THE ROMANTICISM (ETHICAL PERIOD)

LIRYCAL BALLADS = written by WORDSWORTH  (ODE ON INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY)and COLERIDGE (RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER, the peak of Romanticism) (also called the lake district poets) is the manifesto of English Romantic movement : it's a return to a national an 414b14e d agricultural traditions.

The characteristics of this movement are also the social ethics brought about the FRENCH REVOLUTION = the ideas of political and moral freedom.

We also find these ideas in the 2 other poets : BYRON&SHELLEY while in KEATS (second generation) we find the perfect understanding of BEAUTY.

Wordsworth use a language in which the simple themes are suggestive.

Coleridge mixes archaisms and the verse has a fantastic potency.

NAPOLEONIC WARS = make the 2 poets to return to more traditional position.

W. became a supporter of the French Revolution, C. tried to find a compromise between German idealism and Anglican orthodoxy.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770 Cockermouth,1850)

As a child he was rebel&introvert. He graduated at Cambridge, then he went to France by the side of Girondins but when France became belligerent, he became reactionary and conservative.

DEEP MORAL CRISIS = this change produces in him a deep moral crisis and he also had personal troubles (with Anne Vallon).

PRELUDE = introduction to a great philosophical poem on man,nature and society.

DOROTHY = when he came back to England he find his moral equilibrium.

Thanks to his sister (Dorothy)he discovers his mission of POET and Coleridge introduced him to the German philosophy ,especially KANT.

LYRICAL BALLADS = C.& W planned together this manifesto and then there is nothing very important in W.'s life except some voyages.

He has a POOR life ,he got married but he had domestic misadventures.

At first he isn't appreciated  then between the years 1830-1870 was greatly celebrated (1843 poet laureate).

LANGUAGE = His success is in renewal the POETIC LANGUAGE : the description of nature is made in a modern poetic expression.

In his poems he celebrates the dignity of HUMBLES and ordinary people, the COUNTRYSIDE and the forms of nature in a primordial mythology.

ODE ON INTIMATION OF IMMORTALITY = It's the rebirth of the sense of elementary admiration of a child when discovers the MYSTERY of the world.

To transmit this mystery he proposes a language of familiar reality with simple themes that are SUGGESTIVE.

The innovation of W. in the description of nature and in the poetic language.

He penetrate the mysterious world of CHILHOOD in which the memory of divine prenatal existence has not been ruined by reason.

THE PRELUDE = the original version was revisited and the declaration of Romantic Naturalism and Pantheism changed in Christian humility.

NATURE for W. is not rebel ma patient and isn't the symbol of revolt but of LAW.

From 1808 W. artist became more and more W. teacher and philosopher.

JOAN KEATS (Londra ,1785- Rome,1821)

He had an humble family and when he was 15,16 he discovered his love for literature.

1818 = poetic romance "ENDYMION" that received bad critics.

In this period he helped his brother Tom that is ill and he had a passionate and tormented story with Fanny Browne.

He then lived to Rome (Piazza di Spagna) where he died.

CHARACTERISTICS = We find in him a CLASSICAL EXOTICISM : he loved the art of Ancient Greece and so in his art there are all the elements of late Romanticism and the decadence of the end of the 19^th century.

His classicism present gothic and oriental elements and his poetry shows a FEMALE TENDERNESS especially in "ODE TO PSYCHE" ( it remind us to the sensuality of the art of Canova).

1818/1819= he was consumed by his illness and by the love for F.B. but this contributed to potentiate his GENIUS.

1819 = beautiful ODES = " ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE", "ODE ON A GRECIAN URN" in which the lyrical poetic "I" finds his full expression.

He's considered the father of AESTHETICISM but he's not an aesthetic.

He exalts the idea of life accepted in his integrity and that assume the shape of BEAUTY. Near to death he discovers the Beauty that is immortal and impossible.

His aim of life is the DEDICATION TO THE BEAUTY.

He reached the maximum point of perfection of Romanticism because he represents life as ARMONY OF CONTRASTS in which all human passions and all creatures, find justifications.