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The development of poetic theory in the 18th and 1th century England was greatly influenced by the movement between the Enlightenment period to the Romantic period. The Enlightenment was a movement of thought and belief concerned with the interrelated ideas of God, reason, nature, and man that claimed wide assent among the intellectuals in 17th and 18th century Europe. It attacked the fundamental beliefs and practices of European society. It was also known as the age of reason as people were convinced that human reason could discover the natural laws of the universe and determine the natural rights of mankind; thereby unending progress in knowledge, technical achievement, and moral values would be realized.
This new way of thinking led to the development of a new religious thought known as Deism. Deists believed in God as a great inventor or architect who had created the universe then allowed it to function like a machine or clock without divine intervention. Although Deists believed in a hereafter, they believed human achievement and happiness should be the focus of this life rather than the life to come.
Benevolence toward less fortunate people, humanitarianism, resulted. Difficult though it is for us to realize, the idea that people who are more fortunate should assist those who are less fortunate was, in fact, a new concept during the Enlightenment. Before this, religious beliefs perceived assistance to the unfortunate as interference with God because people thought if someone were unfortunate, it was Gods will and was punishment for wrongdoing.
The main stimulus for the Enlightenment was the scientific discoveries of natural laws. For example, Galileo recognized the movement of planets, moons, and stars, and Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity.
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Romanticism was in direct competition with the Enlightenment because emotional self-awareness was the foundation of Romantic philosophy. This awareness helped man to understand the condition of society. The romantics believed that in order to improve society and better the human condition, man must be in touch with his emotions. Romanticism rejected the philosophy of the Enlightenment.
Philosophically, romanticism represents a shift from the objective to the subjective Science claims to describe the objective world, the world understood from no particular viewpoint.
The romantic period's roots can be found in the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke.
John Locke was born in 16. His mother died while he was still in infancy. His father was a country lawyer and a captain in the Parliamentary Army during the Civil War; he died while John was still young. John Locke was elected to a life of studentship at Christ Church, Oxford. As a young man Locke cast about somewhat for a position in life. He might have become a cleric except for the fact that the authorities did not appreciate his anti-Aristotelian views; that matter and life was static, was not something to which Locke could subscribe.
Having studied medicine (he did not receive a degree) Locke was willing to help out those who saw him with a medical problem, indeed, he become known as Dr Locke. In 1666, Anthony Ashley Cooper was referred to Locke with a medical complaint. Dr Locke successfully operated, much to Ashleys relief, and cleaned out an abscess in the chest. This was to be a most fortunate turn of events for Locke, for Ashley was no ordinary man; he was the first Earl of Shaftesbury, a Lord of the realm. Thus, Locke was swept into the halls of power, perched confidently on the tails of Lord Shaftesbury. In 167, Shaftesbury became the Lord Chancellor and Locke, his friend, was appointed to be the secretary of a very powerful Board.
Upon his return to England, in 168, Locke adopted a life style that allowed him to compile his works and make them ready for the press.
Thus, we see, in 160, the publication of Lockes two principle works Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Two Treatises of Government.
Locke maintained that the original state of nature was happy and characterized by reason and tolerance. He further maintained that all human beings, in their natural state, were equal and free to pursue life, health, liberty, and possessions; and that these were inalienable rights. Pre-social man as a moral being, and as an individual, contracted out into civil society by surrendering personal power to the ruler and magistrates, and did so as a method of securing natural morality more efficiently. To Locke, natural justice exists and this is so whether the state exists, or not, it is just that the state might better guard natural justice.
Ultimately, in his acceptance of the existence of God, Locke was a dualist -- though only barely so; he did not consider man to be a divine creature fixed with ideas on coming into this world. Locke was an empiricist, viz.; all knowledge comes to us through experience. No mans knowledge here can go beyond his experience. There is no such thing as innate ideas; there is no such thing as moral precepts; we are born with an empty mind, with a soft tablet (tabula rasa) ready to be writ upon by experimental impressions. Beginning blank, the human mind acquires knowledge through the use of the five senses and a process of reflection. Not only has Lockes empiricism been a dominant tradition in British philosophy, but also it has been a doctrine, which with its method, experimental science, has brought on scientific discoveries ever since, scientific discoveries on which our modern world now depends.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born on June 8, 171 in Geneva, Switzerland. His mother died shortly after his birth. When Rousseau was 10 his father fled from Geneva to avoid imprisonment for a minor offence, leaving young Jean-Jacques to be raised by an aunt and uncle. Rousseau left Geneva at 16, wandering from place to place, finally moving to Paris in 174. He earned his living during this period, working as everything from footman to assistant to an ambassador.
Rousseaus profound insight can be found in almost every trace of modern philosophy today. Somewhat complicated and ambiguous, Rousseaus general philosophy tried to grasp an emotional and passionate side of man, which he felt, was left out of most previous philosophical thinking.
In his early writing, Rousseau contended that man is essentially good, a noble savage when in the state of nature (the state of all the other animals, and the condition man was in before the creation of civilization and society), and that good people are made unhappy and corrupted by their experiences in society. He viewed society as artificial and corrupt and that the furthering of society results in the continuing unhappiness of man.
Rousseaus essay, Discourse on the Arts and Sciences (1750), argued that the advancement of art and science had not been beneficial to mankind. He proposed that the progress of knowledge had made governments more powerful, and crushed individual liberty. He concluded that material progress had actually undermined the possibility of sincere friendship, replacing it with jealousy, fear and suspicion.
Perhaps Rousseaus most important work is The Social Contract" that describes the relationship of man with society. Contrary to his earlier work, Rousseau claimed that the state of nature is brutish condition without law or morality, and that there are good men only a result of societys presence. In the state of nature, man is prone to be in frequent competition with his fellow men. Because he can be more successful facing threats by joining with other men, he has the impetus to do so. He joins together with his fellow men to form the collective human presence known as society. The Social Contract is the compact agreed to among men that set the conditions for membership in society.
Rousseau was one of the first modern writers to seriously attack the institution of private property, and therefore is considered a forebear of modern socialism and Communism. Rousseau also questioned the assumption that the will of the majority is always correct. He argued that the goal of government should be to secure freedom, equality, and justice for all within the state, regardless of the will of the majority.
One of the primary principles of Rousseaus political philosophy is that politics and morality should not be separated. When a state fails to act in a moral fashion, it ceases to function in the proper manner and ceases to exert genuine authority over the individual. The second important principle is freedom, which the state is created to preserve.
Rousseaus ideas about education have profoundly influenced modern educational theory. He minimizes the importance of book learning, and recommends that a childs emotions should be educated before his reason. He placed a special emphasis on learning by experience.
The first romantic generation poets included William Blake. The general trend of Blakes life is well known his incessant work as an engraver to keep bread in his mouth; his poverty, shared by his faithful wife Catherine; his absolute refusal to depart from his convictions, from his self-originated methods of preparing for the world his awakening doctrine. Yet we must not dwell too closely upon a picture of pinching poverty; there was another side. Dr. Bernard Blackstone points out that the idea of Blake as uncultivated and naïve must be abandoned when we consider not only the intellectual level of the society to which he had access for the major part of his life but also the great variety of literature with which he was obviously acquainted.
It takes a poet of Bardic power to give expression to this most profound, most fundamental, of mans spiritual problems. But there was experience in the poets own life to give reality and convincingness to these greatest of the prophetic books, the ideas for which poured into his consciousness during the one easeful interlude in his otherwise toilsome existence. This interlude was his three years residence at Felpham in Sussex, where he was under the patronage of William Hayley, a well-to-do dilettante and poetaster, whose verse Blake was commissioned to illustrate. The relief of the change from London to the country, and his ecstasy on finding himself among the glories of nature, were short lived; he soon became uneasy in the conviction that at Felpham he had stepped out of the path of his destined mission, since Hayley thought nothing of Blakes own creative work and demanded his complete application to his patrons affairs.
The almost universal lack of recognition of the value or seriousness of Blakes mystical works and his art seems to have reached a peak at this time
There have been mystics in all ages, each with his peculiar genius; but in William Blake we have one who combines the characters of mystic, philosopher, painter, and poet -- and presents all of these in the supreme degree.
William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge were probably the most famous of the romantic poets. They combined their talent together and were also very good friends. Coleridge saw William Wordsworth as the greatest poet of all time.
Wordsworth was born on April 7, 1770, at Cockermouth on the River Derwent, in the heart of the Lake District that would come to be immortalized in his poetry.
Wordsworth wrote very little poetry about his early childhood. Wordsworths mother died in 1778. His immediate reaction to this blow is not known (he treats his mothers death rather coolly, and rather briefly in The Prelude) but it should be noted that her death very quickly led to the disintegration of the Wordsworth household.
Two things happened in 175, which helped to give Wordsworth direction. In January a young friend named Raisley Calvert, whom Wordsworth had been nursing, died of tuberculosis. In his will, he granted Wordsworth a legacy of 00 pounds, hoping to encourage his friend to devote himself to poetry. In August he met Coleridge, and the two became fast friends. Explaining the significance of this event is well beyond the scope of this essay, but most would agree that the revolution of 178 would have been impossible without it.
Over the next two years, the two young poets grew closer. In July of 177, Wordsworth and his beloved sister Dorothy moved to Alfoxden House, which had the important virtue of being only a few miles from Coleridges home at Nether Stowey. This marks the beginning of the so-called annus mirabilis, the year of intense creative partnership that would result in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads. Speaking of themselves and Dorothy, Wordsworth would later say, we were three persons with one soul. Day after day, Wordsworth and Coleridge would write poetry, discuss their theories on poetry, and comment on each others poems. Attempts at co writing were failures, but the thoughts of one would inevitably find their way into the verse of the other. (For example, it was Wordsworths idea that the Ancient Mariner should shoot the Albatross.)
Lyrical Ballads was published on October 4, 178. Presumably in recognition of its status as a collaboration, the work was released anonymously. The famous Preface had not yet been written, and the literary establishment was largely unaware that war had been declared. Much has been made of the impact Wordsworth and Coleridge hoped to have on English letters, but it should also be noted that they needed money. Coleridge wanted to travel to Germany to study, and the book helped pay for the trip. In September of 178, Coleridge, along with Wordsworth and Dorothy, left for the Continent.
Coleridge felt that he was learning a great deal about German philosophy, but the Wordsworths had no such consolation. Lack of fluency in the language made it difficult to make friends, and the bitterly cold winter of 178- prevented them from much communing with Nature. Leaving Coleridge to his studies, they returned to England, and settled in 17 at Dove Cottage in Grasmere. Back in their beloved Lake District, the Wordsworths would happily call Dove Cottage their home for the next eight years.
In 1800, back from Germany, Coleridge moved to Greta Hall in Keswick, in order to be near his friends. It was a busy time. Wordsworth was hard at work on the second edition of Lyrical Ballads. Reviews of the first edition had been mixed, and Coleridge encouraged his friend to write a preface that would clarify the project. Work on the second edition would lead to a germ of discord between the two poets, as Wordsworth enlarged his role and diminished that of Coleridge. Wordsworth refused to include Christabel, and the 1800 edition, far from the anonymous partnership of the first, would bear Wordsworths name and his alone. At this time Wordsworth was also working on what would become Books I and II of The Prelude.
A third edition of Lyrical Ballads, with an expanded Preface, came out in 180, but this year would also be significant to Wordsworth for reasons that had nothing to do with poetry. On May 4 the Earl of Lonsdale died, allowing Wordsworth and his siblings to finally come into their inheritance. More importantly, the Peace of Amiens was declared, ending more than nine years of war with France, and in August Wordsworth finally met his daughter Caroline. This trip to France lasted only a month, but the meeting between Wordsworth and Annette appears to have been amicable. The sight of his daughter inspired one of Wordsworths finest sonnets, It is a beauteous evening. While in France, he made arrangements to provide Caroline with thirty pounds a year.
The trip to France provided Wordsworth closure to the relationship with Annette Vallon, and it is easy to see why this was needed. Early in the morning of October 4, 180, Wordsworth married his childhood friend, Mary Hutchinson. Interestingly, Dorothy did not attend the ceremony; she was crying on her bed. William and Dorothy Wordsworth were the closest of siblings, and some writers have suggested an incestuous subtext for their relationship. In particular, the Lucy poems have been described as an attempt by Wordsworth to kill his improper feelings for his sister. (No less an authority than Coleridge associates Lucy with Dorothy.) Eventually Mary and Dorothy would become quite close.
1804 saw the conclusion of Ode Intimations of Immortality, and a great deal of work on The Prelude. Coleridge would have been pleased with the Prelude work; he had long believed that Wordsworth would only achieve the ultimate expression of his greatness as a philosophical poet through the vehicle of a longer work. Important as The Prelude was, however, in the background were plans for an even larger work, which the two poets had been discussing for years; but it would be still more years before Wordsworth did any substantial work on The Recluse.
Within the lifetime of Wordsworth and Coleridge a new generation of poets, linked by their fortunes and poetic ideals, was to grow up, to write and die. Yet, Byron, Shelly and Keats do form a distinct generation, and mark a new phase of the English poetic tradition, for their work did not appear until the great period of their predecessors was past.
Byron was the eldest and his juvenile poems came out in 1807, the year of the beginning of Wordsworth's poetic decline.
Byron, Shelley and Keats were all liberals and they lived in a world where liberals were generally on the defensive and not frequently in prison. Wordsworth and Coleridge had taken part in a great movement of the spirit at a time when all forces of nature seemed to be on its side. The possibility that their way of life might coincide with the way the world was going was, therefore, perfectly real to them.
Byron is the most difficult of all the 1th century poets to write about in critical terms. As an influence and a portent he is, if we take the European scene as a whole, by far the most powerful. Yet most of the power is exercised in action and in self-dramatisation rather than in art; the poetry seems to provide an insufficient foundation for the Byron legend.
His first volume of poems, Hours of Idleness; neither better nor worse than many another young man's poetry. Why it was selected for attack by the Edinburgh Review is not understood, except it's author was a lord.
Byron was deeply outraged by the Edinburgh critique and after some meditation, produced his first good poem in reply.
Shelley's poetry is not so closely bound up with circumstance as Wordworth's or Byron's. Daily experience shaped and altered their thought; to Shelley it meant little. He is the solitary intellectual. His ideas came from his own mental processes, from Study, from visions of the future or dreams of the past, not from the world around him and he pays the penalty by isolation from the world.
His poetry is interwoven with innumerable threads of earlier literature, of philosophy, of science. His prose shows not only great range of learning, but considerable power of argument and exposition, and his letters reveal for the most part a rather arid doctrinaire intelligence. Yet nearly all the contracts of this vivid and subtle mind with the outer world show a certain failure of adaptation. His reactions, political, social and personal, are violent but very slightly related to the object that inspired them. The result is a strange gaseous force, overwhelming to some, to others tenuous and unreal.
Although we try to put them together, there was no such alliance between Keats and Shelley as there was between Wordsworth and Coleridge. Their qualities were antithetical but not complimentary. Shelley was "much disposed to dissect or anatomise any trip or slip" in Endymion- or Keats thought he was and Keats was inclined to deplore Shelley's dissipation of his powers on other objects than pure poetry.
The study of Keats shows him as above all the conscious artist, anxious to load his poetry as fully as possible with its own special kind of excellence. We see the result of it in the devoted critical care he gives to his own poetical development, the constant effort to correct faults in technique and emotional tone, to abandon harmful models and choose better ones, above all to think out the essentials of his own poetry to have the exclusion of everything else.
During his short career, Keats's work is always changing and developing. When he died he still seemed to be on the edge of more growth.
The Romantic Movement does hold out a living hand to us, and not to grasp it is a kind of intellectual and emotional treason. We can see the results of the deliberate refusal of the romantic experience in this century in the present decay of creation, and the desiccation of much of our criticism. However much more final is our disillusionment with the actual world than any that was known to the Romantics, however much of our historical experience exceeds theirs beyond their mode of interpretation. To re-accept the 1th century values is one of the things that are needed for the mental health of the 1st.
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