Romantic Poets: Differences - First Generation of Romantic Poets

First Generation of Romantic Poets

William Wordsworth (Lake District 1770 - 1850). He studied in Cambridge until 1790 when he went on a walking tour of France and Italy, in this period he became a supporter of the French Revolution. He returned in London alone and he met the philosopher William Godwin and the poet Coleridge (the begin of one of the great friendship of literally history). He had become disillusioned with the Revolution, he compared it in The Prelude (1805) to a "monstrous child who refused to grow up". He turned very conservative. In 1798 W. and C. published anonymously Lyrical Ballads, in 1800 the second edition included the Preface. In 1802 he married Mary Hutchinson, 5 children. He returned in Lake District (no Industrial Revolution, only nature) he was made Poet Laureate in 1843.

Lyrical Ballads (expression of feeling of the poet clo 515j96f sed to (riferito) common people). Most of the poems were by W. but C. contributed with some poems, including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. 1798 I, 1800 II, 1802 III. The book took origin from a discussion between W. and C. about the 2 cardinal point of poetry: 1. the power of the poet to express people's feelings, they can't say them 2. the power to transform everyday-life into something more meaningful.

Differences: W. believed in the second point of poetry, he tried to explain the everyday facts, which were magic, instead (invece) C. thought that poetry transform supernatural into something common. The Preface it can be considered as W's poetic manifesto because he explained his idea of poetry and nature. For him poetry doesn't come from the immediate, it needs time, so poetry take its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity and in loneliness, it's the result of memory. Poet has the power of imagination, he's more sensitive than other people. In his opinion poet must use a simple language, common language. Nature for him is the expression of the ideal in the real, the ultimate reality.

Sonnet Composed upon Westminster Bridge (1802), 3 quatrains, free verses. He wrote it on the bridge, it's an immediate composition, he was stricken (colpito) by the London's view in the morning, it's seen as something quite, the city is asleep, he wasn't alone but only he could write a poem because he was a poet (=more sentive). In this poem there is a mixture of natural and urban elements (river, earth, sky ecc., tower, ships, domes ecc.). The city, houses, rivers are personifications, he used inversions (words are distributed in a wrong order) to make it more solemn and slow.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud (1815) 4 stranzas, rhymes: 4alternate, last 2 rhyming couplets. In the first 3 stanzas we have verbs in the past, because he remembered the emotions of his vision of the daffodils, instead in the last stanza we have verbs in the present because they show the effect of the memory on the mood in the present (he's on the sofa to remember it). There is a inverted prospective, because poet becomes a cloud, watching flowers, instead to see them from the ground. He compared host (multitude) of daffodils to the milky way (via lattea), to stars and to waves of the lake.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Devonshire 1772 - Lake District 1834). He studied in Cambridge, but he never graduated, being more concerned (interessato) with French Revolution, politics and heavy drinking. He met Southey with whom he planned to go to America to create the Pantisocraty, a community with extreme freedom, common ownership (abolition of private property), this is his idea of idealism, he took this idea from French Revolution, but he never realised it. He was a "Genius and Intemperance" because he drew (prese) inspiration for his poems from alcohol and drugs, also he had a lot of women. He married Sara Fricker, 4 children. In 1796 he published Poems on Various Subject. He made friend with W. he had a dramatic change in political ideas. In 1797 he wrote Kubla Khan, which had come to him in a dream after taking laudanum (opium used as a painkiller). Together with W. he wrote Lyrical Ballads. In 1800 they settled (trasferirono) in Lake District. He fell in love with another woman (his marriage broke up (finì), Sara Hutchinson, but his love was unrequited (non ricambiato), he wrote Dejection: An Ode to her. In 1817 he wrote the Biographia Literaria.

Imagination: for him exist 2 types of imagination, primary and secondary. 1. primary imagination is the base of all perceptions and can be shared by all men 2. secondary imagination is stronger and deeper and it's typical of the poet who thanks to it can create poetry. Primary and secondary are the same, but the degree and the mode are different.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner It tells the story of a mariner who commits the crime of killing an albatross and of his subsequent punishment (punizione seguente). At a wedding feast the mariner starts to tell his story to one of the guest who cannot refuse to hear. His ship was trapped in ice, but an albatross appeared and it guides he and his crew (equipaggio) to safety. Inexplicably (senza ragione) the mariner shoots the albatross with his crossbow. The crew excused him, being punished too. They all died from thirst (sete), only the mariner survived, but he must tell his story to the people he meets for all his life, to teach other people respect of God's creatures. Interpretation: man is a positive evil: men try to overcome the limits of natural orders, because they are curious. But it so doing they're destined to fail and to be punished. Men are victims of positive evil: evil made not on purpose but out of curiosity.

Second Generation of Romantic Poets

Percy Bysshe Shelley (Sussex 1792 - Spezia 1822). He studied in Oxford, but he rebelled against the conventional upbringing (educazione), he was expelled when he written a pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism. He married in 1811 for a father's order, but he ran abroad (scappò) with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. His wife died, so he married Mary, they went to Italy in 1818, in Lucca, Venice, Este. Here he wrote Ozymandias, Julian and Maddalo, Stanzas written in dejection (disperazione). In 1819/20 he wrote Prometheus Unbound, inspired by political events, including Ode to the West Wind. He drowned in 1822.

For S. the poet had a social role because through his poetry he could reform the world, so the poetry had a revolutionary role, but he was aware that the human words weren't not enough to express his ideas. His most natural element is air.

Ode to the West Wind (1819) The wind is symbol of: 1. French Revolution 2. the idea of rev. in general 3. social interpretation, absolute freedom he wanted to break free (to loose) the human body, he desired to be an atom, to nullify himself. It's influenced by the utopian radicalism of William Godwin, who though that human beings are naturally equal and power corrupts governors and people and inevitably creates inequalities. Wind changes nature continuously (breath, trumpet call, spirit, voice). A positively point of view of nature is the definition "destroyer an preserver" because it's the natural circle, when every cold winter is followed by spring, it's  destruction and renewal (death and rebirth). The poem can be associated with Blake's Tyger because both talks about that opposites are inseparable. When he says that wind is symbol of the perpetual movement, the positive aspect of the wind lies because he considers that it never arrives at any final form. At last the poet desires to became a part of the wind to scatter his words, as seeds, all over the world to change in better the society.

John Keats (London 1795 - Rome 1821). Educated at a private school in Enfield, where his schoolmaster encouraged him to read and write. He became an apprenticed to an apothecary-surgeon, remaining a passionate reader. His first volume of poems was published in 1817. In 1818 he moved in Hampstead (London), here he fell in love with Fanny Brawne, during this period he wrote a great amount of poetry as: The Eve of St Agnes, Hyperion, Ode on a Grecian Urn, To Autumn,  his second volume appeared in 1820. In this year he was very ill with tuberculosis, he moved to Rome, where he died three mounts later, on February '21. He was buried in Rome, his epitaph: "Here lies one whose name was writ in water". Hi poetry is an expression of himself, of poet's internal world. He has no abstractly moral or political purpose, he though he shares some of Coleridge's interest in the fantastic and supernatural, he's more interested in the sensuous qualities of poetry. He anticipated the "art for art's sake" from Wilde.

Ode on a Grecian Urn (1819) This poem is self-reflexive: it's a work of art which is also a reflection on works of art and their effects. The Greek urn, that the poet addresses as though it were a person (s'indirizza a questa come fosse una persona), is decorated with several scenes. The figures on the urn are eternal, but it's also a negative aspect because they're also stationary and lifeless, they're cold and people are made of marble (marmo). All their possibilities can never be realised. Art may be eternal, but it also means death and silence. Negative capability: to be able to live in a state of permanent uncertainty and doubt. The creation of poetry isn't a rational act, but the opposite because the poet must be ready to accept the mystery of inspiration. The closing lines "Beauty is truth, truth beauty" is a tautological phrase, it repeats twice the same concept, it common represent the poet's own cult of art as a kind of autonomous. Link with other authors: in the II stanza he refers to Platonic's idea, the perfect music is the music played by imagination, so it's silence, this music can be interpreted by everyone as he wants, it can be all kind of music. The silence is a superior form of music, which embrace all possible music and not only a particular realisation. In the III stanza he linked his idea to Leopardi's "Sabato del villaggio": a sense of hope, an expressed act can gives happiness, the real pleasure often comes from the expectation rather than from the real full fulfilment of the desire. Also he refers to "Spoon River Anthology", to the George Gray epitaph: human passion is source of sorrow, the man will never fulfil his love, but in so doing he will never sorrow.