History of English Literature Spring Term

English 1832) Three criteria: imagination for the view of poetry; nature for the view of the World; symbol and myth for poetic style. A Poet a great power of imagination, a man, but better from other men Religion/Spirituality personal experience Romanticism (1789-

Topographical painting. A passive feeling. The sublime / sblm/

movement Of very great excellence or

beauty; in aesthetics, the sublime (from the Latin sublmis) is the quality of greatness, whether physical, moral, intellectual, metaphysical, aesthetic, spiritual or artistic. The term especially refers to a greatness beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement or imitation.

Imagination, The beautiful - causes positive pleasure. The When perspective we frame matters. something, it is under control. Beautiful is coherent, framed, organized. Bright colours... So, it gives positive pleasure. Beautiful is in the landscape. We see it and pronounce it beautiful. Individualism, classical spirit in

Nature, Spirituality, Art (first

Gothic (thrill), rebellion against generation)

Byronic hero - exhibits several characteristic traits, and in many ways he can be considered a

rebel. The Byronic hero does not possess "heroic virtue" in the usual sense; instead, he has many dark qualities: moody by nature or passionate about a particular issue. He also has emotional and intellectual capacities, which are superior to the average man. These heightened abilities force the Byronic hero to be arrogant, confident, abnormally sensitive, and extremely conscious of himself. Sometimes, this is to the point of nihilism resulting in his rebellion against life itself. In one form or another, he rejects the values and moral codes of society and because of this he is often unrepentant standards. by society's

aspect

(colouring

of

imagination) Showing something that is very well known in unusual, fresh way The language is simple used by men Nature, rural life Conveying notions in feelings simple and and

unelaborated expressions

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.

overflow of emotions thinking, contemplation, then, starting writing

William Wordsworth Preface to Lyrical Ballads Presenting incidents and situations from common life; ordinary things should be presented in an unusual

First, we have the emotion, then, we evoke this emotion, emotion recollected in tranquility, the poem, and then, we retrieve the first feeling but it should also induce this feeling in the reader.

When you read it aloud, it is W. Wordsworth Daffodils Form The four six-line stanzas of this poem follow a quatrain-couplet rhyme scheme: ABABCC. Each line is metered in iambic tetrameter. What meaning do daffodils have in this poem? When the poem imagines pleasant sounding; the desire to fuse the poem and music. Rhythm and meter signs of recollection, as perfect formal features. Mathematically sublime

daffodils, their great numbers. Yellow spreads. About the colour. The person standing, being surrounded with daffodils, sees ten thousand of them. The feeling of being overwhelmed is controlled, the refusal to be subjugated encompasses with nature. He them, which

daffodils, it evokes emotions of joy and pleasure. In fact, it is what daffodils evoke. that inward eye imagination. The last stanza is an explicit definition of emotion recollected in tranquility. Moreover, the past tense of the verbs which indicates that this is the emotion recollected. The translation of the experience imagined. The use of personification, simile, metaphor translation of poetry into poem. The rhythm and rhyme. Poetry spontaneous feeling, into a poem, which evokes pleasure and joy.

indicates the theme of extension of mind - by trying to face and understand the sublime. This moment when he was

crashed with them is no longer here. I saw ten thousand at a glance if he can count, he can control. I wandered as a cloud he is superior, in the context of the mathematically sublime, it gives him control. The poem is a simulacrum of the actual

experience, but is no longer spontaneous. The simile suggests infinity continuous as the stars that shine and twinkle on the Milky Way, but the speaker gives the borders to this very particular place, he already controls it. the infinity is in the simile. So the sublime is in the way the nature is perceived, so it is the matter of the mind, it is in the mind. Q: Think about the speaker. Who is he? What mood does he project? Lonely Observer; meditative Wanderer, kind of

in

the

Preface.

How

it

is

illustrated here? This creative process is being called tranquility and it illustrated by reproduction of the emotion memory, experiences, and feelings Q: Look closely at the daffodils. What they are like? Beautiful; personification

(daffodils that grow beside the lake are like dancing crowd movement, dynamism, harmony; comparison to the stars that shine. Also, infinite numbers of stars (overwhelming) SUBLIME The Nature reflects the mood of the speaker. Spirituality, Infinity, Nature

person; he admires nature, his mood is imaginative and calm. Compares himself to the cloud While laying among the flowers he feels calm; from loneliness to harmony; Poets heart fills with joy and dances with the daffodils. Q: This poem serves as an example of the creative process described

We are Seven genre: literary ballad The young poem girl. is It an is interesting especially the

conversation between a man and a intriguing because

conversation could have been less than five lines, and yet it is 69 lines long. The reason for this is that the man cannot accept that the young girl still feels she is one of seven siblings even after two of her siblings have died, and even though she now lives at home alone with her mother. The speaker begins the poem with the question of what a child should know of death. Near the beginning it seems as if the little girl understands very little. She seems almost to be in denial about the deaths of her siblings, especially because she continues to spend time with them and sing to them. By the end of the poem, however, the reader is left with the feeling that perhaps the little girl understands more about life and death than the man to whom she is speaking. She refuses to become incapacitated by grief, or to cast the deceased out of her life. Instead she accepts that things

change, and continues living as happily as she can. Ordinary language Ordinary situation Contemplation, different moods of perception; debating on the subject of life and death. Speaker an experienced adult, who is reasonable and rational. (logic, reason, rationality). Attitude of the speaker: above the girl, more experienced, amazed by her beauty The girl talks about death like about something that is natural, normal.

Don Juan Canto I, Lord Byron Genre: mock-heroic, satirical, epic poem Informal repetitive language, pattern; irony, rhymed

stanzas, no blank verse.

Byronic stanza (Ottava rima) - An eight-line iambic stanza rhyming abababcc. Byron uses

Stage three: the fall of expectations, when it turns out that his benefactor is not Mrs. Havisham. Extra diegetic (all knowing, past tense) or homo diegetic, story about himself? Pip is an adult, he is remembering, recollecting his past life, he does know everything,

iambic

pentameter.

Parody of an epic hero Don Juan Lack Don of Juan important is very

but does not reveal it. As an adult narrator, he is reconstructing his perceptions (Pip). as a kid. Extra diegetic he knows everything

mission; not active passive and doesnt have agency at all; Unexperienced; cowardly

My Last Duchess by Robert Browing Dramatic monologue Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Bildungsroman: a novel - the Speaker in a dramatic monologue is always a creation (but may be a mask of the author) - a poem written in the form of a speech of an individual character; narrative speakers it compresses of the and into a single vivid scene a sense history

presenting the maturing of the character, history of one person from childhood to adulthood. First stage: the rise of expectations Stage two: the fulfilment of

expectations, Pip as a gentleman.

psychological insight into his character. In My Last Duchess Speaker the Duke of Ferrara The poem starts with the painting of his late wife, and ends with a bronze statue of Neptune. The Duke is planning to marry the daughter of someone else. Listener a servant of the court who wants to marry his daughter Where? In Dukes

Why? Because in his opinion she didnt respect him. The Duke, values himself highly, up to the point of arrogance, conceit. Because his wifes guilt was that she was not thankful enough for the title and position he gave her, and smiled at everyone in the same way. The Duke proud, selfish, treats women like objects, everything he does is motivated by pride, not love. He is happier with the painting more than he ever was with his wife; he can control the painting better than his wife. The problem with the painting: she is still smiling from the portrait. And the artist captured the smile, for which she was executed.

personal gallery; the Duke shows his collection of arts to the visitor; they talk about the portrait of Dukes late wife, the Duchess. The Duchess was killed by Dukes servants, on his orders. During the monologue he essentially confesses to murdering his wife, even though he never expresses his guilt outright. I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together.