. Negative: indicates the begin of possessive love. Infant Sorrow No joy here. Only sorrow, pain, and regret prevail. There is no protection whatsoever for this world. Are the swaddling bands are just physical? Or is it symbolic of the constraints of the binding of his mind, of his emotions? Parental control. You are imprisoned by the clothes that the parents impose upon you. A Little BOY Lost Some would say the fact that you love yourself, is not necessarily an obstacle to loving others. It actually is a prerequisite. Christianity is an exception in religions, because it postulates that love is only possible through self-sacrifice. What Blake is trying to say, is that Christianity is not much better than the Heathen cults that it is supposed to replace. Evil paganism. Are such things done on Albions shore. A Little GIRL Lost Read at home. Repression of sexuality, of bodily desire, at the expense of authority. An innocent play like Adam and Eve, but what is innocent attraction is being repressed and punished. Fatherly figures are figures of oppression. Conclusion Blake sets the tone. Its interesting to use him as a template for comparison with the other poets. Blake is a pioneer in his rebellion, and he is actually much stronger and virulent than Wordsworth-Coleridge. The one moral poet on Blakes side is Shelley. Lord Byron, whom

16

we will not have time to study, is also a rebel, but he is different from Blake because he willingly delves in immoral behaviour. Prometheus Unbound: a symbol of mind rejecting superstition. But Shelley is a convinced atheist, contrary to Blakes unorthodox Christianity. When it comes to imagination and vision, the various poets will never cease to keep using them as central tenets of their works. It is always present, in different forms. Where Blake is particular, it is very clear that nature is far from absent from his universe. But it is not observed naturalistically. It is not nature as it is immediately perceived. Its always nature harnessed onto the imagination. =/= Wordsworth: nature is a source of inspiration. For Blake, nature itself is not sufficient and needs the transformation of human imagination in order to be meaningful. They are not set on an equal footing. Other romantics are much more inclined to venerate nature. Preface to MILTON Page 240. Work in which imagination is actively shaping its rebellion against usurping reason. The Preface is often sung as hymn, closing official ceremonies (coronations, royal weddings, etc.) But it is an ironical Jerusalem: it is not the established society of the Church. It is Jerusalem of the mind: social justice, Jungian vision, mental fight to clean the doors of perception, etc. Bow of burning gold: burning of emotion. Arrows of desire: yeah. Dark satanic mills: social criticism. --- END OF FIRST SEMESTER ---Monday 6 February 2012 -Main foci of romanticism: 1 The Enlightenment and the predominance of Reason: romantics react16 to this ubiquitous doctrine. 2 Imagination: it allows you to read beyond the mere surfaces of reality and nature. It is a power allowing you to establish relations between object and instances, even when they are not visible to the naked eye. All romantics are obsessed with this notion, even though they have very different ways of conceptualising it. 3 Nature: divinisation, sacralisation of the material world and of the profane. Move towards a pantheistic sensibility. 4 Poet as a visionary: poet is also a social force. Source of writing: individual, as
16

and not oppose. Note, for example, the romantics interest in science. 17

opposed to the commission that previous generations of poets were given, by princes or other men of power. 5 Political rebellion: highly indebted to the legacy of the French (1789) and American Revolution (1776). Britain is already in the process of becoming an industrial power at the time, well before any other country. Important notion in Blake: cleansing the doors of perception. According to him, perception is distorted by social inequalities, the industrial revolution, alienation of the traditional social structures (Ancien Rgime). WORDSWORTH Introduction Complex and interesting figure displaying stark contrast with Blakes poetry. Blake >< Wordsworth - Blakes life is uneventful. He was a London poet (borough of Lambeth), having spent almost all his life in the capital. He was a complete unknown in his lifetime. But he was a very active individual: painter and engraver in addition to being a poet. He laboured in isolation, and without success. To the very end of his life, he remained committed to the revolutionary ideal. - Wordsworths case is different. He is anything but an urban poet. Most of his inspiration finds its source in the so-called Lake District. He was not rich, but he had contacts with the upper-middle class contrary to Blakes relatively low social place. He was a big traveller: he went to Revolutionary France and visited the rest of Europe. He was famous in his own time. He formed a poetic pair with Coleridge. After his youth, his revolutionary zeal is very much in doubt and he grows into a social conservative. Blake // Wordsworth - Blakes epic verse is less well-known, but encompasses most of his work. Wordsworths Prelude is also an epic-scale poem. But Blakes myth is based on coded figures, on esoteric symbols, and on a personal mythology, in which Blake the man is found with much difficulty. - Whereas Wordsworths Prelude is also a personal mythology, but in the first person and is meant as a transparent autobiography. One of Wordsworths greatest contributions to poetry is the autobiographical epic. - For Blake: Imagination > Nature. Nature has no validity by itself, it needs the power of the poets imagination in order to become meaningful. Nature needs to be transformed through the subjective eye of imagination. He also contends that the past, memory, is a negative facet of experience, a prison. It is because you are trapped in the past, that you very often cannot cleanse the senses. Childhood is a fundamental stage in life: innocence. - For Wordsworth: You have to cultivate memory in order to cleanse the doors of perception, in order to develop your individuality. It is a source of inspiration that allows you to (re) construct yourself. From childhood onwards, he tries to conjure the man he was in order to understand the adult he is now. Childhood is also a fundamental stage in life: it

18

contains the seeds of genuine perception. Nature > Imagination: nature feeds imagination. What does preoccupy both poets is the development as an individual visionary. Wordsworths poetry is narrative. - Both offer an indirect reflection on how individual art endures. Coleridge and Wordsworth The preface to Lyrical Ballads is one of the manifestos of Romanticism. Wordsworth and Coleridge wrote it jointly. It is a document in which the role of the poet, what constitutes art, poetry and imagination is debated and questioned. - There is less of a contrast established between the poet and the scientist, than we would today. The poet is the one who identifies relations, invisible to the non-initiate. - Break with the rigid conventions of the time. Lines Written above Tintern Abbey See the comparison between Tintern Abbey and a relatively similar poem by Pope in Aidan Days Romanticism. First part (up to the hermit sits alone) Title - No actual abbey in the poem. Its a paradox. - Why doesnt he describe the abbey? Why does it matter so much that he put in the title? - Written in 1798, recalls 1793 when Wordsworth was in France, at the time of the Terreur regime. - Impression of nature, pastoral landscape. But the banks of the river Wye are anything but bucolic; they have undergone the transformation of the industrial revolution. Also, in reality, there is much more human activity than the poem gives away. Why? Poem17 - Revolves around constant balance between presence and absence. - Five, five, five: the passing of time. Act of memory that gets enhanced. - Movement between inner seclusion (v1,2) and outer seclusion (v3,4,5). It allows the composition to hold together. How do you make the edifice hold? All the senses are called upon: sight, hearing, smell, etc. - Fusion of opposites: inner/outer seclusion, horizontal movement, and vertical movement (connect the landscape with the quiet sky). Is this reconciliation at the surface level, or does it carry a more profound meaning. - Dynamism versus immobility: water is rolling. - Sight/sound. - Water is non-solid by definition, immediately followed by the steep and lofty cliffs. Supposes immovability. Endures. - Ephemeral/permanent. - Noisy/silent nature. The majestic, static nature is opposed to hectic, short-lived
17

Greek root of the word : to make, to fashion 19

nature. - Sycamore: it is the wood that the Egyptian Pharaohs for their coffins: death and eternity. - Unripe fruits // green pastures: elements suggesting the cycle of life. Life and death are fusioned. -Monday 13 February 2012 -Comment on Days book Romanticism: pay special attention to the authors and the technical terms and make a list of them. Analysis of Tintern Abbey, continued; Memory is a crucial value in Wordsworthian poetry, but nature stands above all. It is a reversal of Blakes vision. The poem was written in 1798, recalls 1793. The French Revolution turned into the Reign of Terror at that time, marking a turning point in English support, including Wordsworths. The poet was not just situated in time or in place. It also engaged all the senses and the emotions. It introduced the notion of fusion of opposites. The proxemic18 relationships in a work of art matter. The profane combines with the sacred in transcendental approach. Rock, water, air, earth: basic constitutive elements of reality. The material and immaterial are combined, as are movement and immobility. These opposites are no longer at odds, but come together. The landscape far exceeds simple observation. It takes on a whole new dimension, as a vehicle or setting for the poets visionary work. Form is but an extension of content. A principle articulated by Robert Creely, an American poet. One needs to keep that in mind in connection with the poetic material we will be going through this year. Poetry is the densest form of literary expression. It has to use all the tools at its disposal to reach its goal. The question may arise in the event form does not follow content. (Digression) Why is it not possible for the alexandrin to work in the English language? - In French, all the syllables carry more or less the same weight. From the point of view of intonation, French is pretty bland. English has very strong intonation marks, and a marked difference between unstressed syllables and stressed ones. - Extremely rhythmic pattern. It explains the dominance of English in rhythmic music genres such as jazz or rocknroll. - The feet is stressed/unstressed. In iambic, short (X) precedes long form (__). X___. (End of Digression) Classical English poetry is structured around iambic pentameter19, and Tintern Abbey
18 19

Organisation of space Five feet. 20

follows that scheme. However, it is written in blank verse in order to underline the spontaneity and naturalness of the work. It establishes a link between the poetic voice and its object: the voice is unified with nature. If Classical rhyme schemes were used, the artificial structure of the poem appears much more strongly. However, one must not think Wordsworths verse is the result of pure improvisation: it is the result of a conscious process. In its reaction against classicism, Romanticism needed to find a form distinctive from that used by the dominant poets of the time20. Blank verse allows for unpredictable verse. Some lines are in strict iambic pentameter, some are not. We have something that is unpredictable and almost chaotic about the structure. Fusion between control and lack of control, between wildness and mathematical order. Tone is a wave-like movement that hypnotises you. Even though you have no mathematical composition, but you stick to conventional forms just enough to achieve a hypnotic, mesmerising effect. There is a certain dose of melancholy, solemnity. The majestic diction also holds importance. Readers feeling on the first ten lines: does the seriousness contaminate you? Does carry over to you? How does it operate? From line 11: untamed nature transforms into domesticated nature. For instance, pastoral farms or vagrant dwellers illustrate this. - Pastoral farms. Related to pasture, farming activity. Refers to the pastoral poem whose source is found in Virgils works. Poetry of retreat, away from the city and into nature. Shepherds and shepherdesses appear as main characters in nature, where the latter provides solace from the city. - Season of unripe fruit: we are actually in the spring. It is a promise of something in the future, expectation. Perhaps it also promises something for us, the reader? Does it mean that we hope for something to develop? - Wild green landscape: oxymoronic construction. A landscape is a domesticated nature =/= wild. - Little lines of sportive wood run wild? The hedgerows are human constructions, but they cannot dominate nature. They escape the movement that is given to them. Also, a diminutive perspective: human realisations seem engulfed in the landscape. It is as if the human aspect is dwarfed by the almighty nature. It cannot overcome it. - Green to the very door: nature invades even the house. - Wreathes of smoke: human activity reminiscent of a natural phenomenon, it is described in terms of nature. Fusion. Clouds, vertical movement, sacred dimension (encens), etc. Ascent towards the sky in the first ten lines. - Vagrant dwellers: movement of people. Contrast between the complexity of that line, and simplicity about the hermit. Reference to the ongoing Industrial Revolution. The landscape is under threat from widespread industrialisation. - Hermit: no coincidental. The hermit cuts himself voluntarily from civilisation, to meditate. Typically, they are also religious figures. He may also put us into the mind of the poet.
20

Most notably Pope and Dryden. See Days Romanticism. You would have rhymes like clockwork in the works of these poets. 21

In Wordsworths description of this Garden of Eden, there is dissonance. This is a troubled society, in which people have to move to the city because of joblessness. The abbeys ruins suffuses the poem without ever appearing. Why does Wordsworth feel that he must refer to this social upheaval in such complex, almost cryptic language? Line 25 - Forms of beauty: what does he mean? It is a move towards a greater amount of abstraction. There is an alternation between the concrete and the abstract: they feed off each other. Reference to Platos myth of the cavern: impression of an ideal form superimposed to the concrete elements. It is as if there is a possibility of remembering the ideal form, contrary to Platos myth, in which man is unable to see ideal forms (only shadows). Imagination feeds off the concrete forms to recall the ideal form of beauty21. - Landscape to a blind minds eye: though he has not been there physically, he has seen it. He does not suffer from lack of vision. He has seen that place in his minds eye. - Din of town and cities: negative aspect of modern society. Loneliness in rooms is negatively connotated as opposed to the hermits positive connotation with regard to his solitude. - Purer mind: for Wordsworth, nature activates and resuscitates heart, body and mind. It reactivates the human emotions and feelings, and acts on human ethics and morals (in a positive manner). Idealised view of nature. But what does Wordsworth mean with purer mind? Tranquil restoration also evokes the serenity of the poet. One must elucidate the phrase purer mind. What does it actually mean? Purity? Is there a mind that is less pure? -Monday 21 February 2012 -Absent. We had emphasised how the poem works through a series of contrasts and mirror effects. We had looked at the representation of nature: it is a reconciliation between the sublime and the picturesque. The element of terror in the sublime is done away with. Nature is indeed the place to which you retreat, and where the pure mind is again revealed. It is where the mind can see beyond physical surfaces and where human consciousness is connected with a sort of spiritualised form of nature. We had concluded by mentioning Wordsworths pantheism and his horizontal vision of the sacred. We insisted on how the element of vision was reinforced. The characters of the guardian and the nurse are not coincidental in their choice. Subject: Tintern Abbey Part II: until verse 113 -Monday 27 February 2012 -21

See also Coleridge. 22

Digression: Musiq3, Wednesday 14 March, 10pm to midnight, Musiques et muses. About Charles Dickens. One of the best summaries of Wordsworths faith in nature is perhaps found in a later writer from another tradition. It is found in the works of American transcendentalists, more specifically Ralph W. Emersons Nature. He defines nature as something as a transparent eyeball seeing all through which all flows. Effective summary about Tintern Abbey. Nature by itself is not sufficient. You need an observer to bestow it with significance and meaning. Celebration of nature, but clearly human memory is essential. Without a receptive observer, there would be no nature either. It is a fundamental relationship between the ubiquitous nature and the subjective perception the observer possesses of it. Artificiality hiding its own construction is a concept central to Wordsworths poetry, because his views are very much subjective and artificial yet they take on the guise of a natural and spontaneous observation. The question is: can nature actually be understood without the help of art? It is a paradox. Why is Tintern Abbey a significant poem? Besides the strange reconciliation of opposites, there are a number of unresolved tensions. He does not discuss the influence of language in the construction of the poem. Whether conscious or unconscious, this peculiar mix between resolved and unresolved tensions forms the huge oxymoronic structure of the poem as a whole. Usually, a poem will express either tension and conflict OR reconciliation and serenity. Compare with Blakes contrasting poems, but whose internal logic was structured around one or the other. In Tintern Abbey, both are present. Last third of the poem There is a huge shift of perspective. All of a sudden, there is a human element brought in: the Sister22. William was very attached to her, because she was one of the only ones in the family who shared his poetic sensitivity. This complicity would last throughout their lives, regardless of marriage and friendships. The Friend/Sister/Fellow Human Being, the Poet, Nature: Holy Trinity. It is a triangular relationship whom one might not expect. - If Nature wasnt there, my genial spirits would not decay, for thou art with me. The Sister is transformed at the level of language and of her being. Just as something of Nature has survived through him, something of Nature also survives in her memory and in her being. The Sister is a sort of link between him and his surroundings. She has been moulded in the crucible of nature. Note the power of the imagery: the Voice is something more primitive, and more immediately constitutive of your inner identity. Note the wild eyes and the wilderness of the scenery, as if the wilderness of nature had imprinted itself on the Sister. Not only in the human fashioned by her education does she find her substance: she has also been moulded by Nature. - Instead of beholding in his own memory what he once was, he is also contemplating (may I
22

Dorothy Wordsworth 23

behold in thee) the young man he once was in her Sisters memory. - Betrayal is impossible, because the Sister is fashioned by Nature, whose qualities are repeated throughout the poem. Nature seeps into the human imagination. - Nature imprints your consciousness. (Impress is the term used). - Natures serenity, beauty, loftiness =/= evil tongues, sneers of selfish men. Also a dreary daily life, in which hypocrisy and social inequalities prevail. - Note the religious vocabulary: faith, blessings. This lexical field is very present, and it emphasises the spiritual and metaphysic qualities of the poem. - Solitary walker, under the pale night of the moon: stereotypical image in literature and painting. Wilderness of the landscape. - What about ecstasies? It is a term linked to religious revelation and epiphany. - The mind shall be a mansion for all lovely forms is a very platonic image in which the mind is opposed to the corruption of material distractions. The essence and the ideal forms shall also be preserved in the Sisters consciousness. - Dwelling place, the mansion, the habitat. Sweet sounds and harmonies of literal perception, those sounds actually heard in the valley of the Wye. It evokes a very concrete Ancient concept: the universal harmony between the planets and the intervals structuring the cosmos as a whole. Among others, Pythagoras and Aristotle held this very static view23 which would only be challenged by Copernicus and Galileo. What Wordsworth suggests is that the memory of the Sister does not only act as repository for the actual beauty of concrete Nature, but also that Tintern Abbey is symbolic of the universe as a whole. Note the link to the actual structure of the poem. Is poetry also tuned to these rhythms? Where does the rhythm of the poem link in into all this? Wordsworth imprints your mind with the significance of his vision. - Solitude, fear: if the Sister is affected by the negative aspects of daily life, these will not cancel the loftiness of a spiritual and harmonious world. Healing thoughts because She is connected and at one with Nature, but she also remembers the brother who himself was connected to Nature. The protection provided to Wordsworth by the Sister is now reversed. If She is no longer under the protection of the Abbey, he will be there. He is some kind of a priest to remind her of what is essential. It is one of many correspondences in the poem. - Where I no more can hear your voice: in death Her Voice24 will endure. See also the gleams of Nature, and yet another reference to vision. - After so many exhortations, Wordsworth firmly establishes his faith, his religious devotion to Nature. Pantheistic idea. - Concluding lines: he seems to be saying that if he dies, he will actually live on his Sisters memory. By contemplating Nature and the essence of the universe, I could also be a good brother to you, he seems to be saying in the quote for thy sake. Love of Nature is not at the expense of Humanity. A possible explanation for the poems enduring strength in the body of English poetry. Memory will be preserved beyond death by the Friend, and vice versa. But what if Dorothy dies? Is it an ongoing cycle or not? The repository for Wordsworths memory is art, an artificial and eminently human domain25. Antithetical with the absolute devotion to Nature. So Tintern Abbey is also a hymn to art as a means to immortalise the thoughts. It is one of those unresolved tensions that pervade the poem. You can only appreciate the
23 24

The Harmony of the Spheres . Note the capitalisation of Nature, Sister, and Friend as is done with God 25 See Keatss Ode to a Grecian Urn 24

poems message if you also take into account the hidden celebration of art. Paradox. What does for themselves. Can you actually celebrate Nature in itself? Is it human subjectivity as seen through Nature? For Wordsworth, the line may be crystal clear, but for a reader it might be a little less straightforward. In its genuine celebration of nature, the poem goes against the traditional Judeo-Christian vision of the heavenly kingdom. If you celebrate nature down on Earth, there is less place for devotion to the Skies. A seeming return to pre-Christian paganism. Two other elements are celebrated: the human observer, without which all of this would be impossible, and art, as the means through which Nature is given its full recognition. Importance of 3: Sister-Nature-Poet // Nature-Art-Human Observer To a Butterfly Historian of my infancy: the butterfly is a repository for Wordsworths memory. The happy times of childhood are remembered, but he pounces on the Butterfly. It is a different reconstruction of the self: hide and conceal. -Monday 5 March 2012 -Wordsworth and Coleridge wrote Lyrical Ballads, of which the most important edition was the one published in 1802. It is especially important because of its famous Preface. How much was contributed by Wordsworth? How much was contributed by Coleridge? When it came to putting things together, Coleridge is probably more responsible for it all. He conceptualised fundamental ideas regarding imagination. COLERIDGE Interesting friendship linking him to Wordsworth. He is a man of great unfinished works. This contrasts with Wordsworths completeness in his works. Wordsworth was also recognised in his time, whereas Coleridge was a figure in the shadow of Wordsworth. He suffered from a second best syndrome. A feeling that Wordsworth may have very well reinforced: he did very little to inspire Coleridge with the self-confidence he would have needed. With hindsight, it appears that Coleridge was instrumental in inspiring Wordsworths creativity. He helped him develop fully. Both of them are a foundation to many important concepts of Romanticism. Commonalities between the two: - They are both interested in nature, and the link between the human mind and nature. - They are both committed to liberate verse forms from the stilted (pas naturelle), artificial

25

prosodic (relatif la mtrique) models of the past. - They both believe in the poet as visionary. They see the poet as capable, through the exploration of his own subjectivity, of highlighting unsuspected relationships in the real world and between the material surface of the universe and what hides beneath it. - They both believe in detranscendentalising (rentre moins grand) religion and therefore subscribe to a pantheistic (Dieu se confond avec la nature), horizontal version of the sacred. - They are both interested in the relationship between the physical mind and the physical world. Central to Wordsworths work regarding this idea is the concept of memory: the poet projects his own subjectivity upon the world. In return, nature shapes the observer. Differences between the two: - For Wordsworth, everything occurs through reconstructed subjectivity. Memory is central. For Coleridge, memory is not the essential category for poetic construction. It is imagination (which itself is linked to vision). Coleridge is closer to Blake with regard to that idea. - Coleridge lost his father a clergyman at an early age, like Wordsworth. This loss forms an intriguing personal connection. It is at the heart of Wordsworths drive to return to childhood, not so much for Coleridge. For him, loss is rather a way of preserving a certain religiosity. In his family, he was actually the one destined to become a priest which is why his work is pervaded with religion. This is what distinguishes him from Shelley, because Coleridge would never even consider atheism. - Coleridge will remain far more revolutionary than Wordsworth. In the aftermath of the Terror, they would both reconsider their idealism but Coleridge would never totally turn his back on it. - Coleridge can appear as one of the so-called potes maudits. He became a drug-addict26 and this affected his relationship with his family and with Wordsworth. Note that he suffered from addiction to a legal medical substance: laudanum (containing opium). Its addictive effects were, at the time, not very well known. Although it is a subject of controversy, it seems that this drug use transformed Coleridges perception and consciousness and thus influenced his writing. He was interested in the workings of the mind and found in drugs a means of exploring it27. Contrary to Rimbauds active pursuit of drug-induced perception, Coleridges experience with drugs was accidental and was also a source of great suffering. - Contrary to Wordsworths constant critical acclaim and support, Coleridge would suffer from long periods of depression consecutive to loneliness. One major difference between the two is Coleridges extremely varied written production: in addition to poems, he would write literary essays28, political pamphlets, philosophical and religious discussions. His interest in German idealism would lead him to learn the language and visit the country. - The breadth of his work is more impressive than Wordsworths, but its worth is watered down by its unfinished-ness. - Coleridge seems more interested in the process of things, than in the final result. This is one of the most important contributions of Romanticism: the trend would become more and more prominent in modernism and postmodernism. Idealism
26 27

De Quincey is another one of those figures. He wrote Biography of an opium eater. There is a direct link between him and Charles Baudelaire, Aldous Huxley (The Doors of Perception) and even the later authors of the beat generation such as Jack Kerouac or Allen Ginsberg. 28 Most important among which is the Biographia Literaria 26

Mind and subjectivity are crucial in idealism. They are the starting point of any approach to the world. Note the contrast with philosophies that place the external world first, and mind second. Here, this is reversed. THERE IS NO PERCEIVED WITHOUT A PERCEIVER. This leads to the question: how does the mind process the external world? Coleridges idealism is nuanced. He is extremely interested in how the mind seen as a cognitive machine perceives the world. He is nevertheless convinced that the external world still affects our perception. See also Shelleys Defence of Poetry. It is a Romantic trait to challenge the displacement of the arts: their submission to an increasingly ubiquitous scientific and empirical mentality. /!\ He distinguishes29 between THREE categories. - The Primary Imagination The prime agent, which makes perception possible, is reminiscent of God. An infinite exerting its power on the finite human mind. The mind of the universe is reflected in the mind of the individual, taking into account the limitations of the individual30. - The Secondary Imagination It is an echo of the Primary Imagination31. It differs in degree but also in the mode of operation. It dissolves, defuses, and dissipates in order to recreate32. It is dominated by process. More specifically, it is a creative process seen as the shadow process of the Imagination in its absolute form (the Primary Imagination). - Fancy It only deals with fixities and definites. An order of memory emancipated from time and space. It is a lesser faculty. It does not try to extract what unifies different elements on the surface, but merely repeats what already exists. Fancy receives its materials ready-made33. According to Coleridge, the Secondary Imagination is an active process. It is far superior to fancy. The notion of a perceiver as an active agent is an element we can relate to today. However, it would be difficult to relate to the external world as an inert and inactive world when we know of subatomic dynamism and movement. Entities outside are actually very active. Coleridge views both anticipate how we see the world today, but also fall short of it. If Tintern Abbey mixes fancy and Secondary Imagination, we could see Kubla Khan as a poem exploring the Secondary Imagination and its workings in more depth. Kubla Khan Long introductory fragment. It contextualises the Authors vision with regard to this very
29

Triangular relation between Lyrical Ballads, Defence of Poetry and Coleridges distinction between the three kinds of imagination. 30 Note the likeness of this idea with numerous religions such as Hinduism. 31 Neoplatonic (Myth of the Cavern) 32 A vocabulary conspicuously influenced by science and chemistry, underlining the Romantics ambiguous love-hate relationship with science. 33 Do we not notice here an echo of the industrial revolution ? 27

important poem. The Secondary Imagination is at work. It is a metaphorical expression thereof, but the introductory lines are extremely important to contextualise it. The poems mysterious quality is actually reinforced by this introduction. Its significance goes beyond an anecdotic description completing the following verse. Through this, Coleridge performs an act of persuasion. He puts the reader in a certain mood. It is a fragment, an imperfect piece that will not meet the classical standards of a poem. He is already preparing the reader to leave a classical evaluation scale to consider more closely the process rather than the finished work. Clear break with Popes or Drydens production. You are actually convinced of the value of spontaneous vision as opposed to the superficiality of classical poems. We are made to reflect on the primacy of process over finished work, on the primacy of mind and subjectivity over objectivity. It emphasises the poet as a visionary. In the poem, we are witnessing how the Secondary Imagination attempts to symbolically express what the poet has seen. Also the vision is linked to a very concrete event: he was reading a line out of a book34. The mind is driven in unsuspected regions by a seemingly trivial event. The effect is in reverse proportion to the cause. This also adds to the mystery. The trivial details of daily life helps the reader to suspend his disbelief and believe the more fantastic, out-of-this-world elements in the poem. The poetic voice itself is not in complete control of the process. It makes us wonder about our own faculties, but it also lends a certain religious aura to the whole. There is even a sense of awe in the whole experience, that there is an absolute that you cannot seem to get a grasp of: this sense of loss, the feeling that what has actually been produced is only a glance at what has actually been experienced is directly linked to religion. Fancy is very much on the sidelines. The active imagination is very much at work here. Note that we have this transition from prose to verse. Is this transition shocking or is it rather seamless? The prologue is interesting because it shows how prose and verse can blend and sometimes be rearranged. The strict rules of classical poetry, and the clear distinction between prose and poetry are challenged. One could say that this is another kind of de-sacralisation. (See illustrations on p135, 126, 123, 101, 59) -Monday 12 March 2012 -Kubla Khan, continued There is a mystery surrounding the process of creation, but also a mystery around the process of reception (reading). Music is at the centre of the poem. The musicality and rhythm contributes to the texts hypnotising power. Other elements contribute to the litany of the piece: - the framing structure, in which the beginning and ending are shorter with a longer, more
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An event that definitly occured in reality. 28

elaborate middle; - the internal sound correspondences, alliterations and assonances (liquid, round sounds); - the imperfect rhyming scheme, as if there were an impulse for great rhymes but with an imperfect result. A sort of abrupt chasm. Hypnotic and mesmerising. There is no uniform mood: some parts are lulling, others are unsettling and violent. In the second stanza, we are more vividly reminded of the sublime. It is as if we have the Garden of Eden in the introducing and closing stanzas, which frame sublime and chaotic landscapes. Importance of contrast, generated by a sort of abyss in the images of the Garden of Eden. A chasm. It is Coleridges attempt not just to try and recapture the vision, but also to make the reader understand the process of trying to recapture it. Not only the end result is important, the entire process to reach it is crucial. The reader must see the struggling and striving that lies at the heart of artistic creation. What does the poem does in connection with imagination? It can be seen as an allegory of the imaginative process, in particular the Secondary Imagination and of the poet as a visionary. The dynamic and chaotic impression that we get from the poem is the result of the process of deconstruction and reconstruction in which the poet engages. It is also an allegory of the mind. Note the presence of vocabulary linked to the interiority of the human mind, such as dark places: forests, inner seas, caverns, etc. Coleridge makes an attempt at rendering poetically the workings of the mind. He serves as a precursor to 20th century writers whose focus on the secrets of the mind would be even more obvious. The struggling toward keeping a vision alive is present in the poems themes. There is also some sort of attempt to also express how the mind and imagination work. How do you link poetry with the exploration of processes of cognition? The spontaneous impression that one gets from the poem does not hide the extremely calculated nature of the piece. It is carefully crafted. What about the images present in the poem? In the introductory fragment, Coleridge refers to the Primary Imagination. The one that inspired the following poem. In Xanadu did Kubla Khan Kubla Khan and Xanadu evoke a far-flung land, as if the mind leaves familiar territory. It is forced to explore new terrain. Influence of oriental exoticism. Just the word Xanadu evokes a very exotic world. See also Kubla Khan and his historical significance as a warrior and conqueror. Quite guttural first line.

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A stately pleasure-dome decree Ruler, man of power. Much softer vowels and diphthongs. Melow tone. Contrasts with the harsh first line. Where Alph, the sacred river, ran / Through caverns measureless to man / Down to a sunless sea. Aleph: first letter in the Hebrew alphabet. Alpha & Omega: beginning and end of everything. We are dealing with something that is holy. Sense of religiosity. Element of the sublime brought into the pleasurable, picturesque garden. Cavern of the mind, in which the river courses. The river of creation, of imagination runs through the mind. Evokes something beyond the laws of physics. The sunless sea evokes more the end than the beginning. Kubla Khan is a possible image for the poet himself: he decrees a place in which the beginning and the end of the universe get explored. So twice five miles of fertile ground It is as if the garden corresponds to the mind. The fertility of the imagination. The poet is engaged in Grand Works. Something of gigantic proportions, something momentous. gardens bright with sinuous rills Fusion of opposites. Something that is sinuous is something mysterious, not linear or straight. Non-linear workings of the mind. Sort of parallelism: we have the sacred river meandering, then further down the sinuous rills. In less than ten lines, the reader has already been exposed to a number of effects produced by images, contrasts and fusion of opposites. Incense-bearing tree Religious connotation. Proxemics and spatial relationship. Vertical and horizontal planes are merged. An incense-tree is extremely rare, it has value. Symbolises the value of imagination. forests ancient as the hills Forests are symbols of magic and of the mind. The darkest recesses of the mind are linked to forests. Elements are brought together through a fusion. Garden of Eden that defies the laws of nature. Sunny spots of greenery

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Light and shade coexist in the same stanza. deep romantic chasm Evokes the sublime as it was also described by other artists, especially Caspar Friedrich. as holy and enchanted Magic. Weird and strange combination of places. A geography that feels familiar mixes with an exotic word. a waning moon was haunted The moon is linked with intuition and femininity, also the ebb and tide, and fertility. According to old theories, the moon cycle is linked to the menstrual cycle. But here the moon is waning. Oxymoron because of the symbols that the moon carries. woman wailing for her demon-lover Wild sexuality. The potential for fertility is waiting for the element of fecundation. ceaseless turmoil seething Sibilants! Supposes a murmur. As if this earth in fast thick half-intermitted burst Very sexual image, of ejaculation. Impression of something organic, associated with the moment of orgasm.The fountain, the burst. The act of poetic creation is linked to the act of sexual creation. Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail An image of terror, of sublime. GOTHIC. The act of poetic creation is not a comfortable form of productivity. It is a form of productivity that unsettles. There may be a reference to the political revolutions of the time. chaffy grain beneath the threshers flail35 The sibilants make it a very uncomfortable passage. Image of the seed. Image of reaping and garnering what has been sowed. dancing rocks at once and ever Supposes a kind of agency in an object that is supposedly static. Oxymoron. Even the most inert matter is energised by the poet. Dance of primordial energy. It flung up momently the sacred river It has the ability to actually project the flow of life throughout the rest of creation. The poet plays the role of God. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
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m sounds emphasising the movement. The river reached caverns measureless to man What is described here is the mind. Imagination illuminates the darkest recesses of the mind. Tumult of a lifeless ocean Life vs. Death. Something that is dead and inert becomes animated. Kubla (Coleridge) heard ancestral voices prophesying war Trance-like state in which the poet receives his vision. Is it a war of destruction? Or a spiritual war of creation? Influence or confluence? Think of Indian divinities such as Shiva and the process of creation. Ancestral voices: from where? Artists from the past? Is it the deepest voice of human inspiration? God? Sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice Fusion of opposites. Alpha & Omega fuse. Opposites fuse to fuel the imagination. It merges opposites and build new relationships and going beyond material surfaces. Tension between these opposites that is crucial. The poem anticipates styles and images that would be used in surrealism (like in the shadow of the dome of pleasure) -Monday 19 March -Did not attend classes -Monday 26 Marc -Did not attend classes

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