YEAR IV - THE ROMANTIC ERA IN LITERATURE

ROMANTICISM IN LITERATURE
Romanticism (also the Romantic era or the Romantic period) was an artistic, literary, and industrialIndustrial Revolution, it was also a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature.^[2] It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography,^[3] education^[4] and the natural sciences.^[5] Its effect on politics was considerable and complex; while for much of the peak Romantic period it was associated with liberalism and radicalism, in the long term its effect on the growth of nationalism was probably more significant.
intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. Partly a reaction to the
The movement validated strong emotion as an authentic source of
aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as apprehension, horror and terror, and awe—especially that which is experienced in confronting the sublimity of wild nature and its picturesque qualities, both new aesthetic categories. It elevated folk art and ancient custom to something noble, made spontaneity a desirable characteristic (as in the musical impromptu), and argued for a "natural" epistemology of human activities as conditioned by nature in the form of language and customary usage. Romanticism reached beyond the rational and Classicist ideal models to elevate a revived medievalism and elements of art and narrative perceived to be authentically medieval in an attempt to escape the confines of population growth, urban sprawl, and industrialism, and it also attempted to embrace the exotic, unfamiliar, and distant in modes more authentic than Rococo chinoiserie, harnessing the power of the imagination to envision and to escape.

Although the movement was rooted in the German Sturm und Drang movement, which prized intuition and emotion over Enlightenment rationalism, the ideologies and events of the French Revolution laid the background from which both Romanticism and the Counter-Enlightenment emerged. The confines of the Industrial Revolution also had their influence on Romanticism, which was in part an escape from modern realities; indeed, in the second half of the 19th century, "Realism" was offered as a polarized opposite to Romanticism.^[6] Romanticism elevated the achievements of what it perceived as heroic individualists and artists, whose pioneering examples would elevate society. It also legitimized the individual imagination as a critical authority, which permitted freedom from classical notions of form in art. There was a strong recourse to historical and natural inevitability, a Zeitgeist, in the representation of its ideas. wiki/Romanticism
 The Romantic Movement in European Literature was most popular in the period from 1800 to 1840. Since Emily Brontë lived from 1818 to 1848, the contemporary literature she read strongly represented this literary era and therefore influenced and contributed to forming her style of writing.

Brontë’s characterization of Heathcliff follows a different pattern and the reader’s expectations concerning the romantic hero are not met. This is because Heathcliff is in fact not a genuine romantic hero, but a variation of it, a Byronic hero.

George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, who lived from January 1788 to April 1824 and was most commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a highly regarded and influential British poet and a central figure in the Romantic literary movement. His most famous works include the extended poem Don Juan and the lyric She Walks In Beauty.

When Lord Byron died in 1824, Emily Brontë was only eight years old, too young to have been influenced by his writing. However, Harold Bloom submits that “the Brontës can be said to have invented a relatively new genre, a kind of northern romance, deeply influenced both by Byron’s poetry and by his myth and personality" (Bloom 1). This influence of Byron’s writing on Emily is due to the increase in popularity that Lord Byron’s writing experienced after his death, therefore "dominating [Emily’s] girlhood and (…) young womanhood" (Bloom 2).

The Byronic Hero was named after Lord Byron because it was primarily his writing that influenced and inspired other writers with the development of this character type.Nineteenth century historian and critic Lord Macaulay described the Byronic Hero as “a man proud, moody, cynical, with defiance on his brow, and misery in his heart, a scorner of his kind, implacable in revenge, yet capable of deep and strong affection" (Christiansen, 201), which could be a perfect description of Heathcliff. Byron himself described the hero of his The Corsair (1814) as a “man of loneliness and mystery” (I, VII) who “wild and strange, [he] stood alike exempt from all affection and from all contempt” (I, XII). The Byronic Hero rejects the societies standards of moral and ethical values and “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 […] to the point of nihilism resulting in his rebellion against life itself” (Thorslev 197). Thanks to Milk in the morning

CLXXIII. "She walks in beauty, like the night" by Lord Byron

SHE walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meets in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellow'd to that tender light	5
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress
Or softly lightens o'er her face,	10
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek and o'er that brow
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,	15
But tell of days in goodness spent,—
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.

NOTES ABOUT THE ROMANTIC ERA
We must understand romanticism as a reaction…. like the third law of motion by newton
The romantic era was a reaction to enlightenment and industrial revolution
(as much as i love voltaire… the romantics WERE NOT crazy about him
they were reacting against progress as represented by technical advances)

values of romanticism
-nature in all of its forms
-childhood… before this children were little adults whereas for romantics it needs to be enjoyed
-emotion… i dont need a reason to cry
-religion… voltaire favored deism, but rom liked something you cannot understand … light a              candle… religion is beautiful… catholicism has a revival of faith
-romantic love… the idea you should fall in love and marriage should have its roots in love not economics
-nostalgia… idea that middle ages are cool… folks from the enlightenment saw it as a dark time, but -romantics adored the setting and values and… nature plus casle… too cool!

enlightenment versus romanticism
reason  vs passion
human nature vs  nature
man over nature  vs  nature over man
forward looking vs backward looking
hated middle ages  vs loved innocence and chivalry

romanticism is a critique of progress….you can see it in landscape paintings
they look at progress in a different way than before

literature produced
poetry, novels , art

                                                                 Oliver Goldsmith

IN the deserted village, HE emphasized depopulation of english countryside
with a before and after


The Deserted Village

Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain…
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please,

How often have I loitered o’er thy gren,
Where humble happiness endeared each scene:
How often have I paused on every charm,
The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm…

(Here I interrupt the poem to make a comment:
VOCABULARY
To romanticize something is to describe or imagine it as being better than it actually is
It's VERY EASY TO BE NOSTALGIC ABOUT THE PAST!
BACK TO THE POEM, and the part where he describes the horrible present conditions of the village:)

The man of wealth and pride
Takes up a space that many poor supplied…
His seat, where solitary sports are seen,
Indignant spurns the cottage from the green:
Around the world each needful product flies,
For all the luxuries the world supplies:

While thus the land, adorned for pleasure all,
In barren splendour feebly awaits the fall.


we have lost something beautiful for what… for luxury
because there are many new members of the gentry!
yes we have everything… but it has come at a price
look at what we have lost

so this poem is the
essence of romantic critique of industrial revolution

another critique is mary shelley (inside the romantic/victorian period, see my post on GOTHIC literature) - frankenstein is a critique of the excesses of science
Goal: perfect man
Outcome: monster
idea that science can do anything… a man of science sets out to do God’s work
yet, according to romantics, some things shloud be left in the dark and should be mystical
it is ok not to understand
and in fact to take science too far is often to risk disaster

THE ROMANTIC ERA AS EXPRESSED IN ART AND LITERATURE:

romantic art
18th cent art dominated by human subjects (neoclassical)
enlightenment all about people … also in its art
romanticism is more bout nature and landscapes
the focus is the lake… about emotions
the most noted rom caspar friedric … german landscape painter (wanderer above a sea of fog) … look at what I’m looking at… that is what matters
instead of people… so self absorbed
moonrise over the sun friedrich
man and woman contemplating the moon
the morning - like you are out and have a big view and start to think about how small you are
your smallness and nature’s grandness - solitary tree

landscape painting is domineering feature of rom art
karl friedrich schinkel - prussian architect turned painter… he saw the wanderer and thought I can never top that and then went to do some architector
responsible for gothic revival architecture of the romantic era
a gate in the rocks -you’re looking at the sky and the beauty of nature
morning - sunrise, children playing (another glorified fieature)
medieval town by water -
friedrichswerder church - gothic revival building, vaulted ceilings, and it is magnificent, very beautiful and medieval
jmw turner english romantic landscape painter - very prolific !
the slave ship 1840 by turner, oil on canvas, what is important there is the storm, which brings the triumph of nature over man, and this cargo is wrong and immoral, bringing slaves against their will… here comes nature the hero… everybody is drowning, nature is taking out its frustration on humanity

when he wasn’t writing poetry Willie was painting dense stuff
illustrations of christ’s nativity, etc
very bizarre
great red dragon paintings - this is inspired in the book of revelations… the woman fighting the dragon

TWO POEMS BY BLAKE, WILLIAM
english romantic painter and poet

songs of innocece
songs of experience

THE TYGER

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forest of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye 
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

THE LAMB

Little Lamb who made thee 

         Dost thou know who made thee 

Gave thee life & bid thee feed. 

By the stream & o'er the mead;

Gave thee clothing of delight,

Softest clothing wooly bright;

Gave thee such a tender voice,

Making all the vales rejoice! 

         Little Lamb who made thee 

         Dost thou know who made thee 

         Little Lamb I'll tell thee,

         Little Lamb I'll tell thee!

He is called by thy name,

For he calls himself a Lamb: 

He is meek & he is mild, 

He became a little child: 

I a child & thou a lamb, 

We are called by his name.

         Little Lamb God bless thee. 

         Little Lamb God bless thee.
AND LASTLY, AN ITALIAN ANALYSIS OF BLAKE: (thank you, oilproject.org)

William Blake è un poeta della prima generazione romantica inglese ed è considerato un precursore delle tematiche tipiche di questo movimento su scala europea, sebbene egli abbia rappresentato, per la visione del mondo e per le opere prodotte, una figura isolata rispetto ai contemporanei William Wordsworth (1770-1850) e Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834).

Blake nasce nel 1757 in una famiglia della classe medio-bassa (il padre era un venditore di calze) e a dieci anni viene mandato in una scuola di disegno per diventare incisore. Sin da bambino, William affianca all’interesse per il disegno la passione per la Bibbia, che diventerà l’opera di riferimento per la sua attività creativa, sia nei testi letterari che nei suoi disegni, dipinti e incisioni. Nel 1778 Blake si iscrive alla Royal Academy of Arts per seguire un corso della durata di sei anni e nel 1788 iniziò a sperimentare l’incisione a rilievo, che utilizzò poi per i Songs of Innocence (1789) e i Songs of Experience (1794) e molte altre opere, come la raccolta di prose The marriage of Heaven and Hell (1793): una caratteristica dell’arte di Blake è quella dell’associare in maniera poliedrica testo e immagine, con la funzione di fornire un corrispettivo visivo a ciò che viene detto nel testo. Assai vicino al concetto di “sublime” formulato dal Romanticismo ed influenzato dalle correnti mistiche della fede religiosa ¹, Blake sperimenta nuove tecniche di stampa a colori, e si dedica a importanti lavori di illustrazione, quali quelli per il Paradiso perduto di Milton, per il Libro di Giobbe, considerato il suo capolavoro, e per la Divina Commedia di Dante, lasciata incompiuta per la morte nel 1827.
Nel corso della sua vita, Blake manifesterà in più di un’occasione la propria originalità e indipendenza di pensiero: dal sostegno alla Rivoluzione americana e alla Rivoluzione francese (almeno fino all’instaurarsi del regime del Terrore di Robespierre) ai conflitti con la Chiesa d’Inghilterra fino alle delusioni lavorative (come un progetto di illustrazione dei Racconti di Canterbury di Geoffrey Chaucer per cui Blake si scontra con il suo editore). Proprio per la sua personalità alternativa e ribelle, Blake venne a più riprese considerato “pazzo” dai contemporanei, salvo poi essere rivalutato successivamente - ad esempio, dal movimento preraffaellita e dal Simbolismo - fino all’opera dello scrittore Aldous Huxley ² e al movimento della contestazione degli anni ‘60 del Novecento.

I Songs of Innocence e i Songs of Experience

L’opera di Blake, nonostante le apparenze, è molto complessa, poiché tutti suoi testi si prestano a letture stratificate, che all’interpretazione svelano piani metaforici e simbolici assai stratificati. La visione del mondo di Blake è infatti articolata e sfaccettata, e si nutre di una ricca mitologia personale, sviluppata soprattutto nelle opere pubblicate tra il 1790 e il 1804, come The French Revolution, America: a Prophecy, Europe: a Prophecy e The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Il testo di riferimento nell’immaginario del poeta è sempre la Bibbia, da cui Blake trae spesso ispirazione anche per le sue visioni più ambigue e oniriche.

Nei Songs of Innocence e nei successivi Songs of Experience l’elemento più evidente - sin dai due titoli - è la contrapposizione tra due stati dell’esistenza umana: da un lato la “innocence”, ovvero un mondo colmo di gioia e felicità per l’uomo e che ha le fattezze di un giardino dell’Eden popolato di immagini simboliche di Cristo (come agnelli e fanciulli); dall’altro lato la “experience”, che costituisce il controcanto di questo mondo paradisiaco, che è tale solo in apparenza, finché non entra in contatto con la dura realtà del mondo. Questa contrapposizione è costituisce l’ossatura delle due raccolte: ai testi dei Songs of Innocence Blake fa infatti corrisponde gli analoghi dei Songs of Experience, che ne capovolgono gli ideali alla luce dell’esperienza del Male e dell’ingiustizia quotidiana.
Queste due condizione esistenziali sono però complementari: se nei Songs of Innocence Blake rappresenta uno stato ideale non ancora corrotto ³, d’altro canto il poeta stesso sa che questa realtà è illusoria, poiché il mondo dell’esperienza è segnato da egoismo, crudeltà e ingiustizie sociali. Blake rappresenta tutto ciò attraverso la figura inquietante della tigre, che è quindi completa quella pura ed incorrotta dell’agnello in The Lamb.

The Tyger e The Lamb: analisi e confronto

La presenza dell’agnello in The Lamb presuppone l’esistenza della tigre, così come la tigre, in The Tyger, esiste solo come controparte dell’agnello. Le due poesie hanno infatti una struttura simile, basata sulle assillanti domande retoriche nelle quali il poeta si chiede chi sia il creatore dell’animale. L’effetto anaforico è poi supportato, sul piano lessicale, dalla ripetizione di “Tyger” (all’inizio della prima e dell’ultima strofa, v. 1 e v. 21) e “Lamb” (all’inizio e alla fine delle due strofe, v. 1, v. 9, vv. 11-12, vv. 19-20 ⁴).

Blake quindi concentra e focalizza l’attenzione del suo lettore sui due animali e sul loro potere evocativo e simbolico. L’agnello è una chiara immagine biblica ed è simbolo dell’innocenza e della purezza, ma anche del sacrificio di Cristo sulla croce ⁵ per la salvezza dell’umanità dal peccato. L’immagine dell’agnello è però anche fortemente associata a quella del fanciullo nella poesia: entrambi hanno una “tender voice”(v. 7) e sono “meek and mild”(v. 15). Qui dunque Blake parla sì di Cristo ma si riferisca anche alla condizione umana dell’innocenza. La tigre, al contrario, è una creatura spaventosa e temibile. Diversamente dall’agnello essa non appartiene alla simbologia cristiana, anche se le sue caratteristiche - il vivere nelle “forests of the night” (v. 2), la paura suscistata dalla sua “fearful simmetry” (v. 4) e soprattutto l’analogia tra i suoi occhi e il fuoco (“burnt the fire of thine eyes”, v. 6) - la avvicinano ad una creatura satanica, che incarna quindi il lato oscuro e demoniaco dell’uomo. Alla tigre, che è il simbolo della sofferenza che deriva dall’esperienza umana, si collegano dunque le domande senza risposta di Blake (ben tredici su ventiquattro versi), che si interroga senza risultato sulla natura e l’identità di questa entità perturbante. Il confronto tra l’agnello di The Lamb e la tigre della poesia omonima è esplicito al v. 20 (“Did he who made the Lamb make thee?”) quando il poeta si chiede se il principio del Bene e quello del Male possano aver avuto la stessa origine in Dio. Le edizioni dei Songs of Innocence e dei Songs of Experience vennero poi pubblicate insieme con il corredo di 54 illustrazioni di Blake stesso.
I due testi sono così un ottimo esempio della poetica e della concezione della realtà di Blake, che ritiene che il mondo vada “letto” come un libro composto da Dio; in tal senso, in ogni presenza terrena può essere rintracciato un livello di interpretazione simbolico che aiuti a comprendere le ragioni dell’esistenza umana e del messaggio divino. Blake, che nella sua concezione della religione si distacca dalla tradizione ufficiale dalle Chiesa anglicana, si allontana pure dai precetti dell’Illuminismo e, in particolare, dall’idea del primato della ragione umana. Egli anzi afferma, sulla scia di alcune idee del movimento romantico (e si pensi pure all’influsso dello Sturm und Drang tedesco), che fede ed intuito sono gli unici strumenti che garantiscono una vera e profonda conoscenza. Al centro del sistema di pensiero di Blake c’è il ruolo dell’immaginazione, come poi per Wordsworth e Coleridge ⁶. Blake, riferendosi alla composizione poetica, afferma infatti che solo attraverso l’immaginazione l’uomo può “vedere” al di là della realtà fisica. L’importanza dell’immaginazione è tale che, per Blake, essa non è un atteggiamento mentale, ma è lo stato di esistenza stesso dell’uomo.
La struttura e lo stile di The Lamb e The Tyger sono abbastanza semplici e lineari: dal punto di vista lessicale Blake evita i latinismi o i termini particolarmente aulici (mentre sono presenti alcuni arcaismi), mentre sul piano sintattico i due testi preferiscono un andamento paratattico, con poche subordinate. La struttura strofica e rimica (versi brevi con rime baciate) è particolarmente musicale, grazie anche agli accenti regolari e alle fitte ripetizioni (per The Lamb era anche previsto un accompagnamento musicale). È quindi l’uso di simbologie e immagini complesse a rendere particolarmente difficile l’interpretazione del testo.