Age of revolution

(1780-1830)

1.​ French Revolution: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

Done by the middle class, they gained power and gained the right to vote
British writers were amazed by the democratic ideals, they were also hoping for democracy
Then terror lead to disillusionment on the part of english writers
Coleridge and Wordsworth were important authors

2.​ American Revolution

America at first was a british colony, with the American revolution Britain had a great loss
This was the period of max expansion of British Empire
It had even India that was considered the “Jewels of the Crown” because it was a strategic
point for trades for raw materials
Colony became a place not only to take raw materials, but also to sell
In the cotton plantations slaves were the one that worked
Slaves were taken by english people from Africa to America

3.​ Industrial Revolution (also Agricultural and Technological Revolution)

One big invention was the steam engine, with which you could transport goods
Important was the invention of boats a trains (trains because of this in literature meant a
change in a character’s development)
Working line was started to use

There were also a lot of social reforms and changes

During the first half of the 18th century, Britain attained political and social stability
While Europe was a mess due France’s imperial ambition, Britain consolidated its own
empire expanding in India and North America
But when America declared independence (Thomas Jefferson), Britain had to confront a
great loss

The industrial revolution transformed the british social structure, while the french revolution
brought new ideas and belief
They didn’t want to restore feudalism, instead they wanted to transfer political power to the
wealthy middle class
The more radical ideas were suppressed

Industrial Revolution, included both economic and technological development

Agricultural → industrial country

Industrialisation happened thanks to the change in powered machinery, factory and mass
production
Steam engine = fondamental for the iron and textile industry

Transportation and communication improved, but the workers’ working conditions drastically
worsened
Wealth moved from landowning aristocracy to factory owners

In the early phase french revolution had a lot of supporters, particularly among the Romantic
poets, such as Blake, Wordsworth and Coleridge
Romantic poetry
(1760 - 1837)

England, during the romantic period

There was a revolution in poetry from the enlightenment that characterized the Classic
Period = profound change in sensibility both in Britain and in Europe
It was a period influenced by the revolutions (in America and in France)

The main themes reflect the conflicts that characterize that period
There isn’t an universal definition of Romanticism, because all the exponents had different
approach and attitudes

Some of the themes were:

-​ Classicism: harmony, order, reason, rationality
-​ Romanticism: feelings, emotions (intensity and imagination)

One of the main topics discussed is the contrast, between:

-​ Man vs nature
-​ City vs countryside
-​ Adulthood vs childhood (naive = foolish)
-​ Reason vs imagination/feelings
-​ Control vs free play of imagination
-​ Children must be disciplined vs are sacred
-​ Poetry as an expression of social order vs expression of a poet’s soul

Because of the pollution of the air caused by factory, the poor hygienic conditions and other
factors, British people had a very negative idea of society
Rousseau thought “the children when they are born, they are naturally good, but
society corrupts them”

The novelist now see that reality isn’t “correct, mathematic”, so they start to prefer writing
about feelings
They want to go beyond society in themself

There was the novel

The novelist can be divided in three:
1.​ Novel of manners
Jane Austen = wrote about how people lived in that time - mainly women. She used a lot of
dialogs, because it’s more interesting than long descriptions
Democratic literature, everyone can understand those novels

2.​ Gothic novel

Mary Shelley. Some themes were still used in the XIX century

3.​ Historical novel

Walter Scott wrote some books about Scotland (he was Scottish)
Thomas Gray
1716 - 1771
Born in London. He was at first educated at Eton, then at Cambridge, he became a
professor in modern history

Is one of the precursors of romanticism = pre-romantic age

Gray’s stile was greatly influenced by the classical models, especially in the form
But he’s still considered romantic, as there are theme’s like melancholy, worry about death,
the love for ruins, graveyards = solitary places

Gray searches for the beautiful and the sublime

He often gets inspiration from Welsh and North songs of the ancient Irish and Scottish bards

Transitional figure between neoclassicism and romanticism

He celebrates the hubble lives and the forgotten existence of the dead buried in churchyards

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Written by Thomas Gray, he didn’t want to publish it
But he gave it to a friend that made the story famous, but different copies began to circulate
so the author at the end decided to write it again and publish the original version
Published in 1751 (in reality it was written in 1742)

In the elegy (= mourning the dead) the contemplation of a country churchyard at twilight
leads to reflections on the dead buried there

Moving and profound poem

About mortality, immortality, acknowledge that the human being is destined to end up in a
grave and that a human lives with the presence of death
He didn’t have a strong religious faith, so unlike others, faith isn’t there to save you

It quickly became famous in Europe

It influenced Foscolo, Dei Sepolcri shared many themes

Adjectives used to describe this novel

-​ Beautiful
-​ Moving
-​ Profound

Elegy was an ancient genre of literature, it's a classic genre

It was used as a mourning lament of death - in this case for the death of his friend Richard
West

Churchyard = solitary place in the countryside

Poor graves made with wooden crosses

There's also a church with a bell tower

And the bells produce a dark and gloomy atmosphere
It's at the end of the day - at the sunset
We can see farmers and peasant going home after work

It uses an archaic language, rhythm scheme and figures of speech typical of the
neoclassicism

Themes:
-​ Humble life
-​ Unknown people in the village
-​ Equality
-​ Loneliness of the poet
-​ Friendship

It is an example of the forthcoming Romantic sensibility

Peculiar unclassical setting with
-​ Poor country
-​ Simple wooden crosses
-​ Simple craftsman

The ambition of success is a mere illusion

William Blake
1757 - 1827
He was born in London
At first he was educated at home then he studied and became an engraver
William entered in the Royal Academy
His first work was Poetical Sketches, but nobody liked his poems

William had to be promoted by patrons

He was appreciated only after his death, in the 19th century

He was a visionary (the drug he used were really good)

William had a lot of vision (he claimed that he had met Holy Mary, Archangel Gabriel, Moses
Dante, Milton, Voltaire), he was convinced that he could see the truth thanks to them
As a poet he had to tell those truth to common people

As Gray he cannot be strictly called as a romantic poet

Blake nevertheless he was greatly influenced by this period
And he was a ahead in comparison to other poets of his time, he invented his own
symbolism way before the Modernists

Death = change, after death you move to another room

For him we live in our imagination

He wrote mainly two things

1.​ Songs of Innocence
In this songs he talks about infantry, innocence, he is naive and the language is more simple
and repetitive
The language is simple, there are a lot of repetition. The narrator is a shepherd and he
wonders around talking about the beauty of nature, the creature of God
Countryside
Written around the French Revolution → optimistic

2.​ Songs of Experience

Adults and corrupted
The language is still simple, but a bit more complex than the other
There is a large use of symbolism. The narrator is a bard, it talks about oppression and
rationalism (quite the opposite of the other)
Written during the Period of Terror, so it’s pessimistic
City

These songs are the two side of the same medal, they are “complementary opposites”
We need both of them to live
Double

He uses simple syntax and vocabulary. But it masks complex arguments and reflections
Blake is dissatisfied with society that lacks os imagination and is corrupted
The Lamb
Innocence of childhood.

Rhyme = AA BB CC DD AA
AA = Refrain (=ritornello)

William used archaic words, even for him

Alliteration: l, m, s → there is still flow

Armony, helpless
It's in nature, no man, no factory, no pollution
Adjective: tender, wooly (lanoso)
With the voice the Lamb spread joy

The poet asks “do you know who made you”

He = God
Lamb = infant Christ, sacrifice, child

The Tyger
It represents the corruption of the Lamb
But its symbolism isn’t easy to discern. Some critics say that it’s the image of creative
energy. This symmetry is fearful because it symbolizes the good and the evil

The questions aren’t rhetorical, but not answered

The tiger appear in a forest
“What could frame your fearfully symmetry”

In the eyes of the tiger a fire burns

Tools that created the Tiger, his: hands, wings, tendons, hammer, chain… god used them
The heaven cried and the stars burned down their spears - even the stars are afraid

He asks who made the tiger, if it’s possible that the same entity that created the Lamb could
create something like that tiger

The tiger is very powerful and beautiful and how can be its creature even more powerful and
beautiful compared to the tiger
There is the sublime (something/someone beautiful and attractive, but also dangerous)

Archaic words like: thy…

These two poems can symbolize the French Revolution: innocence → instinct that cause the
the French Revolution whose ideas were corrupted and transformed into the period of terror

Alliteration of “t”, “c” to represent the sounds make in a laboratory = urban setting

Both of them are about an animal

Creator of the Lamb and the Tiger

William Wordsworth
1770 - 1850 = 18th - 19th
He was born in the Lake District, north-west England
He went to the Grand Tour, William studied at the St John's College, Cambridge

He traveled a lot, he went to France → Italy → France (he became a supporter of the French
Revolution)
William then was reunited with his sister Dorothy

In London he met Godwin (a philosopher) and Coleridge

In this period William was disillusioned by the ideas of the french revolution
He followed Coleridge in Germany and after that he returned to Lake District

William married Mary Hutchinson and they had 5 children

After settling down he spent 30 years writing and revising his works

For him a poet is a man who writes to men

Lyrical Ballads
It’s a collection of poems
He published them anonymously with Coleridge in 1798
In 1800 he published the second edition that included Preface
In 1802 the third edition was released

They discussed about the main themes of Romanticism

From 2 points of view

In his Biographia Literaria Coleridge describes the origins of their book

Poetry according to William must be concerned with the ordinary, the everyday world and the
influence of memory on the present
Therefore the best subjects for William are:
-​ Humble and rustic life
-​ People in contact with nature (which is positive)
-​ “Pragmatic”
-​ Realistic
-​ Simple language

Coleridge:
-​ Imagination
-​ Supernatural
-​ Sublime (both frightening and attractive nature)
-​ More complex, symbolism

The language he uses reflect the simplicity of his themes

At first Coleridge agreed entirely, then he changed opinion
Nature
It’s a source of inspiration
It was the expression of ideal in the real world, the ultimate reality
For his work he was inspired by the everyday life and his personal experience
(Process: nature → feelings → home → remember → poem / emotions recollected in
tranquility)
But William also idealized his concepts

There are glimpses of sublime

Wordsworth’s nature was influenced by the human mind and the poet’s
= fusion between man and his natural element

He often ignore changes that are occurring in the environment (both rural and urban)
Nostalgia

The Preface
Spontaneous overflow of feelings (the opposite of rationalism)
It follows his instinct

Imagination
He describes normal situations and usual
William uses imagination to make his works more appealing, to add a touch of color to his
poems

I wandered lonely as a cloud

Daffodils (narcisi)

Rhyme scheme: AB AB CC (= regular)

4 sestets

Themes: calm, peaceful, positive, unspoilt nature

Countryside vs urban
He’s alone
In the first line there’s a simile = the poet is like a cloud, he goes around without a purpose, a
goal like a cloud

It’s a Paradise, an idealized landscape. Arcadia = earthly paradise

The daffodils are personified, they dance, stretch and move like humans
Crowd = of men usually, but this time is of daffodils
The daffodils are also compared to stars, because they stretch like the Milky Way

Adjective: divine, unspoiled, in glee = with joy, gay

Golden daffodils, gold is a precious metal → connected to wealth (line 9)
Breeze = not a hurricane, positive

Last stanza
For oft = often

Inward eye = your imagination, your soul and yourself

Importance of solitude
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1772 - 1834
Coleridge was born in Devon

He became close friends with Southey. They wanted to move to America, so they found an
utopian community composed of 12 couples
Pantisocracy. The project never got realized, but he met Sara Fricker, who became his wife.
They had four children

When he moved to Somerset he became friends with Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy
Worthwords influenced Coleridge’s political ideas, from the hopes of the french revolution the
two poets became horrified with the bloodshed of the Period of Terror
The two went to Germany and studied Kant, Schiller and Schelling

They both set to Lake District, but after a fight Coleridge moved to London, where he lived
until his death
He was an opium addict

1797 he wrote Kubla Khan, his most famous work

He claimed that he had seen the story in his dreams after taking a painkiller
1798 he published with Wordsworth the Lyrical Ballads, an anthology of poems that
contained his famous The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner
1802: Dejection: an Ode
1808 he began his series on poetry and drama → 1816 he published Chrustabel and
Other Poems (containing Kubla Khan)
1817 he wrote Biografia Literaria, one of the most important work of literary criticism
in Romanticism

Biografia Literaria
Is a mix of philosophical reflection and autobiography
Coleridge talks about the origins of Lyrical Ballads and the importance of imagination

Like Wordworth he thinks that it is an important creative force, and Coleridge thinks that
there are two types of imagination:
-​ Primary: is the agent of all perceptions, collects and stores all the perceptions in a
chaotic manner
-​ Secondary: is even stronger, through it the poet can create a new world unifying the
chaotic elements. Creative, harmonizes the emotions it gained

The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner

1798
Is a long poem divided in 7 parts, each introduced by a summary
At first it was used as the introduction of Lyrical Ballads
Plot: a mariner that kills an albatross and his subsequent punishment

The story is told by the marine himself

He finds himself at a wedding feast on a ship that is being drawn toward the South Pole by a
storm. Then the ship is trapped by the ice that is now surrounding it. An Albatross arrives
and greets the crew, but as soon as the ship is freed the mariner shoots the albatross.
A curse falls on the ship. It’s now trapped under the hot sun and serpents appear along with
a phantom ship. Also the other members on the ship are being punished and they die from
thirst. Only the mariner is alive and when he blesses the beautiful serpent the albatross
appears and saves him.
The punishment isn’t over - he has to bear the burden of guilt. He now wonders around and
tells his story to everybody in hope that someone will help him love nature
(Spiegato bene dal testo degli Iron Maiden)

The Rhyme of an Ancient Mariner is a medieval ballad

Realistic and supernatural elements coexist
The atmosphere is magical and it’s reinforced by the language used - with sounds effects

The poem is symbolic

Sea = life, killing of the albatross = original sin, story = parable of mankind

We still don’t know why the man killed the albatross

In philosophy this is a “pure act” - without apparent motivation
The man, because of the excessive quality of his desire, is a figure of positive evil - the kind
of evil that alters nature creating an imbalance

Another explanation could be it referring to colonialism: when the British colonizers

encountered friendly natives they deceived the natives

The albatross is the symbol of the betrayal of trust

And the sense of guilt and unease it creates in the mind of sensitive people

Genre: ballads
4 line-stanzas, regular rhyme scheme (ABAB)
It has a moral. Repetitions, alliteration and internal rhymes
Moral: you have to respect nature

The wedding guest tries to escape, but as soon as he sees the Mariner's eyes he can no
longer go away
Glittering eyes, it resembles the tiger’s eyes (- Blake)

Inhospitality in contrast with pious

Voyage is an allegory of life