Romancing romanticism: first canto
(1776 – 1816)
9.1.Историческая обусловленность романтизма. Эстетические теории романтиков. Преобладание субъективно-лирического начала. Обращение к прошлому, к фольклорным мотивам. Характер романтического героя.
Romanticism is a movement in the literature of virtually every country of Europe, the United States, and Latin America that lasted from about 1770 to about 1870.It is characterized by reliance on the imagination and subjectivity of approach, freedom of thought and expression, and an idealization of nature. The term romantic first appeared in English and originally meant “romance-like” —resembling the fanciful character of medieval romances.
It was in France and Germany that literary taste began to turn from classical and neoclassical conventions. Inspiration for the romantic approach initially came from two great shapers of thought, French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau and German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Rousseau established the cult of the individual and championed the freedom of the human spirit. Goethe and his compatriots extolled the romantic spirit as manifested in German folk songs, Gothic architecture, and the plays of English playwright William Shakespeare. Goethe sought to imitate Shakespeare's free and untrammeled style. Goethe's novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) was also in this tradition. The book set a tone and mood much copied by the romantics in their works and often in their personal lives: a fashionable tendency to frenzy, melancholy, world-weariness, and even self-destruction.
Surprisingly, the romantic movements coincided with great political upheavals of the 18th century – the American and French Revolutions. Both produced a major impact of the shaping of the romantic thought and writing.
9.2. Философия и эстетика Уильяма Блейка. «конецформыначалоформыПесни невинности» и «Песни опыта»: противоречивый образ современности.
One of the forerunners of the Romantic Movement in England wasWilliam Blake (1757-1827), English poet, painter, and engraver, who created a unique form of illustrated verse. His poetry, inspired by mystical vision, is among the most original, lyric, and prophetic in the language.
Blake was born in London, where he lived most of his life. Largely self-taught, he was, however, widely read, and his poetry shows the influence of the German mysticism. As a child, Blake wanted to become a painter. He was sent to drawing school and at the age of 14 was apprenticed to an engraver. He studied briefly at the Royal Academy, but he rebelled against the aesthetic doctrines of its president, Sir Joshua Reynolds. For the rest of his life Blake eked out a living as an engraver and illustrator. His wife helped him print the illuminated poetry for which he is remembered today.
Blake began writing poetry at the age of 12. Blake’s most popular poems have always been Songs of Innocence(1789). These lyrics — fresh, direct observations — are notable for their eloquence. Disillusioned with the possibility of human perfection, Blake issued Songs of Experience, employing the same lyric style and much of the same subject matter. Both series of poems take on deeper resonances when read in conjunction. Innocence and Experience, “the two contrary states of the human soul,” are contrasted in such companion pieces as The Lamb and The Tyger. Blake’s subsequent poetry develops the implication that true innocence is impossible without experience, transformed by the creative force of the human imagination.
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests 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?
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
As was to be Blake’s custom, he illustrated the Songs with designs that demand an imaginative reading of the complicated dialogue between word and picture. His method of illuminated printing is not completely understood.
Blake has been called a pre-romantic because he rejected neoclassical literary style and modes of thought. His graphic art too defied 18th-century conventions. Always stressing imagination over reason, he felt that ideal forms should be constructed not from observations of nature but from inner visions. His rhythmically patterned linear style is also a repudiation of the painterly academic style.
Much of Blake’s painting was on religious subjects: illustrations for the work of John Milton, his favorite poet, for John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and for the Bible. Among his secular illustrations were those for an edition of Thomas Gray’s poems.
In his so-called Prophetic Books, a series of longer poems written from 1789 on, Blake created a complex personal mythology and invented his own symbolic characters to reflect his social concerns. A true original in thought and expression, he declared in one of these poems, “I must create a system or be enslaved by another man’s.” Blake was a nonconformist radical. Poems such as The French Revolution (1791), America, a Prophecy (1793) express his condemnation of 18th-century political and social tyranny.
THE LITTLE BLACK BOY
My mother bore me in the southern wild,
And I am black, but O! my soul is white;
White as an angel is the English child,
But I am black as if bereav'd of light.
My mother taught me underneath a tree,
And, sitting down before the heat of day,
She took me on her lap and kissed me,
And, pointing to the east, began to say:
"Look on the rising sun, there God does live,
And gives His light, and gives His heat away;
And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive
Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday.
And we are put on earth a little space,
That we may learn to bear the beams of love;
And these black bodies and the sunburnt face
Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove.
For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear,
The cloud will vanish; we shall hear His voice,
Saying: "Come out from the grove, My love and care,
And round My golden tent like lambs rejoice.'
Thus did my mother say, and kissed me;
And thus I say to little English boy.
When I from black and he from white cloud free,
And round the tent of God like lambs we joy,
I'll shade him from the heat, till he can bear
To lean in joy upon our Father's knee;
And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair,
And be like him, and he will then love me.
9.3. Роберт Бернс как народный шотландский поэт. Тема любви и природы в лирике поэта. Мастерство лирики Бернса. Тема «честной бедности», особенности социального критицизма и оптимизм.
9.3.1. Another pre-romanticist wasRobert Burns (1759-96), Scottish poet and writer of traditional Scottish folk songs, whose works are known and loved wherever the English language is read.
Burns was the eldest of seven children. Although poverty limited his formal education, Burns read widely in English literature and the Bible and learned to read French. He was encouraged in his self-education by his father, and his mother acquainted him with Scottish folk songs, legends, and proverbs. Arduous farm work and undernourishment in his youth permanently injured his health, leading to the rheumatic heart disease from which he eventually died.
His father died leaving him as head of the family. At 25, Burns read the works of the Edinburgh poet Robert Fergusson and became aware of the literary possibilities of the Scottish regional dialects. During the next two years he produced most of his best-known poems, including "To a Daisy" and "To a Mouse." In addition, he wrote “The Jolly Beggars,” a cantata chiefly in Standard English, which is considered one of his masterpieces.
Burns angered church authorities by having several indiscreet love affairs. In 1785 he fell in love with Jean Armour, the daughter of a building contractor. Jean soon became pregnant, and although Burns offered to make her his wife, her father forbade their marriage. Thereupon he prepared to immigrate to the West Indies. Before departing he arranged to issue by subscription a collection of his poetry. Published in an edition of 600 copies, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect was an immediate success.
9.3.2. Burns abandoned the West Indies plan; the same month Jean became the mother of twins. He moved to Edinburgh, where he was lionized by fashionable society. Charmed by Burns, the literati mistakenly believed him to be an untutored bard. He resented their condescension.
Burns's later literary output consisted almost entirely of songs, both original compositions and adaptations of traditional Scottish ballads and folk songs. Among his songs in this collection are such favorites as “Auld Lang Syne,” ”Comin' Thro' the Rye,” ”Scots Wha Hae,” ”A Red, Red Rose,” ”The Banks o' Doon,” and “John Anderson, My Jo.”
After the outbreak of the French Revolution, Burns became an outspoken champion of the Republican cause. His enthusiasm for liberty and social justice dismayed many of his admirers. After Franco-British relations began to deteriorate, he curbed his radical sympathies and, for patriotic reasons, joined the Dumfriesshire Volunteers.
Burns touched with his own genius the traditional folk songs of Scotland, transmuting them into great poetry, and he immortalized its countryside and humble farm life. His satirical verse, once little appreciated, has in recent decades been recognized widely as his finest work. He was also a master of the verse-narrative technique. Finally, his love songs, perfectly fitted to the tunes for which he wrote them, are, at their best, unsurpassed.
SONG (Tune, Corn rigs are bonie)
It was upon a Lammas night,
When corn rigs are bonie,
Beneath the moon's unclouded light,
I held awa to Annie:
The time flew by, wi' tentless heed,
Till 'tween the late and early;
Wi' sma' persuasion she agreed,
To see me thro' the barley.
The sky was blue, the wind was still,
The moon was shining clearly;
I set her down, wi' right good will,
Amang the rigs o' barley:
I ken't her heart was a' my ain;
I lov'd her most sincerely;
I kiss'd her owre and owre again,
Amang the rigs o' barley.
I lock'd her in my fond embrace;
Her heart was beating rarely:
My blessings on that happy place,
Amang the rigs o' barley!
But by the moon and stars so bright,
That shone that hour so clearly!
She ay shall bless that happy night,
Amang the rigs o' barley.
I hae been blythe wi' Comrades dear;
I hae been merry drinking;
I hae been joyfu' gath'rin gear;
I hae been happy thinking:
But a' the pleasures e'er I saw,
Tho' three times doubl'd fairly,
That happy night was worth them a',
Amang the rigs o' barley.
Chorus
Corn rigs, an' barley rigs,
An' corn rigs are bonie:
I'll ne'er forget that happy night,
Amang the rigs wi' Annie.
9.4. «Озерная школа»: Уильям Вордсворт, Сэмюэл Кольридж. «Лирические баллады»: новаторство замысла и характер соавторства поэтов. «Природы идеал» в лирике У. Вордсворта.
The first generation of Romanticists includesWilliam Wordsworth (1770-1850)and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834).Wordsworthand his sister lived in the loveliest spot in the English Lake District. Coleridge as well as the poet Robert Southey lived nearby, and the three men became known as the Lake Poets.
9.4.1. Wordsworth is one of the most accomplished and influential of England's romantic poets, whose theories and style created a new tradition in poetry. He developed a keen love of nature as a youth, and during school vacation periods he frequently visited places noted for their scenic beauty. At 20, he took a walking tour through France and Switzerland. After receiving his degree he returned to France, where he became an enthusiastic convert to the ideals of the French Revolution. Although Wordsworth had begun to write poetry while still a schoolboy, none of his poems was published until he was 23. These works, although fresh and original in content, received little notice, and few copies were sold.
SCORN NOT THE SONNET
Scorn not the Sonnet, Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camoens soothed the exile's grief;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow; a glow-worm lamp,
It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land
To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his land
The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
Soul-animating strains – alas, too few!
William met the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an enthusiastic admirer of his early poetic efforts, and it marked the beginning of a close and enduring friendship between the poets. In the ensuing period they collaborated on a book of poems entitled Lyrical Ballads, first published in 1798. This work is generally taken to mark the beginning of the Romantic movement in English poetry. Wordsworth wrote almost all the poems in the volume; Coleridge contributed the famous “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Representing a revolt against the artificial classicism of contemporary English verse, Lyrical Ballads was greeted with hostility by most leading critics of the day.
In defense of his unconventional theory of poetry, Wordsworth wrote a preface to the second edition, which appeared in 1800. His premise was that the source of poetic truth is the direct experience of the senses. Poetry, he asserted, originates from “emotion recollected in tranquility.” Rejecting the contemporary emphasis on form and an intellectual approach that drained poetic writing of strong emotion, he maintained that the scenes and events of everyday life and the speech of ordinary people were the raw material of which poetry could and should be made.
* * *
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
That Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
Wordsworth's political and intellectual sympathies underwent a transformation after 1800. His viewpoint changed into conservative. He was disillusioned by the course of events in France culminating in the rise of Napoleon; his circle of friends, including the Scottish author Sir Walter Scott, also influenced him in the direction of orthodoxy.
As he advanced in age, Wordsworth's poetic vision and inspiration dulled; his later, more rhetorical, moralistic poems cannot be compared to the lyrics of his youth, although a number of them are illumined by the spark of his former greatness.
9.4.2. Samuel T. Coleridge had a kind of poetic talent different form that of Wordsworth's. At the university he absorbed political and theological ideas then considered radical. He left Cambridge without a degree and joined the poet Robert Southey in a plan, soon abandoned, to found a utopian society in Pennsylvania. His poetry mostly deals with the mystical and the fantastic.
The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.
Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
‘Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!
And in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idly as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yes, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon a slimy sea.
About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue and white.
(…) And every tongue, through utter drought,
Was withered at the root;
We could not speak, no more than if
We had been choked with soot.
Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.
He gave series of lectures on literature and philosophy; the lectures on Shakespeare were partly responsible for a renewed interest in the playwright. His major prose work, Biographia Literaria, is a series of autobiographical notes and dissertations on many subjects, including some brilliantly perceptive literary criticism. The sections in which Coleridge defines his views on the nature of poetry and the imagination and discusses the works of Wordsworth are especially notable. Coleridge was esteemed by some of his contemporaries and is generally recognized today as a lyrical poet and literary critic of the first rank. His poetic themes range from the supernatural to the domestic. His treatises, lectures, and compelling conversational powers made him perhaps the most influential English literary critic and philosopher of the 19th century.
LECTURE 10