Survey of English Literature - Semester 4th - Kolokvij 1st

Week 1RulersGeorge III (1760-1820) House of HanoverBritish Regency (1811-1820) George III`s son ( later to become the king, George IV), acts as Prince Regenet due to his father`s mental illnessGeorge IV (1820-1830) House of HanoverWilliam IV (1830-1837) House of HanoverThe 18th Century Revolutions- 1775-1783 - American War of Independence = destabilization of the state global war- 1780 - Gordon Riots in London - more liberal policy for Roman-Catholics- political and economic strength (trade - human), books published, literacy increased [reading, writing] (no longer privilege of the rich) books more available, printing, political change in the country (read the Bible - domination of Protestantism) - money more important than tradition/heritage- Britain - a colonial power (industrial force, trading force) wealth increased- liberty, human rights = political changes- protestants rebel against Catholics why targets? Catholics relieved from diff. penalties - excuse for rioting around the town (damage to London)- 1783 - lost American colonies - America won - Treaty in Paris - America got independenceThe French Revolution- everybody approved of revolution- 1789 (beginning of the Fr. rev.) - Fall of the Bastille welcomed (royal authority = Bastille [political prison]) - broke down the old regime- revolution into a massacre - desire for power & territory- 1793 - execution of Louis XVI and Marie Antoniette, France declares war against Britain- 1804 - Napoleon crowned emperor - because it showed that he is not different from the previous regime = he wanted power

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION- change in social and economic organization resulting from the replacement of hand tools by machines and power tools -> the development of large- scale industrial production- England about 1760, later in other countries- began in textile industry- 1765 (explosion of ind. rev.) - James Watt - perfected the steam engine- 1776 - the 1st engines were in use in commercial enterprises- by 1824 over 1.000 engines produced- because of ind. - forced to work in cities = populated, villages = depopulated- slavery- human trade- Britain traded goods and people (treated like inanimate objects, like goods)- people in Britain served as traders of human flesh from Africa to America- 1789 - 50% of slaves die before exported to America - Eng. Privy Council- 1790 - at the height of the British slave trade one slave vessel leaves England for Africa every other day - 1807 - slave trade was abolished in Britain only

Enclosure- in the latter half of 18th century vast tracts of land all over England, were transformed from common land into private property- privately owned fields divided by stone walls and hedges-- Laissez-faire = no political moves were undertaken to reduce negative effects of industrialization; people had 2 choices: either to work for peole who took their land like slaves, or to move to the city - thousands of rural people were forced to abandon their homes, migrating to London (cities) or America and Canada (they were forced because they didnt have place for grazing animals so they had to go to towns to get a job/work/new life) - social changes caused by ind. - let reign of free economic law to rule (small wages, long hours, women & children had to work)- literature is more dominated by economy rather than religious issues, as was the case in the previous periods- money, desire for private pleasure individualism = focus on individual by economic changes

The rise of the bourgeoisie- citizen class - ruling class of a capitalist society, own capital & culture - literature is determined by economy rather than religious issues as was the case in previous periods - money: desire for individual prosperity and pleasure- idea of a nation becomes stronger- nationalism tends to transcend class, religious & political divisions, but unites people under the flag of a nation

Focus on individual- diaries, letters, novels - about their own individual stories, with one individual protagonist- Samuel Richardson: Clarissa (1748) - innovation in form - epistolary (written by/to protagonist, in letters)- Laurence Sterne: Tristram Shandy - 1760-67 (1760 - stream of consciousness) - first post modernist novel - not chronologic plot, chance associations, drifting off from topic, conventions of print are broken -> exception at that time- ''domestic fiction'' - Anne Radclife, Jane Austen - more for women, about women (women didn't work), intimate private lives- historic novels - Walter Scott- more masculine novels - country & history- gothic fiction - Horace Walpole: The Castle of Otranto (1765) - 1st gothic novel - inspired by medieval architecture, features of every future gothic novel- Castle (on Strawberry Hill) is his castle, spec. topic (woman chased by villain), taboo (incest, murder - grotesque)- English countryside - one of the most popular subjects, offers escape from different issues (slavery, working in factories)- poetry of the first half of 18th century - political & satirical, purpose of the individuals within the society, rational (force the reader to think)

Poetry of Sensibility- post-Augustan poetry, pre-Romanticism (Blake, Burns!) -> another terms- poems of deep solitude, melancholy, loss and despair (= atmosphere)- Thomas Gray, Thomas Collin, Mary Robinson, Charlotte Smith, James Thompson- general truths appeals to the largest possible audience by discussing about nature & human nature- emotional poetry - personal, emotions ( I , about their private issues, their own feelings and moods, observations)- avoid direct commentary on issues such as class problems, religious issues, politics- idea of nation becomes stronger - all English united = nationalism- the 18th & 19th cent. poets started referring to their work as art - it would transcend constant historical changeFEATURES1. interest in nature - English countryside is one of the most pop. subjects, offers escape from difficult issues), 2. emotions - personal: poets write in the 1st person about their own intense feelings and moods -> response to direct observations of a scene or to contemplation about a theme - tries to evoke an emotional response from the reader to teach the reader feel!3. atmosphere - unhappy poems, poems of introspection, of deep solitude, melancholy, loss and dispair 4. the sublime - something that appeals and terrifies at the same time - pleasure and fear, rushing waters, mountains in the mist...

James Thomson (1700 - 1748)- poems about nature & seasons- 1725 - came from Scotland to London- 1726 - published Winter - a descriptive poem in blank verse- 1730 - The Seasons - poetry of natural descriptions (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter - in one collection)- printed 50 timesTHE EYE AND EXTERNAL NATURE- amazed his contemporaries with his incredible capacity to see - to describe nature detailed, live, vivid - amazed by the vivid poetry- landscape gardening & painting became popular together with description of nature- Antonio Vivaldi - 1725 - Four Seasons - inspired by the countryside of Mantua- music & visuals arts

Thomas Gray (1716 - 1771)- scholar (didn't get a degree), left Cambridge- travelled - the Lake District (inspiration for Romantics), Scotland, France & Italy with Horace Walpole- melancholic poetry (unhappy life reflected, or just a trend at that time) - against witty & satirical poetry of PopeFEATURES - introspection (looking within yourself), reflection, withdrawal from the world, spoken by a lonely lyrics-speaker

Elegy written in a Country Churchyard- elegy - mournful, melancholic, plaintive poem, connected with loss, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead- all humans are the same because we're all gonna die, hear the voice of an individualDRAMATIC MONOLOGUE - the speaker ( not the poet/author) addresses a silent auditor in relation to a situation or event whereby the speaker`s words reveal the speaker`s temperament and character- mortality, who is remembered after death and why? - The path of glory lead but to grave, full many a flower is born to blush unseen = rich vs. poor- literacy is both privilege and responsibility - we should give voice to those who are unable to speak for themselves

Oliver Goldsmith The Deserted Village- Irish writer, poet, physician- diff. kinds of genres, spent a lot / earned a lot - died in debts- diff. genres = novel The Vicar of Wakefield, pastoral poem The Deserted Village, plays The Good Nature'd Man & She Stoops to Conquer- economic issues - comment on depopulation of countryside- criticizes (privately) constant desire for luxuryThe Deserted Village - mythologizes the village - as if life in the villages is ideal- village stands for values - people in the village = simple, connected to nature, good (not corrupt) - people in cities = luxury is for freaks, people get corrupt by luxury (lux. - a source of vice)- black vs. white ( = town vs. village )- beginning - memory from youth- Auburn - name of village - ideal, perfect village- rhyme- countryside becomes desolated - weed now, no beautiful flowers- village on decline- statements fault for the land decay- direct commentary - clear in his accusations - blames rich people who took the land which ended up destroying agriculture & poor people- criticizes - Britains way of life - all of Britains trade to increase luxury (cinnamon) & not to feed poor people - Britain should proved for all people (because poor people need to go away)- virtues being destroyed now - love, loyalty, piety - by luxury & money- lyric-speaker addresses a silence audience- point of dramatic monologue - to reveal the speakers mood, temperament, character- this elegy mourns the simple life of village people- ends with an epitaph - a short text or poem honoring a decreased person, literally inscribed on their tombstone or plaque (read, printed in newspaper, published in book), or used figuratively- the villager had no opportunity for education, he only had melancholy in life - going to heaven was his only positive thing out of his whole sorrow (he was modest, just like the village people)- once we are dead we are all alike- mortality, constant change in life

George Crabbe- English poet and naturalist- unsentimental in his depiction (meaning conveyed through pictures) of provincial life and society- contrasts idyllic world = the nature is ugly (contrast to tradition in poetry)-''The Village'' - people in villages (poor, hungry, crime to survive)- uses traditional pastoral literacy devices (mentions muse) and represents a village that is not perfect, makes a parody of the pastoral genre (village not pretty) - he criticizes pastoral poetry for giving false prediction about life (village life) - wants to appeal to social conscious of the reader - emotions & intellect = appeals to that of the reader

Week 2Pre-Romantic Period (Early Romantic Period)William Blake (1757-1827)- both pre-romantics (YES) & romantics (for romantics it was very important to be original, revolution war important in poetic sense)- his only formal education was in art - the Royal Academy of Arts (painting, engraving, printing)''Poetical Sketches'' - his 1st book of poems at the age of 26 ( illuminated printing)- complicated, symbolic and allusive style hides his opinions on the religious, moral and political issues- a visionary (imaginative) poet & artist (painter - 1st)- his poems connected with his paintings- his paintings inspired by his Poetic Sketches- illuminative printing - his way of paintings- he divided his spiritual & corporeal life strictly, and they were very different (he tried to hide his POV about religion - against industrial revolution)- wasn't satisfied with his daily life - wife & work- unlike most artists of his era, he was not inspired by life, but by his own visions- 1805-10 - commissioned to paint the Bible - cycle of 4x paintings - most famous The Great Red Dragon from the Book of Revelations- complicated, symbolic & allusive style - mystical images, private symbols- I must create a system, or be enslaved by another Man's- hides his opinions on the religious, moral & political issues- illuminated printing (relief etching) - he did for his books & poems - engrave an copperplate (poem backwards engraved)- 20th cent. - became famous when he got discoveredA revolutionary - America: A prophecy, The French Revolution (saw revolution as something good, supporter of French rev.)- revolution as the purifying violence (rev. violence was positive for Blake), the imminent redemption of humanity- radical changes in the mind & in imagination- revolution - no longer refers to a turn or a cycle, but has a new meaning (a violent break from the past, an overthrow of the existing order, violence of something new) - caused by the effects of the French Revolution and the desire of the Romantic poets to show how different (original!) they were from the previous authors/periodsLong poems - The Four Zoas & The Marriage of Heaven and Hell - discuss moral categories, ironic about society, criticizes the society (both poems criticize the conventions of society & specific values the society was based on - he thought that English society was based on false morals, nothing is black & white but complex) The Four Zoas - unfinished (wasnt satisfied with it so he avoided it) - good life - consists of sustained tension (neither good nor bad) - have effect of false morality - against the growing gap between the rich & the poor - two contrary states of human soulSongs of Innocence (1789) - pastoral (innocence, joy, nature, God, children; man close to God, harmony, feeling of innocence)Songs of Experience (1794) - after you exp. the world - you can't stay innocent - because you know what the world is like (sins we commit as adults, loss of innocence, life darker and political)- collections - go hand-in-hand - depict England before & after (the progress of the British society)

The Lamb - (Songs of Innocence)- counterpart of The Tyger- lamb = a lamb (softest clothing, wolly, bright - typical pastoral)= Jesus (religious poem - person who created him)= a new-born child (pastoral - happy life, innocence of children; clothes represent the whiteness and innocence of children)- poem about Jesus (in order to save humanity he becomes a child), church sees us as lambs, priests as shepherds; church - sees like as wonderful and pastoral, Jesus & we blessed by God- style of poem - childish innocence - like a song for children- about a happy human being, harmony, goodness, connection between God & humans- suggests the past of BlakeThe Tyger - (Songs of Experience)- rhythm & atmosphere proof of being counterparts- a pair of The Lamb - how did the world change?- different rhythm, different tone- tyger - Satan, devil, danger to the lamb, something threatening, something bad, wants to kill, feeds himself with small creatures (only wants to feed), no feelings, rage, no humanity & morals (= Britain represented as a wild animal)- settings - night, forest (enchanted & scary)- sublime, fire in eyes, scary, burning bright (Tyger is the work of the devil)- Britain as tyger - wrote about British Imperialism (the rich became richer, the poor became poorer)- Industrial revolution - thanks to money through industry: slaves on ships, trades & colonies = the Tyger is the industrial revolution & British imperialism (they are being inhuman in their colonial practices - selling slaves)- success of British rich based on death & hard work of poor British people & the slaves - rural pastoral ideal - pastoral poetry The Lamb- country changed from lamb to tyger - became worse ( + rhythm of machines working)- did God create pastoral Britain? blood-thirsty tyger Britain?Holy Thursday (Songs of Innocence) - refers to a holiday in Anglican church, a Thursday 39 days from Easter - children (from charity schools in London) marched to St. Paul's Cathedral for mass- priests - grey-headed beadles - guide the innocent children- motive of children - extensively used (happy to be in church)- innocent singing helping (rich) people get everything from GodHoly Thursday (Songs of Experience) - situation different than the 1st poem - more realistic, Britain uses poorest of the poor to celebrate God = seems ironic to Blade- poor & hungry children - can be happy? sing happily? forced by priests - direct criticism of the moral course- children of London don't live in pastoral place - all images of different life said in the poem (sun never shines) The Chimney Sweepers (Songs of Inn.)- narrator - child (orphan, his mother died), dad sold him to clean chimneys- weep = sweep (cannot pronounce because he's young) symbolic (to cry - obviously cannot be happy cleaning chimneys)- two boys talking - child had lamb-like curly hair which got shaved, dirt from sin cannot corrupt you- dream - his friends locked up in black coffins (= chimneys, real coffins) - came an angel with a key (angel = they died - angel saved them - brought to heaven = an pastoral idealic theme- bags = worries, problems - left behind while they're in heaven- only consolation - as long as they live is religion - everything you have, nothing else to hope for''The Chimney Sweepers'' (Songs of Exp.)- 3 stanzas- not narrated by child, but by the poet- child wipes - mother & father in church while the child is working = criticism on church & adults - social criticism- adults jealous of child's innocence - clothes are black (death, killing them, adult) - they are dying- blames all nation for children working - adults = unfair, evil, nation critical (use children as possessions)

The Lamb(Songs of Innocence)(Lamb can mean orphan)In this song first we have nature elements: animals, love for animals (these will later become romantic symbols). We have Lamb as a symbol of innocence, Christ (these are traditional symbols. He is meek & he is mild, He became a little child- sentences connected with children.. Little Lamb God bless thee. Lamb God bless thee. like a blessing song for benediction, but it is far more complex... after reading Tyger you feel it the Lamb the beat od the Tyger and you have the feeling that the tyger is gonna get the little innocent lamb.

The Tyger (Songs of Experience)Consists of 6 strophes. The sound is very importan tin romantic poetry and you have to experimant with it (the sound).->The Tyger could be the tyger of British Imperialisam. Tyger is a very special type of beauty: he is beautiful but terrifying and dangerous.. (1st and 2nd strophe) .-> The Tyger could be the tyger of Industrial Revolution. The industrial sounds(the steam engine sounds)-the economic tyger (3rd and 4th strophe).-> Blake is mentioning the lamb again! Why?! Blake does not choose sides between good and evil ( lamb and tyger).

The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Innocence)Light slavery. Little children were sold, their parents could not take care of them and so they were giving them to orphanages but it was as they were giving them to lions... Children were forced to work hard, out of little girls they made prostitutes. The chimney sweeper in industrial London-little kids were used for this type of job, because they could fit into chimneys and could better clean and sweep. Sometimes their boss would light up a fire under their feet so that they work faster. In the 2nd strophe we have a litle boy Tom Dacre- he is like a lamb.. In that strophe we also can see the best example od ideology and an ideology represents sets of doctrines used to controll people and usually presents losses as gains (it is not a bad thing if they cut Tom Dacre's hair, he doesn't have to worry about his hair because without it, he's gonna easier be clean.) In the 3rd strophe we have a sentence Were all of them lock'd up in coffins of black and that sentence shows/ represents a miserable life of chimney sweepers. In the 4th strophe we have an angel with a bright key who is gonna set the chimney sweepers free.. And he opened the coffins & set them all free; Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing they run,And wash in a river and shine int he Sun.- the y are free but that is sth that they can only dream about! In the 5th strophe And the angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy. He'd have God for his father & never want joy.- pure ideology:if you aren't living good here, you would live better in heaven. Ideology is used to controll people, kids etc.. If they have some kind of ideology they would think about God and afterlife, not about now. In the 6th strophe is said that he(chimney sweeper) should follow and obey the rules, respect the status quo and just do his duty, do whatever is expected of him and then he should fear no harm. Be obedient!Holy Thursday (Songs od Innocence)....is Jesus's ascension day. A Thursday 39 days after Easter. Children from the charity scholls of London were marched to a service at St. Paul's Cathedral. This poem is very ironic!Holy Thursday (Songs of Experience)The kids were victimized in every way! Babes reduced to misery. Fed with cold and usurous hand-exploration oft he children. The beauty of production based on somebody's misery (children's misery) . The sun never shines for those children. Their life is difficult, without happiness and joy. They live every day in misery and nobody is caring about that. The Chimney Sweeper (The Songs of Experience)Different Tygers dealing with those little Lambs(kids). No one,even not their families did sth to help them! They all victimized them.. The parents are gone to the church to pray. But for what shall they pray?! The chimney sweepers never had the chance to go out.. The clothed me int he clothes of death, And taught me to sing the notes of woe- thaught them to sing the songs of misery... The last(3rd ) strophe says that the parents are to blame and the priest, the king and the government for children's misery.. All of those who are making mony out of children's misery are to blame! Their heaven an wonderful lives are based on those poor explorated kids...Robert Burns- pre-Romantic poet- Scottish poet, from not a well family, a poor family, had to help at home- father supported the idea of education - self-educated- wrote 1st volume of poems called Poems, but known as The Kilmarnock Volume - extremely successful & well-liked (had instant success)- supporter of the Revolution in France- his poetry is carefuly crafted to seem like spontaneous, instinctual poetry of Scottish peasants (musical!)PRE-ROMANTIC - drew from folk culture, folk lyrics, wrote in lang. of common people (Scottish people), oral folk tradition of Scottish people- wrote in language spoken by common people- emotions, nature, everyday topics- two poetic traditions - oral Scottish folklore & folk songs - literary tradition of poems (written in native Scottish dialect of English Scots)- motives and stories from folklore, language of ordinary peopleTo a Louse a poem about a louse on a lady's hat in churchTo a Mouse - in Scottish dialect - talking to a mouse - in touch with nature - I won't hurt you, shouldn't be afraid - apologizes for people's behavior - don't respect nature (kill animals & plants = we are all the same (feels sorry for the mouse) - losing natural habitats - cos of people - we are not making anything new & green - just killing & ruining - when December comes - animals won't have place to live - recap pre-romantic - common local dialect of folk Scottish, nature, criticizing the industrial movement - ruining the nature

Week 3Late RomanticsWordsworths contemporaries did not think of themselves as Romantics. The term was first applied about a half a century after his death.Romantic Diversity Romantics do not fit a single definition. They share the same ideas but remain highly individual in their philosophy. Byron despised both Coleridges metaphysics and Wordsworths theory and practice of poetry. Shelley and Keats were at opposite sides stylistically and philosophically. Blake was not like any of them. Poetry as means to challenge the cosmos, nature, political and social order Or as a means to escape from all this: individualism, the alienation of the artist from society, escapismROMANTIC FEATURES The lyric poem ( 1st person) = major form The I often not just the conventional lyric speaker but the author himself ( Wordsworth`s The Prelude) Concept od GENIOUS Nature poems Celebrating the ordinary life as well as outcasts Supernatural, strangest in beauty, mystical and magical, folklore, superstition Distant past or faraway exotic places (the East, Africa), luxurious, sensual, frightening and attractive at the same time Political disillusionment -> the clash between the ideal and reality in their poetryThe Lake School-represented through William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey.The Cockney School-is a derogatory term for the Londoners, working class origins- politics of reform and democracy- Leigh Hunt, William Hazlitt, John KeatsThe Satanic School-Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and their followers- non-conformismGOTHIC FICTION Horace Walpole`s The Castle of Otranto (1765) Ann Radcliffe, Mathew Gregory Lewis Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley...(CULTURAL) NATIONALISM Late romanticism: interest in folklore -> idea of a nature (national origin) becomes stronger Transcendent class, religious, and political diversion, but unites people under the flag of a nation Walter Scott: historical novel

George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824)is the only Romantic poet who was instantly famous. Descended from 2 aristocratic families. He was raised in Aberdeen and his mother was Scottish.Byron's Early Years and EducationAt the age of 10 he becomes the sixth Lord Byron. He went to Trinity College, Cambridge. He had good looks and deformed foot. He was avid for athletics prowess: cricket, boxing, fencing, horsemanship and swimming.A Young Don Juan He was sexually precocious. When he was only 7 years old, he fell violently in love with his little cousin, Mary Duff. 1809 he travelled through Portugal and Spain to Malta and then to Albania, Greece and Asia Minor.An OutcastHe had a sequence of relationships with ladies of fashion and finally he married Annabella Milbanke. She discovered his incestuous relationship with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh. Byron was ostracized and forced to leave England for good on April 25, 1816 (he went to Italy). mad, bad and dangerous to know :DLife in ItalyAssociated with Percy and Mary Shelley. It was a period of frenzied debauchery in Venice (200 women). And it was the period of Byron's greatest poetic creativity.Death in GreeceByron organized an expedition to assist the Greek war for independence from the Turks. He died after series of feverish attacks at the age 36. He became a Greek national hero.When a man hath no freedom to fight for at homeIn this song he describes why he went to a Greek war. He was looking for possibility of freedom. He wanted to find sth worth living for. In this song he is a little bit ironic, especially in the first strophe, he tells that this war seems to be worth fighting. In the second strophe he is little humorous and ironic, he shows us that the romantics are inspired by the experience of life.International ReputationByron influenced great authors like Goethe, Balzac, Stendhal, Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Melville. He also influenced painters such as Delacroix and composers such as Beethoven and Berhoz.Don Juanis Byron's longest satirical poem (a mock epic) in English, unfinished. Written in the fashion of Aristo's Orlando Furioso (1532). Byron's hero and homme fatal is more acted upon than active (ironic approach). Lit. advisers said that the poem is unacceptably immoral.The Byronic Herois/was sketched in Childe Harold and Manfred. Characteristics of the Byronical hero: -he is an alien, mysterious and gloomy spirit. He is also superior in his passion and powers. He has a torturing memory of an enormous guilt and he is driven to inevitable doom. He is absolutely self-reliant in his isolation. (modelled after Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost)Typical Byronic Heroes-Heathcliff in Wuthering Hights.- Captain Ahab in Moby Dick- Eugene Onegin in Pushkin's E. OneginTitanic Cosmic Self-Assertion.was praised in Bertrand Russel's History of Western Philosophy. Byron,not a systematic thinker but he helped to form Nietzche's concept of the Superman, the hero who is not subject to the ordinary criteria of good and evil. Coleridge on The Satanic hero Satanic pride, rebellious, no remorse, vain, unscrupulous Dangerous because people are fascinated by such figuresIndividualism Mind does not mirror the created universe, but it creates the universe it perceives Infinite striving (Streben nach dem Unendlichen Goethe`s Faust) Non-comformity, isolation -< fascination with great sinners (outcasts): Cain, Satan, Faust, Napoleon...She Walks in BeautyThis song begins with the poetry of sensibility. The poetry of sensibility foreshadows what Romantics do esthetically and what philosophically. ''She's like the night'' dust, night are more interesting than a day (in poetry of sensibility). We see much more than what is perceived with senses. And all that's best of dark and bright/ Meet in her aspect and her eyes- > Sublime: mixing the dark and the bright and creating a new type of beauty. You do not see this beauty during the day, this beauty cannot be seen with the senses. She must be a dark lady, not the perfection of beauty but he loves/likes her. Emphasis of quiteness is a sign of beauty. Physical features are nit emphasized. Beauty is sth intellectual, not based only on senses and seeingWhen we two partedRomantic way of describing love and disappointments of love.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)was an aristocrat by birth. 1810 he was expelled from Oxford after 6 months of study. He was expelled from Oxford because he (and his friend Thomas Jefferson Hogg- to sam ime kao zapamtila kada sam itala Northon :P ) wrote The Necessity of Atheism. In this work he wrote that there is no empirical proof for God's existence.Shelley's Early LifeHe eloped with Harriet Westbrook and married at the age of 18. She was 16. He has thought that the marriage is a tyrannical institution. He fell in love with Mary Wollstonecraft, went to live with her in France and invited Harriet to join them.Tragic Life of an OutcastHarriet committed suicide. Shelley became an outcast, married Mary and went to live in Italy. Both of their children died.Life and Death in Pisa1820 they settled in Pisa. Shelley's 'Pisan Circle': Byron, Edward Williams. On July 8, 1822 he and Williams sailing on their boat, named the Don Juan, he drowned. His ashes were interred in The Protestant Cemetery in Rome.A Song: Men of EnglandShelley's hope for a proletarian revolution after the Napoleonic Wars. This is a hymn of the British labour movement. Men of England wherefore ploughPrometheus Unbound.is a symbolic drama about the origin of evil and the possibility of overcoming it. It is based on the Prometheus Boung by Aeschylus. Both evil and the possibility of reform are the responsibility of people. External political reform impossible without internal reform of individuals.A Defence of Poetry (essay)Poetry the expression of the Imagination, endangered by the Utilitarian philosophers and materialistic orientation. Visionary and creative imagination is indispensable in all great human concerns.Material concepts of utility and progress foster the development of scinences and material well-being but they ignore the development of our moral imagination and poetic faculty. Man is an instrument over which a series of external and internal impressions are driven, like the alliterations of ever-changing wind over an Aeolican lyre, which move it by their motion to everchanging melody.The Purpose of PoetryThe cultivation of poetry is never more to be desired than at periods when, from an excess of the selfish and calculation principle, the accumulation of the materials of external life exceed the quantity of the power of assimilating them to the internal laws of human nature.Hymn to Intellectual beauty/ the chasm and the sacred riverThe poet is interested in what is unseen. Almost of the landscape of Khubla Khan internalized. Plenty of mystery in this song (the first Strophe).

John Keats (1795-1821)His father was a stableman. Keats was parentless from the age of 14. He apprenticed to apothecary surgeon. Abandons medical studies for poetry.Poetic Accomplishments Keats strated writing poetry at the age of 18.Escapism Escape from harsh reality into the world of the past or of classical beautyUt pictura poesis/Sister ArtsEkphrasis a graphic, and very often dramatic,verbal description of a visual work of art. Ut pictura poesis means : as the picture does, so does the poetry.) Sister arts from Muses, they are daughtres of Memory). Ode on a Grecian Urn (1819)He is looking at this urn and describes almost Metamorphasis, Greek mythology Gods

Week 5THE VICTORIAN AGE- period that brought Engl. to the highest point of development as world power - influence to the world- rapid change in lifestyle, economy (urbanization, trade, manufacturing)- science, inventions (steam power improves the existing tools & machines, new telegraph, intercontinental cable, photography, anesthetics, universal compulsory education)- Victoria - 1st British monarch that was photographed- economic, financial, imperial power - industry, banks, colonies (by 1890 the Commonwealth comprised more than a quarter of all the territory on earth)-THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE - from morbid, dreamy, mystical Romanticism to practicality, earnestness, moral responsibility, and domestic propertiesKipling & Rudy - ''the White Man's Burden'' - poem - celebration of empire as moral responsibility (hymn to US imperialism) with the warning of the costs involved - imperialists saw it as justification of the imperialist policy as a noble enterprise - expansion of empire as moral responsibility- 1837 - 1901- the last monarch of the House of Hanover (almost entirely of German descent) - Queen Victoria (George IIIs granddaughter)- Prince Albert (of Saxe, Coburg & Gotha) - ideal couple (she stayed single after he died), they symbolized a perfect Victorian ordinary couple, had 9 childrenBEGINNING OF THE VICTORIAN PERIODTIMELINE - 1832 - First Reform Bill - influenced Engl. class structure - allowed to vote (middle class & lower middle class; but not working class, only men (with at least 10 pounds earned)- 1845-46 - Potato Famine in Ireland, mass immigration to North AmericaTHE IRISH QUESTION- the famine fuelled nationalist sentiment of Irish Catholic that dominated Bristih politics during the following century ->proof that the Act of Uninon(1800) had been a trick for Britain`s benefit due to which Ireland continued to suffer- unlike the Irish, the Scots (united a century earlier) benefited economically, commercially and culturally- violence in the second half of Victoria`s reign and demands for home rule for Ireland- Ireland wouldn`t get home until 1920s- 1847 - Ten Hours Factory Act - women & children allowed to work for only 10 hours in factories - 1851 - Great Exhibition of Industry and Science at the Crystal Palace - Prince Albert opened, in Hyde Park, crystal & iron palace, 1st example of modern architecture (functional usage of glass & iron)INDUSTRIALISM, TECHNOLOGY - 1830 - Liverpool-Manchester Railway (1st steam-powered public railway in the world) - 1836 - first train in London - 1878 - electric street lighting in London - 1890 - first subway line in London - 1861-65 - American Civil War (11 southern slaves states declared their secession from the US and formed the Confederate States of America; they lost; slavery abolished) - between North & South - 1867 - Second Reform Bill - right to vote extended to working-class men - 1868 - opening of Suez Canal (allows water transportation between Europe & Asia [British to India] without navigation around Africa The Highway to India) - 1876 - Queen V. made empress of India - trades imported to Britain (working slaves Indians)EVOLUTION - 1859 - Charles Darwin - published in book The Origin of Species - evolution = progress (this was controversy), human = higher animal (in biological sense) - ''Survival of the Fittest'' - collides with the concept of Biblical Creation & with the idea that humans have a special role in the world (moral)EDUCATION - 1880 - compulsory education- 1891 - free elementary education (everybody had to go to school, poor people as well)THE ''WOMAN QUESTION'' - could not vote or hold political offices- until the Married Women's Property Act 1870-1908 women could not own or handle their property - after the act they could own their salary, own/handle their property (but! when they got married it all belongs to the husband hole in the law)- could divorce their husbands only on grounds of adultery, combined with cruelty, incest, or bestiality- Mary Wollstonecraft wrote an essay on this topic (A Vindication of the Rights of Women)WOMEN EDUCATION - 1837 - 3 England universities - women could not attend- 1848 - 1st women's college in London- the end of Victoria's reign, women could enroll at 12 universities (even at Oxford and Cambridge) - but couldn't earn a degree - cos they couldn't workEMPLOYMENT FOR WOMEN - upper class = marriage, nothing to do (women were taught trivial accomplishments just to fill up their days)- lower class = industry, emigration, prostitution (not a social problem), a governessSUFFRAGE MOVEMENT - 1860 - women's right to vote & hold offices (political movement)BEGINNINGS OF FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY- Mary Wollstonecraft - A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) - argues that women should receive education because they have an important role/position in the nation (they raise the children) - against double standards for men and women; men encourage women to be excessively emotional- participations in local elections - 1860s- fought till 1918 - women of property over 30 could vote- 1928 - all women allowed to vote when they were 21 (when men could too)

John Stuart Mill- 1866 - introduced the 1st parliamentary motion extending the franchise to womenThe Subjection of Women (1869) - challenges the assumptions about women's role in society (teach women to behave in certain ways)- women slaves as natural - not natural - husband legally always had the role of a tyrant, legal subordination of one sex to the other - is wrong itself, slave natures/mentality and master natures/mentality- rule over women - not by force, but voluntarily accepted the rule, women make no complaint & are consenting parties; however women do not accept this situation- things we thing are natural arent natural - they are arbitrary, we decided this way (they werent made by God) says with his essay- ultimate subjection - only brutish men rule over women physically, most men rule over women by their minds (mentally - to love them)- men do not want solely the obedience of women, they want their sentiments- enslavement of minds - women are brought up to believe that they must subject themselves to men- the nature of either sex could not be known since they have only been seen in their present relation to one anotherVICTORIAN PUBLICATIONS - increase in literacy, perfected printing press & paper production (but books expensive and hard to get), proliferation of journals/magazines, novels first published in instalments in weekly journals & magazinesTHE NOVEL - dominant form in Victorian lit., initially published in serial form (in journals published in parts so that people needed to buy the papers to find out what's going on in the story), realism (the authors try to convince us that characters/events resemble those in actual life, but they write in their own style)THE NOVEL - ROMAN - the term used in most European lang. (derivate from med. Romance), Engl. name derivate from Italian 'novella' - short story (used term by English), 'a little new thing' (Boccaccio's Decameron) - short tale in prose- novella, novelle, novelette - prose fiction of middle length (Conrad - Heart of Darkness) - not the same as Italian novellaNOVEL - an extended work of fiction written in prose, a variety of characters, compilation of plot(s), ample development of milieu (describing the social context/environment in great detail)PREDECESSORS - the picaresque narrative emerged in 16th cent in Spain (Don Quixote (1605) quasi picaresque) [picaro - Spanish for 'rouge'] - adventures of a rascal whose character never changes (develops) through his adventures, realistic in manner, episodic in structure, often satiric in aim- predecessors - Sir Phillip Sidney: Arcadia - a prose romance- 17th cent. Character (brief sketch of a type/way of life)- French romances - Madame de la Fayettes: La Princesse de Cleves (1678)EARLY NOVELS:- Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe (1719), Moll Flanders (1722), picaresque narratives, episodic in structure (involving one person)- Samuel Richardson: Pamela or Virtue Rewarded = Novel of Character or Psychological Novel (1740)- epistolary novel - the narrative conveyed entirely by an exchange of letters- Hentry Fielding: Shamela (a burlesque & parody of Richardson's Pamela), Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones - a picaresque novel about a foundling who becomes rich (foundling - somebody who is found, a baby in a basket)- the spirit of the age - from the morbid, dreamy, mystical Romanticism to practicality, earnestness, moral responsibility, domestic propriety

INDUSTRIAL NOVEL Portray the difficul conditions of life of the urban working class during the Industrial revolution Deals with the pressing issues of Victorian age: education, industrialisation, the Woman QuestionCharles Dickens- all 3 most imp. issues (in the V. era) - women, education, industrialization- ''Hard Times'' - published in 1854 in installments, from April to August, as weekly serial in ''Household Words''- only Dickens novel not set in London- industrial novel - a genre of early Victorian lit. - portrays the diff. conditions of the urban working class during the Ind. Rev.- nature opposite to the industrial town (Coketown - dirty, industrial, full of smoke, smell of oil) - the industrial revolution is making life miserable in the cities- education at Coketown - no emotion - pure facts, science (not to be checked & proved), echo of Darwin's theory (people are just animals), stick to facts!, cold between teacher & students- this kind of education can bring worst in a person - these children lack love! (education = murdering the innocence - no feelings, no fancy, negative aspect of utilitarian [rational] philosophy)- schoolroom with no emotion just facts- teacher Mr. Gradgrind gives sorts of facts to students (sort of a tyrant, rough rules over children)- square (think inside the box - lack of fancy) - dehumanized education (shown by fact that children don't need a name, but they are only a number)- Bitzer's definition of a horse - a dictionary description of a horse, he's a model-pupil (he learns facts) - inappropriate for a child his age- phenomenon called Fancy - metallurgical Louisa, mathematical Thomas- Sissy vs. Louisa- Sissy - more happy, clown & dancer in circus, parents want her education, gave her child books - different attitude to what education means, doesn't attach with emotions, doesn't know how to react- Tom (and Louisa) - very unhappy with his life, feels the way he's living is not good, wants to become a bad guy (he robs a bank he's supposed to work at - the blames Steven for the robbery), he was devious from the childhood (began planning bad things)- Victorian ideal of a submissive woman (Victorian girl) - Louisa (good friend of Sissy; a whole part of her was neglected - the emotional part)- Sissy - was different (not fact fact fact), had a positive effect on Louisa as a friend, makes mistakes because she has common sense & isnt just learning facts, shes thinking with her own head, shows compassion (most of characters lack this, except the people from the circus)- people from the circus - inn Pegasuss Arms - fantasy, helpfulness, emotions- industrial revolution - represented bad (calls people hands cos they just need to work & nothing else)- Steven - said hes going to the countryside to try his passion (agriculture) which is opposite/contrast from the industrial- Bounderby - self-made man, has a loving supportive family, with good education- false capitalist logic - false myth self-made man - work hard and make something for yourself, but! they actually had nothing for themselves because the money is in the hands of few people- arrogant attitudes of the rich who blame poor for their lack of money (because they got rich so why couldnt the poor, when actually the rich are paying little money to the poor)- sowing, ripping, gardening - saying in the Bible - it could apply to education (how you educate the kids is the way theyll end up, how you act is how youll end)- the women-question - women have no voice (the house keeper), no education, no authority in the house, insignificant- Sissy is happily married, Louisa isnt (because she lacked love while growing up so shes in a loveless marriage - her father said that she doesnt need love for a good marriage)- Steven & Rachel cant get a divorce cos only rich can get that- problem with all marriages - loveless, not emotions, Victorian marriages made for benefits (money)- pressing issues of the Victorian age (seen in this book) - education, industrialization, women question- people from the circus - opposite to Gradgrinds coldness & facts, they arent interested in facts but in fancy- Grandgrind minds nicknames because: imaginative, emotions, personal----------------------------------------------------Education at Coketown Now, what I want is Facts (odmah na poetku prva reenica pa do) .. Stick to the facts, Sir !'' very specific worldview of life. Human beings are reasoning animals. The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous valut pa do. The emphasis was helped by the speakers mouth, which was wide, thin and hart set! '' - best example of characterization. Facts no mistery, nothing hidden, everything rational! Dehumanized Education Girl number twenty,.'' a girl (Sissy Jupe) is only a number ( With the industrialisation and the envolment of machines and mechanization people are also turned into machines, without emotions, feelings, without imagination, the whole life started to be very mechanistic).Blitzer's Definition of a HorseSissy is unable to define a horse but Blitzer defined the horse by its mechanical side, he tells nothing about horse as a noble animal or about its character.. Humans were also defined from their mechanical side, without telling abot their feelings or character or sth else..Phenomen Called FancyLouisa and Tom were peeping through a hole into circus.. Mr Gradgring (their father) was furious when he saw them but his anger was described in a very mechanistic way..Mr Josiah BounderbyFrom rages to riches he always spoke how he was abandoned as a child and live din poverty but he raised his social staus and became rich.. / Mrs. Peglar is his mother, she didn't abandoned him, he was raised sourrounded with love an attention and his mother saved money for his education but when he became rich he had forbbiden her to visit him/ Bounderby lied about his childhood.Social changes / Bounderby vs Mrs. SparsitSocial unrests(socijalni nemiri) / Stephen Blackpool vs Slackbridge-We see in Bounderby a change in society in which money rules!Victorian MarriageMr and Mrs Gradgrind -> not a happy marriageStephen Blackpool (and Rachael) -> Stepehn cannot marry Rachel because he is already married to a woman which is an alcoholcMr Bounderby and Louisa (James Harthouse and Tom)- Bounderby is too old for Louisa, she doesn't love him (Harthouse wants to seduce Louisa, Tom has grown into a selfish and not good person)----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Victorian Poetry

Victorians and the RomanticsVictorians are belated Romantics. By 1837 all major Romantic poets, except Wordsworth, were death.Strong Romantic influences.Victorian Escapism (Escapism- an activity, entertainment that helps you to forget about boring things; running freom reality/ real life)Matthew Arnold thought/ said that poets should use heroic materials oft he past ( poets should become escapists). He gave up writing poetry because his age lacked the culture necessity to support great poetry.Major Features of Victorian PoetryLong NarrativeDramatic MonologueA lyric poemi n the voice of a speaker ironically distinct from the poet'sVisual images ( very common int he late Victorian poetry )Alfred, Lord Tennyson ( 1809-1892 )He was The Poet od the People . 1850 he became Poet Laureate. The earnings from his poetry sometimes over 10000 pounds a year. Victorian Family He was born in Victorian family. He was the fourth son in a family of 12 children. He went to Cambridge. one of his brothers was ina n insane asylum, another one was addicted to opium, another had violent quarrels with his father.( Insanity became a significant problem of the Victorian age)The Lotos-EatersAn excerpt from the Odyssey (9.82-9.7)(IN Odyssey : after 10 years of war Odyssey and his soldiers/ friends are on their way home- > heroic quest. The objective is to get home. On their way home they have many obstacles. This type of quest, homeward journey, is important for the Victorian poetry).Analyses:In which it seemed always afternoon setting: the afternoon. Afternoon is a lazy time, not too hot, not to cold, perfect for doing nothing.. All roun the coast the languid air did swoom. / Breathing like one that hath a weary dream Balasted Romanticsm, building the atmosphere, like it is a slow motion place. The charmed sunset lingered low adown/ In the red West sunset time, again pointing West. Read this strophe metaphorically. Form of escapism!Fali nam jedna strana, tj jedan dio koji je ovako analiziran : Those guys don't want to go home. Home does not make sense any more after 10 years of war. They do not seem to fit int his world anymore- > form of escapism. They have children, wives at home but they do not care about that anymore. Odyssey cared and because oft hat he came home, but they do not care. They refuse to go home. This stop at the heroic quest will turn the whole heroic quest in totally different direction ( in modernism- modernist quest: HOw to leave home! ).

Robert Browning (1812-1889)was known as Mrs Browning HusbandHe had no public recognition until 1860s. He was admired as wise philosopher (especially by Ezra Pound- an American modernist poet) and religious teacher. Ezra POund said that Browning knew how poetry should be written.(Many of Browning's poems were about Italian artists)

Ekphrasis (poetry and art can be interchangeable; picture/painting can be verbally described)My Last Duchess Duke tells his visitor what kind of a woman his Duchess was, he is showing him a picture of her, because she is death. She has a mysterious smile on that picture, she was always smiling. Duke is angry because she smiled at everything and everyone because that smile was reserved only for him because he made duchess out of her/ he married her and so gave her the name Duchess..The voice oft he speaker ironically distinct feom the poet's.Aesthetic theory / the commentator reveals his own character(you learn more about the critic and his character than about a painting..)

Porphyria's LoverPorphyria : Greek word meaning purple.Porphyry- a word that is often used by poets and means a very beautiful purple stone similar to marble.In medicine, Acute Intermittent Porphyria is sometimes characterized by mental confusions, hallucinations.Analysis:When no voice replied,She put my arm about her waist he isnt moving, he is like a corpse, she is making him to embrace her.And made her smooth white shoulder bare,And all her yellow hair displaced,And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair she is trying to make love with him but he does not do anything... in Victorian poetry the yellow long hair was very important!at last I knewPorphyria worshiped me: surpriseMade my heart swell, and still it grewWhile I debated what to do. he knows that she loves him but he is still thinking what to do..That moment she was mine, mine, fair,Perfectly pure and good: I foundA thing to do, and all her hairIn one long yellow string I woundThree times her little throat around,And strangled her. he is a possessive lover, he wants her all, so he kills her and now she is only his... The threat is in the hair! Uses her hair to kill her! Uses her strength to kill her! A womans power is represented in her hair and he feels threaten with that power and so he kills her...(In Victorian era they used metaphors for sex. They did not speak open about that theme, it was a tabu..).And we sit together now,And all night long we have not stirred,And yet God has not said a word! he is a completely mad, insane person! Everythin was perfect and he had a perfect lover and perfect situation and he wanted to keep that like that forever and so he killed his perfect lover in order to make the whole situation/state immortal..And yet God has not said a word! no moral punishment .

The Pre-Raphaelists...are: Dante Gabriel Rosetti, John Everett Millas, William Holman Hunt. They were poets and painters. The revival of the simplicity and the pure colors od pre-Renaissance art. Repudiated the established academic style.

Sister Arts different arts were patronized by different muses who were the daughters of Mnemozine (Memory).The picture of The Blassed Damozel- she looks down from heavenAgain the picture of The Blassed Damozel she is not happy on this picture, an angel with lilies is there..In the poem The Blessed Damozel we have the mixture of those two pictures!

Analyses:Ending in heaven is Christian heroic quest.At the beginning she is behind the bars/ barrows (From the gold bar of heaven), she is leaning, she is looking in a wrong direction, she is looking back- that is not good. Three lilies, seven stars Biblical symbolism in numbers and images. She is dressed in white and that is a symbol od purity but she has long yellow hair which is very dangerous in Victorian poetry. She was supposed to leave her body, emotions, hair behind, but there is still the heat, the warmth, she didnt leave her body... she is supposed to be a blessed soul looking at God, but she has kept her body- that is wrong. The blessed souls are not supposed to cry/weap in heaven! When you are in heaven you have to be happy because you are enjoying the presence of God, but she isnt happy and she isnt enjoying anything...

Walter Pater (1839-1894)(he was a notorious homosexual)As schoolboy he read john Ruskins Modern Painters. Pater went to and remained in Oxford.

Aesthetic MovementAn art-centric movement influenced by Walter Pater and his essays.Origins in Keats and Shelley.Life has to be lived intensely by following an ideal of beuty.Art for arts sake (separating the art in aesthetics from the world of ethics, art is supposed to give you pleasure).There is no connection between art and morality.Oscar Wilde was Paters student.

The RenaisscanceRejects Ruskins abstract, universal definition of beauty in art. Beauty is relative. The aim of the students of aesthetics is to define beauty in the most concrete terms. What is this song or picture, ..........pa sve do.......... How is my nature modified by its presence, and under its influence? if it hasnt got any positive effect on you it is not good. Determines what beauty is about. Beauty is in the eye of the beholderThe art critics duty : to educate the temperament.

La Gioconda (Leonardos mysterious lady and his masterpiece. Pater describes that painting, ore better to say that woman on the painting and through that description we know more about him than her).The best traditions and techniques converge in this Leonardos painting.Expressive of what in the ways of thousand years men had come to desire.All the thoughts and experience of the world (.) as a Saint Anne, the mother of Mary (page 1642) men desire for a woman that is a whore and a saint at the same time. A saintly whore , she is a saint and a vampire.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

The Importance of Being EarnestOscar Wilde was a Walter Paters student. He was firstly a journalist in Dandy and then a social critic. (He dressed himself very flamboyantly.. He was a poet, wrote novels The Picture of Dorian Gray , playwright).

The Master of Paradox(One of his paradoxes : art influences the shapes of the nature, and not vice versa)The Picture of Dorian Gray - > young man painted, while the young man never ages, his picture does. Confusion between aesthetic and real life.De Profundus (his autobiographies, and one of the best autobiographies, wilde admitted that he confused the life of aesthetics and ethics and he lived by the rules of aesthetics)(Homosexuallity was not allowed in Victorian age, Wilde was tried because of that, went to prison for 2 years. After those years he went to Paris and died there).

The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)(great comedy and a satire)

In this work he is mixing ethics and aesthetics.Algernon and Lane Lady Bracknell (how undecorous) (she came in the room and saw Jack o his knees, he was proposing Gwendolen, but Lady Bracknell didi not know that, and that didnt look beautiful to her and she said how undecorous).

Romantic Love Gwendolen and Jack (he says that he fell in love with her when he saw her fore the first time, and she says she fell in love with him before she met him, she fell in love with his name).Cecily and Algernon she was already engaged with him in her imagination, she wrote in her diary an imaginar romance between them although she never saw him before, she fell in love with his name, and stories about his wickedness)Witicism and PunsLady Bracknells interview(Question about Jacks parents. He lost them both. Lady Bracknell says: To lose one parent is acceptable but to lose both of them is unforgivable. She was pleased because Jack smokes cigarettes)

Week 6Victorian Poetry and Drama; The Aesthetic Movement

VICTORIAN POETRY By 1837 all major Romantic poets, except Wordsworth, were dead. Yet, many Victorian writers and poets, especially the Bront sisters, R.L. Stevenson, B. Stoker, Tennyson and Rossetti remind us of the key concepts of Romanticism. In fact, we can say that poets build upon the sense of belated Romanticism which means that strong Romantic influences can be recognized in Victorian art, even though the Victorians do not revere the power of imagination as the Romantics did. Under the influence of novel, which is the major Victorian genre and which implies telling a story, Victorian poets are also seeking new ways of telling stories in verse. Major features of Victorian poetry: Narrative poetry: Victorian poets tend to write long narrative poems which tell a story. The influence of the novel is clear as poets apply techniques and strategies used by prose writers. E.g. they experiment with characters and point of view (some poems present plot through several perspectives). There appear also epistolary poems. Victorian Escapism: certain poets tend to write about the history. This tendency is illustrated by Mathew Arnold's argument that poets should use heroic materials of the past. Arnold gave up writing poetry because he believed his age lacked the culture necessary to support great poetry. Dramatic Monologue: dramatic monologue appears to be one of the preferred lyric forms. It is a lyrical poem in which the voice of the speaker is (sometimes ironically) distinct from the poet. The lyric speaker addresses a silent audience in relation to a situation/event and his words reveal his own temperament/character. Sounds: the tone is the sign of feeling poetry tends to be very auditive and place great importance on sounds/tones as they can reveal emotions Visual images: poetry tends to be pictorial; it constructs visual images which represent the dominant emotion/situation of the poem. The aesthetic tendency of combining the visual with the poetical brings poets and painters closer together (Sister Arts!). Like Blake, artists frequently illustrated poems in the desire to show closeness between painting and poetry. In addition, poets often wrote poems about paintings (ekphrasis!). The idea of the Sister Arts was especially valued by the artistic group called The Pre-Raphaelites. THE PRE RAPHAELITES The Pre-Raphaelites were a group of painters, poets and critics who repudiated the established academic style and supported the idea of close ties between the arts (Sister Arts). Most of them were both poets and painters and combined both in their work. The major representatives are: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, and William Holman Hunt. They proposed the revival of late medieval and early Renaissance art (before Raphael whose work was too maniristic[footnoteRef:1] for them). It is characterised by almost photographic representation (mimesis: imitation of nature; truth to nature is according to Ruskin the principal role of artist) and the use of luminous, bright colours and their works deal with noble, religious, or moralizing topics. Moved by political changes, mass industrialization and social ills of the mid-nineteenth-century England, they attempted artistic renewal and moral reform. Very often they depict a moment in a narrative (illustration of a moment in a literary work). [1: Maniristic means that the artists ignored the harmonious balance of Renaissance composition and their paintings featured characters with elongated proportions and ecstatic facial expressions. ]

Victorian essays on literature and art the basis of modern literary criticism Victorian prose writers and thinkers (Thomas Carlyle, Mathew Arnold, John Ruskin, and Walter Pater) considered that literature should have an important place in the scientific and materialistic world and they wrote extensive essays on literature, history and art. Culture (appreciation of great works of literature and art) gives us a sense and meaning that was once found in religion. For Arnold, culture offers a moral experience. For Pater, culture offers an aesthetic experience. Paters The Renaissance focuses on the idea of beauty as personal and fleeting. The art critic cannot say what is beautiful, but should teach others how to be moved by the presence of beautiful objects. AESTHETICISM/ THE AESTHETIC MOVEMENT The Aesthetic Movement emerges in the late Victorian period. Its origins can be found in some of the writings of Keats, Shelley, and the Pre-Raphaelites, and especially in Walter Paters essays about art and beauty. In France, the same artistic tendencies were known as Symbolism or Decadence (Baudelaire, Flaubert, Mallarme). Aestheticism represents an art-centric movement, its motto being Art for arts sake (lart pour lart) which implies that aesthetic values should be more emphasised than socio-political themes in literature and the arts. In the Introduction to the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde states that All art is quite useless implying that it does not have a (didactic) purpose (as was claimed by the Utilitarians) and should not convey moral or sentimental messages. The proponents of the Aesthetic movement rejected Ruskins and Arnolds conception of art as something moral and useful stating that there is no connection between art and morality. They cultivated a kind of a cult of beauty: art only needs to be beautiful and provide refined sensuous pleasure. VICTORIAN DRAMA Theatre was very popular at the time, all classes of people attended it, and various types of theatrical performances were held: melodramas, burlesque, pantomimes, musicals, altered versions of plays, etc. Queen Victoria attended certain plays and thus made theatre a respectable institution. However, most plays produced at the time are highly trivial. To earn a living in a world with no protection of copyright, playwrights had to produce masses of plays according to a formula, without any artistic inspiration. The melodrama was among the most popular genres and it tended to follow an essential formula. Although the plot was varied (it could be Gothic, romance, exotic, domestic), the melodrama had to have moral retribution in the end as both the audience and the stage censor demanded that sin be punished and virtue rewarded. Even though both working- and leisureclass theatregoers knew that virtue did not always triumph in real life, audiences wanted moral reassurance by seeing it win on stage. So, heroes were entirely good and villains entirely bad. This illustrates the spirit of Victorian fake prudishness according to which all appearances had to be proper, despite the fact that reality was often highly improper. Two more prominent and complex playwrights at the time were George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde who both wrote comedies that aimed precisely at Victorian pretence and hypocrisy. *** Aesthetic vs. Decadent - Further reading From: Cohen, Philip. John Evelyn Barlas, A Critical Biography: Poetry, Anarchism, and Mental Illness in Late-Victorian Britain. Rivendale Press, 2012. 214-215. With alienation as the point of departure, the Aesthetic and Decadent approaches to life and art branch off, or at least settle at different places along a continuum of attitudes toward the society left behind and the prison of consciousness. At least on a theoretical level, the Aesthete may be blissfully indifferent to the forsaken social world. Through astute and highly selective observation, he can draw pleasing sensations and impressions from it, though for him it has a lower potential yield than art. He need not hate the world. He has retreated to art and inaction in pursuit of beauty. Morality is simply irrelevant. Aestheticism places greater emphasis on the creation of art and stresses form over subject matter. Poetry in this vein often relies on intricate verse forms, mostly French, which present demanding technical requirements and feature verbal music, including insistent rhyme and repetition. Aesthetic verse also emphasizes visual description and color. The Aesthetic alienation and retreat from life are recapitulated in the verse itself, often through exotic setting or subject matter from the long-distant past that, in turn, originates more in literature, legend, and myth than in history. As the medium is to certain extent the message, the French verse forms, almost all of which derive from the troubadours, suggestively heighten the separation from the present. The purest Aesthetic poems are not really "about" anything. Form, sound, image, and mood dominate to the extent that little or no room remains for ideas. In England, the Aesthetic impulse found a voice, even before it had been labeled, in a handful of brilliant seminal poems by Tennyson, including the archetypal "The Lotos-Eaters" It also produced the accomplished parlor verse of Austin Dobson, Andrew Lang, and their ilk. Such poems are given over entirely to the evocation of beauty and aesthetic satisfaction, within the constricted, detached, amoral realm of art. The dominant notes of Aestheticism are escape, fantasy, detachment, passivity, reverie, and harmony, The Decadent, in contrast, wages a guerilla war against the dominant culture. He defines himself through conflict and contrast. Having erected, or accepted, the same barriers against life as the Aesthete, he then attacks. Through his efforts epater le bourgeoisie, he expresses his contempt for prevailing values and sensibilities and asserts his sense of superiority and the amorality of art. This aggressive stance toward society conveys the artist's alienation. At the same time, however, the attack, often in the form of intimate self-revelation, suggests both engagement in one of its most direct forms, and powerful communication, rather than the silence of separation. If society considers sexual relations, even between husband and wife, a private matter bordering on taboo, the Decadent may devote a poem to a graphic, intimate description of a night with a prostitute. But of course the attack itself serves at very least to underscore the force and dominance of mainstream morality, if not to concede its validity. The paradox, or self-contradiction, plays throughout perhaps the greatest English expression of Decadent thought and art. The Picture of Dorian Gray. In the "Preface," added after initial publication, Wilde boldly asserted; "There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are either well written, or badly written. That is all." In this statement of art for art's sake, he defended his book against moral criticism of its subject matter, arguing that morality is irrelevant to art. Yet the book he sought to rescue from moral judgment is itself a moral condemnation of all aspects of the very tempting, attractive Decadence, including the effort to view and live life as if it were art and therefore beyond good and evil. ***