The Romantic Age

Introduction

• The Romantic Period has its roots in the late 18 th century,

although its official beginning in English literature is
believed to be in 1798 and it spans to 1837 (the beginning
of Queen Victoria’s reign).
• The political and economic atmosphere at the time
profoundly influenced this period and its ideologies, with
many writers finding inspiration from the French
Revolution- Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.
• There were a lot of social upheavals during this period calls
for the abolition of slavery with more and more writers
writing openly about their objections; people moving away
from the countryside and farmland and into the cities,
where the Industrial Revolution provided jobs and
technological innovations (after the Agricultural
Revolution); Reign of Terror led by Napoleon Bonaparte, etc.
• Romanticism was a reaction against this spread of
industrialism and fascism, as well as a criticism of the
aristocratic norms in social and political spheres. It called for
more attention to nature, feelings and freedom.
• In literary sphere, it was a reaction against the strict norms
of the Neo-classical Age. The key difference has been listed
below-

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 Neoclassicism Romanticism
• Use and imitation of literary
• Use and imitation of
traditions from ancient
literary traditions from the
Greece and Rome-
Middle Ages- Medievalism
Classicism
• Found beauty in structure • Found beauty in organic,
and order natural forms
• Art was created from
• Art was created from order
inspiration
• Use of heroic couplets • Use of lyric poetry
• Focus on external people • Focus on self-expression
and events and individualism
• Aristocracy • Democracy
• Reason • Mysticism-Romanticism
• Glorification of the rural
• Glorification of the urban
and seeing the evils of
and civilization
civilization
• Values wit and • Values simplicity and
sophistication in people primitiveness in people
• Focus on the head • Focus on the heart

Essential elements-

• Freedom and Liberty- Probably the most important aspects of

Romanticism are grounded in the ideals of Freedom and

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 Liberty. Romantic writers shunned the facades of rules and
regulations- social, political, economic and artistic. They sought
for freedom in the little and big things of life. Their “poetics” is
greatly connected with their “politics”. Hence, they are better
seen as poets of politics rather than poets of nature. Because,
nature for them was a means to freedom, not an end in itself.
• Primitivism and Individualism—Romantic Movement finds its
sources in nature and in the ideals of democracy (French
Revolution). Romanticism values the primitive individual, the
person who does not have the artificial manners of high society
and the cultivated disguise of the aristocracy. Individuals who
are closer to nature are better able to recognize and epitomize
goodness and spiritual sensitivity. Wordsworth espouses the
common man and incidents from ordinary life as the
appropriate subject for poetry. Romanticism places the
individual in the center of life and experience, rather than the
grandeur of the preceding literary movement.
• Sensibility— The overwhelming emotional reaction to nature
seen in Romantic poetry, the emotional sensitivity to other
individuals and their circumstances, particularly those from the
lower socio-economic classes, and the sensibility towards the
wonders of the spiritual world (through nature) are all are
expressions of sensibility. No doubt, In his Preface to Lyrical
Ballads, Wordsworth defined poetry as the “spontaneous
overflow of powerful feelings.”
• Medievalism—Rather than looking for forms and subject from
classical literature, Romantic writers looked at the Middle Ages
because it signified simpler times with no superficiality or
burdens of a modern civilization. In prose, the castles and
mysterious aura of the Dark Ages provided an ideal setting for
Gothic literature, especially the novels. Of course this

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 inspiration overlooked the violence and harshness of the
Middle Ages.
• Mysticism—Romantic poets believed that the physical world of
nature is a revelation of a spiritual or transcendental world.
Hence, it can be said that the Romantic poets did not worship
the tree per se, but the spiritual, sublime element manifested
by the tree. Although Romantic literature, particularly poetry,
is often characterized as nature poetry, its end goal was to find
a reflection of the transcendental world in it. Romantic poets
loved nature not only for its beauty but mainly because it is an
expression of spirituality and the Imagination.

Keywords

• Glorification of Nature
• Awareness and Acceptance of Feelings & Emotions
• Focus on Self
• Celebration of Artistic Creativity and Imagination
• Emphasis on Aesthetic Beauty
• Vivid Sensory Descriptions
• Themes of Solitude
• Focus on Exoticism and History (medieval)
• Spiritual and Supernatural Elements
• Use of Personification

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 Pioneers of the Romantic Age

• Robert Burns is considered to be the pioneer of the Romantic

Age because of his lyricism and poetic philosophy. He was a
Scottish poet whose ideals of Freedom and Liberty make him a
prototype Romantic poet. His writing style and ethos inspired
many writers of his age. He is considered as the National Poet
of Scotland.
• William Blake was one of the earliest English Romantic Period
writers. Blake believed in spiritual and political freedom and
often wrote about these themes in his works. He can be
considered as a prototype of the Romantics because his poetry
embodied mysticism and spirituality. His Songs of Innocence
and Songs of Experience pits a romantic view of life with the
harsh reality of life in the late 18th century.

Official Beginning
• Most scholars would agree that the Romantic Period began
with the publishing of Lyrical Ballads (1798) by William
Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This was one of
the first collections of poems that strayed from the formal
poetic diction and strict literary styles of the Neoclassical
Period.
• In these poems, the poets emphasized on using everyday
words that the average person could understand.

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 • These poets also emphasized on using such themes and
styles that aided in expressing human emotions and
spontaneous feelings.
• Wordsworth primarily wrote about nature because he felt it
could provide a source of mental solace and spiritual
awakening.

Second Generation of Romantic Poets

• John Keats- He is well known for his odes and lyrical stanzas.
These odes are typically written in praise of, or in dedication to,
something or someone that the writer admires. He aimed to
express intense and extreme emotion using personal narrative
in his poetry. Keats was preoccupied with death and aging and
the temporary status of life. He found Beauty the only solace
from it.
• P.B. Shelley was a radical thinker and political revolutionary.
His poetic ethos was anti-monarchical and he found nature as a
medium through which he could spread his ideas far and wide.
He believed in the over-arching power of nature and natural
phenomenon. He was an atheist.
• Lord Byron differed from the writing styles of Keats and
Shelley. He was heavily influenced by the satire and wit from
the previous period and infused this in his poetry. But he was
Romantic in the way that he used models from the past to
express his own life experiences. Also, he introduced the
persona of Byronic Hero- a handsome and intelligent man with
a tendency to be over cynical and moody. He is a rebel of the
normative social order and doesn’t believe in following rules.

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 Lyrical Ballads

Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems got published in 4 editions-

1798, 1800, 1802, 1805. The first edition was published
anonymously, while the second had only Wordsworth’s name on the
title page.
The first edition- It contained total 23 poems- 19 by Wordsworth and
4 by Coleridge. The poem begins with Coleridge’s Rime of the
Ancient Mariner and ends with Wordsworth’s “Lines Composed a
Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey”. Conveyed through the poems are
emotional responses to the natural and supernatural in
conversational verse.
A few years after the publication of Lyrical Ballads, Coleridge
described the creative decisions that he and Wordsworth made
while compiling their project in his critical autobiography Biographia
Literaria (1817): that his, “endeavours should be directed to persons
and characters supernatural” and Wordsworth would give the charm
of novelty to things of every day”.
Ironically, Lyrical Ballads marked both the beginning and the end of
the poets’ literary partnership. Some important poems in the first
edition are as follows-

• The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere (Coleridge)

• The Foster-Mother’s Tale (Coleridge)
• The Nightingale, a Conversational Poem (Coleridge)
• Lines written at a small distance from my House, and sent by my
little Boy to the Person to whom they are addressed
• Simon Lee, the old Huntsman
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• We are seven
• The Thorn
• The Dungeon (Coleridge)
• Lines written near Richmond, upon the Thames, at Evening
• Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey

An expanded edition, Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems, was

published in two volumes in 1800 under Wordsworth's name. The
second volume was published in 2 volumes. It was an expansion on
the 1st volume, including four out of the five famous "Lucy poems."
He gives Coleridge credit for some of the poems, however, not by
name. “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” engulfed the first 53 pages of
the first edition. In the second edition the poem is buried in the end
of the first volume and only retains 46 pages. The second edition also
added a Preface in which Wordsworth introduced his poetic theories.
The third edition, Lyrical Ballads, with Pastoral and Other Poems, was
published in 1802 followed by the last authorized edition in 1805.

The Preface
It was published as an essay in the 2nd edition (published in January
1801); was expanded for the 3rd edition (1802). In the Preface,
Wordsworth will set out rules for a new kind of poetry; he will
declare breaking-away from the Neo-Classical poetry. The central
idea of the text is to use “Incidents and situations from common life”
described in language “really used by men”. He will move back to the
countryside for his content because life away from the city is free of
“all real defects” and is “pure”.

Keywods-
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 • Feeling
• Imagination
• Liberty
• Freedom
• Spontaneity
• Innovation

Main points-

• Poetic Inspiration- the ordinary world and people; everyday

instances and scenes.
• Poetic purpose- “to make the ordinary extraordinary”; It seeks
to produce “excitement” and “an overbalance of pleasure”.
• Definition of a poet- “A man speaking to men”. He is from
amongst the people; but he’s different from them in the sense
that a poet is better connected to his own emotions and
feelings and has higher sensitivity to the happenings around
him- “Has a comprehensive, sensible soul”. He is gifted with
“more lively sensibility”. A poet is a "rock of defense for human
nature; an upholder and a preserver, carrying everywhere with
him relations and love." He “binds together by passion and
knowledge the vast empire of human society”.
• Definition of a poem- “a spontaneous overflow of powerful
emotions”. Sensitivity to the outer world and one’s own
emotions would lead the poet to feel things deeply. These deep
emotions would be recollected in moments of solitude
(“recollected in tranquillity”) and penned down, creating a
poem.
• Language of these poems- “real language of men”- the
“ordinary” “daily” language. Because poetry speaks of
universal human emotions, it should use diction that is natural
rather than artificial and self-consciously literary. Wordsworth
also argues that poetry and prose should be close in style

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 William Wordsworth
Poems

• The Borderers-
o Completed by 1797 but not published until 1842.
o It is a verse tragedy based during the times of Henry III in
England. It is based on the conflict between Englishmen
and Scottish Reivers- a kind of Anglo-Scottish looters.
o Was rejected to be performed on the stage by Thomas
Harris, the manager of the famous theatre, the Covent
Garden.
• Lines Written (or Composed) a Few Miles above Tintern
Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July
13, 1798-
o Abbreviated to Tintern Abbey, although the word is not
used anywhere in the poem’s text.
o His trip and interactions on the banks of River Wye
offered him great inspiration.
o Written in blank verse- though not strictly
o Appeared in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads
o Wordsworth wrote the poem after visiting the ruins of the
medieval abbey on the England-Wales border.
o The poem sees Wordsworth revisiting the ‘banks of the
Wye’, the river that flows through England and Wales, five
years after he was last there.
o The poem begins on the note that five summers and five
winters have been passed since the speaker last visited
the place- 1st visit was in 1793 and 2nd visit was in 1798
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 (when the poem was created). A 3rd visit was made in
1841.
o In the poem’s final verse paragraph, Wordsworth
addresses his companion with him by the banks of the
river Wye: his sister, Dorothy.
o Important quotes-
▪ Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters!
▪ Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of
more deep seclusion
▪ Hermit's cave…The Hermit sits alone
▪ These beauteous forms, Through a long absence,
have not been to me…But oft, in lonely rooms, and
'mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to
them, In hours of weariness, sensations sweet…
▪ The best portion of a good man's life: his little,
nameless unremembered acts of kindness and love.
▪ Almost suspended, we are laid asleep, In body, and
become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet
by the power, Of harmony, and the deep power of
joy, We see into the life of things.
▪ How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, O sylvan
Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods, How often
has my spirit turned to thee!
▪ While here I stand, not only with the sense, Of
present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts, That in
this moment there is life and food, For future years.
▪ The still sad music of humanity
▪ The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The
guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul, Of all my
moral being.
▪ My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch, The
language of my former heart, and read, My former
pleasures in the shooting lights, Of thy wild eyes.

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 ▪ With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, Rash
judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Nor
greetings where no kindness is, nor all, The dreary
intercourse of daily life, Shall e'er prevail against us
▪ Thy memory be as a dwelling-place, For all sweet
sounds and harmonies
▪ A worshipper of Nature

• She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways-

o It was published in the 2nd edition of Lyrical ballads.
o Most famous among the 5 Lucy Poems- "Strange fits of
passion have I known", "She dwelt among the untrodden
ways", "I travelled among unknown men” (published
in Poems, in Two Volumes in 1807), "Three years she grew
in sun and shower", and "A slumber did my spirit seal".
o The Lucy Poems reveal his meditations on life, death,
beauty and solitude.
o These poems were composed between 1798 and 1801.
Although Wordsworth did not intend to put the poems in
a series, it was literary critic Thomas Powell who
recognized the works as a collection unified by a common
theme in 1831.
o With the exception of “A slumber did my spirit seal,” all
the poems in the series mention Lucy by name.
o Another poem written around the same period has been
excluded from the grouping, despite being titled “Lucy
Gray” (first published in Volume 2 of the 1800 edition
of Lyrical Ballads).
o “She Dwelt” is composed in 12 lines- three-stanzas in a
variant of Ballad stanza (ABAB) with alternating 4 and 3
stress lines.
o In the poem, an unidentified speaker mourns the loss of
Lucy, a young woman who died young in the English
countryside. She lived in isolation, but in her glory, near

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 river Dove, and whose beauty and virtue were overlooked
in life.
o Some famous quotes-
▪ Three years she grew in sun and shower, Then
Nature said, 'A lovelier flower, On earth was never
sown; This Child I to myself will take; She shall be
mine, and I will make, A Lady of my own. (“Three
years she grew in sun and shower")
▪ I travelled among unknown men, In lands beyond
the sea; Nor, England! did I know till then, What love
I bore to thee. (“I travelled among unknown men")
▪ She dwelt among the untrodden ways, Beside the
springs of Dove, A maid whom there were none to
praise, And very few to love. (“She dwelt among the
untrodden ways”)

• Michael-
o A pastoral poem published in the 2nd edition of Lyrical
Ballads. It is a long narrative poem that consists of 483
lines.
o It is about an ageing shepherd, Michael, his wife Isabel,
and his only son Luke.
o Setting of the poem- “Greenhead Ghyll”
o Written in irregular iambic pentameter
o About the lost joys of a simple farmer in the countryside
due to the Law of Enclosure- a regime that blocked the
access of open farmlands to the agrarian workers for
open cultivation.
o “Wordsworth’s picture of rural life in Michael is less idyllic
and nearer to historical truth than some readers may
suppose.”- Bernard Groom

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• I wandered lonely as a Cloud or Daffodils-
o Published in 1807 in Poems, in Two Volumes, and a
revised version was published in 1815
o On 15 April 1802, Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy
came across a host of daffodils around Glencoyne Bay in
the Lake District. This event was the inspiration behind
the composition of Wordsworth’s lyric poem.
o The poem describes how a host of dancing golden
daffodils mesmerized his heart.

o The poem is composed of four stanzas of six lines each

(24 lines) with rhyme scheme ABABCC and iambic
tetrameter. Meter in this poem is quite regular.

o Important quotes-
▪ I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
▪ Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance
▪ I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

• Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early

Childhood-
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o Published in Poems, in Two Volumes (1807)

o A 206 line-poem written in 11 variable ode stanzas

o There is no single rhyme scheme, each stanza has

individual patterns of rhyme.

o In the poem, the speaker mourns the loss of his youth and
the deeper connection he used to have to the natural
world. In the fifth stanza, the speaker declares that we
come from a world that is more heavenly than earth and
it is with the memory of that place that we see the earth
as a child; eventually, as we grow older, we forget those
experiences because we are tainted by the corruptions of
the mortal world. The speaker concludes the poem by
declaring that he can always look to his memories to
remember what it was like to live as a child and to regain
the joy of the past life.

o The epigraph of this poem is a three-lined tercet, that

forms the last three lines of ‘My Heart Leaps Up’.-

▪ The child is father of the man;

And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
o Important quotes-

▪ There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

The Earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.

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 ▪ What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now forever taken from my sight

▪ Whither is fled the visionary gleam?

Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

▪ Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

▪ Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy.

▪ Thou best Philosopher…. Mighty Prophet!

• The Solitary Reaper-

o A lyrical poem published in Poems, in Two Volumes ,1907,

though originally written on November 5, 1805.

o The poem is composed in 32 lines- 4 stanzas of 8 lines

each. Each stanza follows the rhyme scheme- ABABCCDD.

o “The Solitary Reaper” was singing and doing her work in

solitude only to be noticed by the poet, who is
mesmerized by her singing. He compares her song to that
of “Nightingale” and the “Cuckoo-bird”, yet he states that
her song is the best. Despite the poet’s inability to
decipher the song’s meaning, he understands that it is a
song of melancholy. Even after a long time had passed,
the song continued to echo in his heart. The beautiful
experience left a deep impact and gave him a long-lasting
pleasure.

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 o The poem “The Solitary Reaper” begins with
an Apostrophe “Behold” where the poet addresses the
unknown passer-by.

o Important quotes-

▪ No Nightingale did ever chaunt

More welcome notes to weary bands

▪ A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard

In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,

▪ Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,

That has been, and may be again?

▪ The music in my heart I bore,

Long after it was heard no more.

• The World Is Too Much with Us-

o The poem was composed in 1802, though published

in Poems, in Two Volumes (1807).

o A sonnet written in Italian form- iambic pentameter lines

with rhyme scheme ABBAABBACDCDCD.

o The speaker talks about how man has become more

concerned about such worldly materials as money,
possessions, and power. And he concludes that it is “too
much with us” meaning that we care far too much about
these worldly things. He laments that “We have given our
hearts away” and have forgotten to enjoy Nature.

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 o In the final two lines, he refers to two pagan gods-
Proteus was thought to be able to tell the future; Triton
was the pagan god that was said to be able to calm the
waves of the sea. The speaker refers to these two pagan
gods after he first appeals to God and swears that he
would rather be a pagan than be alienated from nature.

• The Prelude or, Growth of a Poet's Mind; An Autobiographical

Poem-

o Intended to be the introductory poem or preface to his

much bigger-ambitious poem, The Recluse.

o Originally meant to be written with Coleridge and

supposed to be 3 times the length of Paradise Lost by
John Milton.

o Initial intent- "to compose a philosophical Poem,

containing views of Man, Nature, and Society, and to be
entitled The Recluse; as having for its principal subject,
the sensations and opinions of a poet living in
retirement".

o The poem came out in various versions-

▪ 1799- called the Two-Part Prelude, containing the

first two parts of the poem

▪ 1805- found and printed by Ernest de Sélincourt in

1926, in 13 books.

▪ 1850- published shortly after Wordsworth's death,

in 14 books.

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 o Books 1-7 offer a half-literal, half-fanciful description of
his boyhood and youthful environment; these describe
the time of his intuitive reliance on nature, when he
wrote simple and graceful lyrics.
o Book 8 represents his days of hope for, and then
disappointment with, the Revolution, and his adoption of
Godwinian rationalism, during which he wrote the strong
and inspiring sonnets and odes.
o Books 9-11, in a more fluid and narrative style, depict his
exciting adventures in France and London.
o Books 12-14 are mostly metaphysical and are devoted to
an attempt at a philosophy of art, with the end of the last
book giving a little summary.

We Are Seven
• Included in Lyrical Ballads (1798)
• It is narrated in a ballad format
• 16 four-line stanzas
• ABAB rhyme scheme and a final stanza of five lines in ABCCB
pattern.
• The poem relates a simple conversation between an adult and
a small girl of eight with whom he speaks in a countryside. The
speaker asks the little girl about her family and learns she is
one of seven children. She explains that two are at sea and two
others are living far away. Further she says that two of her
siblings have died and are buried in the nearby churchyard.
• The speaker tries to convince her that in reality she has only
five siblings; however, she doesn’t agree and insists, "We are
seven,".
• The speaker asks, “What should it know of death?" but his
mature wisdom is contrasted with the girl’s naiveté.

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 • But she has adjusted to the death of her siblings and still
expresses love and devotion to their graves- her closeness to
them means that in her mind they remain part of the family.

Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known

• Published in the second edition of Lyrical Ballads.

• Has seven stanzas of four lines each (28 lines)
• Tight rhyming in ABAB CDCD pattern.
• The speaker discloses that his love for a girl named Lucy had
been so strong that he even imagined her death.
• Once, while traveling her cottage, the moon induced such a
spell on him that in a kind of trance by the emotions of the
moment, he feared that she would die.
• In the end, it is left ambiguous if the girl is alive or actually
dead.
• The poem runs on the dual emotion of devotion and dread.

Ode to Duty
• Published in the second edition of Lyrical Ballads.
• Constituted of seven stanzas of eight lines each (56 lines).
• Rhyme scheme- ABABCCDD.
• Central theme- oscillation of an individual caught between his
desires to live according to his own will and the realization that
there are higher principles that ought to be followed.
• Preface of the poem- "I am no longer good through deliberate
intent, but by long habit have reached a point where I am not
only able to do right, but am unable to do anything but what is
right." – (Roman philosopher Seneca).

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 • The poem initially recognizes the existence of Duty as coming
from "the voice of God" and requiring obedience to avoid "vain
temptations" in life.

• Some people are able to find the proper balance and not be
troubled in their self-judgment, but the poet sees in himself
someone who earlier on did neglect higher duty in favor of his
own wishes. He paid no attention to the tasks and duties that
he should have completed but did not.

• However, at this point in his life he has made the choice to

follow a path of right action and obedience to higher duties.

My Heart Leaps Up
• Also called The Rainbow
• Published in Poems, in Two Volumes (1807).
• Composed in a single stanza of nine lines with the unusual
rhyme pattern ABC CAB CDD.
• In the poem, a rainbow in the sky causes the speakers heart
to "leap up” Hence, he shows the importance of having a
strong sensitivity and reaction to nature. The poet hopes he
may always have that receptivity to make life worth living.
• Childhood is glorified in this poem. The poem's line "The
Child is father of the Man" suggests that the response that a
child has to natural beauty brings him the power of
imagination that can be utilized by an adult in future days.

A Slumber Did my Spirit Seal

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 • One of the 5 Lucy poems published in Lyrical Ballads (1798).
• It is a short two stanzas poem, made up of two quatrains (8
lines).
• Follows the rhyme scheme- ABAB CDCD.
• The second and fourth line of each stanza contains six syllables,
while the first and third contain eight.
• In this poem, she is not named, and the speaker is faced with
her premature death for which he was unprepared.
• Because he never actively acknowledged that his love, Lucy,
was going to be subject to aging, just like everyone else, he
lived without “human fears.”. But with her sudden death,
this illusion was shattered. The second stanza of the poem
speaks of the realization that just as the “rocks, and stones, and
trees” change with time, so now, the speaker sees, does Lucy.

London, 1802

• Composed in 1802, as the title suggests, but published in his

collection Poems, in Two Volumes, in 1807.
• A Petrarchan sonnet, primarily in iambic pentameter, with few
exceptions of trochee (a foot consisting of a stressed syllable
followed by an unstressed syllable.
• Rhyme scheme- ABBAABBA CDDECE.
• In the poem he critiques and mourns what London has come
to. He’s determined that in an ideal world, the long-dead John
Milton would return from the grave, shake some sense back
into the English people and industrialization would come to a
halt- He looks back at the seventeenth century as a happier
time.

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 • According to him, London was once an epicentre of religion,
chivalry, art, and literature. But now everything is changed, and
it has lost those virtues to modernization and industrialization.
• He calls upon Milton to teach this generation “manners, virtue,
freedom, power.” - “Milton! thou shouldst be living at this
hour:”
• Furthermore, Wordsworth tributes Milton by comparing him to
such celestial bodies as the stars, the sea, and the heavens.
Milton was different even from his contemporaries in terms of
his virtues; he had the ability to embody “cheerful godliness”
even while doing the “lowliest duties.”

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

• This poem is a celebration of London city- the “sleeping” city-

describing London and the River Thames, viewed from
Westminster Bridge in the early morning. Westminster Bridge is
a bridge stretching over the River Thames, linking Westminster
and Lambeth.
• Written in the form of Petrarchan sonnet- ABBAABBA CDCDCD.
• Inspiration for the poem was provided by a journey made by
Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy through London. The pair
were en route to Calais where they were to meet William’s
illegitimate daughter, Caroline.
• ‘there was even something like the purity of one of nature’s
own grand spectacles’.

Laodamia

• First published in 1815 and then in 1845.

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 • It is a long narrative poem of 174 lines. It has twenty-six
stanzas of six lines each.
• It is written in iambic pentameter.
• A narrative poem based on a story from the Trojan War.
• The poem follows the legend of Protesilaus, a Greek hero -
Laodamia, the queen of Thessaly and his wife, prays to Jove
(the chief of the Greek Gods) that her husband may return to
her from Hades. Protesilaus was killed by Hector, a Trojan hero
because according to the prophecy of the Oracle at Delphi.
• His ghost returns to her and recounts the tale of his fall at the
hands of Hector. He also reproaches her for her excessive
passion and unacceptability of his fate, after which he is
summoned by Hermes back to Hades, leaving Laodamia a
lifeless corpse on the floor.
• After the death of Laodamia, a group of trees grew on the tomb
of Protesilaus. There is a tradition that the trees on the tomb
grow high but as soon as they reach the height of walls of Troy
they fade.

The White Doe of Rylstone; or The Fate of the Nortons

• Wordsworth wrote this long narrative poem during the winter

of 1807-1808, inspired by a visit to Bolton Abbey in Yorkshire
which he and his sister made the previous summer. He
ultimately published it in 1815.
• The poem is a mix of tragic legend and history set in the time of
a Catholic uprising during the reign of Elizabeth I.
• It tells the story of the Norton family during the Rising of the
North, a Roman Catholic rebellion aimed at dethroning
Elizabeth I.

24
• Central to the poem is Emily, Norton’s Protestant daughter,
who waits in the medieval garden at Rylstone Hall to hear news
that her father and brothers have been killed.
• In her grief, Emily is comforted by the companionship of a milk-
white doe, which continues to visit her grave in the churchyard
at Bolton Abbey for many years afterwards.
• This poem explores the themes of consolation that can be
gained from quietude, openness to lessons of sympathy from
the animal world, and deep connections between people and
the places in which they suffer and overcome that suffering.

Criticism

• “Wordsworth was hardly a man, but a wandering spirit with

strange adventures and no end to them” – P.B. Shelley
• “a moral eunuch” – P.B. Shelley
• “Simple and dull” – P.B. Shelley
• “Just for a handful of silver he left us” – Robert Browning in
“The Lost Leader”
• “The high watermark of poetry” – Ralph Waldo Emerson about
“Ode: Intimations of Immortality”
• “Wordsworth uttered nothing base” – Lord Alfred Tennyson
• “Egoistical sublime” – John Keats
• “One of the giants of English poetry” – John Crow Ransom
• “Wordsworth is ever spiritualizing the moods of Nature and
winning from the moral consolation” – Compton Rickett
• “the historian of Wordsworthshire” – James Russel Lowell
• “William Wordsworth was an egoist” – John Keats
• “Wordsworth was an ever enduring man” – S.T. Coleridge

25
• “Wordsworth is the best poet of the age… I feel myself a little
man by his side” – S.T. Coleridge
• “one of the chief glories of English poetry” – Matthew Arnold
• “William Wordsworth had no marked style of his own” –
Matthew Arnold
• “The Magna Carta of English literature” – Matthew Arnold for
his The Prelude
• “He laid us as we lay at birth
On the cool flowery lap of earth” – Matthew Arnold in his
Memorial Verses
• “Nature herself seems, I say, to take the pen out of his hand,
and to write for him with her own bare, sheer, penetrating
power” – Matthew Arnold
• “I firmly believe that the poetical performance of Wordsworth
is after Shakespeare and Milton, undoubtedly the most
considerable in our language from the Elizabethan Age to the
present time”. – Matthew Arnold
• “not practicing his own theory to his own poems” – T.S. Eliot
• “Wordsworth was not a truly great poet but the spoiled child of
disappointment” – William Hazlitt
• “The very culture of feeling” – J.S. Mill
• “I felt myself at once better and happier as I came under their
influence” – J.S. Mill about Wordsworth’s poems
• “Wordsworth had not stayed out of the Lake district and so
never had the chance coming across nature red in tooth and
claw” – Aldous Huxley
• “It is a pity he never travelled beyond the boundaries of
Europe” - Aldous Huxley
• “a mountain, the most massive in that lofty range which is
called the Romantic Revival” – J.C. Smith
• “His poetry is the reality, his philosophy is the illusion” –
Matthew Arnold

26
• “A high priest of Nature” – De Quincey
• “William Wordsworth had his passion of nature fixed in his
blood” – De Quincey
• “Poet of Humanity” – John Keble
• “The Leech Gatherer by Wordsworth was his best cure for
despair” – Thomas Hardy
• “William Wordsworth was a real mystic of nature” – H.W.
Garrod
• “Wordsworth was as much, if not more, the poet of Man as of
Nature, and the poetry of Man took in his hands a great
development as the poetry of Nature”– S.A. Brooke
• “William Wordsworth was a poet of man and nature” - S.A.
Brooke
• “Wordsworth wrote his poetry with a view to showing that
men who do not wear fine clothes may feel happy” - S.A.
Brooke
• “William Wordsworth learned that verse may build a princely
throne or humble truth” – Robert Burns
• “William Wordsworth is the greatest poet of nature that our
literature has produced” – W.J. Long
• Wordsworth is not always melodious; that he is seldom
graceful, and only occasionally inspired” - W.J. Long
• “Every great poet is a teacher, I wish either to be considered as
a teacher or as nothing” – Wordsworth in one of his letters
• “He had no humour, no dramatic power, and his temperament
was of that dry juiceless quality, that in all his published
correspondence you shall not find a letter, but only essays” –
James Russel Lowell
• “I see in Wordsworth the Natural Man rising up against the
spiritual man continually and then he is no poet but a
philosopher at Enmity against all true Poetry or Inspiration” –
William Blake

27
 • “Wordsworth must know that what he writes valuable is not to
be found in Nature” - William Blake
• “In his adoration of Nature Wordsworth’s Creed is a mystical
Pantheism” – Louis Cazamian
• “Wordsworth remained nonetheless the apostle that the
Revolution had made him” - Louis Cazamian
• “Wordsworth is the only poet who will bear reading in times of
distress” – Leslie Stephen
• “Truth that wake to perish never” – Thomas Carlyle
• “a son of Rousseau” – Emile Legouis
• “Wordsworth must be placed by the historians among the
numerous “Sons of Rousseau” who form the main battalion of
romanticism” - Emile Legouis
• “There have been greater poets than Wordsworth but none
more original” – A.C. Bradley

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

• The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a lyrical ballad published in

the first edition of the Lyrical Ballads (1798). It was revised and
republished in 1817 and 1834.
• It was the first poem of the collection.
• Wordsworth claimed that the poem was inspired by a
conversation between himself and the poet regarding George
Shelvocke’s A Voyage Round the World by Way of the Great
South Sea, a 1726 book that Wordsworth was reading that
included an account of a sailor shooting an albatross by Simon
Hatley.

28
• ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ deals with the experience of
an individual who has called upon himself some supernatural
vengeance by violating one of the simple human pieties—the
bond of hospitality and companionship. The poem is, thus,
essentially a poem of humanism, using the supernatural only as
machinery.

• The poem begins by introducing the Ancient Mariner, who,

with his “glittering eye,” stops a Wedding Guest from attending
a nearby wedding celebration. The Mariner stops the young
man to tell him the story of a ship, providing no introduction
but simply beginning his tale. Despite the Wedding Guest’s
efforts to leave, the Mariner continues to speak.
• The Mariner’s story begins with the ship leaving harbor and
sailing southward. A tremendous storm then blows the ship
even further to the South Pole, where the crew are awed as
they encounter mist, snow, cold, and giant glaciers.
An Albatross breaks the pristine lifelessness of the Antarctic.
The sailors greet it as a good omen, and a new wind rises up,
propelling the ship. Day after day the albatross appears,
appearing in the morning when the sailors call for it, and
soaring behind the ship. But then as the other sailor’s cry out in
dismay, the Mariner, for reasons unexplained, shoots and kills
the albatross with his crossbow.
• At first, the other Sailors are furious with the Mariner for killing
the bird which they believed a god omen and responsible for
making the breezes blow. But after the bird has been killed the
fog clears and the fair breeze continues, blowing the ship north
into the Pacific, and the crew comes to believe the bird was the
source of the fog and mist and that the killing is justified. It is
then that the wind ceases, and the ship becomes trapped on a
29
 vast, calm sea. The Sailors and the Mariner become increasingly
thirsty, and some sailors dream that an angered Spirit has
followed them from the pole. The crew then hangs the
albatross around the Mariner’s neck.
• In this terrible calm, trapped completely by the watery ocean
that they cannot drink, the men on the ship grow so thirsty that
they cannot even speak. When the Mariner sees what he
believes is a ship approaching, he must bite his arm and drink
his own blood so that he is able to alert the crew, who all grin
out of joy. But the joy fades as the ghostly ship, which sails
without wind, approaches. On its deck, Death and Life-in-
Death gamble with dice for the lives of the Sailors and the
Mariner. After Life-in-Death wins the soul of the Mariner, the
Sailors begin to die of thirst, falling to the deck one by one,
each staring at the Mariner in reproach.
• Surrounded by the dead Sailors and cursed continuously by
their gaze, the Mariner tries to turn his eyes to heaven to pray,
but fails. It is only in the Moonlight, after enduring the horror
of being the only one alive among the dead crew that the
Mariner notices beautiful Water Snakes swimming beside the
ship. At this moment he becomes inspired, and has a spiritual
realization that all of God’s creatures are beautiful and must be
treated with respect and reverence. With this realization, he is
finally able to pray, and the albatross fell from his neck and
sunk into the sea.
• The Mariner falls into a kind of stupor, and then wakes to find
the dead Sailors’ bodies reanimated by angels and at work on
the ship. Powered by the Spirit from the South Pole, the ship
races homeward, where the Mariner sees a choir of angels
leave the bodies of the deceased Sailors. After this angels’
chorus, the Mariner perceives a small boat on which a Pilot,
30
 the Pilot’s Boy, and a Hermit approach. As they get closer, the
Mariner’s ship suddenly sinks, but he wakes to find himself in
the Pilot’s boat. When the Mariner speaks, the Pilot and Hermit
are stunned, by fear. The Hermit prays. The Mariner, in turn,
saves his own saviors, and rows them to land, where he begs
the Hermit to grant him absolution for his sins. The Hermit
crosses himself, and asks the Mariner “what manner of man art
thou?” The Mariner then feels compelled to tell his story.
• The Mariner concludes his tale by explaining that as he travels
from land to land he is always plagued by that same
compulsion to tell his tale, that he experiences a peculiar agony
if he doesn’t give in to his urge to share the story, and that he
can tell just from looking at their faces which men must hear
his tale. He ends with the explicit lesson that prayer is the
greatest joy in life, and the best prayers come from love and
reverence of all of God’s creation. Thus he moves onward to
find the next person who must hear his story, leaving the
Wedding Guest “a sadder and a wiser man.”.
• Important quotes-
o “Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.”
o “Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.”
o “As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.”
o “He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
31
 For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.”
o “The many men, so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie:
And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I.”
o A sadder and a wiser man
He rose the morrow morn.”
o “I look'd to Heav'n, and try'd to pray; But or ever a prayer
had gusht, A wicked whisper came and made My heart as
dry as dust.”
o “Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.”

Kubla Khan, Or, A Vision in a Dream: A Fragment

• Completed in 1797 and published in 1816, at Lord Byron’s
request.
• Written under the influence of laudanum, a form of opium,
after having read a work about, Shangdu, the summer
capital of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China founded
by Kublai Khan.
• The book Coleridge was reading before he fell asleep
was Purchas, his Pilgrimes by Samuel Purchas.
• The poem is an incomplete fragment; the original idea was
to compose over 200 lines but he ended up writing only 54
and got interrupted.
• Themes: The power of imagination & the relationship of a
poet with the society.

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• The poem's emphasis on imagination as subject of a poem,
on the contrasts within the paradisal setting, and its
discussion of the role of poet as either being blessed or
cursed by imagination, has influenced many works, including
Alfred Tennyson's "Palace of Art" and William Butler Yeats's
Byzantium based poems. There is also a strong connection
between the idea of retreating into the imagination found
within Keats's Lamia.
• The first stanza focuses on the beauty of Xanadu, Kubla
Khan's summer palace. Xanadu was a real place, however,
Coleridge punctuates the historical setting with an imagined
river called the Alph. Right away, the reader is alerted to the
theme of imagination-- a common theme in Romanticism.
• Coleridge took the real palace of Xanadu, and with his
imagination, made it into something else entirely. The
walled palace of Xanadu "where blossomed many an
incense-bearing tree", stands in stark contrast with the
outside world that is marked with "caverns measureless to
man, Down to a sunless sea". The palace is walled as a form
of protection from this dark and vast world that surrounds it.
• The second stanza is more intense and wild than the first
stanza. Coleridge focuses much of the stanza on nature. The
stanza traces the journey of water in the landscape of
Xanadu. It begins by describing the source of the Alph River
that erupts out of the earth with a violent force: "And from
this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth
in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain
momently was forced."
• This ferocious scene of the earth birthing the river quickly
changes tone as the river lazily sprawls, "Five miles mean
dering with a mazy motion". The now languid river finds its
end as it sinks "in tumult to a lifeless ocean". Water is both

33
 life-giving and life-threatening. It can be forceful and
dangerous or placid and sustaining. Imagination is like the
water. It ebbs and flows, it sustains and it threatens.
• The stanza ends with Kubla Khan receiving a prophecy of
war. This abrupt departure from the natural imagery that
dominated the stanza is meant to feel jarring. It is a
reminder that the fraught human world is never far from the
peace of nature.
• The 3rd stanza revisits the images from the first stanza of the
warmth of Xanadu ("sunny pleasure dome") and the
coldness of the outside world ("caves of ice"). The stanza
feels rushed and chaotic. The natural order has been
disrupted by the prophecy of war.
• The fourth and final stanza begins with a new character, a
" damsel with a dulcimer" who appears as a muse-like figure
to the speaker. She sings of the fictional Mount Abora which
the speaker hopes will give him the strength to finish what
he has begun. He wishes to "build that dome in air".
• The dome is not the pleasure dome of Kubla Khan, but
rather the speaker's own masterpiece; a masterpiece that
will serve as a reminder that art stands apart from the
tumult of humanity just as Xanadu stands apart from the
frigidity of the outside world.
• The reader can see a parallel between the poem's speaker
and Coleridge, the poet. Like the speaker, Coleridge hoped
to find a way to finish his poem "Kubla Khan". He wanted to
recapture the verses that he lost when he was interrupted
by a person from Porlock.
• The poem ends with the speaker imagining what it would be
like if he were able to finish his masterpiece. The speaker
feels that they are so close to being able to accomplish it and
they even imagine what they would do if they could capture
their creative vision:
34
 "Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with
holy dread."
• Coleridge too felt so close to being able to remember his
dream, yet in the end, he could not. The poem ends with the
image of the speaker having had a taste of what it is like to
create, to be god-like in the act of creating, but not being
able to bring his creation to fruition.
• Important quotes-
• “Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man”
• “A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!”
• “And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.”
• “The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.”
• “It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!”
• “And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice”
• “For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.”

35
Dejection: An Ode
• The poem was originally written to Sara Hutchinson, his
love interest. The original draft was titled "Letter to Sara
Hutchinson", and it became Dejection when he sought to
publish it.
• It was published in 1802 in the Morning Post.
• The poem was grouped with the Asra poems, a series of
poems discussing love that were dedicated to Hutchinson.
• The poem was a reply to William Wordsworth's
"Resolution and Independence". It also mimics
Wordsworth's Immortality Ode in theme and structure.
• The poem is divided in 8 irregular stanzas of Ode.
• The poem is mostly iambic with no specific rhyme or
meter.
• The poem expresses feelings of dejection and the inability
to write poetry or to enjoy nature. Coleridge gives
expression to an experience of double consciousness. His
sense perceptions are vivid and in part agreeable; his
inner state is faint, blurred, and unhappy. He sees but
cannot feel.
• The power of feeling has been paralyzed by chemically-
induced excitement in his brain. The seeing power, less
dependent upon bodily health, stands aloof, individual,
critical, and very mournful. By ‘seeing’ he means
perceiving and judging; by ‘feeling’ he means that which
impels action.
• He suffers, but the pain is dull, and he wishes it were
keen, for so he should awake from lethargy and recover
unity at least. But nothing from outside can restore him,
as the sources of the soul’s life are within.
• Part I- The preface to the poem is an excerpt concerning
the Moon’s ominous foreshadowing of a deadly storm in
36
 the “Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence.” Coleridge remarks that
if the Bard is accurate about the weather, then this
currently tranquil night will soon turn into a storm;
Coleridge sees the new moon holding the old moon in her
lap, an identical scene to the moon image in the prologue.
He wishes for a storm to occur, because he needs
something to stir his emotions and “startle this dull pain.”

• Part II- Coleridge’s invocation of “Lady” suggests that his

pain is the result of a broken heart and signals that this
poem is a conversation with this Lady (who represents
Sara Hutchinson). In his grief, Coleridge says that he has
been endlessly gazing at the skies and the stars. He claims
that he is so overwhelmed with sadness that he can only
see and can no longer feel or internalize the beauty of
nature.

• Part III- Coleridge doubts that anything can “lift the

smothering weight from off my breast.” He admits that
gazing at the beauty of the skies is a vain and futile effort
to ease his pain. He realizes that “outward forms” will not
relieve him of his inner pain and that only he has the
power to change his emotional state.

• Part IV- Coleridge once again addresses his Lady, telling

her that although some things are inevitable in life and
controlled by nature, a person must still be an active
agent in creating his or her own happiness.

• Part V- Coleridge describes the characteristics of the

feeling of Joy to his Lady. He extols the powers of Joy,
which can create beauty as well as create a “new Earth
and new Heaven.”

• Part VI- Coleridge reflects on a time when joy was able to

surmount his distress. During that time, he was able to
take advantage of the hope (that was not his own internal

37
 hope) that surrounded him in nature. However, the
distress he feels now is much more dominating. He no
longer even cares that all his happiness is gone. However,
he does lament how each small “visitation” of sadness
robs him of his power of Imagination. Since Coleridge
cannot feel any emotion other than sadness, his
imagination would have at least allowed him to “steal”
the happiness that surrounded him in nature and thus
pretend that he possesses joy.

• Part VII- Coleridge now turns his attention to the

tumultuous weather. Within this raging storm, he is able
to hear the less frightful sounds of a child looking for her
mother.

• Part VIII- Although it is now midnight, Coleridge has no

intention of going to sleep. However, he wishes for
“Sleep” to visit his Lady and to use its healing powers to
lift the Lady’s spirits and bring her joy. Coleridge
concludes the poem by wishing the Lady eternal joy.

• Important quotes-
• Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon,
With the old Moon in her arms;
And I fear, I fear, my Master dear!
We shall have a deadly storm.
(Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence)
• Or the dull sobbing draft, that moans and rakes
Upon the strings of this Æolian lute,
• I see the old Moon in her lap, foretelling
The coming-on of rain and squally blast.
• A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,
A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief
• Lady! in this wan and heartless mood,
To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd
• I see them all so excellently fair,
38
 I see, not feel, how beautiful they are!
• My genial spirits fail;
And what can these avail
To lift the smothering weight from off my breast?
• Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud
• O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me
What this strong music in the soul may be!
• Joy, virtuous Lady! Joy that ne'er was given,
Save to the pure, and in their purest hour,
• Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud—
We in ourselves rejoice!
• But oh! each visitation
Suspends what nature gave me at my birth,
My shaping spirit of Imagination.
• O simple spirit, guided from above,
Dear Lady! friend devoutest of my choice,
Thus mayest thou ever, evermore rejoice.

Frost at Midnight
• Part of the conversation poems- 8 poems composed
between 1772 to 1834, each describing a unique
experience in the life of the poet that led to the
development of his poetical sensibilities. In these poems,
he speaker ponders over different topics as if in
conversation with the reader.
• Published in 1798
• Written in Blank Verse
• Themes: The poem speaks about the speaker’s hopes and
plans for his little son, Hartley Coleridge. It also reflects
the beauty of nature and its importance in man’s life.
• Throughout the poem, the speaker tries to reflect that
nature and faith play a crucial part in man’s lives. The
poet recalls the things which hindered the way to
39
 happiness. He reflects how he could not enjoy the beauty
of nature when he was in his school as a child.
• However, when he looks at his son sleeping peacefully, he
is excited for him that he will have every chance to enjoy
life to its fullest. He believes if his son submits his will to
nature, it will automatically connect him to God.
• He addresses his sleeping son to reveal the secret that if
he will keep nature his companion, he will never
experience any pain.
• Coleridge has written Frost at Midnight in a very
contemplative mood. The atmosphere of the poem is
perfectly peaceful and calm and there is nothing to
disturb it. This quietness is maintained throughout the
poem. And it is further enhanced by the poet’s thoughts
that are also mild and gentle.
• Coleridge describes to his son how his love of nature
dates back to his boyhood. During school, Coleridge
would gaze out the schoolhouse windows and admire the
frost falling outside and would daydream about leaving
the city and returning to his rural birthplace.
• Coleridge tells his son that he is delighted that his son will
have more opportunities to observe the beauty of nature
and will not be “reared/ In the great city, pent ‘mid
cloisters dim” as Coleridge himself was. Coleridge then
wishes that “all seasons shall be sweet” to his son and
that his son will learn to appreciate all aspects of nature.
• Important quotes-
o “Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree
o “Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang
From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,
So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me

40
 With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear
Most like articulate sounds of things to come!
o So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt,
Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams!
o The Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind.
o Sea, hill, and wood,
This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood,
With all the numberless goings-on of life,
Inaudible as dreams!
o My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart
With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,
And think that thou shalt learn far other lore,
And in far other scenes!
o But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,
Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores
And mountain crags
o Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

The Nightingale: A Conversation Poem

• Included in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads.
• The poem disputes the traditional idea that nightingales are
connected to the idea of melancholy. Instead, the nightingale
represents to Coleridge the experience of nature.
• The poem begins with Milton's line in Il Penseroso about
nightingales and then corrects it:
“Most musical, most melancholy' bird!”

41
• Introduces various mythological characters like Philomela, a
Gothic Maid character, and even introduces his own baby boy,
Hartley.
• In this conversation poem, Coleridge is the speaker and the two
people he addresses, and who are the silent listeners of the
poem, are William Wordsworth and Dorothy Wordsworth.
• The three are simply observing the beauty of nature at night
and Coleridge brings their attention to the singing of a
nightingale. Coleridge explains to his two companions how the
nightingale came to be known as a melancholy bird. He
supposes that a broken-hearted man wandered through the
woods one night and upon hearing the bird’s song, the man
projected his own emotions upon Nature and the nightingale
and “made all gentle sounds tell back the tale/ Of his own
sorrow.”

• Coleridge claims that if such poets took the time to observe and
absorb the beauty of their natural surroundings, then they
would create poems that reflect nature’s loveliness. However,
Coleridge doubts that most poets will ever have such an
experience, since most young men and women entertain
themselves indoors on the most beautiful nights.

• In contrast to the majority of young people, Coleridge tells

William and Dorothy that they three have a true appreciation
for nature and they “may not thus profane/ Nature’s sweet
voices, always full of love/ And joyance!”.

• Coleridge then describes to his two companions a grove by an

abandoned castle in which a large number of nightingales flock
at night. He vividly describes the joyous sounds of the birds’
songs, such as “murmurs musical” and an onomatopoeic “swift
jug jug” that resembles the actual sounds the birds make.

• According to Coleridge, the sounds of the nightingales in this

grove are so beautiful that if a person were to close his eyes, he

42
 would feel that he is dreaming. He has seen a young woman
who lives near the castle come to the grove to watch and listen
to the birds as well.

• Finally, Coleridge tells his friends that they “have been loitering
long and pleasantly” and that it is time to head home and to
say farewell to each other and the nightingale. Before the
companions part, Coleridge remarks how much his infant son
would love the nightingale’s song. Coleridge explains how he
has instilled a love for nature in his son and that he “[deems] it
wise/ To make him Nature’s play-mate.”

• Important quotes-
o Come, we will rest on this old mossy bridge! You see the
glimmer of the stream beneath, But hear no murmuring:
it flows silently.
o A balmy night! and though the stars be dim, Yet let us
think upon the vernal showers That gladden the green
earth
o And hark! the Nightingale begins its song, ‘Most musical,
most melancholy’ bird! A melancholy bird? Oh! idle
thought! In Nature there is nothing melancholy
o And of his fame forgetful! so his fame Should share in
Nature’s immortality, A venerable thing!
o : we may not thus profane Nature’s sweet voices, always
full of love And joyance!
o Many a nightingale perch giddily On blossomy twig still
swinging from the breeze, And to that motion tune his
wanton song Like tipsy Joy that reels with tossing head.
o It is a father’s tale: But if that Heaven Should give me life,
his childhood shall grow up Familiar with these songs,
that with the night He may associate joy
43
The Eolian Harp
• Published in his 1796
• A Lyrical poem written in Blank verse; divided into 5 stanzas
with no specific number of lines
• It is one of the early conversation poems and discusses
Coleridge's anticipation of a marriage with Sara Fricker.
• Major theme: The bliss of marital love and the importance of
nature
• The poem discusses love, sex, and marriage, but it is not done
in the form of a love poem. Instead, it compares love with an
Aeolian harp, which is a symbol of poetry.
• The eolian harp itself acts to symbolize the bridge between
nature and humanity, as it requires the role of nature to play
music.
• Coleridge opens the poem with an address to his fiancee Sara.
He muses about their present situation, perched cozily next to
one another. Longing for their future life together as man and
wife, Coleridge imagines how ideal their new home will be. The
image he paints is of nothing but peace and tranquility.

• Then, Coleridge introduces the lute or harp. This lute is resting

in its case as if tempting someone to play it. This lute is the
representation of illusion. While he can imagine what his
marriage will be like, Coleridge is limited to his own experience.
He won't truly know what the experience will be like until it
happens. Thus, the lute is tempting him as if it knew the
answers he seeks. Since his mind is upon his wedding to Sara,
Coleridge uses an abundance of sensual imagery in describing
this lute.

• He runs quickly through a lot of nature, thanking God for

creating such beauty. He's praising the Creator for giving man
such divinely inspired plants and sights and animals to
experience and steward. Allowing these ideas to drift along, he
concludes that life is contained within all matter, and it is the
44
 same life; all things are unified. Life flows through all matter so
that all is the same force, which is in fact divine.

• Here Sara corrects Coleridge. Quickly he repents from his

digression. He apologizes for presuming to place God within all
living things. Considering the time period in which this poem
was written, these theories are heretical at best. Coleridge,
realizing his mistake, gives once more credit to the divine
Creator.

• Important quotes-
o “The Stilly murmur of the distant sea tells us silence”
o “Our cot overgrown with white-flow’red Jasmine”
o “And now, its strings
Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes
Over delicious surges sink and rise,
Such a soft floating witchery of sound
As twilight Elfins make”
o “Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air
Is Music slumbering on her instrument.”
o And tranquil muse upon tranquillity;
Full many a thought uncall'd and undetain'd,
o But thy more serious eye a mild reproof
Darts, O belovéd Woman! nor such thoughts
Dim and unhallow'd dost thou not reject,
And biddest me walk humbly with my God.
o Wilder'd and dark, and gave me to possess
Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honour'd Maid!

Christabel

• A long narrative ballad in two parts- an unfinished Gothic

ballad.
• “Christabel” is Coleridge’s longest poem, at almost 700 lines. It
is also the least edited of Coleridge’s work.

45
• It was published in a pamphlet in 1816, along with Kubla
Khan and The Pains of Sleep. The first part was written in 1797;
the second part was written in 1800.
• Coleridge planned had 3 more Parts, but they were never
completed.
• Almost all lines have 4 accents, though the number of syllables
in each line would vary.
• The plot of Christabel revolves around the relationship,
implicitly sexual, of Geraldine and Christabel. Christabel, with
its female-centric inclination, became a symbol of female
emancipation.
• The theme of good versus evil dominates the text of the poem.
Christabel presents as a figure of innocence who trusts
Geraldine and foolishly brings her into the castle.
• Christabel is a lovely, innocent, young, and virtuous daughter of
Sir Leoline. One night while praying in the woods for her fiancé,
she was startled by another distress lady who called herself
Geraldine. She further states that she was kidnapped by a gang
and left to the jungle for an unknown reason. Geraldine says
that she is the daughter of Lord Roland de Vaux, once a friend
of Sir Leoline.
• The two men quarreled, had not spoken for years. She brings
Geraldine to share her bed. Once in the bedroom, she puts a
spell on poor, innocent Christabel that makes it impossible for
Christabel to tell anyone about what had happened that night
in the bed.
• In reality, however, she is a wicked paranormal woman
disguised as Geraldine. Christabel later on finds about her
deception, but is forced into silence by that black magic.
• When she finally breaks the spell and speaks about Geraldine’s
deception, Sir Leoline rejects her entreaty, and the long
narrative poem ends with Sir Leoline sending a message telling
Lord Roland that his daughter is safe and offering reunion.
Awkwardly, before any conformation on Geraldine' identity can
be established or denied, the poem ends abruptly.
46
 • "Christabel" juxtaposes the theme of sin versus religiosity, evil
versus devoutness, and sexuality versus purity. In this poem,
the central character Christabel represents purity, religiosity
and devoutness whereas Geraldine symbolizes evil, sin and
sexuality. Christabel is often found praying throughout the
poem and one of the most noticeable stuffs in her bedroom is
the carving of an angel. In opposite to this, Geraldine says that
she does not have the power to praise the Virgin Mary for
being rescued by Christabel.
• The theme of mysticism is also dominant in Christabel which is
Coleridge’s most prominent features. Geraldine is controlled by
a mysterious spell in the poem. She puts same spell on
Christabel. Once Christabel tangibly recovers from the spell,
she seems to change. Christabel’s compassion for Geraldine
have vanished and she begs her father to cast Geraldine out of
their home. Christabel goes from generous to selfish. The taint
of spells upon Geraldine and Christabel suggests the
destructive powers of mysticism.

This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison

• Written in Blank verse

• 76 lines divided into three verse paragraphs
• Addressed to Charles Lamb (one of Coleridge’s friends), the
poem first shows the poet’s happiness and excitement at the
arrival of his friends, but as it progresses, we find his happiness
turning into resentment and helplessness for not
accompanying his friend, due to an accident that he met within
the evening of the same day when his friends were planning to
go for a walk outside for a few hours.
• It is an extended meditation on immobility. Lamed for a few
days in a household accident, Coleridge took the opportunity to
write about what it is like to stay in one place and to think
about your friends traveling through the world.

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• The poem begins with its speaker lamenting the fact that, while
his friends have gone on a walk through the country, he has
been left sitting in a bower. He compares the bower to a prison
because of his confinement there, and bitterly imagines what
his friends are seeing on their walk, speculating that he is
missing out on memories that he might later have cherished in
old age.

• He describes the various scenes they are visiting without him,

dwelling at length on their (imagined) experience at a waterfall.
He describes the liveliness and motion of the plants and water
there, and then imagines the beauty his friends will see as they
emerge from the forest and survey the surrounding landscape.

• Religious imagery comes to the fore: the speaker compares the

hills his friends are seeing to steeples. As his imaginative trek
through nature continues, the speaker's resentment gives way
to vicarious passion and excitement.

• The speaker soon hones in on a single friend, Charles—

evidently the poet Charles Lamb, to whom the poem is
dedicated. He imagines that Charles is taking an acute joy in the
beauty of nature, since he has been living unhappily but
uncomplainingly in a city, without access to the wonders
described in the poem.
• After addressing Charles, the speaker addresses the sun,
commanding it to set, and then, in a series of commands, tells
various other objects in nature (such as flowers and the ocean)
to shine in the light of the setting sun.
• He pictures Charles looking joyfully at the sunset. The speaker
is overcome by such intense emotion that he compares the
sunset's colors to those that "veil the Almighty Spirit."
• Soon, the speaker isn't only happy for his friend. He actually
feels happy in his own right, and, having exercised his sensory
imagination so much, starts to notice and appreciate his own
surroundings in the bower.

48
 • He describes the leaves, the setting sun, and the animals
surrounding him, using language as lively and evocative as that
he used earlier to convey his friends' experiences. He notes
that natural beauty can be found anywhere, provided that the
viewer is open-minded and able to appreciate it.

• He also argues that occasional exclusion from pleasant

experiences is a good thing, since it prompts the development
of imaginative and contemplative sensibilities. Finally, the
speaker turns his attention back to Charles, addressing his
friend.

• He notes that a rook flying through the sky will soon fly over
Charles too, connecting the two of them over a long distance.
He expects that Charles will notice and appreciate the rook,
because he has a deep love of the natural world and all living
things

Biograhia Literaria

• “Biographia Literaria; or Biographical Sketches of My Literary

Life and Opinions” (1817)
• An autobiographical prose work written in the form of a
meditative narrative- 2 volumes divided in 23 chapters.
• A seminal work of critical theory.
• Was originally intended to expound Coleridge’s self-conception
of poetry and the Poet , creativity etc.
• It was supposed to be a preface to his poetry collection
Sibylline Leaves (1817).
• But it eventually expanded into a mixture of opinions,
philosophy, criticism and religion.
• He himself calls it “immethodical miscellany”.
• Can be read as a criticism of Wordsworth’s conception of
poetry and poetic creation.
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• He argues that poetry is, nonetheless, ever a product of
creative artifice.
• It is never natural- it is always artificial as its creation is a
voluntary act carried out by the poet.
• Shifts away from Wordsworth’s pronouncement that poetic
language should mimic the language of the common man.
• Coleridge holds that poetic language is a work of artifice which
is specifically cafted. Hence, it should not lose its poetic quality.
• He distinguishes between his poems and Wordsworth’s as
published in Lyrical Ballads (1798).
• He says that Wordsworth’s poems were supposed to make the
ordinary extraordinary by means of his craft.
• While, his own poems were supposed to render the
supernatural rather credibly.
• He says his characters are “supernatural” and “romantic”.
• But he tries to give them “human interest” and “semblance of
disbelief”.
• This would prompt among the readers a “willing suspension of
disbelief” which constitutes “poetic faith”.
• Fancy
o Not a creative ability
o Only combines what is perceived unlike imagination
which fuses transforms.
• Primary Imagination
o “divine ability to create”
o “source of all animate power”
o “involuntary perception” of the outer world followed by
the “spontaneous act of mind”
o It is universal and is possessed by all.
• Secondary Imagination
o The power of the mind of the artist

50
 o The power of human mind to create by virtue of
perception and recollection
o It is more active and conscious
o It requires will to work upon the raw material
o It is at the root of all poetic activity.

John Keats
“Ode on a Grecian Urn”
• ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ is an attempt to explore the themes of
beauty of art and nature, mortality and eternity, by addressing
a piece of pottery from ancient Greece. Through this
piece, John Keats depicts the idealism in classical works, the
Grecian virtues, eternity, nature, and last but not least the true
value of art.
• It was penned in May 1819 and first published in Annals of the
Fine Arts of 1819 anonymously. The inspiration behind writing
this poem came from two articles published in the Examiner on
2 May and 9 May 1819 by artist Benjamin Haydon. Keats’
familiarity with the Elgin Marbles also inspired him.
• It is written in five verses of ten lines each, of rigid iambic
pentameter.

• For the first seven lines, a rhyme scheme of ABABCDE is used.

In verse one, the final three lines are DCE; in the second verse,
they’re CED; stanzas three and four both use CDE, while the
fifth and final stanza uses DCE.

51
• During this first verse, we see the narrator showing images of
people who have been frozen in place for all of the time, as the
“foster-child of silence and slow time.”

• One such picture, seemingly showing a gang of men as they

chase some women, is described as a “mad pursuit” but the
narrator wants to know more about the “struggle to escape” or
the “wild ecstasy.”

• In the second verse, the reader is introduced to the image of a

young man sitting with a lover, seemingly playing a song on a
pipe as they are surrounded by trees - “melodies are sweet, but
those unheard / Are sweeter.”

• The narrator acknowledges that the lover will never be able to

kiss his companion, with the fact that she will never lose her
beauty as she is frozen in time. While the figures will never
grow old, the music also contains an immortal quality, one
much “sweeter” than regular music

• The third stanza again focuses on the rest of the scene- the
trees behind the pipe player will never grow old and their
leaves will never fall.

• In the fourth stanza, a group of people bring a cow to be

sacrificed. He talks about the “little town” and the “green
altar.” He also imagines the “little town” they come from, now
deserted because its inhabitants are frozen in the image on the
side of the urn “for evermore.”
• In the final stanza, he is talking directly to the urn itself, which
he believes “doth tease us out of thought.” Even after everyone
has died, the urn will remain. The last lines in the piece have
become incredibly well known-“Beauty is truth, truth beauty”.

52
 The narrator says that the urn will continue to tell the world
the truth of the world as a “Sylvan Historian”.

“Ode to a Nightingale”

• It is the longest ode of the 1819 odes- with 8 stanzas of 10 lines

each.

• The first seven and last two lines of each stanza are written in
iambic pentameter; the eighth line of each stanza is written in
trimeter. Its rhyme scheme is the same in every stanza. Each
stanza in “Nightingale” is rhymed ABABCDECDE.

• The speaker opens the ode with a declaration that he is going

through a kind of heartache and he feels numb, as though he
had taken a drug only a moment ago. He addresses a
nightingale saying that his “drowsy numbness” is not from envy
of the nightingale’s happiness, but rather because he is “too
happy” by her song.

• In the second stanza, the speaker craves for a way to forget his
pain- “a draught of vintage,” that would taste like the country
and like peasant dances, and let him “leave the world unseen”.

• In the third stanza, he continues with his desire to fade away

into the oblivion- “the weariness, the fever, and the fret” of the
mortal life.

• In the fourth stanza, the speaker tells the nightingale to fly

away, and he will follow her-“Not charioted by Bacchus and his
pards”, but through poetry, which will give him “viewless
wings.”

• In the fifth stanza, the speaker says that he cannot see the
flowers in the glade, but can guess them “in embalmed
53
 darkness”- white hawthorne, eglantine, violets, and the musk-
rose.

• In the sixth stanza, the speaker confesses that he has often

been “half in love”. Surrounded by the nightingale’s song, the
speaker thinks that the idea of death seems richer than ever,
and he longs to “cease upon the midnight with no pain”.

• In the seventh stanza, the speaker tells the nightingale that it

was not “born for death.” He says that the voice he hears
singing has always been heard, by ancient emperors and
clowns, by homesick Ruth; he even says the song has often
charmed open magic windows looking out over “the foam / Of
perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.”

• In the eighth stanza, the word “forlorn” tolls like a bell to

restore the speaker from his trance, back to himself. As the
nightingale flies farther away from him, he laments its loss.
Now that the music is gone, the speaker cannot recall whether
he himself is awake or asleep- “a vision, or a waking dream

“To Autumn”

• Composed after an evening walk near Winchester, it is the last

great Ode by Keats. It is one of Keats’ most sensual and image-
heavy poems. Throughout the poem, Keats alludes to
the pastoral tradition of poetic writing.

• It is an opulent portrayal of the season of autumn in a three-

stanza structure, each of eleven lines. The rhyme scheme
ABAB.

• Keats’s speaker opens his first stanza by addressing Autumn,

describing its abundance and its intimacy with the sun, with
54
 whom Autumn ripens fruits and causes the late flowers to
bloom – “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close
bosom-friend of the maturing sun”.

• In the second stanza, the speaker describes the figure of

Autumn as a female goddess, often seen sitting on the granary
floor, her hair “soft-lifted” by the wind, and often seen sleeping
in the fields or watching a cider-press squeezing the juice from
apples.

• In the third stanza, the speaker tells Autumn not to wonder

where the songs of spring have gone, but instead to listen to
her own music- “Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are
they?”. At twilight, the “small gnats” hum among the "the river
sallows," or willow trees, lifted and dropped by the wind, and
“full-grown lambs” bleat from the hills, crickets sing, robins
whistle from the garden, and swallows, gathering for their
coming migration, sing from the skies.

“Ode on Melancholy”
• “Ode on Melancholy” addresses the Reader and tells him not to
worry about the miseries and sufferings of life– that beauty and
pain are intertwined in the world, and that both offer a
wholesome view of life when occurring in a cycle. Melancholy is
turned beautiful by Keats- something to flow with and
embrace.
• The first stanza of the Ode was removed just before it was
published in 1820.
• It is the shortest of Keats’s ode.
• It is written in a regular Ode form with 3 stanzas that match its
thematic structure.
• Each stanza has 10 lines of relatively precise iambic
pentameter.
55
• The first two stanzas follow the same rhyme scheme-
ABABCDECDE; the third stanza’s differs slightly- ABABCDEDCE.
• The first stanza tells the reader what not to do while going
through a bout of Melancholy- The sufferer should not “go to
Lethe,” (the river of amnesia in Greek mythology); should not
turn suicidal (“Wolf’s-bane” is a poison and “Prosperpine” is
the mythological queen of the underworld); should not
entertain suicidal thoughts-
“Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche…”
• In the second stanza, the speaker tells the sufferer what to do
while going through Melancholy- the sufferer should try to
overthrow his sorrow with natural beauty- “glut thy sorrow on
a morning rose” or “on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,” or
in the eyes of his beloved.

• In the third stanza, the narrator navigates Melancholy more

philosophically & elaborates further on his personal theory on
it- that pleasure and pain are inextricably linked and must be
looked at as the 2 sides of the same coin, that is life.

• The speaker says that the shrine of melancholy is inside the

“temple of Delight,” but that it is only visible if one can truly
immerse oneself in the joys of life. These joys can be relished,
only to find in the end sadness that sits at its centre –

“Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue

Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine…”

• “Beauty that must die” and Joy, “whose hand is ever at his lips /
Bidding adieu” are some other phrases from the poem that

56
 describe the speaker’s point of view about Melancholy and its
place in life.

“Ode to Psyche”

• It is based on the myth of Cupid and Psyche- the Greek

mythological characters. The poem concerns itself with the
neglected goddess Psyche, who is new, but mostly ignored
while other goddesses are worshipped ahead of her.

• It was the first of his 1819 odes and can be considered as one
of his experimental poems as it was written during Keats’
attempts to play about with the tried and tested method of
writing generic Odes.

• Throughout the poem, the staple Keatsian motifs of

imagination, mythology, and sensuality reign supreme.

• The poem is written in four stanzas, but, in the loosest form of

any of Keats’s odes. The stanzas vary in number of lines, rhyme
scheme, and metrical scheme- conveying spontaneity of
thought and expression.
• “Ode to Psyche” starts similarly to Keats’ “La Belle Dame sans
Merci”: a narrator, wandering alone in a haze of beauty, comes
across ‘two fair creatures’. There is an almost seamless shift
from reality to fantasy- a similar shift took place in “Ode to a
Nightingale”.

• The “two fair creatures” were lying side by side in the grass,
beneath a “whisp’ring roof” of leaves, surrounded by flowers.
They embraced one another with both their arms and wings.
The speaker says he knew the winged boy- Cupid- but asks who
the girl was. The rhetorical question is answered by himself-
she was Psyche.
57
• In the third stanza, the speaker narrates her place among the
Olympian gods and goddesses- as the youngest but most
beautiful. Psyche has been described as a goddess without any
traditions or cults-

“though temple thou hast none,

Nor altar heap’d with flowers;
Nor virgin-choir to make delicious moan
Upon the midnight hours;
No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet
From chain-swung censer teeming;
No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat
Of pale-mouth’d prophet dreaming.”

• In the fourth stanza, he says that she has come into the world
too late for “antique vows” and the “fond believing lyre.” But
the speaker expresses his wish to be her worshipper and priest-
he would like to pay homage to Psyche and become her choir,
her music, and her oracle.

“Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet… Thy
shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat”

• In the final stanza, the speaker says, “Yes, I will be thy priest” so
that he could gain poetical inspiration from her, broaden his
mental horizons and write beautiful poetry. He then goes on to
allude to other mythological characters like “zephyrs” and
“Dyrads” and natural elements like “dark-cluster’d trees”,
“wild-ridged mountains”, “rosy sanctuary”, “breeding flowers”,
etc.- almost bordering pastoral – “With buds, and bells, and
stars”. He uses these vivid imageries to describe how his poetry
will affect the world.

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 • “A bright torch, and a casement ope at night, To let the warm
Love in” summarises the poem and his poetical philosophy,
which is dominated by Aestheticism and beauty.

“Ode on Indolence”

• This poem borrows a lot from Keats’ readings and viewings of

ancient Greek sculptures, particularly the Elgin Marbles. Hence,
it can be connected with “Ode on a Grecian Urn”- “masque-like
figures on the dreamy urn”

• In the poem Keats talks about three mysterious figures that

appear in his dreams- love, ambition, and poesy. He might have
seen them engraved on an ancient urn. The first two figures are
controllable figures but the poetic persona is a dominant force
in his life. At the end of this poem, he requests these figures to
fade away and leave him alone with his other dreams.

• “Indolence” stands for “Lethargy” or “Laziness”.

• The poem consists of six stanzas of 10 lines each. The first four
lines of each stanza follow the rhyme scheme- ABAB, forming a
Shakespearean quatrain. The last six lines follow the rhyme
scheme of CDECDE, forming a Miltonic sestet.

• The poem is written in majority iambic pentameter lines.

• In the first stanza, the speaker visualizes a vision with three

strange figures wearing white robes and “placid sandals.” They
rotate before his eyes just as a vase has been turned round.

• In the second stanza, the speaker addresses the figures directly.

He asks them how it was that he did not recognize them, given
his vast knowledge in Grecian sculptures. He goes on to
59
 describe how he lazily enjoyed the summer day in a sort of
sublime numbness.

• In the third stanza, the figures pass by for a third time. This
time the speaker comes eye-to-eye with them momentarily and
recognises them- the first is a “fair maid,” Love; the second is
pale-cheeked Ambition; and the third, is the “unmeek” maiden,
the “demon Poesy”, or poetry. It is clear that it is the last one
that has the greatest hold on the speaker.

• In the fourth stanza, the speaker aches to follow the fleeting

figures, but he says that the urge is utter folly because- Love is
fleeting, Ambition is mortal, and Poesy has nothing to offer that
compares with an indolent summer day untroubled by “busy
common-sense.”

• In the fifth stanza, the speaker compares his heart in a state of

indolence with “a lawn besprinkled o’er With flowers, and
stirring shades, and baffled beams”. He laments their arrival in
his dream and tells them to leave since they have had no real
impact on him- “Upon your skirts had fallen no tears of mine”.

• In the sixth stanza, he bids them farewell so that he could

welcome the other visions in store in his dreams. He reiterates
that Love, Ambition, and Poesy are not enough to waken him
up and that he would rather have other visions – “For I would
not be dieted with praise, A pet-lamb in a sentimental farce!”.

Endymion: A Poetic Novel

• Published in 1818 by Taylor and Hessey
• It is a narrative poem written in 4 Books in about 4000 words
(1000 each)
• Dedicated to the late poet Thomas Chatterton
• It’s a hymn to the Beauty, Love, Moon, Muse.

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• Written in Heroic Couplets
• Based on the Greek myth of Endymion and Selene (goddess
Cynthia)
• Endymion had epigraph – a line of 17th sonnet by Shakespeare:

“And stretched metre of an antique song”

• Famous opening lines- "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever".

• Book I-
o The speaker of the poem remains unnamed, yet is ready
to tell this tale.
o The setting of the poem is in ancient Greece on the isle of
Latmos, where the island is celebrating God Pan and
Endymion is the king of shepherds.
o At the feast, Endymion looks troubled, leading his sister,
Peona, to take him aside by a quiet stream where he falls
asleep. When he awakens, Peona asks Endymion to tell
her why he is so troubled. He begins to open up about his
dream of the moon goddess, Cynthia.
o According to Endymion, she visits him and they fall deeply
in love, yet only for him to awaken and see no one there.
He is so overcome by love and her beauty that Peona
pleads with him to not throw his life away for a mere
dream.
o However, he does not listen and leaves Latmos to find his
beloved, beginning his journey under the guidance of a
golden butterfly.
• Book II-
o Endymion continues his quest to find the goddess in his
dreams. When he reaches the spring, the golden butterfly
transforms into a water nymph, a young maiden and

61
 nature spirit, who has reached the limits of how far she
can help him.
o Endymion encounters two classic Greek and Roman myth
tropes- the joy of passionate love and the pain of
unrequited love.
o On his journey, he meets Venus and Adonis, a goddess
and mortal respectively, who are reunited. Before they
depart, she tells him that he will be blessed.
o The second encounter involves a nymph named Arethusa
and the river god Alpheus, who pursues Arethusa.
However, since she is a follower of the goddess Diana, she
runs away from him.
• Book III-
o Major theme- redemption and adventure. It opens with
the celestial landscape where the speaker notes that true
power is felt by the moon's presence and is one humans
cannot comprehend.
o Immediately after, the reader is taken to the bottom of
the ocean where Endymion finds himself face to face with
an old man named Glaucus.
o He had been waiting for Endymion after being cursed for
1,000 years by the sorceress Circe. Glaucus retells his ill
fate of falling in love with the sea nymph Scylla, how he
sought the help of the witch, and his attempt to flee
Circe, which led to his 1,000-year curse.
o The only way to break the curse is if he and Endymion
work to reunite all the dead lovers. Once they accomplish
their goal, a huge celebration takes place in Neptune's
palace, and later, Endymion wakes up near a lake.
• Book IV-

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 o In this final book, Endymion decides to give up his quest
for immortality and decides he wants to start a life with
the Indian Maiden. Suddenly, Mercury shows up and they
both are taken to the heavens.
o There, Endymion sees glimmers of the moon goddess
slowly fade, but he still turns his head toward the Indian
Maiden and professes his love before she vanishes.
o Once he returns to earth, she's also there but says she
cannot be with him. Eventually, they run into Peona, who
tells Endymion the Indian Maiden can be his queen.
o Suddenly, it is revealed that Cynthia and the Indian
Maiden are the same people.
• Various synonyms for Selene- Diana, Cynthia, and Artemis.

Hyperion, a Fragment
• An incomplete epic poem in blank verse.
• It was published in Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and
Other Poems (1820).
• It is based on the Titanomachia- a ten-year series of war fought
between the Titans (an older generation of gods, based
on Mount Othrys) and the Olympians (the younger generations,
who would come to reign on Mount Olympus). The war ended
in victory for the Olympian gods.
• Keats’ poem recounts the misery of the Titans after their fall to
the Olympians.
• Keats wrote the poem from late 1818 until the spring of 1819.
He ends the poem abruptly in the middle of the third book,
with only 900 lines completed.
• Today we find it in 2 complete and a third incomplete books.
Book 1 contains 357 lines; Book 2 contains 391 lines; Book 3
leaves in the mid of 136th line.
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• Important characters-
o Hyperion (the god of the sun)
o Saturn (king of the gods)
o Ops (his wife)
o Thea (Hyperion's sister)
o Enceladus (god of war)
o Oceanus (god of the sea)
o Clymene (a young goddess).
• In the beginning, Saturn laments the loss of his powers, which
are being surpassed by Jupiter. Thea leads him to a cave where
the other fallen Titans lament their loss as well, discussing a
potential fight-back.
• Oceanus announces that he is willing to surrender his power
to Neptune (the new god of the sea) because Neptune is more
beautiful (in the Romantic sense).
• Clymene describes the music of Apollo, which she found
beautiful to the point of pain. Lastly, Enceladus makes a speech
encouraging the Titans to fight.
• In the meantime, Hyperion's palace is shown; he is the only
powerful-remaining Titan. He is addressed by Uranus (old god
of the sky, father of Saturn), who encourages him to go to
where Saturn and the other Titans are.
• Hyperion arrives, and the scene changes to Apollo (the new sun
god, also god of culture, civilization and music, weeping on the
beach.
• Mnemosyne (goddess of memory) encounters him and he
explains to her the cause of his tears- he is aware of his divine
potential, but is unable to comprehend it. By looking into
Mnemosyne's eyes he receives celestial knowledge which
transforms him into a God.
• The poem breaks off in mid-line with the word "celestial".

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The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream
• Alternative subtitle- A vision
• Meant to be a re-working of the incomplete Hyperion; even this
work was left incomplete.
• Published posthumously in 1856
• Contains a long prologue
• Also contains mythological characters.
• The plot runs as such-
o The speaker contemplates the poet and the dreamer- The
first canto of The Fall of Hyperion opens with a general
contemplation about the nature of dreams: all are
capable of dreaming.
o The speaker consumes a drink, making them fall asleep-
The speaker feels a yearning for the food and eats it
before becoming thirsty and finding "a cool vessel of
transparent juice" of which they drink. The speaker falls
into a deep sleep despite struggling "hard against / The
domineering potion."
o The speaker is guided on a journey to an altar by a voice-
The speaker wakes to find an old sanctuary with an
extremely tall and majestic roof. The speaker then looks
around to find columns to the north and south and black
gates to the east and to the west. The speaker then
describes an altar with "steps, / And marble balustrade"
approaching either side of it. From the curtains comes a
voice warning the speaker that they will die on the marble
where they stand if they cannot ascend the steps.
o The guide explains the nature of the true poet- The veiled
shadow asserts that a dreamer poisons his days by
bearing more sadness than is deserved by their sins; “sure
a poet is a sage; A humanist, physician to all men."

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 o Moneta shows the speaker a vision of the fallen Titans-
The speaker reveals herself to be Moneta, the "Sole
priestess of this desolation." Moneta explains that she
wishes for the speaker to behold the scenes still swirling
in her brain.
o The speaker mourns for the fate of the fallen Titans.
o Hyperion blazes on as the Titans' last hope- The speaker
now stands in clear light and witnesses Hyperion as "His
flaming robes stream'd out beyond his heels." They roar
"as if of earthly fire, / That scared away the meek ethereal
hours." "On he flared," concludes the poem.
Lamia
• A narrative poem; first appeared in Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of
St Agnes and Other Poems (1820), although it was written in
1819.
• It was composed after his "La belle dame sans merci" and the 4
Great Odes and just before "To Autumn".
• Written in rhyming couplets.
• Keats was inspired by the story from Anatomy of
Melancholy (1621) by Robert Burton, who had discovered it in a
work by Flavius Philostratus.
• The poem is based on the Greek god Hermes, the god of Trade
and Commerce. He hears of a beautiful nymph and searching
for her he comes across Lamia, trapped in the form of a
serpent.
• She reveals the nymph he had heard, in turning asking for her
human form, which he restores.
• She then goes out to seek for Lycius of Corinth. Their lover
however cannot culminate because at their wedding feast the
sage/philosopher Apollonius reveals Lamia's true identity.
• Thereafter, she runs off leaving Lycius in utter grief and dead.

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 • This poem influenced Edgar Allan Poe's sonnet "To Science"
(1829).
• Famous lines- “Do not all charms fly/ At the mere touch of cold
philosophy.”
The Eve of St. Agnes
• It was written by John Keats in 1819 and published in 1820.
• A narrative poem of passion, legends, danger, and dreams.
• Written in 42 Spenserian stanzas- ABABBCBCC (8 lines in iambic
pentameter followed by an 'alexandrine' line in
iambic hexameter). Total 378 lines.
• Setting- the Middle Ages.
• St. Agnes was the patron saint of virgins; she died a martyr in
4th century Rome.
• Other characters- Madeline, Angela, Porphyra.
• Porphyro, a young nobleman, creeps into the castle of his
enemies to catch a glimpse of his love, the beautiful Madeline.
• Madeline was busy performing a magical custom calling on St.
Agnes to send her a dream of her future husband.
• Porphyro decides to make her dream a reality by creeping into
her room.
• She is ripped from a dream in which she was with a heavenly,
more beautiful version of Porphyro and is aghast when she sees
the real one.
• After much convincing, they decide to elope off.
• The Eve of St. Agnes’ concludes with two characters dying- their
death acting as a symbol of a new generation that is now the
focus of the world.
• This poem explores both the power of sexual passion and the
dangerous allure of fantasy.

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“La Belle Dame Sans Merci”
• A folk ballad- ABCB Rhyme scheme- three tetrameter lines
followed by a concluding line of dimeter
• “The Beautiful Lady without Pity”- inspired by a 5th-century
poem by Alain Chartier
• Written in 1819
• It was first published in Leigh Hunt’s The Indicator in May 1820
(used the pseudonym “Caviare”). But the more known version
is the one that was published in 1848 in Life, Letters and
Literary Remains of John Keats by R.M. Milnes.
• Written in 12 quatrains for 4 lines each- 48 lines (with the first
three stanzas a query to the knight and the remaining nine
stanzas the knight’s reply)
• Theme of loss, mystery and terror.
• Keats had already used the title in his poem “The Eve of St.
Agnes” when Porphyro sings for Madeline – “an ancient ditty,
long since mute/ in Province call’d, “La belle dame sans merci”.
• An unidentified speaker asks a knight what troubles him. The
knight is gone pale, worn-down, and dying- "And on thy cheeks
a fading rose / Fast withereth too — ."
• The knight answers that he met a beautiful lady, "a faery's
child" who looked at him with the look of love. Enchanted, he
pulled her on his horse and she led him to her cave. There she
sung him to sleep.
• In his sleep he had nightmares. Pale kings, princes, and warriors
told him that he had been enslaved by a beautiful but cruel
lady. When he woke up, the lady was gone and he was lying on
a cold hillside.

“Isabella, or The Pot of Basil”

• Published in 1820
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 • A narrative poem
• Written in 63 stanzas of Ottava Rima (11 syllable lines;
ABABABCC)- 504 lines
• Based on a story from Boccaccio’s Decameron
• Setting- Florence; Isabella and Lorenzo, an employee of her 2
brothers’, love each other. On finding out, the brothers kill him
and bury his body.
• The happenings are revealed to Isabella by Lorenzo’s ghost. She
seeks for his cut-head, brings it home and puts it in a pot of
basil leaves.
• The brothers notice her eerie commitment to the pot; on
inspection, they find the severed head and are horrified. They
run off without looking back and the poem ends with Isabella
dying.
"On First Looking into Chapman's Homer"
• A Petrarchan sonnet- ABBAABBACDCDCD
• Written and published in October 1816 in The Examiner- at the
age of 20
• It expresses the poet’s amazememnt and astonishment on
reading Homer, as translated by playwright George Chapman.
• Theme- the moving impact of literature
• "Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold . . ."
• The speaker admits that he has travelled far and wide; he has
sailed to East where poets worship Apollo. He had heard about
the beautiful landscape of imagination crafted by the Great
Homer, but he never truly knew their power until he read
Chapman’s translations.
• On reading these works, he felt the same ecstasy that an
astronomer feels on viewing a new planet for the first time or
the awe that Cortez and his sailors must

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 • have felt on looking at the vastness of the Pacific Ocean,
standing on a mountain peak in the Darien region of Panama.

“Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art”

• It was published in 1838 in The Plymouth and Devonport
Weekly Journal
• The poem is punctuated as a single sentence
• Written in the English sonnet (ABABCDCDEFEFGG)
• The sonnet is addressed to a star
• It expresses the poet's wish to be as constant as the star while
he presses against his sleeping love.
• Written as a declaration of love for Fanny Brawne

Critical Comments

• “Keats as a poet is abundantly and enchantingly sensuous”-

Matthew Arnold
• “An ineffectual angel beating in the void his luminous wings in
vain” - Matthew Arnold
• “Keats had flint and iron in him” - Matthew Arnold
• “He is one of the greatest English poets not because of
sensuousness but because his poetry interprets life” - Matthew
Arnold
• “He is with Shakespeare” - Matthew Arnold
• “Keats’s poetry is Shakespearean” - Matthew Arnold
• “Keats was not the last but the most perfect of all the
Romantics” – William J. Long

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• “Keats might have become a critic, as he might have become
almost anything good; but I donot think he was one”- Prof.
Saintsbury
• “Who killed John Keats?
I say The Quarterly
So cruel and tartly”- Lord Byron
• “Snuffed out by an article”-Lord Byron
• “Keats has no religion save the religion of beauty”- Compton
Rickett
• “He romped like a young horse turned into a spring meadow” -
Compton Rickett
• “Where Wordsworth spiritualizes and Shelley intellectualizes
Nature, Keats is content to express her through the senses”-
Compton Rickett
• “Perhaps the nearest to absolute perfection” - A.C. Swinburne
about Ode to Autumn
• “The surest promise of absolute excellence” - P.B. Shelley about
Endymion
• “Keats was a Greek”- P.B. Shelley
• “I have dipped my pen consuming fire for his destroyers” - P.B.
Shelley in Adonais
• “Keats was one of the inheritors of the unfulfilled renown” -
P.B. Shelley
• “Here lies one whose name was writ in water” – quote on
Keats’s epitaph
• “Tender is the night”- Keats’s quote used by F. Scot. Fitzgerald
to name his novel.
• “While his mind had much genral power, he has, more than
Wordsworth or Coleridge or Shelley, a poet pure mind and
simple” – A. C. Bradley
• “Keats saw beauty in all things” – John Middleton Murry

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 • “He was in my opinion, made to be a thinker, a critic, as much a
singer or artist of words” – G.M. Hopkins
• “Keats was nothing if not a man of ideas” – Lionel Trilling

Keats in his Letters (1848)

• “Love is my religion- I could die for that”
• “If poetry comes not as naturally as leaves to a trees, it had
better not come at all”
• “We hate poetry that has a palpable design on us
• A poet is the most unpoetical of all God’s creatures
• “I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart’s affection
and truth of imagination”
• “What imagination seizes as beauty must be truth”

P.B. Shelley

“Ode to the West Wind”

• Written in 1819 but published in 1820 as a part of the

collection Prometheus Unbound
• The poem allegorizes the role of the poet as the voice of
change and revolution.
• The west wind has been called- “destroyer and preserver”.
• A combination of Pindaric ode- becaue the subject matter is
exalted and a tribute is paid to it- and Horatian ode- because
the subject matter is treated from a very personal level also.
• Written in 5 cantos. Each canto follows the rhyme sceme of-
ABABCBCDCDEDEE
• Written in lines of Iambic Pentameter
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 • Inspired from the events of the Peterloo Massacre of August
1819
• The first 3 stanzas describe the wind's effects upon earth, air,
and ocean. In the last two sections, the poet speaks directly to
the wind, asking for its power, to uplift him and make him its
companion in its wanderings.
• Important quotations-
o thou breath of Autumn’s being
o Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear
o Angels of rain and lightning
o Thou dirge/Of the dying year
o The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
o Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
o Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
o Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
o Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like wither’d leaves to quicken a new birth!
o O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,/ Thou,
from whose unseen presence the leaves dead/ Are driven,
like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,/ Yellow, and black,
and pale, and hectic red,/ Pestilence-stricken multitudes”
o The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

“Adonais”
• It was written & published in 1821
• It is an Elegy on the death of John Keats. Adonis was the
handsome young man of Greek mythology who was killed by a

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 wild boar. The title was probably taken from Bion’s Lament for
Adonis, which Shelley had translated into English.
• Written in 55 Spenserian Stanzas (ABABBCBCC)- 495 lines
• In Spenserian Stanzas, the first 8 lines are written in iambic
pentameter and the last line in iambic hexameter or
Alexandrine
• The poem is written in the tradition of a Pastoral Elegy
• Shelley provided the poem with a preface in which he called
the reviewers of the Quarterly Review "wretched men" and
"literary prostitutes." The reviewer of Keats' Endymion in
the Quarterly was accused of murder.
• Adonais and its preface brought down on Shelley the wrath of
the conservative reviewers. Blackwood's Magazine attacked
him with special savagery. The reception of Adonais deepened
Shelley's despairing conviction that he had failed as a poet. He
wrote on January 25, 1822, to Leigh Hunt: "My faculties are
shaken to atoms . . . I can write nothing; and if Adonais had no
success, and excited no interest what incentive can I have to
write?"
• In the poem, Shelley weeps for John Keats who is dead and
who will be long mourned. He calls on Urania (the Greek muse)
to mourn for Keats who died in Rome.
• Further he appeals his reader not to mourn for Keats’ demise
as he has become a portion of the eternal and is free from the
attacks of reviewers. He has gone where "envy and calumny
and hate and pain" cannot affect him.
• Important quotations-
• Oh, weep for Adonais—he is dead!
Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep!

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 • The One remains, the many change and pass;
Heaven’s light forever shines, Earth’s shadows fly
• I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar
• Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass
Stains the white radiance of Eternity
• Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair.
• All he had loved, and moulded into thought,
From shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound,
Lamented Adonais.
• Reviewers, with some rare exceptions, are a most stupid
and malignant race.

• Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be/ An echo and a
light unto eternity!"
• He is a portion of the loveliness Which once he made
more lovely.
• He lives, he wakes — 'tis Death is dead, not he; Mourn
not for Adonais. — Thou young Dawn, Turn all thy dew to
splendour, for from thee The spirit thou lamentest is not
gone.
• Dust to the dust! but the pure spirit shall flow Back to the
burning fountain whence it came, A portion of the
Eternal.
• No more let life divide what death can join together.
• The quick Dreams, The passion-winged Ministers of
thought.“

“To a Skylark”

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• Completed and published in 1820 along with Prometheus
Unbound
• It was inspired by an evening walk in Italy in the port city of
Livorno with his wife Mary Shelley
• Written in 21 stanzas of five lines each- 105 lines
• The rhyme scheme of each stanza is ABABB. The poem's
unconventional song-like rhyme scheme and bouncy rhythm
subtly mimics the skylark's calls.
• The first four lines are metered in trochaic trimester (a stressed
syllable followed by an unstressed syllable) and the fifth
in iambic hexameter.
• "To a Skylark" describes the powerful grace and beauty of the
skylark's song. The speaker addresses the bird directly and
praises the purity of its music, later contrasting it with sad,
hollow human communication. The poem can be read as
an ode to the unrivalled wonders of the natural world, and
especially its spiritual power.
• Throughout the poem, the speaker is awestruck by the skylark,
and especially by the purity of its song. The speaker contrasts
this purity with the emptiness and insufficiency of human forms
of expression. As a poet, the speaker seeks to learn from the
joyful skylark, suggesting that the natural world contains truths
that conventional forms of human communication—burdened
in the poem by sadness and disillusionment—are unable to
express.
• Famous opening lines- “Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!”
• This poem later inspired Thomas Hardy’s poem "Shelley's
Skylark"(1887)
• Important quotes-

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 • Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow The
world should listen then — as I am listening now.
• That from Heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In
profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
• Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

All that ever was

Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass”
• Our sweetest songs are those that tell
Of saddest thought.
• What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?

“Queen Mab; A Philosophical Poem; With Notes

• Shelley's first major poem published in 1813. Shelley was
himself involved in the printing process of this first edition of
only 250 copies. A revised edition was published in 1816 as The
Daemon of the World. Today what we read is an unauthorized
publication of 1832.
• Written in nine cantos with seventeen notes in Blank verse
• The poem, though written in the form of a fairy tale, serves as a
foundation to his theory of revolution. It is a utopian political
epic that exposes the evils and corruptions that have affected
the institutions of monarchy, religion and commerce. The poem
describes a visionary future in which humanity is liberated from
all such vices.
• In William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet "she is the
fairies' midwife"

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 • In this poem, Queen Mab, the ruler of the fairies, takes the
spirit of Ianthe (the name of Shelley’s first child) on a journey
through time and space to reveal various human follies and
errors. The past and the present are characterized by tyranny &
oppression. The future holds a promise for Utopia.
• The theme of the work is the perfectibility of man by moral
means- atheism, vegetarianism, free love, the precepts of
Christianity, etc.
• Important quotes-
• when the power of imparting joy Is equal to the will, the
human soul Requires no other heaven.
• All but the outcast, Man.
• Perhaps the perishing ephemeron enjoys a longer life
than the tortoise
• War is the statesman’s game
• Nature rejects the monarch, not the man; The subject,
not the citizen; for kings And subjects, mutual foes,
forever play A losing game into each other’s hands,
Whose stakes are vice and misery.
• Deceit with sternness, ignorance with pride

“Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude”

• The work was first published in 1816 under the title Alastor; or,
The Spirit of Solitude: And Other Poems
• 720 lines long poem in blank verse
• Title- Thomas Love Peacock Peacock (from Roman mythology)
• Peacock has defined Alastor as "evil genius (avenger)"- the
spirit who divinely animates the Poet's imagination
• The epigraph to the poem is from St. Augustine's Confessions-
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 “Nondum amabam, et amare amabam, quaerebam quid
amarem, amans amare.”
Or, "I was not yet in love, and I loved to be in love, I sought
what I might love, in love with loving."
• Quotation from Wordsworth-
o The Excursion- "The good die first,/ And they whose
hearts are dry as summer dust / Burn to the socket!"
o "It is a woe 'too deep for tears' - "Ode: Intimations of
Immortality".
• ‘Alastor’ begins as an exploration of the ideal in landscape
(Kashmir) and womanhood (a veiled maiden), but soon
becomes a quest for the supernatural spirit that transcends
earthly ideals.
• The main character of the poem, a solitary poet, pursues ‘the
winding of the cavern’ downstream to the sea, where his life
ends.
• His quest apparently fails in its desire to find some corporeal
manifestation of his ideals, but not without a realisation that
such ideals do exist abstractly in the intellect- central allegory
• John Gibson Lockhart wrote in Edinburgh Magazine that Shelley
is "a man of genius... Mr. Shelley is a poet, almost in the very
highest sense of that mysterious word."
• In The British Critic the reviewer dismissed the work as "the
madness of a poetic mind."
• Mary Shelley gave an introductory note for the 1839 edition-
“None of Shelley's poems is more characteristic than this…The
poem ought rather to be considered didactic than narrative: it
was the outpouring of his own emotions, embodied in the
purest form he could conceive”
• Important quotes-
o Those who love not their fellow-beings live unfruitful
lives, and prepare for their old age a miserable grave.
o Virtue owns a more eternal foe Than Force or Fraud: old
Custom, legal Crime, And bloody Faith the foulest birth of
Time.
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“Prometheus Unbound”
• Published in 1820
• A four-act lyrical drama- Closet Drama
• Portrayed the torments of the Greek mythological figure
Prometheus and his suffering at the hands of Zeus, for stealing
the gift of fire from the gods and giving it to mankind.
• The play was inspired by the classical Prometheia, a trilogy of
plays attributed to the classical Dramatist Aeschylus.
• Important characters-
• Prometheus: Prometheus is a Titan, one of the oldest
beings and a child of the Earth. Sometime before the play,
Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gifted it to
humanity. For his crime, Jupiter binds him to a mountain
where the hawks of Jupiter will eat away at his flesh every
day. Despite the horrific punishment, Prometheus is
steadfast in his resolve that giving humanity the
knowledge of fire was morally correct. In Greek,
Prometheus' name originally means "forethought," which
is ironic considering his theft would lead to an eternity of
pain.
• Jupiter: The ruler of the gods, Jupiter is a tyrant who rules
through fear. He denied humanity knowledge of even fire
for fear they might one day question him or rise against
him.
• Asia: Prometheus's wife, Asia is sister to Panthea and
Ione. She is connected to the world and becomes a
symbol of hope following Jupiter's fall.
• Demogorgon: Demogorgon is a spirit associated with the
underworld. His parents are Jupiter and Thetis.
Demogorgon, however, is more powerful and throws
Jupiter into the abyss to end his rule.

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• Panthea: Asia's sister, Panthea stays by Prometheus' side
while he is tortured to offer some measure of comfort.

• Act 1-The play begins with Prometheus still bound to the

rock where Jupiter left him after stealing fire from the
gods to give to humanity. As he laments his pain while
hawks eat him again, he claims he is greater than Jupiter
himself. Prometheus recalls his love for Asia, one of the
daughters of the Titans. The Earth, moved, joins him in
speaking against the tyranny of Jupiter. She mentions
Demogorgon, a tyrant who is far greater than Jupiter and
lives in a shadow realm that is parallel to the world.
Mercury arrives and beseeches Prometheus to save
himself by revealing a secret only he knows: the fate of
Jupiter. Prometheus refuses and a group of furies taunts
him by exclaiming that they've attacked humanity.
Prometheus, tortured for his love of humanity, is
powerless to do anything.

• Act 2- In an Indian Caucasus valley, Asia speaks with her

sister Panthea about the state of things since
Prometheus's punishment. Soon, the Echoes arrive and
beckon the sisters to follow them. They take Asia and
Panthea to a forest where they eventually meet
Demogorgon. Asia asks Demogorgon who created the
world, and Demogorgon responds that God created
everything in creation both good and evil. She and
Demogorgon talk about Prometheus' contributions to
humanity, including fire and science, while lamenting that
Jupiter rules all.

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 • Act 3-In heaven, Jupiter has the other gods present and
boasts that he ruled everything except the soul of
humans. When he discusses Demogorgon, Demogorgon
himself appears and claims to be Jupiter's offspring:
Eternity. Boasting he is more powerful than Jupiter
himself, Demogorgon makes Jupiter afraid and the god of
all says that even Prometheus would not make him suffer
needlessly. Jupiter then attacks Demogorgon but fails and
falls from power. Meanwhile, Hercules frees Prometheus.
He reunites with Asia and tells her of a cave where they
can live in peace.

• Act 4- Spirits rejoice at Jupiter's end. Panthea and Ione

see the Spirit of Earth in a winged chariot. Earth and
Moon sing about the new coming age free from Jupiter's
tyranny now that humanity knows all things, including the
secret of Jupiter's lightning. Demogorgon speaks the final
lines of the play and congratulates Prometheus for his
ultimate victory. Unlike Aeschylus's version of the story,
Prometheus and Jupiter never reconcile.

• Important quotes-

• “Death is the veil which those who live call life;

They sleep, and it is lifted.”

• “To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;

To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy power which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates

Life may change, but it may fly not;

Hope may vanish, but can die not;

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 Truth be veiled, but still it burneth;
Love repulsed -but it returneth.”

• “All spirits are enslaved which serve things evil.”

• “Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance,

These are the seals of that most firm assurance”

• “No change, no pause, no hope! Yet I endure.”

• “He gave man speech, and speech created thought, which

is the measure of the universe.”
• “Hate, disdain, or fear, self-love or self-contempt, on
human brows no more inscribed, as o'er the gate of hell,
'All hope abandon ye who enter here.”

Critical Comments

• “Shelley was alone the perfect singing god; his thoughts, words
and deeds, all sang together” – A.C. Swinburne
• “Shelley is a beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void
his luminous wings in vain”. – Matthew Arnold
• Shelley was called “Melopoeic” by Matthew Arnold
• “The most gentle, the most amiable, and the least worldy-
minded person I ever met” – Lord Byron
• “Shelley’s life and his poetry are dissolubly corrected. He acted
what he thought and felt”. – J.A. Symonds
• “New and Terrific dance of death”- William Hazlitt about
Shelley’s “The Triumph of Life”
• “The most despairing poem he wrote” – Harold Bloom on
Shelley’s “The Triumph of Life”

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 • “Perhaps the first modern statement of the principle of non-
violent resistance”- On Shelley’s “The Mask of Anarchy”
• “Shelley, the writer of some infidel poetry, has been drowned,
now he knows whether there is God or no”. – The Courier
(London newspaper) on his death
• “He is the poet of adolescence and bulk of his poetry is
immature”- T.S. Eliot
• “The son and singer of revolution”- anonymous
• The poet of hope and regeneration”- anonymous
• “He intellectualized nature”- Compton Rickett
• “Poets are the hierophants of an apprehended inspiration”-
Shelley
• “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world". –
Shelley
• “the least imperfect poem”- Shelley on “Adonais”

Lord Byron
Chronology of his works-

• Hours of Idleness (1807)- severely criticized by Henry Brougham

in the Edinburgh Review. Byron replied to him in his satirical
work- English Bards and Scot Reviewers (1809)
• English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809)
• Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Cantos I & II (1812)
• The Giaour (1813)
• The Bride of Abydos (1813)
• The Corsair (1814)
• Lara, A Tale (1814)

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 • Hebrew Melodies (1815)- 30 poems
• The Siege of Corinth (1816)
• Parisina (1816)
• The Prisoner of Chillon (1816)
• The Dream (1816)
• Prometheus (1816)
• Darkness (1816)
• Manfred (1817)- dramatic verse; closet drama
• The Lament of Tasso (1817)
• Beppo (1818)
• Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1818)
• Don Juan (1819–1824; incomplete on Byron's death in 1824)
• Mazeppa (1819)
• The Prophecy of Dante (1819)
• The Two Foscari (1821)- verse play in 5 acts
• The Vision of Judgment (1821)-satirical poem
• Heaven and Earth (1821)
• Werner (1822)
• The Age of Bronze (1823)
• The Island (1823)
• The Deformed Transformed (1824)

Byronic Hero

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 • Byron himself is considered to be the model for the Byronic
Hero.
• He is a man who is greatly idealized, however simultaneously
flawed.
• He is a great man with taste, passion, talent and a charming
aura- bordering to arrogance and overconfidence.
• He has disillusionment with society and social institutions and
social norms.
• Although he himself belongs to the upper section of the
society, he rather finds it detestable and abominable.
• He carries a secret hidden past with unsavory incidents and an
unfulfilled love story.
• His lack of respect for rules and order often leads to a rather
self-destructive future or ending.

Most Important works

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
• Published between 1812-1818.
• Semi-Autobiographical; about a gentleman disillusioned with
the material pursuits and sensory pleasures of the world.
• He embarks upon a journey of truth and revelation- Pilgrimage
• Written in 4 cantos.
• Written in Spenserian Stanza.
• (Note: The “Childe” in the title is a medieval term for a young
lad eligible for knighthood)
• Childe Harold is a young, Byronic man- the concept of Byronic
hero began from him.
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 • He is dark, quiet, brooding and often mysterious in disposition.
• He is an outcast- been ostracized from the society for his
waywardly ways.
• The poem has direct imagery from Byron’s own trip to such
countries as Greece, Portugal, Spain, Albania and Malta in
1809.
• When he returned to England in 1811, the opening cantos of
the poem were already complete.
• He took this trip with his friend John Cam Hobhouse.
• In the poem, Childe Harold makes certain observations
regarding the national and geo-political issues of his
contemporary times.
• E.g. he expresses his take on Greece’s independence from the
Turk and his disapproval of the Convention of Cintra in which
English leaders let the French soldiers return back to France
with all their loots.
Don Juan
• Written between 1819 and 1824.
• Unfinished poem- Written in 16 cantos.
• A satirical, mock-epic poem.
• Written in ottava rima.
• The work begins with a dedication to Robert Southey and
William Wordsworth.
• Like Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, even this work is majorly
believed to be a work of autobiographical significance.
• The protagonist is a young Spaniard- Don Juan.

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 • Originally, the character of Don Juan is taken from the
European legend of a libertine who seduces young women and
is promiscuous in his character.
• In this work, Byron reverses the legend and creates his
protagonist as a man who is innocent and naïve and is himself
seduced by women.
• Unlike mainstream representation of female characters as
naïve and shy, women in Juan’s encounters are women of
strong and bold personality.
• It is believed that Byron tried to recreate experiences and
incidents from his own life to create incidents in the life of Don
Juan.
• In the dedication, Byron confesses that his muse is not as divine
as Wordsworth’s or Southey’s.
• Hence his verse shall not be as great as theirs.
• The poem begins with the lines- “I want a hero: an uncommon
want”.
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers
• Published anonymously.
• Written in heroic couplets
• It’s satirical form is greatly inspired by Alexander Pope’s.
• Originally, Byron had written a poem called “British Bards” in
1807.
• However, after the raging review in the Edinburgh Review, he
revised the original poem into English Bards and Scotch
Reviewers- a direct attack on critics and contemporary
criticism.

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 • Byron expresses his discontent with the contemporary
attitudes in the intellectual circle which is undervaluing wit,
reason and intellectual fervor.
• He believes that the habit of creating excesses in writing is
rotting the fabric of contemporary art and literature.
• The heritage of such eminent literary figures as Shakespeare,
Milton, Pope and Dryden is being undermined by such
contemporary literary giants as Wordsworth, Coleridge,
Southey, etc.

Beppo: A Venetian Story

• Written in Venice in 1817. Beppo marks Byron's first attempt at
writing using the Italian ottava rima metre, which
emphasized satiric digression.
• It is the precursor to Byron's most famous and generally
considered best poem, Don Juan.
• The poem contains 760 verses, divided into 95 stanzas.
• The poem tells the story of a Venetian lady, Laura, whose
husband, Giuseppe (or "Beppo" for short), has been lost at sea
for the past three years.
• According to Venetian customs she takes on a Cavalier
Servente, simply called "the Count". When the two of them
attend the Venetian Carnival, she is closely observed by
a Turk who turns out to be her missing husband.
• Beppo explains that he has been captured and enslaved, and
was freed by a band of pirates that he subsequently joined.
• Having accumulated enough money he left piracy and returned
to reclaim his wife and be re-baptized.
• Laura rejoins Beppo and befriends the Count.

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• The poem's main merit lies in its comparison
of English and Italian morals, arguing that the English aversion
to adultery is mere hypocrisy in light of the probably shocking,
but more honest, custom of the Cavalier Servente in Italy.
• In comparison to Byron's Oriental Tales of 1813, it suggests that
a looser attitude towards morals may be more pragmatic.

Robert Southey

• Robert Southey is an English poet of the Romantic school and a

Poet Laureate (1813-1843). He is primarily popular for his poem
“After Blenheim” (an anti-war poem written in 1796) and the
original edition of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

• Like William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Southey

starts being as a revolutionary but became steadily more
traditional as he progresses.

• Robert Southey’s prose is superior to his verse. Contrarily His

prose works, are the masterpieces for English prose like the
Lyrical Ballads of William Wordsworth and Coleridge- Sermo
Pedestris.

• He is probably the most versatile, according to his fellow

romantics. Coleridge titles him as the “Complete Man of
Letters.”

• His literary career is divided into two parts, the first one is an
early poetic vein, and the second one is a transfer to prose
dialogue. As a poet and a poet laureate, he has written poems,
epics, sonnets, romances, ballads, plays, odes. His prose works
incorporate biographies, histories, essays, reviews, semi-
fictional journals and, autobiography.
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 • In 1793 Southey studies holy orders in compliance at Balliol
College at Oxford University. But he is a passionate republican,
agnostic and sympathized with the French Revolution by now.

• Meanwhile, he met, Edith Fricker, a young seamstress, whom

he married two years later. She is the mother of his children
until her brain fails. She passes away in 1837.

Literary Works of Robert Southey

• Southey’s first prose work, Letters Written During a Short
Residence in Spain and Portugal, is published in 1797. The book
was quite a success, and Southey followed it up with the
publication of the second version of collected Poems in 1799
(the first version, published during his college years with
Coleridge, had not received nearly as much attention).

• He has also written two plays, which are-

o The Fall of Robespierre- a three-act play written by Robert

Southey and Samuel Coleridge in 1794. It follows the
events in France after the downfall of Maximilien
Robespierre.
o Wat Tyler, A Dramatic Poem- was written in 1794. The
unauthorized publication (1817) of Wat Tyler, reflecting
Southey’s youthful political opinions, enabled his enemies
to remind the public of his youthful republicanism.

• Beginning in 1800, Southey entered the most successful period

of his career. He became a regular contributor to a number of
periodicals and newspapers; he did a number of volumes of
translations, principally from Spanish and Portuguese; he
edited the complete works of Thomas Chatterton; and he also
published two epic poems Thalaba the Destroyer (1801)

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 and Madoc (1805) which gained positive reviews in his time,
though they are almost completely unread today.

• Southey writes the very first series of mythological romances,

Thalaba the Destroyer in 1801, which describes the religion of
Islam through the portraying the story of a pious young
Moslem champion. The poem is divided into twelve "books"
with irregular stanza structures and unrhymed lines of poetry.

• The story describes how a group of sorcerers work to destroy

the Hodeirah family in an attempt to prevent a prophecy of
their future doom from coming true. However, a young child
named Thalaba is able to escape from the slaughter. After one
of the sorcerers hunts down Thalaba to kill him, the sorcerer is
defeated by a great storm and his powerful magical ring comes
into Thalaba's possession. With the ring, Thalaba travels across
the Middle East to find a way to defeat the evil sorcerers. In the
end, Thalaba is able to stay true to Allah and is guided by the
prophet Mohammad in destroying the sorcerers.

• In 1803 he primarily tries to be developed as a poet and

continues to do so for another decade or so. In 1809 Southey
completes another mythological writing, The Curse of Kehama.
It is based on an exotic story of Hinduism. The story intends to
allude to the struggle against Napoleon. Although the poem
describes Hindu myth it is heavily influenced
by Zoroastrian theology.
• The poem is divided into twelve "books". Its first half describes
how the evil priest Kehama is able to gain significant amounts
of demonic power in a quest to become a god. This is
interrupted when his son Arvalan is killed after attempting to
have his way with Kailyal, a peasant girl. After the death of his
son, Kehama begins to wage war upon Yamen, the god of
death, and curses Ladurlad, his son's killer. However, the curse

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 allows Ladurlad the ability to become a hero of significant
strength, and he uses that power to work with the Hindu gods
in a quest to defeat Kehama and ensure the safety of Kailyal.
Eventually, Ladurlad is able to defeat Kehama and is freed from
his curse.

• Madoc is an 1805 epic poem based on the legend of Madoc, a

supposed Welsh prince who fled and sailed to America in the
12th century. The poem contains Southey's bias against
superstition, whether Catholic, Protestant, or pagan. He
believed that the work itself was more historical than epic, and
it contained many of Southey's political views.
• The first half of the poem, Madoc in Wales, describes Madoc, a
young Welsh nobleman, whose family breaks down into a
series of bloody disputes over royal succession. Madoc,
unwilling to participate in the struggle, decides to journey to
America to start a new life. When he reaches America, he is
witness to the bloody human sacrifices that the Aztec nation
demands of the surrounding tribes in Aztlan. Madoc, believing
it is a defiance against God, leads the Hoamen, a local tribe,
into warfare against the Aztecs. Eventually, Madoc conquers
them and he is able to convert the Americans to Christianity
before returning to Wales to find more recruits for his colony.
In the second part, Madoc in Aztlan, Madoc returns to find that
the Aztecs have returned to their human sacrifices. After long
and bloody warfare, Madoc is able to defeat the Aztecs and
force them out of their homeland and into exile.

• A third and final epic of Southey, Roderick, the Last of the

Goths, is published in 1814. This poem is considered to be the
greatest epic of Southey. It is more relevant particularly for the
Napoleonic Wars and the Peninsular War.

• The story describes fighting over the inheritance of the Spanish

throne and how Roderick manages to take over. After Roderick
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 rapes Florinda, daughter of his important ally Count Julian,
Julian and others change their allegiance and aid the
invading Moorish army. During a battle against the Moors,
Roderick is wounded and escapes to start a new life. Eventually,
Roderick travels across Spain before determining that he must
return to rescue Pelayo, an heir to the Spanish throne who was
held prisoner by the Moors. After freeing Pelayo, he meets
Florinda who reveals that her rape was not Roderick's fault. The
group allies itself with Count Pedro, and they build an army to
wage war against the Moors. While fighting, Count Julian is
assassinated by his own allies, and the Moorish army is broken
and defeated. The poem ends with Roderick returning to the
wilderness.

• After returning from abroad, Southey begins his career as a

professional reviewer. It starts first with notices of Spanish and
Portuguese literature for the Monthly Magazine. Later with
reviews for the Critical Review in 1798.

• During these years Southey works as a translator and editor.

Between the years of 1803 to 1808, he produces prose
adaptations of Amadis of Gaul, from a 16th-century Spanish
version, Palmerin of England, the major Spanish romances of
chivalry.

Letters from England by Robert Southey

• In 1807 Robert Southey published a pseudonymous account of

a journey made through England by a fictitious Spanish tourist,
‘Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella’.

• Letters from England (1807) relates Espriella’s travels. On his

journey Espriella comments on every aspect of British society,
from fashions and manners, to political and religious beliefs.
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Historical works

• Southey’s best historical narratives are The Expedition of Orsua

(1821), and the Crimes of Aguirre (1821). It elaborates the
history of the search for El Dorado that ends up into mutiny,
rebellion, and terror.

• El Dorado is a term used by the Spanish in the 16th century to

describe a mythical tribal chief (zipa) or king of the Muisca
people, an indigenous people of the Altiplano
Cundiboyacense of Colombia, who as an initiation rite, covered
himself with gold dust and submerged in Lake Guatavita. The
legends surrounding El Dorado changed over time, as it went
from being a man, to a city, to a kingdom, and then finally to an
empire.

• The voluminous History of the Peninsular War (1823) is another

less popular historical work of Southey. It contains dense
graphics.

Biographical works

• The Life of Nelson is Southey’s first and finest biography in

1813. The year it is published is a significant year for Southey as
poet laureate.

• The Late Lives of the British Admirals is a biographical form of

the work of Southey. It is considered to be the best portrayal of
Elizabethan heroes and is remarkable for the great usage of
Spanish and Portuguese information.

• The Life of Wesley (1820) is another masterpiece of Southey. It

was one of Southey’s most influential and bestselling works. It
was the first biography of John Wesley – the major figure in the

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 largest religious movement of the eighteenth century – to be
published by anyone beyond the Methodist community.

Note: Methodist teaching is sometimes summed up in four particular

ideas known as the four alls.
1. All need to be saved - the doctrine of original sin
2. All can be saved - Universal Salvation
3. All can know they are saved - Assurance
4. All can be saved completely - Christian perfection
The Doctor & C

• The Doctor & C contains some brilliant stories such as the

famous story of “The Three Bears” ("Goldilocks and the Three
Bears"). It was published anonymously in 1837.

Conflict with Byron

• By 1920, Southey's political opinions had completely changed

from his early radicalism; he had become a devoted Tory and
despised the French Revolution and the ensuing chaos it had
caused.

• Southey's reputation among some of his poets suffered

because of his conservative views, and in the early 1810s
matters came to a head when Southey and the poet Lord
Byron became involved in a long public quarrel.

• Byron dedicated the first cantos of Don Juan, his great satire on
hypocrisy, to Southey. Southey responded by publishing a
poem, A Vision of Judgment which decried Byron and the
flamboyant poets like him as belonging to the "Satanic school"
of poetry.

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 • Upon the death of mad King George III, Robert Southey wrote
‘A Vision of Judgement’, which depicted King George
III entering Heaven to acclaim and praise. In his preface,
Southey attacked those ‘men of diseased hearts and depraved
imaginations,

• Byron immediately rebutted by publishing a masterful satire of

Southey, entitled The Vision of Judgment.

Pantisocracy

One of the more spectacular experiments to emerge from the early

Romantic movement was the idea of “Pantisocracy” which was the
brain-child of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, assisted by his fellow poet
and friend Robert Southey, who with youthful enthusiasm devised in
1794 a highly ambitious utopian scheme for an egalitarian society.
Akin in many ways to setting up a hippie commune in the 1960s, the
intention was to abandon the prejudices and constraints of life in
England and, armed with the principle of anarchy and the
assumption of human perfectibility which had been recently
articulated by William Godwin in Political Justice, establish a
community on the banks of the Susquehanna River, Pennsylvania.
That the project came to nothing, and remained confined to the
purely theoretical, may be unsurprising, but its failure came at a
heavy personal cost to Coleridge, and cast a shadow over the rest of
his life.

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 Romantic Age Novels

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet

• Born August 15, 1771, Edinburgh, Scotland—died September

21, 1832, Abbotsford, Roxburgh, Scotland.
• Scottish novelist, poet, historian, and biographer who is often
considered both the inventor and the greatest practitioner of
the historical novel.
• From his earliest years, Scott was fond of listening to his
elderly relatives’ accounts and stories of the Scottish Border,
and he soon became a voracious reader of poetry, history,
drama, and fairy tales and romances.
• He had a remarkably retentive memory and astonished visitors
by his eager reciting of poetry. His explorations of the
neighbouring countryside developed in him both a love of
natural beauty and a deep appreciation of the historic
struggles of his Scottish forebears.
• In the mid-1790s Scott became interested in
German Romanticism, Gothic novels, and Scottish border
ballads.
• His first published work, The Chase, and William and
Helen (1796), was a translation of two ballads by the
German Romantic balladeer G.A. Bürger. A poor translation of
Goethe’s Götz von Berlichingen followed in 1799.
• Scott’s interest in border ballads finally bore fruit in his
collection of them entitled Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 3
vol. (1802–03). His attempts to “restore” the orally corrupted
versions back to their original compositions sometimes
resulted in powerful poems that show a sophisticated
Romantic flavour.
• The work made Scott’s name known to a wide public, and he
followed up his first success with a full-length narrative

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 poem, The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), which ran into many
editions.
• The poem’s clear and vigorous storytelling, Scottish regionalist
elements, honest pathos, and vivid evocations of landscape
were repeated in further poetic romances,
including Marmion (1808), The Lady of the Lake (1810), which
was the most successful of these pieces, Rokeby (1813),
and The Lord of the Isles (1815).
• In 1808 his 18-volume edition of the works of John
Dryden appeared, followed by his 19-volume edition
of Jonathan Swift (1814) and other works.
• By 1813 Scott had begun to tire of narrative poetry, and the
greater depth and verve of Lord Byron’s narrative poems
threatened to oust him from his position as supreme purveyor
of this kind of literary entertainment.
• In 1813 Scott rediscovered the unfinished manuscript of
a novel he had started in 1805, and in the early summer of
1814 he wrote with extraordinary speed almost the whole of
his novel, which he titled Waverley.
• A story of the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, it reinterpreted and
presented with living force the manners and loyalties of a
vanished Scottish Highland society. The book was published
anonymously, as were all of the many novels he wrote down to
1827.
• Scott followed up Waverley with a whole series of historical
novels set in Scotland that are now known as the “Waverley”
novels.
• Guy Mannering (1815) and The Antiquary (1816) completed a
sort of trilogy covering the period from the 1740s to just after
1800.
• The first of four series of novels published under the title Tales
of My Landlord was composed of The Black Dwarf and the
masterpiece Old Mortality (1816).

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 • These were followed by the masterpieces Rob Roy (1817)
and The Heart of Midlothian (1818), and then by The Bride of
Lammermoor and A Legend of Montrose (both 1819).
• It was only after writing these novels of Scottish history that
Scott, driven by the state of his finances and the need to
satisfy the public appetite for historical fiction that he himself
had created, turned to themes from English history and
elsewhere.
• He thus wrote Ivanhoe (1819), a novel set in 12th-century
England and one that remains his most popular book.
• The Monastery and The Abbot followed in 1820, and The
Pirate and The Fortunes of Nigel appeared in 1822. Two more
masterpieces were Kenilworth (1821), set in Elizabethan
England, and the highly successful Quentin Durward (1823), set
in 15th-century France. The best of his later novels
are Redgauntlet (1824) and The Talisman (1825), the latter
being set in Palestine during the Crusades.

Jane Austen
• Born December 16, 1775, Steventon, Hampshire, England—
died July 18, 1817, Winchester, Hampshire.
• She published four novels during her lifetime: Sense and
Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield
Park (1814), and Emma (1815).
• In these and in Persuasion and Northanger Abbey (published
together posthumously, 1817), she vividly depicted English
middle-class life during the early 19th century.
• Her novels defined the era’s novel of manners.
• Jane Austen’s lively and affectionate family circle provided a
stimulating context for her writing. It was this world—of the
minor landed gentry and the country clergy, in the village, the
neighbourhood, and the country town, with occasional visits

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 to Bath and to London—that she was to use in the settings,
characters, and subject matter of her novels.
• Her earliest known writings date from about 1787, and
between then and 1793 she wrote a large body of material that
has survived in three manuscript notebooks: Volume the
First, Volume the Second, and Volume the Third.
• Her passage to a more serious view of life from the exuberant
high spirits and extravagances of her earliest writings is evident
in Lady Susan, a short epistolary novel written about 1793–94
(and not published until 1871).
• This portrait of a woman bent on the exercise of her own
powerful mind and personality to the point of social self-
destruction is, in effect, a study of frustration and of woman’s
fate in a society that has no use for her talents.
• The earliest of her novels published during her lifetime, Sense
and Sensibility, was begun about 1795 as a novel-in-letters
called “Elinor and Marianne,” after its heroines.
• Between October 1796 and August 1797 Austen completed the
first version of Pride and Prejudice, then called “First
Impressions.”
• In 1797 her father wrote to offer it to a London publisher for
publication, but the offer was declined.
• Northanger Abbey, the last of the early novels, was written
about 1798 or 1799, probably under the title “Susan.”
• In 1803 the manuscript of “Susan” was sold to the publisher
Richard Crosby for £10. He took it for immediate publication,
but, although it was advertised, unaccountably it never
appeared.
• In 1804 Jane began The Watsons but soon abandoned it.
• In 1809, she began to prepare Sense and Sensibility and Pride
and Prejudice for publication. She was encouraged by her
brother Henry, who acted as go-between with her publishers.
She was probably also prompted by her need for money.
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• Two years later Thomas Egerton agreed to publish Sense and
Sensibility, which came out, anonymously, in November 1811.
Both of the leading reviews, the Critical Review and
the Quarterly Review, welcomed its blend of instruction and
amusement.
• Meanwhile, in 1811 Austen had begun Mansfield Park, which
was finished in 1813 and published in 1814. By then she was an
established (though anonymous) author; Egerton had
published Pride and Prejudice in January 1813, and later that
year there were second editions of Pride and
Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility.
• Pride and Prejudice seems to have been the fashionable
novel of its season.
• Between January 1814 and March 1815 she wrote Emma,
which appeared in December 1815.
• In 1816 there was a second edition of Mansfield Park,
published, like Emma, by Lord Byron’s publisher, John Murray.
• Persuasion (written August 1815–August 1816) was published
posthumously, with Northanger Abbey, in December 1817.
• For the last 18 months of her life, Austen was busy writing.
Early in 1816, at the onset of her fatal illness, she set down the
burlesque Plan of a Novel, According to Hints from Various
Quarters (first published in 1871).
• Until August 1816 she was occupied with Persuasion, and she
looked again at the manuscript of “Susan” (Northanger Abbey).
• In January 1817 she began Sanditon, a robust and self-mocking
satire on health resorts. This novel remained unfinished
because of Austen’s declining health. She died on July 18, and
six days later she was buried in Winchester Cathedral.
• Her authorship was announced to the world at large by her
brother Henry, who supervised the publication of Northanger
Abbey and Persuasion.
• After her death, there was for long only one significant essay,
the review of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion in

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 the Quarterly for January 1821 by the theologian Richard
Whately.

Mary Shelley

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818)

• Walton's ship
Robert Walton writes a series of letters to his sister Margaret
Saville and tells the story of how his polar expedition becomes
trapped in ice and how one day he sees a 'gigantic figure' in the
distance. The next day he takes on board a mysterious stranger,
Victor Frankenstein. Victor takes over the narration and tells
Walton a complex tale about his life history and how he comes
to be alone so near to the North Pole.
• Young Victor
As a child, Victor Frankenstein's life in Switzerland is safe and
secure with loving parents (Alphonse and Caroline) and two
younger brothers (Ernest and William). Victor's charitable
mother also gives a home to a young orphan girl, Elizabeth
Lavenza, and Victor grows particularly fond of her. Victor shows
an inquisitive nature and is particularly fascinated by anything
scientific. Victor’s mother falls ill and passes away. It is her
dying wish that Victor and Elizabeth will one day marry.
• University
Victor attends the University of Ingolstadt in Germany where
he becomes fascinated by the creation of life. For two years he
pursues his ambition to create a man and bring him to life.
During this time he neglects his family and friends and makes
himself ill. Victor hopes to create a perfect being but in reality
the huge creature he produces is made up from pieces of
various corpses he has taken from graveyards and mortuaries.
Eventually Victor succeeds in bringing this creation to life but
when he realises how monstrous it actually is, he abandons it,
thinking it will die a natural death from neglect.
• Death strikes
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 Victor is by now very unwell but is nursed back to health by his
closest friend, Henry Clerval. Together the two go travelling to
Italy. Just as they are about to return to Victor's home, they
receive the news that the youngest Frankenstein, Victor's
infant brother William, has been tragically killed. The blame has
fallen on Justine Moritz, a trusted servant of the Frankenstein
family, but Victor sees his creature near the scene of the crime
lit up by lightning flashes. He realises the truth about William's
death but also knows that nobody will believe his fantastic
story. The innocent Justine is tried and executed, so she and
William become the first to fall victim to Victor's ambition.
• The Monster's story
A guilty Victor goes alone into the Alps where, eventually, he
meets up with the Monster. He is surprised to find that not only
has the thing he made survived, but that it also has the power
of language. The Monster tells a long story about how he has
secretly lived in an outbuilding next to the De Lacey family
following their lessons as they teach a foreign visitor their
language and also learning about other subjects such as history,
geography, religion and culture. He repays the family by
secretly doing many of their household chores. Rashly, he
reveals himself to the family but they are so horrified by his
appearance that the Monster goes on the run again. He finds
similar treatment from everyone he meets and becomes lonely
and isolated. The Monster asks Victor to accept that he is
responsible for his loneliness and misery and to make him a
female companion to be his partner through life. Victor agrees
in a desperate attempt to save the rest of his family from the
Monster's revenge.
• The female Monster
Without telling him why, Victor journeys to Britain with Henry
as his companion. The two separate and Victor goes to the
remote Orkney Islands to carry out his promise of creating a
companion for the Monster. Although he begins the work, he
suddenly realises the consequences of his actions and destroys

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 his creation. The Monster, who has been following Victor all
along, is furious. He promises that on the night Victor marries
he will return. Out of fury and revenge, the Monster murders
Henry.
• More death
A distraught Victor returns to Switzerland and Elizabeth. They
are married and set out for their honeymoon. Remembering
the Monster's threat, Victor assumes that this is the night that
the Monster will kill him but instead the Monster murders
Elizabeth. When Victor's father hears what has happened he
dies broken-hearted. Victor has a mental breakdown. When he
recovers he tells a magistrate what has happened but no action
is taken
• Walton's ship again
Victor accepts that he must deal with the problem himself and
sets out in pursuit of the Monster. He chases it right across
Europe and eventually finds himself in the Arctic, where Walton
discovered him on the ice. Walton once again continues the
narration in the letters to his sister. He tells her how Victor
eventually dies from a combination of exhaustion and exposure
to the cold and how he finds the Monster in Victor's cabin full
of sorrow for the death and destruction he has caused. Telling
Walton of the misery it has suffered, the Monster leaps back
onto the ice and disappears into the Arctic night, apparently
intent on killing itself.

Other Novelists and Their works:-

A] Maria Edgeworth[1767-1849] :
1. The Parent’s Assistant
2. Castle Rockrent
3. Ormond

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B] John Galt[1779-1839] :
1. The Annals of the Parish
2. The Provost
3. The Entaili or, the Lairds of Grippy
C] William Harrison Ainsworth [1805-82] :
1. The Tower of London
2. The star Chamber
3. The Constable of the Tower
D] George P.R.James [1801-60] :
1. A Tale of France
2. De I’Orme
3. The Gipsey
E] Charles Lever[1806-72] :
1. The Knight of Gwynne
2. The O’Donoghue
3. The Dodd Family Abroad
F] Frederick Marryat[1792-1848] :
1. Jacob Faithful
2. Peter Simple
3. Search of a Father
G] Michael Scott[1789-1835] :
1. Tom Cringle’s Log
2. The Cruise of the Midge
3. Backsword’s Magazine

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H] Thomas Love Peacock[1785-1866] :
1. The Genius of the Thames
2. Maid Marian
3. Nightmare Abbey
I] Washington Irving[1783-1859] :
1. History of the New York
2. Tales of a Traveler
3. The Conquest of Granda
J] James Fennimore Cooper[1789-1851] :
1. The Spy
2. The Pilot
3. The Red Rover

Charles Lamb

Bibliography

• “Four Sonnets” in S.T. Coleridge’s Poems on Various Subjects

(1796)-
o Signed “C. L.” under the poems; described in the preface
as by "Mr. Charles Lamb of the India House".
o 1st produced poems
o They were-
▪ "Effusion XI" [by Lamb]
▪ "Effusion XII" [by Lamb]

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 ▪ "Effusion XIII, Written at Midnight" [by Lamb]
▪ "Effusion XIV" [by Coleridge and Lamb]
• Poems on the Death of Priscilla Farmer, by her grandson,
Charles Lloyd (1796)-
o included "The Grandame," by Charles Lamb
• Blank Verse (1798)-
o written in collaboration with Charles Lloyd.
o It contained seven poems by Charles Lamb- several
occasioned by the death of his mother and his aunt Sarah
Lamb.
o It has been listed by Lamb as his first real book.
o Contained "The Old Familiar Faces", which ends as such:
“some they have died and some they have left me,
And some are taken from me; all are departed;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.”

o Critics called the work "ludicrous the effusions of a young

mind" (Monthly Magazine).
o His friendship with Coleridge occasioned an unexpected
public attack in the Anti-Jacobin Review, accompanied by
a caricature of a toad and frog sitting together and
reading a book entitled "Blank Verse, by Toad and Frog"
• A Tale of Rosamund Gray and Old Blind Margaret (1798)-
o a prose romance (novel)
o About the ruin of Rosamund by an insolent character
Matravis.
o Setting- Hertfordshire village
o “What a lovely thing is his “Rosamund Gray”! How much
knowledge of the sweetest and deepest parts of our
nature in it” –Shelley to Leigh Hunt
o “A Miniature Romance”- Thomas Talfourd
• “The Old Familiar Faces” (1798)-

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 o In this poem, Lamb presents a list of “old familiar faces”
whom he misses the most- his childhood days, his
playmates and “joyful school-days”; his friends he spent
his days, carousing; his first love, best friend, and family.
o This poem consists of seven tercets with no standard
rhyme scheme- free verse
• In 1802, Charles & Mary wrote for local newspapers to earn a
decent living
• John Woodvil (1802)-
o Blank verse tragedy play
o Autobiographical
o Initially titled as Pride’s Cure, a five act play
o Coleridge & Southey advised him not to publish it upon
initial reading.
o His commercial & artistic failure
• Mr. H; or, beware a bad name (1806) –
o Subtitle- a Farce in Two Acts
o A failure in London
o The play was then published in Philadelphia in 1813 under
the title Mr. H——, or Beware a Bad Name where it
garnered success.
o Lamb’s name not figuring in any way in connection with it.
• Tales from Shakespeare designed for the use of young Persons.
2 vols (1807)-
o Total 20 plays; 14 comedies by Mary & 6 tragedies by
Charles.
o Only Charles’s name was mentioned on the title page.
o In 1805, William Hazlitt influenced William Godwin to
convince Charles to write a series of juveniles stories for
publication.
o The book contains the following tales-
▪ The Tempest (Mary Lamb)

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 ▪ A Midsummer Night's Dream (Mary Lamb)
▪ The Winter's Tale (Mary Lamb)
▪ Much Ado About Nothing (Mary Lamb)
▪ As You Like It (Mary Lamb)
▪ Two Gentlemen of Verona (Mary Lamb)
▪ The Merchant of Venice (Mary Lamb)
▪ Cymbeline (Mary Lamb)
▪ King Lear (Charles Lamb)
▪ Macbeth (Charles Lamb)
▪ All's Well That Ends Well (Mary Lamb)
▪ The Taming of the Shrew (Mary Lamb)
▪ The Comedy of Errors (Mary Lamb)
▪ Measure for Measure (Mary Lamb)
▪ Twelfth Night (Mary Lamb)
▪ Timon of Athens (Charles Lamb)
▪ Romeo and Juliet (Charles Lamb)
▪ Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Charles Lamb)
▪ Othello (Charles Lamb)
▪ Pericles, Prince of Tyre (Mary Lamb)

• Mrs. Leicester's School, or the History of several young Ladies

related by themselves (1807)-
o Written in collaboration with Mary. Charles contributed 3
stories-
▪ “The Witch Aunt”
▪ “First Going to Church”
▪ “The Sea Voyage”
• The Adventures of Ulysses (1808)-
o a children’s version of the Odyssey by Homer.
• Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who lived about the Time
of Shakespeare (1808)-

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 o a selection of scenes from Elizabethan & Jacobean
dramas.
o Twentieth-century critic Edmund Blunden considered it
'the most striking anthology perhaps ever made from
English literature'.
o Lamb aimed to achieve two goals: to illustrate the
greatness of Shakespeare's often forgotten
contemporaries, and to explore the way in which
sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Englishmen
experienced emotion.
o He includes only those scenes which he judges to show
the best poetry and the deepest passion, adding only brief
notes to let the texts speak for themselves.
o An expanded two-volume edition was published in 1835
that focuses on plays produced in the seventeenth
century, including extracts from Massinger, Fletcher and
Shirley, among others,
• Poetry for Children. Entirely original. By the author of "Mrs.
Leicester's School." (1809)-
o a collection of stories supposedly told by pupils of a
school in Hertfordshire.
o Individual contribution was not mentioned.
o It was published anonymously.
• Prince Dorus; or Flattery put out of Countenance. A Poetical
Version of an Ancient Tale (1811)-
• The Works of Charles Lamb in 2 vol. London (1818)-
o Included famous essays like “The Tragedies of
Shakespeare”,(most famous for his analysis of the
characters of Hamlet and King Lear) “The Genius and
Character of Hogarth” & Recollections of Christ’s
Hospital”.

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 o Added a dedicatory preface to Coleridge- “You will find
your old associate, in the second volume, dwindled into
prose and criticism”.
• Witches and Other Night Fears (1821)- non-fictional work
• The Pawnbroker's Daughter (1825)- a play
• Essays of Elia (1823)-
o Collection of essays, would be later categorized as one of
his greatest works.
o His sister Mary is "Cousin Bridget."
o The essays initially appeared in the London Magazine
between 1820 and 1825.
o They were brutally critiqued by Robert Southey in The
Quarterly Review.
o Seem to be influenced by Sir Thomas Browne and Robert
Burton.
o Most important essay- “The Praise of Chimney Sweepers”.
o Theme- child labor, universal humanity, pity, social
inequality, ill-side of the Industrial England.
o He calls them “warriors”, “matin larks” & Macbeth’s
“ghost” in the essay
o Their liking for “sassafras tea”- Saloop
o Other expressions- “Clergy imps”, “dim specks”, “innocent
blackness”
o James White, Elia's friend, has similar feelings about the
boys, and hosts an annual feast for young chimney
sweepers, where the elder ones are excluded.
o Other important essay is “Dream–Children; A Reverie"-
About his grandmother

• Album Verses, with a few others (1830)-

• Satan in Search of a Wife (1831)-

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 o Complete title- With The Whole Process Of His Courtship,
And Who Danced At The Wedding
• The Last essays of Elia (1833)- A second edition of Essays of
Elia.

Some Important facts-

• His pseudonym was “Elia”, which he derived from an Italian
colleague from his job at the South Sea House.
• In 1795 he had to stay at a mental facility in Hoxton for 6 weeks
• In 1819, at 44 years of age, he proposed to Fanny Kelly, an
actress, but she refused to marry him.
• In 1823, Charles & Mary adopted Emma Isola, whom they had
met in 1820.
• Lamb also contributed critical papers to Leigh Hunt’s Reflector
(1811, a political magazine that includes essays and poetry).
• He died at the age of 59
• Other plays- The Wife’s Trial; or, The Intruding Widow (a play in
blank verse).
• Called Robert Burns- “the god of his idolatory”.
• He referred to Francis Beaumont & John Fletcher as authors “in
which I can’t help thinking there is greater richness of poetical
fancy than in anyone, Shakespeare excepted.”
• Hugh Walker called him- “The Prince Among English Essayists”.
• Coleridge called him- “Gentle hearted Charles”

William Hazlitt

William Hazlitt, (born April 10, 1778, Maidstone, Kent, Eng.—died

Sept. 18, 1830, Soho, London), English writer best known for his
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humanistic essays. Lacking conscious artistry or literary pretention,
his writing is noted for the brilliant intellect it reveals.
He belongs to the school of Unitarianism or Rational Dissent. It is one
of the roots of modern English Culture. For Hazlitt's generation its
three exemplars and heroes were Milton, Locke and Newton, all of
whom doubted the divinity of Christ. From this puritan or
presbyterian, essentially middle-class, dissenting culture flowed
innovations in science, economics, political theory, publishing and
education.
His friends, who already included Charles Lamb, William
Wordsworth, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, encouraged his ambitions
as a painter; yet in 1805 he turned to metaphysics and the study of
philosophy that had attracted him earlier, publishing his first
book, On the Principles of Human Action.
Although he successfully completed several literary projects, by the
end of 1811 Hazlitt was penniless. He then gave a course of lectures
in philosophy in London and began reporting for the Morning
Chronicle, quickly establishing himself as critic, journalist, and
essayist. His collected dramatic criticism appeared as A View of the
English Stage in 1818. He also contributed to a number of journals,
among them Leigh Hunt’s Examiner; this association led to the
publication of The Round Table, 2 vol. (1817), 52 essays of which 40
were by Hazlitt. Also in 1817 Hazlitt published his Characters of
Shakespeare’s Plays, which met with immediate approval in most
quarters.
He had, however, become involved in a number of quarrels, often
with his friends, resulting from the forcible expression of his views in
the journals. At the same time, he made new friends and admirers
(among them Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats)
and consolidated his reputation as a lecturer, delivering courses On
the English Poets (published 1818) and On the English Comic

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Writers (published 1819), as well as publishing a collection of political
essays. His volume entitled Lectures on the Dramatic Literature of the
Age of Elizabeth was prepared during 1819, but thereafter he
devoted himself to essays for various journals, notably John
Scott’s London Magazine.
Hazlitt lived apart from his wife after the end of 1819, and they were
divorced in 1822. He fell in love with the daughter of his London
landlord, but the affair ended disastrously, and Hazlitt described his
suffering in the strange Liber Amoris; or, The New Pygmalion (1823).
Even so, many of his best essays were written during this difficult
period and were collected in his two most famous books: Table
Talk (1821) and The Plain Speaker (1826). Others were afterward
edited by his son, William, as Sketches and Essays (1829), Literary
Remains (1836), and Winterslow (1850) and by his biographer, P.P.
Howe, as New Writings (1925–27). Hazlitt’s other works during this
period of prolific output included Sketches of the Principal Picture
Galleries in England (1824), with its celebrated essay on the Dulwich
gallery.
In France he began an ambitious but not very successful Life of
Napoleon, 4 vol. (1828–30), and in 1825 he published some of his
most effective writing in The Spirit of the Age. His last
book, Conversations of James Northcote (1830), recorded his long
friendship with that eccentric painter.
Hazlitt’s Complete Works, in 13 volumes, appeared in 1902–06, to be
reissued, edited by P.P. Howe, in 21 volumes in 1930–34.
The Spirit of the Age
The Spirit of the Age: Or, Contemporary Portraits is a collection of
character sketches by Hazlitt portraying 25 men, mostly British,
whom he believed to represent significant trends in the thought,
literature, and politics of his time. Originally appearing in English

115
periodicals, mostly The New Monthly Magazine in 1824, the essays
were collected with several others written for the purpose and
published in book form in 1825.
Important figures mentioned in the first edition- "Jeremy Bentham",
"William Godwin", "Mr. Coleridge", "Rev. Mr. Irving", "The Late Mr.
Horne Tooke", "Sir Walter Scott", "Lord Byron", "Mr. Campbell—Mr.
Crabbe", "Sir James Mackintosh", "Mr. Wordsworth", "Mr. Malthus",
"Mr. Gifford", "Mr. Jeffrey", "Mr. Brougham—Sir F. Burdett", "Lord
Eldon—Mr. Wilberforce", "Mr. Southey", "Mr. T. Moore—Mr. Leigh
Hunt", and "Elia—Geoffrey Crayon".
Later in 1825, the second English edition was brought out (again,
anonymously). There, the essays were "Jeremy Bentham", "William
Godwin", "Mr. Coleridge", "Rev. Mr. Irving", "The Late Mr. Horne
Tooke", "Sir Walter Scott", "Lord Byron", "Mr. Southey", "Mr.
Wordsworth", "Sir James Mackintosh", "Mr. Malthus", "Mr. Gifford",
"Mr. Jeffrey", "Mr. Brougham—Sir F. Burdett", "Lord Eldon—Mr.
Wilberforce", "Mr. Cobbett", "Mr. Campbell and Mr. Crabbe", "Mr. T.
Moore—Mr. Leigh Hunt", and "Elia, and Geoffrey Crayon".

Non-Fictional Prose

General Characteristics
• Most prose written during the Age of Wordsworth (1798-1850)
is Review and Magazine.
• Individual essays gained momentum over full-length books.
• Criticism of contemporary literature, in the form of Reviews,
became popular since Dr. Johnson.

116
Most Important Works
1. Edinburgh Review (1802-1929)
2. The Quarterly Review (1809-1967)
3. Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (1817-1980)
4. The London Magazine (1732-present)

Edinburgh Review
• First imprints are found in 1755 as a short-lived (1 year) Review.
• It was started by some Scottish intellectuals of the Select
Society.
• Its Aim- “demonstrate 'the progressive state of learning in this
country” and for the Scots “to a more eager pursuit of learning,
to distinguish themselves, and to do honour to their country.”
• Resurrected between 1773-1776.
• The most popular and long-lasting version was the third (1802-
1929).
• It was started by Francis Jeffrey, Henry Brougham, Sydney
Smith and Francis Horner as a Quarterly.
• Ferociously promoted Whig agenda of Liberalism, Democracy
and Romanticism.
• Its motto-
judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur
("the judge is condemned when the guilty is acquitted")
• At some point, it even criticized William Wordsworth for giving
up the Liberal agenda.

The Quarterly Review

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 • It was published between 1809-1967.
• Its main agenda was to counter the Whig politics that was
propagandized by the Edinburgh Review.
• Important literary figures like Poet-Laureate Robert Southey,
Walter Scott, Charles Lamb, etc. contributed to it.
• It severely attacked Mary Wollstonecraft, P.B. Shelley, John
Keats (Endymion) & Leigh Hunt.

Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine

• Started by William Blackwood in 1817.
• Initially called Edinburgh Monthly Magazine.
• It was later also called as Maga.
• Supported Tory ideology and ferociously targeted the
Edinburgh Review.
• Nonetheless, it published articles from such Romantic
revolutionaries as P.B. Shelley and S.T. Coleridge.
• Apart from critical essays, it also published Horror fiction,
which influenced such Victorian Gothic writers as Bronte
Sisters, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, etc.
• Joseph Conrad, John Gibson Lockhart, John Wilson, George
Eliot, Thomas de Quincey, etc.
• Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness was published in the
February, March, and April 1899 issues of the magazine.
• John Wilson wrote under the pseudonym of Christopher North.
• The title page has the portrait of George Buchanan, a 16th-
century Scottish religious and political thinker.
• Last edition was published in 1980.

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The London Magazine
• It has a greatly contested and fragmented history-
• 1732–1785- as a Whig rival to Tory Gentleman’s Magazine.
• 1820-1829- Resurrected by Baldwin, Craddock & Joy.
• It saw contributions from William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe
Shelley, Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt and John Keats.
• 1898-1933- In 1901 The Harmsworth Magazine was
renamed The London Magazine by Cecil Harmsworth.
• In 1930 it was renamed the New London Magazine.
• 1954-present- In 1954, a new periodical was given the name of
the London Magazine.
• The new editor was John Lehmann.
• It was greatly supported by T.S. Eliot.
• Presently, it is printed 6 times a year.

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