...1590’s, to the fashion for sonnets, he moved closer to the cultural and literary dominance of the court’s taste—to the fashionable modes of Ovid, Petrarch, and Neoplatonism—and to the need for patronage. Although the power of the sonnets goes far beyond their sociocultural roots, Shakespeare nevertheless adopts the culturally inferior role of the petitioner for favor, and there is an undercurrent of social and economic powerlessness in the sonnets, especially when a rival poet seems likely to supplant the poet. In short, Shakespeare’s nondramatic poems grow out of and articulate the strains of the 1590’s, when, like many ambitious writers and intellectuals on the fringe of the court, Shakespeare clearly needed to find a language in which to speak—and that was, necessarily, given to him by the court. What he achieved within this shared framework, however, goes far beyond any other collection of poems in the age. Shakespeare’s occasional poems are unquestionably minor, interesting primarily because he wrote them; his sonnets, on the other hand, constitute perhaps the language’s greatest collection of lyrics. They are love lyrics, and...
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...Kubla Khan is one of the strangest, greatest and most ambiguous poems that I've ever read. This romantic poem is written by Coleridge, and through it, he shows the power of imagination that results in the importance of poetry as an art. The poem has the most significant romantic characteristics: nature, imagination and supernaturalism. The mother is everything for everyone, and nature, considered as the great mother by the romantics, is everything for Coleridge and other romantic poets. The poem takes place in nature in which Kubla Khan builds his dome of rock. The poet describes a wild nature showed by the sacred river that is measureless and sunless and the forests, the hills and the eternal spring. This beautiful nature is no more when it's touched by humans. When Kubla Khan ordered to build the dome, humans begin to corrupt every natural element there and to mix it with artificial one. When the natural place is distorted by humans, we find the poet describing the place as enchanted, and introducing a woman wailing for her demon-love. All these frightened scenes described in the poem have something to do with the corruption man causes to nature. Romantic poets would be nothing without imagination. Imagination is the power that distinguishes the romantic poets from others. The two kinds of imagination is found here in the poem. The primary imagination is the foundation on which the author based his poem. The action of Kubla Khan ordering people to build a dome of...
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...LAMIA: Lamia has puzzled critics because of the elusiveness of its theme. Lamia seems to say that passionate love is an illusion and an enchantment, ultimately destructive. Keats presents her sympathetically; she is not an evil creature. Lycius too is presented sympathetically but in living with Lamia he is indulging in "sweet sin." Since he is a high-minded Platonist when first introduced into the story, his love for Lamia is indulging a weakness. When Lycius and Lamia meet Apollonius, Lycius' mentor, while walking through Corinth, Lycius is at pains to avoid being recognized by him. Context: The subject of Lamia is consuming love such as Keats himself was experiencing when he wrote the poem. His letters to Fanny Brawne indicate that he was obsessed by her beauty — and, at the same time, fearful for his freedom. He realized, however, that desire must be curbed by restraint, that love must harmonize with, and be a part of life, rather than dominate and control it. Lamia, therefore, can be regarded as a warning against the all-absorbing nature of illusory, passionate love and a recognition of the claims of reason. Lamia does not have much in the way of crisis and climax his narrative technique is superior, Lamia-as-snake is as beautiful as Lamia-as-woman: She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue, Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue; Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard, Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr'd; And full of silver moons, that, as she...
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...The Romantic poetry was limited to a few poets, still, those few altered the aspect of literature forevermore. In a group of such prominent poets were George Crabbe and Thomas Moore who gave vivacious renderings of natural scenes with Romantic emotionality. George Crabbe was one of the first poets whose works provided the link between Pre- Romanticism and Romanticism. He was a great bard of nature who portrayed it as strange being and arresting as no other Romantic poet did and therefore was named by Byron as “Nature’s sternest painter”. Throughout the age, Crabbe persisted in his precise, realistic portraits of rural life and landscape, writing mainly in the heroic couplets of the neoclassical age. His poems described village manners without...
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...Nature in the Poetry of William Wordsworth and Robert Frost : A Comparative Study Chapter One Introduction 1. Background Poets have long been inspired to tune their lyrics to the variations in landscape, the changes in season, and the natural phenomena around them. The Greek poet Theocritus began writing idylls in the third century B.C.E. to glorify and honor the simplicity of rural life--creating such well known characters as Lycidas, who has inspired dozens of poems as the archetypal shepherd, including the famous poem "Lycidas" by John Milton. An idyll was originally a short, peaceful pastoral lyric, but has come to include poems of epic adventure set in an idealized past, including Lord Alfred Tennyson's take on Arthurian legend, The Idylls of the King. The Biblical Song of Songs is also considered an idyll, as it tells its story of love and passion by continuously evoking imagery from the natural world. The more familiar form of surviving pastoral poetry that has retained its integrity is the eclogue, a poem attuned to the natural world and seasons, placed in a pleasant, serene, and rural place, and in which shepherds often converse. The first eclogue was written by Virgil in 37 B.C.E. The eclogue also flourished in the Italian Renaissance, its most notable authors being Dante and Petrarch. It became something of a requirement for young poets, a form they had to master before embarking upon great original work. Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia and Edmund Spenser’s The Shephearde’s...
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...During the 19th century, the Arts began to undergo a union. Artist of all fields began to want their pieces to reflect each other. In fact during the Romantic Era, poets and authors wanted their works to be musical while musicians wanted their music to be poetic and tell a story. In order for composers to write pieces that told a story, they began to write several types of program music for piano and orchestra. Program music can be divided into categories: symphonic poems (tone poems), program symphonies, concert overtures, and incidental music. Firstly, a type of program compositions written in the 19th century was the symphonic poem which can be sometimes referred to as a tone poem. Symphonic poems can be defined as a single movement for orchestra that has no definite form, and is inspired by a subject apart from music, typically a story or poetry; an example of a tone poem would be Danse macabre by Camille Saint- Saëns. Danse macabre was based off the text of the French poet Henri Cazalis poem by the same name. Moreover, symphonic poems can be written in many different forms such...
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...John Keats – La Belle Dame Sans Merci La Belle Dame sans Merci, one of John Keats last works, is a ballad which tells the story of a knight who fell in love with a mystical creature, and now suffers the aftermath of a broken heart. The poem starts with the writer describing a solitary knight who is walking around lonely. So already from the poems start the reader gets sympathy for the knight. In the two first verse, the scene of autumn is described: The grass stopped, no birds sing, squirrels and other animals have hoarded food to sustain them throughout winter, and the harvest is done. The writer makes the knight look so exhausted and miserable, by saying: So haggard and woebegone. By saying this, it makes the knight seem to be in a terrible condition: “And on the thy cheek a fading rose – the poet is comparing the color on his cheeks with a fast fading rose. The poet also says: I see a lily on thy brow – which means that the knight-at-arms forehead glistens with sweet like a lily (white). In the fourth stanza the knight starts to tell his tale: He had met a beautiful maiden in the meadows. She was the most beautiful thing he had cast eyes upon, with long flowing hair and wild eyes, which led him to believe that she must be a fairy’s child. Her eyes however had struck him as wild and doleful. He had only eyes for her and did not notice anything else. She was receptive of his attentions and sang to him sweetly. He tried to win her by making garlands and bracelets out of...
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...the Industrial Revolution, it was also a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature. It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education and the natural sciences. Its effect on politics was considerable and complex; while for much of the peak Romantic period it was associated with liberalism and radicalism, in the long term its effect on the growth of nationalism was probably more significant. Romanticism era is the revolution of writers, painters, and dancers. The well-know writer in romanticism era is Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. His first novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), about a young, sensitive artist, was popular throughout Europe. Goethe also used myth and local folklore as subjects for his poetry, inspiring a sense of German nationalism in the decades before a unified Germany. The American and French Revolutions in the late 18th century added to the popularity of such Romantic ideals as freedom, liberty and national pride. Ballet began to lose steam after the death of Louis the XIV, despite a slight boom in participation and popularity in Eastern Europe. However, a new era began when a group of gifted ballerinas emerged in the first half of the 19th century, including the legendary Marie Taglioni. The daughter of choreographer Paul Taglioni, Marie had a natural gift for dancing, though...
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...Romantic authors lived through a time of revolution, the American Revolution and the French Revolution. Each of these rebellions was rooted in the idea that the common man deserved and was owed certain inalienable rights. They became more interested in the individual and in gaining self-knowledge. This self-knowledge led to an interest in psychology and psychological disorders. Romantic writers initiated a revolution of their own. They revolted against the ideals and themes of the Enlightenment era, instead of reason and science they turned to feelings and an oneness with nature in their works. In addition to revolution, there were reforms, expansionism, and other changes within society that affected the writing of these authors in a deep...
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...joy for ever” In John Keats, we have a remarkable contrast both with Byron and Shelley. He knows nothing of Byron’s stormy spirit of antagonism to the existing order of things and he had no sympathy with Shelley’s humanitarian real and passion for reforming the world. But Keats likes and worships beauty. In his Ode on a Grecian Urn, he expresses some powerful lines about his thoughts of beauty. This ode contains the most discussed two lines in all of Keats's poetry: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” The exact meaning of those lines is disputed by everyone; no less a critic than TS Eliot considered them a blight upon an otherwise beautiful poem. Scholars have been unable to agree to whom the last thirteen lines of the poem are addressed. Arguments can be made for any of the four most obvious possibilities, -poet to reader, urn to reader, poet to urn, poet to figures on the urn. The issue is further confused by the change in quotation marks between the original manuscript copy of the ode and the 1820 published edition. P. B. Shelley: Shelley expresses love as one of the God-like phenomena in human life and beauty is the intellectual beauty to him....
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...A common theme I discovered that was used by the classic English Romantic poets was a need to express one’s feelings for nature in a way that would encapsulate the reader to make the experiences their own. This kind of writing allowed Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Oliver, and William Wordsworth to write moving poems that allowed them to convey their feelings of adoration to nature onto paper for others to “feel” as they read the inspiring pieces of work they had written. In some poems there’s a common sense of calm and relaxation that the writer is feeling, but will translate to the audience through word cues and usage of the vocabulary in the poem. Another link I found commonly among some of the poems is the personification of nature in some...
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...Wordsworth’s ‘Spots of Time’ Wordsworth’s notion of ‘spots of time’ existing in personal and poetic experience is closely aligned to the spiritual or animistic perception of nature that underscores Romantic poetry. In The Prelude, Wordsworth uses the spots of time concept as an organizing element, structuring both individual passages and the poem as a whole, a pattern that resembles the arc of dramatic tension in classical tragedy. For Wordsworth, spots of time are instances of life experience where one’s common perception of Nature and people is suddenly wrenched into a disturbing new perception that ultimately gives a deeper insight into oneself and the universe. The recurrence of this pattern of expectation, disappointment, and understanding is a structural element of The Prelude that extends from subtle allusion to explicit description. Closely connected to the concept of the spot of time is Wordsworth’s conception of a “border creature” which is a personification of the initiation into a new, often troubling realization. The resonance of a spot of time is such that it cuts through past, present, and future and provides a foundation in memory for poetic expression and also for reading into the mystical aspect of the human psyche or soul. The most overt description of a spot of time that is present in The Prelude is found in Book Eleven in lines 278-89. Before describing the memory directly, Wordsworth states explicitly that the coming passage will be an example of a spot...
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...A Frozen State of Love The poem, “Ode to a Grecian Urn” written by English Romantic poet, John Keats is one of the five ‘great odes’ of 1819. Keats describes the romantic, powerful reaction that overcomes his thoughts from staring at a piece of old pottery, which turns into a never ending love story. When analyzing the work, it is evident that literary devices such as imagery, metaphors and symbolism are used to depict the speakers’ view of this magical urn. Imagery flows through this poem like water through a stream. In the third stanza, the speaker compares the two lovers and the urn itself. “that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearied, For ever piping songs new;(Gioia and Kennedy vol. 4, pg. 477)”. Keats uses the example of a tree that cannot lose its leaves nor can it grow new ones in the spring to show the frozen state of love that these lovers remained trapped in. Another example of imagery comes from the fifth stanza when Keats says, “O Attic shape! Fair attitude! With brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, with forest branches and the trodden weed;(Gioia and Kennedy vol.4, pg. 477)”. Keats begins to describe the shape of the urn and uses imagery to describe “marble men” and “maidens” that form a type of braid to explain the urn’s physical attributes. These examples allow the audience to form a mental picture of what Keats is describing. Which allows the audience to perceive a better understanding of the points...
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...Although romantic poets have established several ideas concerning what they believe a poem should be, Wordsworth’s definition of poetry in The Preface to Lyrical Ballads is the most famous one: “All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of human feelings…modified and directed by our thoughts." or "...the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility”. He sees poetry as acting like Nature, which touches all living things and inspires and delights them. Therefore, poem is an instrument that draws attention to the hidden, unnoticed beauties of nature. In addition, Wordsworth also emphasizes the relationship between the mind and poetry. The “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” leaves an individual incapable of articulating the beauty of nature, thus these feelings should be “recollected in tranquility” and deep thought. “My heart leaps up when I behold” is one of the best poems that convey Wordsworth’s definition The poem encompasses all of the themes central to Romantic movement such as the importance of the emotion, the important of nature, the transience of joy, and the sanctity of childhood. Nature and its connection to humanity makes an appearance in the vast majority of Wordsworth’s poetry, often holding a poem’s focus, thus the important of nature is introduced in the first two lines: “My heart leaps up when I behold/ A Rainbow in the sky.” (Line 1, 2) He is moved emotionally by the beauty of nature and his...
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...Literature Through Time Literature depicts the morals of time it shift and morphs into less power in the divine and more faith in man. Stories began being written by monks and the clergy which in time turned into regular men with stores that focused on more secular matters. English literature fills up the gap between wars, between societal change, you can see time progressing, you can see our values and morals changing, you can see history passing by. In the beginning there was Bede, a philosopher, speaker of many languages, a man who looked around him and saw a world in peril that only God could save, a man full of faith. Time passes and we see Shakespeare, a genius, a man with a queen, a man who rallied against the common, Shakespeare was a man with deep loves and a strong voice. “The Story of Caedmon”, was written during a time when Christian religious dogma was primarily hagiography, “the telling of the life of virtuous men and women that represents what it means to be a good Christian.” These stories are used as a form of reflections on one’s life as to make it better in the future. Religious dogma needed to be made more accessible to the congregation which was widely illiterate, so the stories were written with easy points and then acted out so that the congregation would not only be awake and attentive, but so that these stories of morality and faith would really sink in. “Caedmon” is probably the earliest extant of Old English poetry, Bede tells about Caedmon, an...
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