Презентация на английском языке Romantic Age in British Literature: Poetry

THE ROMANTIC AGE in BRITISH LITERATURE POETRY The Romantic Age in English literature begins in 1798 with the publication of Lyrical Ballads, the product of a great creative collaboration between the poets William Wordsworth & Samuel Taylor Coleridge. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Romanticism in literature was caused by great social and economic changes: the Industrial Revolution, the Great French Revolution with its slogan of liberty, fraternity, and equality. NO! Later on most of the poets abandoned revolutionary ideas because there was a contradiction between the ideal of liberty, fraternity and equality and reality: poverty, injustice, and exploitation of man by man. The Romantic Tradition versus (Neo)Classicism Neoclassic Strict & exact Predictable & planned Intellect & reason Mind Great & striking Artificial Order, proportion Romantic Free & flexible Spontaneous & impulsive Imagination & emotion Heart Simple & ordinary Natural Passion, beauty, love BELIEFS Romanticists believed that poetry should be full of personal emotions, the expression of the individual, it ‘should spring freely and spontaneously from the heart not the mind’. THEMES They turned their attention to the simple problems of life, to nature. They wrote powerfully about man in society, man in relation to nature, the unchanging passion of the human heart. THE EARLY ROMANTICS William Wordsworth Samuel Taylor Coleridge Robert Southey or the Lake Poets ( they all lived for a time in the beautiful Lake District in the northwest of England). WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850) In his early years he was fired by a passionate belief in the republican ideas of the French Revolution. At that time a number of his most celebrated lyrics were written. Later heabandoned the radical politics and idealismof his youth. He was criticized for that by the second generation of Romantics –Byron and Shelley who mocked him as “simple and dull”. POET LAUREATE William Wordsworth was made Poet Laureate six years before his death. A prominent English poet with enormous and lasting popularity of his works. More than any other poet of his time, he dealt with the mysterious bond between nature and humanity, and to this day is regarded as the most “nature-oriented” of the Romantics with his special ability to throw a charm over ordinary things. And he made them seem wonderful. W.Wordsworth & Romanticism the leader of the Romantic movement; his Pre-face to the Lyrical Ballads - a kind of manifesto of romanticism; the basic traits of romanticism: love of nature, the belief in humanity, mysticism, revolutionary spirit, etc. were early developed in his poetry. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (1772-1834) Coleridge wrote almost all his great poems in just 14 months, soon after he and William Wordsworth became neighbours. Later on opium addiction, a desperately unhappy private life, severe psychological problems destroyed Coleridge. He continued to write, but mainly literary criticism and social commentary. His lectures on general literature and philosophy are considered among his best works. MAJOR WORKS The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798), Kubla Khan (1797), Lyrical Ballads (1798) Biographia Literaria (1817) Seven Lectures Upon Shakespeare and Milton (1856) ROBERT SOUTHEY (1774-1843) By age 38, he had quite given up all of the revolutionary notions that he had possessed as a young man. He remained Poet Laureate of Britain for 30 years & Wordsworth followed him. POET & PROSE WRITER: VERSATILE As poet he produced epics, romances, ballads, plays, monodramas, odes, sonnets, and lyrics. His prose works include histories, biographies, essays, reviews, translations,, polemical dialogues, autobiography, anecdote, etc. LATE ROMANTICS JOHN KEATS PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON JOHN KEATS (1795-1821) Keats died young. In his tragically brief career, cut short by tuberculosis, Keats constantly experimented, often with dazzling success and always with steady progress. Keats’s supreme achievement lies in his development of the ode. In just a few months in 1820 he wrote “Ode on a Grecian Urn», “Ode to a Nightingale», “On Melancholy”, “To Autumn”. These poems served models for countless other poets. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792-1822) The most radical of the English Romantic poets. He called for the complete overthrow of the existing order; was expelled from Oxford University because of his atheistic beliefs; quarreled with his wealthy father and was banished from home; married impulsively and abandoned his wife, running off to Italy with 16-year-old Mary Goldwin.  In Italy Shelley and Byron became close friends and shared many adventures that made them the objects of endless notorious rumour. Shelley’s life was cut short at the age of30, when he drowned in a boating accident in Italy. Like Keats his early deathhas left future generationsfrustrated at the thoughtof what he might have produced if hehad lived longer. SHELLEY’S STYLE Shelley is still the subject of keen debate. His “strangeness” was a part of his originality; and he paid its price. To most of what was complex, institutional, traditional in his milieu, he remained inaccessible, intransigent . Shelley’s lyrics are marvellously varied and rich in sound and rhythm. Wordsworth regarded Shelley as the best poet then living. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON (1788-1824) BYRON: LIFE FACTS The life of George Gordon, Lord Byron, was so notorious that it is almost impossible to disentangle fact from legend. A descendant of two aristocratic families, Byron at the age of 10 unexpectedly inherited his uncle’s title and estate and became the sixth Baron Byron of Rochdale. He was given the fine education at Harrow. MORE FACTS He was considered to be an extremely handsome in spite of being lame. He was born with a clubfoot but became a superb athlete: a masterful swimmer, horseman, boxer, cricket player and fencer. His name was a synonym for the greatest of lovers as he had lots of love affairs with different women and scandals on moral ground. He was a member of the House of Lords and had radical views by the English standards of his day. DEATH He was celebrated as the highest of High Romantics and died a Romantic death in Greece where he fought for its liberation against Turkish oppression. К. РЫЛЕЕВ: «На смерть Бейрона» (1824) Исчезнут порты в тьме времен,Падут и запустеют грады,Погибнут страшные армады,Возникнет новый Карфаген…Но сердца подвиг благородныйПребудет для души младойК могиле Бейрона святойВсегда звездою путеводной. Британец дряхлый поздних летПридет, могильный холм укажетИ гордым внукам гордо скажет:«Здесь спит возвышенный поэт!Он жил для Англии и мира,Был, к удивленью века, онУмом Сократ, душой КатонИ победителем Шекспира. What made him one of the great poets of England and abroad? GREATNESS His poetic gifts were enormous, and he worked brilliantly in all poetic forms, from highly intellectual satires to exciting narratives of his adventure. After graduating from Cambridge he had an adventurous journey across Portugal, Spain, Greece.Returning, he wrote a poem in Spenserian stanzas, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812), a long narrative poem about exotic travels. He was just 24 and in his own words, “ I awoke one morning and found myself famous.“ That was his first great literary triumph. Byron is poet who lived his poetry. His “Byronic hero“ – a powerful isolated romantic individualist, passionate, gloomy, and mysterious who is capable of brave acts, attractive to women and self-sufficient. Byron is a romanticist when he introduces into his dramas super-natural beings and a strong lyrical element, but a classicist when he draws his material from the beaten track of history and refuses to admit the intervention of a spirit-world into the affairs of men. His life completely overshadows his poetry.  It did so during his own lifetime and the problem only worsened after his death in 1824. For the last two hundred years, most studies of Byron have been buried beneath the confused mess of his life, or influenced by it. The scandals have a life of their own.  No poem – can rise above them?! MAJOR WORKS Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–1818) The Giaour (1813) The Bride of Abydos (1813)The Corsair (1814) Lara (1814)Hebrew Melodies (1815)Prometheus (1816)Darkness (1816)Manfred (1817) and others. ЛЕРМОНТОВ М.Ю. Как он, ищу спокойствия напрасно,Гоним повсюду мыслию одной.Гляжу назад - прошедшее ужасно;Гляжу вперед - там нет души родной!1830 г. TRANSLATE Байрон был гражданином мира и как поэт, и как человек.Увлечение байроновским индивидуализмом, разочарованием и «мировой скорбью» получило название «байронизма». В. Кюхельбекер (1824) о Байроне: «Бард - живописец смелых душ».