Category: Romanticism

Introduction

Nathaniel Hawthorne greatly contributed to the development of fiction in the period of American Romanticism. He was born in Massachusetts in a Puritan family that’s why he despised the hypocrisy, brutality and sham morality in the world about him. So the Puritan influence was felt in his works. The central idea of Puritanism was God’s supreme authority over human affairs. At that time people believed that the world was created for man, and man was created for God.

The Puritans honored hierarchy among men as divine order. The essence of social order layed in the authority of the husband over wife, parents over children and masters over servants. The order also provided a rule that when a woman got married, she gave all her property to her husband and became a feme covert and lost her separate civil identity in his.

The story “The Minister’s Black Veil”

Hawthorne used the symbolic image of a veil in any of his works. But the most vivid example was the story “The Minister’s Black Veil”. The author began his odd story with an unexplained change in the appearance of the main hero – the town’s pastor. Up until the described Sunday Mr. Hooper was a good-looking man of above thirty, though still a bachelor. On Sunday he appeared with one strange change on his visage – a long, hanging down over his face, black veil.

It concealed his features except for the mouth and chin. His sight covered by the veil gave darkened aspect to all living and inanimate things around the person. The “darkened aspect” was very important because it showed the change in the minister’s viewpoint toward life. Though it didn’t give us a clue as to the reason Mr. Hooper put on the veil on that particular Sunday. When the parson read the Scriptures the veil stood like obscurity between him and the holy pages. The author pointed to the fact that the veil hid the minister’s face while reading the Bible and in fact it made the Bible itself seem more obscure.

In the story Hawthorne pondered upon the three ways of making God’s word clearer to people. The author himself and his main hero saw the mission of a clergyman in explaining the Bible to the congregation. So the purpose could be achieved by using one of three ways. First, a parson himself explained God’s word to make it clearer for everyone. The second way supposed the personification of God’s word through kindly disposed relations between every individual and clergy. The third way was the most important both for Hawthorne and Parson Hooper. It consisted in God’s word’s exemplification through the minister’s role as a living example of his faith.

Conclusion

Most people considered that in a good clergyman all those functions combined together so that it was hard to separate one from another. However, in the minister’s soul, the three functions were mutually contradictory. Mr. Hooper came to the conclusion that people in their sinfulness were far from God. Parson could only bring his congregation closer to God because people were too worldly. Mr. Hooper was different. He was different not because he was free from sin, but because of the deep profundity of his awareness of sin. That strong conviction separated him from the people and his black veil was only its manifestation. Parson was so conscious of his sinfulness that could not enjoy life like his fellow humans.

After putting on the veil the minister was not able to clarify the Scriptures because he began to doubt the rightness of God’s way. Consequently, the only reason for his ecclesiastic office was to be a living example of his faith and a warning to people who saw him. Hawthrone clearly showed it in the dramatic conclusion of the story. Parson Hooper died in great agony. On every face, he saw a black veil. By such an ending Hawthorne showed that separation from people led to loneliness and tragical inner conflicts. People had to live in harmony. No one had a right to put himself higher than others even if he was God’s servant.

Works cited

Fogle, R.H. Hawthorne’s Fiction: The Light and The Dark. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1992.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Selected Short Stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Fawcett, 1983.

Merriam-Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature. – Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster Incorporated, 1995.

Perkins, George. The American Tradition in Literature, Volume 2, Tenth Edition. Easter Michigan University, 2003.

Van Doren, C. C. The American Novel. New York, 1990.

Irving explores the theme of imagination in his story Rip Van Winkle. The author’s interest in ancient times depicts his power of imagination and the consequent impact on the readers. The readers are forced to get into the protagonist’s shoes, explore the past with him in an entirely imaginative stance. In addition to exploration of medieval times, the narrator personifies the wild creating an imaginative aura on the part of the reader.

Rip, the main character talks to the Kaatskill Mountains giving them human abilities. He tells the mountains that when the atmosphere is calm, they are dressed “in blue and purple” (38). Before falling asleep, the narrator talks about what Rip saw. In a short description, Rip saw the lordly Hudson “moving on its silent and majestic course,” the reader follows the description of what appears like a dream; the description is more of imaginable than real (43).

The character of Rip and what transpires in his life depicts the theme of imagination. Rip is described as polite, generous, kind and obedient. He is described as straightforward and good natured, henpecked by his wife, but liked by his neighbors (39). Although he is described as the “favorite among the townsfolk,” his appears as an emotionally disturbed person, possibly derived from his home predicaments.

His wife is described as a nagging person; for this reason Rip has given up with most of domestic activities because he believed that everything was going to be destroyed (39).His life is based on imaginations; he spends a lot of time day dreaming. He falls asleep, which was entirely imaginative, only to wake up after twenty years when everything has changed (53).

The theme of imagination has also been explored in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Irving’s imaginations and his point of view dominate his narration. As the narrator wanders through the town of the Sleepy Hollow, he is told about the Headless Horseman. He interrupts the story with his imaginations as he narrates the side story of Ichabod Crane (333). As the narration continues and Katrina is wooed by Crane, Irving interrupts and expresses his imagination about the challenging and admirable nature of women (342).

The story appeals to imagination of the audience as the physical look of the Ichabod Crane. It is stated that the last name, Crane, matched with his looks. He is also described negatively as a poor singer and a rumormonger. The description of the Headless Horseman is meant to cause fear, although it is very imaginative.

The imagined shadows and shapes at nightfall are described as frightening to lonely people. The competition between Crane and Bones captures the reader’s imagination. Bones is described as strong and a complete opposite of Crane.

The war and ghost tales told by men after the dance are totally imaginative. The encounter between the Horseman and Bones (351) and the encounter between the Horseman and Crane (355) are imaginations, arguably meant to show their personalities. After Crane disappears, the townsfolk are unable to find his body and therefore believe that he was taken away by spirits or supernatural means; this is Irving’s way of depicting the theme of imagination (358).

The theme of imagination is effectively portrayed by Ichabod Crane, the protagonist in the story. Crane has moved to Sleepy Hollow from his hometown, Connecticut, to embark on a teaching career. His description creates a sense of imagination; he is tall, excessively lank with long legs and long arms.

The narrator creates a sense of humor when he states that his hands dangle a long distance out of their sleeves. His entire body frame is said to be loosely hung together and his feet might be substituted for shovels. His head is described as comparatively small, flat at the top with exceedingly huge ears.

His eyes are said to be green in color and glassy coupled with a long nose. A sense of humor is created when it is stated that his head was like a weather-cock on his thin neck to detect the wind’s direction. The writer uses metaphorical comparisons and humor to give a description of his character and appearance. The reader is left with a lot of imagination and this creates more suspense as the story unfolds.

Crane is said to be superstitious; he has a strong inclination to mythical ideas, legends and ghostly tales. His character and inclinations are based on total imagination since myths can only be imagined, legends are passed from one generation to another and ghosts are invisible and therefore, only imagined.

His decisions in life are affected by superstitions, and ultimately shape his character and fate. Although Crane is skinny, he is described as greedy with a voracious appetite. Crane’s plans are mostly based on imagination and day dreaming. He is very opportunistic; he thrives on befriending and dining at the homes of his students. At some instance, he befriends and eventually proposes to Katrina, a rich woman from a wealthy Van Tassel family. His intentions are to eventually marry Katrina so that he can inherit wealth from her family.

Crane’s powerful sense of imagination causes his downfall. His obsession with legends, ghosts and myths makes him believe in unreal things. His imaginations lead him into believing that he was going to marry Katrina and to inherit from her family. He is lost into his imaginations and finally, he is unable to face his realities. His downfall is caused by his fantasies which make him unable to work hard for Katrina. His beliefs in Ghosts and mythical tales makes him susceptible to Bone’s tricks, he is eventually defeated.

In my opinion and concerning the theme of imagination, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is better suited to communicate with the reader that Rip Van Winkle. The theme of imagination is better established and the fate of the main character is well comprehensible and serves to give a lesson. The reader can better identify with the character of Crane than the character of Rip who slept for twenty years.

The lessons from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow are clearly portrayed by the themes, the plot and the characters. The story warns against the strong power of imagination and the consequences of allowing fantasies to overcome realities.

The author seems to express his opinion that it is better to imagine something better than to face something bad. Crane derives a lot of happiness and fulfillment from his imaginations; he therefore chooses imagination instead of reality. However, both stories are characteristically belonging to the romanticism due to emphasis of awe, apprehension, nature and horror (Baym 98).

Works Cited

Baym, Nina. The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vols. A & B. 8th Edition. New York: W W Norton & Co Inc (Np), 1998.

Irving, Washington. The Legend of the Sleeping Hollow and Other Stories in The Sketch Book. Ed. Perry Miller. New York: Signet Classics, 1961.

The Romantic Movement was a period of literary and artistic expression that began in the late 18th century and lasted into the 19th century. During this period, writers like William Blake and Mirza Ghalib captured the era’s spirit in their works. Through their poems, they explored themes of nature, life, and love while expressing their unique perspectives on the world. In this journal, I will look at how Blake and Ghalib exemplify the Romantic movement, how their works differ from those of the Enlightenment, and the significance of their democratic and accessible writing style.

After reading the Blake and Ghalib poems, I was struck by their focus on the individual and their ability to capture the nuances of emotion and experience. I was particularly moved by the themes of childhood innocence in Blake’s works. Blake depicted the integrity and beauty of childhood in his works, exploring themes of virtue and morality. He used these themes to illustrate how childhood experiences shape our perspectives and lives. For example, in “The Lamb,” he portrays childhood innocence and the wonder of the natural world, while in “The Little Black Boy,” he explores the injustice of racial prejudice.

Ghalib explored love and longing in his works, often depicting the complexities of romantic love. He also wrote about the transience of life and the inevitability of death, as seen in “[No go and live in a place].” In “[I’ve made my home next to you]” (both versions), he writes about the power of love and the longing for connection. His “Couplets” explore the joys and sorrows of love, while “It was essential” speaks to the need for self-expression and the courage to follow one’s path. Through reading these texts, I was able to get a better understanding of the world both of these writers belonged to and to gain insight into their perspectives. Blake and Ghalib could be classified as part of the Romantic movement due to their focus on the individual and their exploration of love, longing, and emotional connection themes. Blake’s works often explored childhood innocence, while Ghalib explored love and loss.

Romanticism is an artistic and philosophical movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and is characterized by strong emotions, imagination, and a belief in the power of nature. The Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, is an 18th-century movement focused on using reason and science to challenge existing beliefs and traditions. Romanticism differs from The Enlightenment in that it emphasizes emotion and the subjective experience of life rather than reason and rational thought. While the Enlightenment stressed reason and logic, Romanticism emphasized emotion, intuition, and imagination. The two movements also differed in their views of nature. The Enlightenment saw nature as an object to be studied, while Romanticism viewed nature as an expression of the divine and an object to be celebrated.

Mirza Ghalib also captures this emotion and subjective experience theme in his works, exploring themes of love and longing. His poem “[No go and live in a place]” is a poignant exploration of this idea, while “[I’ve made my home next to you]” shows how longing can transcend physical distance. By expressing these themes, Blake and Ghalib represent an evolution in literature and art, making it more accessible and democratic than the works that preceded them. This could be significant as it opened up literature and art to a broader audience and allowed them to connect with the results more intimately. Both authors were fascinated by nature and the supernatural and expressed disdain for the repressive social structures of their respective times. Their works also emphasized the importance of imagination, creativity, and the power of the individual voice. All these elements combined make Blake and Ghalib firm representatives of the Romantic movement.

Allan Edgar Poe, a renowned Romanticism writer, is one of the greatest contributors to the modern American literature because he refined the short story genre and put forward the detective fiction during his short life (Kennedy 61). In an attempt to achieve the American dream, Poe ventured into full-time writing as his career after losing his wife (Rein 22). Poe’s three works “The fall of the house of Usher”, “the Raven” and “The Masque of the Red Death” describe his dedication to literature and his negative attitudes towards aristocracy (Silverman 121).

However, his frustrations in life, loneliness and premature death display Poe a dedicated man who never achieved his American dream, despite contributing a lot to American literature. Arguably, Edgar Allan Poe vented his own frustrations, stresses of reality, and used his own experiences to create a negative and darkness of his works.

Poe belonged to Romanticism movement, a literary, intellectual and artistic movement that began in the late 18^th century in Europe before spreading to the United States. At the beginning, the movement was a reaction to the industrial movement in the mid and late 18^th century, but later became a form of intellectual revolt against social and political norms that were based on aristocracy. In addition, it was a revolt against scientific rationalization of nature. A major characteristic of Revolutionary artists is the belief that products of imagination can be equal or even surpass those of the elites in courts, thus the ability to convince scholars and connoisseurs. The popular belief was that things must flow in their natural form “…from the outpourings of the untutored and common persons in a society”.

Edgar Allan Poe was the son of two professional actors, David Poe Jr., and Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe. He was born on 19 January 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. David Poe Sr., was an Irish immigrant who had settled in American in 1750s. Soon after Edgar Allan Poe’s birth, the parents separated and one year later, Mrs. Poe died. The young Poe was taken into John Allan’s home, where he lived as one of the family members, although there was no formal adoption. Allan was a rich Scottish immigrant and a trader in a variety of goods such as clothing, slaves and agricultural products. Edgar adopted the name “Allan” when living with the Allan family.

His life was not good because as soon as he joined the newly established university of Virginia, he became active in gambling, a tradition that was upcoming in the young institution (Scott 77). Due to poor money management, he dropped from the college just after one year of study. He attempted to modify his life by joining the military, which he served for two years before leaving at his own will. He moved to Baltimore to live with his relatives, but married his first cousin Virginia Eliza Clemm. The death of Virginia affected Poe in various ways, and is recognised as one of the factors that contributed to his approach to writing (Scott 77). After leading a lonely life full of frustrations, he was found weak and unable to speak on the Baltimore streets in October 3 1840, taken to hospital but died 4 days later.

Poe’s work illustrates a man who is dedicated to achieve the American dream, but who vents frustrations and loneliness using his own experience. Consider for instance, his work “the raven”, a narrative whose main theme revolves around ‘undying devotion’. In this narrative, the narrator feels a strong desire to remember and a strong desire to forget. Thus, he experiences pressure from both desires. He assumes that the raven can only understand or knows a single word, ‘nevermore’.

Even though he is aware the raven cannot answer, he goes on to ask it a number of questions. At first, the narrator is weak, grieved and weary but as he speaks to the raven, he becomes fury and mad (Scott 134). The narrator’s perception that the raven knows only the word “Nevermore” that it learnt from “…some unhappy master” is an indication that Poe was somehow attempting to reflect his own life (Poe 171). It appears that he is frustrated with some important issue, and in his loneliness, he seems to be talking to objects and animals. It is probable that Poe was using the term “Nevermore” as a reflection of his failures in life, right from school to military and failure to obtain revenue from writing.

Poe’s personal experience and destruction is also reflected in his work “the fall of the House of Usher”, in which he describes the feelings of fear, guilt and doom as a problem affecting Roderick Usher (Evans 138). Roderick Usher, who buries his sister alive, is suddenly stricken with grief, guilt and fear as the narrator reads a novel to clam him (Peeples 59). However, the sister, appearing as a dragon, forces her way from the vault to the house, killing Roderick and herself on the instant. As the narrator explains, fear and guilt affect Roderick in his final moments. The narrator cannot escape but must observe the fall of the house of Usher. This probably reflects Poe’s experience with his own family, especially after the death of his family, his 13-year old wife and inability to cope up with the Allan family (Peeples 47).

Thirdly, Poe’s reflection of allegory of life and death in his works attempt to describe the inability to escape death or fate, despite however much they try. This is indicated in his short story “the Masque of the Red Death”, in which the price, Prospero, attempts to escape the Red Plaque by confining himself in his palace (Laurent 53).

He succeeds to avoid death in the first stages as everybody outside dies, but as he and his party celebrate their triumph, a masked man appears from nowhere and moves towards the darkened end of the room. As the prince confronts him, he dies instantly, but the body of the masked man is not seen. The other parties seek to know the fate of the prince, but they also face death because the masked man is the plaque they had feared (Laurent 56).

In this narrative, it is clear that Poe was attempting to use allegory of life and death to show that one cannot run from fate and death. It may reflect his life, as he struggles to fit in the society, use his writing skills to fight aristocracy, but cannot face the realities of life- he turns to alcohol and leads a lonely life. Actually, he cannot cheat fate, realities and death.

In conclusion, it is worth noting that Poe’s work demonstrates the fate of common people as they struggle with the realities of life. While the “Raven” indicates a frustrated person who turns mad due to frustrations, “The fall of the House of Usher” is used to indicate the form of guilt, regret and frustrations that affect people after taking a misinformed action. In addition, “the masque of the red death” shows how man attempts to flee from reality, fate and death, but all in vain (Poe 152). These themes seems to be reflecting Poe’s personal life, from frustrations to guilt and finally to his fate (Silverman 121).

Works Cited

Evans, Walter. “‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ and Poe’s Theory of the Tale”. Studies in Short Fiction 14.2 (2007): 137–144. Print

Kennedy, Gerald. “Introduction: Poe in Our Time” collected in A Historical Guide to Edgar Allan Poe. London: Oxford University Press, 2001. Print.

Laurent, Sabrina. Metaphor and Symbolism in ‘The Masque of the Red Death. Cambridge University Press, 2003. Print.

Peeples, Scott. Poe’s ‘constructiveness’ and ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’” as collected in ‘The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe’. Cambridge University Press, 2002. Print.

Poe, Edgar A. Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems. Edison, NJ: Castle Books, 2002. Print.

Rein, David M. Edgar A. Poe: The Inner Pattern. New York: Philosophical Library, 2006. Print.

Scott, Peter. Edgar Allan Poe Revisited. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1998. Print.

Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. New York: Harper, 2007. Print.

The romantic journey deals with the understanding of the static world, the spiritual world, death, rebirth, and the return to the world with affirmations. Tintern Abbey evolves romanticism from beginning to end in a truly reflective state upon the five years that had passed since he had last visited the ruins of the abbey. The ruin of the abbey perhaps can be compared to the aging of man and the inevitably of aging, however, the abbey still stands as does nature and its eternal splendor.

The poem starts immediately with an adjective, “rolling” referring to the waters coming down from the mountain springs which do not disturb the “murmur” of the river: “These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs/With a sweet murmur.” (3-4). The gentle, quietness of the river Wye which Wordsworth adored, and the visual picture of the rolling of the water from the mountain springs give the reader a feeling of serenity.

The tone of the poem is calm and meditative and Wordsworth describes the “landscape” and compares it to the “quiet” of the sky: “The landscape with the quiet of the sky.”(8). The plots of land surrounding his dear land are lovingly described with the color, green. He gives the woods an almost human personality with the use of the verb, “run” in line l7; “Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms” (l7). The life of the woods surrounding the Abbey is almost given human-like qualities to show how man is and must be part of nature.

In the third stanza of the poem his tone changes and he almost becomes angry at the fact that he had left the abbey and returned to a life which had left him unfulfilled; “How often has my spirit turned to thee!”(58). In lines 89-92, “For I have learned /To look on nature, not as in the hour/Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes/The still, sad music of humanity,”(89-92) his tone becomes morose in reflecting upon the lack of human appreciation of nature. He uses obvious, but knowing adjectives in “round ocean” and “living” air: “And the round ocean and the living air” (99) and attributes that are obvious to the conditions of the ocean and air, but to reflect upon the obvious and constancy of nature.

The irony of the strengthening of his relationship with his sister, Dorothy takes place with his return to the abbey with Dorothy and he feels freedom which he had lacked in the “outside” world. He feels protected in the woods, a place of refuge which is reinforced by the dearness and closeness of his sister’s presence. The freedom to be himself and enjoy the beauty and tranquility that nature can provide, in a treasured place which was sacred to him, set away from the city gossip and fast life, the ironic greetings of people who don’t care; “Nor greetings where not kindness is, not all” (13l).

The autobiographical fact that Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy returned to live in the Lake District at the end of l799 reinforces how important the locale meant to him and his sister. Wordsworth’s wish for his sister in this poem is that she be happy and joyous in her surroundings and protect her from the gossip and cruelty of the outside world and that the serenity and calmness of nature keep her at peace; “Therefore let the moon/ Shine on thee in thy solitary walk” (l35-6).

In stanza 4 Wordsworth becomes like a preacher in tone and when he says, “That at this moment there is life and food/For future years”(65-6) he seems to be teaching the reader a lesson that youth is spent in concrete form. HE alluded to the carnal nature of his youth; “(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days/and their glad animal movements all gone by,) (74-5) and welcomes his appreciation of nature and the calmness it brings; “…other gifts/Have followed, for such loss, I would believe”(87-8). Youth is eternal in the heart that appreciates the majesty and sublimity of nature is just what Wordsworth is trying to relate in Stanza 4 and his tone changes from descriptive to joyous and appreciative and relates his soul to nature.

The sensuality of his return to the Abbey is reflected in lines 26-32; “But oft, in lonely rooms, and mid the din/Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, /In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, /”(26-32) renews the newness and hope of his youth and reaffirms his unity with nature. The central description of the poem comes from muted visions of his prior visit to the Abbey and his reminisces in the concrete, visceral encompassing freedom of the woods.

His reflection upon man’s eternity and mortal life are addressed when he says; “Until, the breath of this corporeal frame, /And even the motion of human blood/Almost suspended, we are laid asleep/In body, and become a living soul:” (44-47) the word, “motion” gives notice to the motion and vitality of nature which is eternal and contrasts and contradicts the long-lived life on man on earth. He is trying to reflect, on his place in the world about nature, and also to allow the reader to reflect on his position and relation with the world of nature. Burial, return to the earth, and part of nature again, the eternal circle of life, to rejoice.

“Tintern Abbey”, follows the pattern of the Romantic Journey, in that it essentially begins with the memory of a child. Wordsworth takes nature in poetry to a level of transcendence where he connects them to everything and everyone else together in a tranquil, place of harmony. Wordsworth illustrates that the most tranquil place in nature that each person holds in his or her memory always remains pure and unspoiled.

It is the center of each person’s quiet world; it is the place that each of us can reflect upon and retreat to when needed. It is a place of spiritual rebirth. Wordsworth creates a world far better as it is a world one seen through a child’s eyes; it harbors no fearful thing, no danger because no harm can come to one who is spiritually immortal. He illustrates the stages of the development of experience and the loss of innocence, but at the same time, he recalls the glorious age of childhood or innocence.

Reference

Wordsworth-William, Wordsworth -Jonathan, The Prelude: 1799, 1805, 1850 (A Norton Critical Edition) Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc, 1990.

The époque of Enlightment was followed by Romanticism. It was the period of extreme changes in the world outlook. This period expressed a strong criticism of the previous one. The principles of writing and the themes had changed. The main hero of the Romantic literature was a lonely man with sensible soul and isolated from the society in terms of his perception of the reality. The period of Romanticism is characterized by its address to nature, in other words, the world was perceived through the nature.

“It is characterized by a shift from the structured, intellectual, reasoned approach of the 1700’s to use of the imagination, freedom of thought and expression, and an idealization of nature” (“Romanticism”). So, nature was the main tool of Romantic poets and writers they used in order to describe different aspects of life and human soul in particular.

Romantic writers emphasized the connection of man and nature. They looked at this connection from the moral perspective. The first person who outlined the principles of Romanticism was Jean Jacques Rousseau who said about the human freedom, sensitiveness of human soul and connection with nature: “Rousseau was to have the deepest and most lasting effect upon the self-understanding of the Romantic mind” (Travers 4).

In Britain, at the end of the 18^th and beginning of the 19^th centuries, Romanticism developed very quickly and was the most expressive. Different authors revealed to nature in order to express their intentions and thoughts. Moreover, “English poets, such as Lord Byron and Persey Bysshe Shelley used nature as their inspiration. They wrote of nature being wild and without logic and their poems evoked strong feelings in their readers” (Gunderson 15).

One of the best romantic writers of England were William Wordsworth, Samuel Coliredge, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley. They used quite different respective depictions of nature, however, the one thing is common: the descriptions of nature in their works are aimed at depicting the characters, behavior, feelings and concerns of the main heroes.

Onno Oerlemans says, “I think, that Wordsworth is the most original….Wordsworth’s nature (as cycles of life, or an emblem of eternity) rarely provides the kind of relief…” In his Tinturn Abbey, he used the descriptions of nature to show the feelings of protagonist and his memories. For him, nature is the sort of eternal teacher of human. “Nature to Wordsworth is a mother-goddess who teaches the soul” (Gleckner 311), he acclaims:

Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; ’tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all (Wordsworth 212)

The Wordsworth’s descriptions of the Tinturn Abbey are gentle and he emphasizes that nature is the keeper of the time:

Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain-winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years, (Wordsworth 121)

At the same time, Shelley focuses on the connection of the natural processes and the way people think. He uses the comparison of the river being born in mountains with the thought being born in one’s mind:

In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,
Where waterfalls around it leap forever,
Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river 10
Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves (Shelley 64)

Moreover, he uses the descriptions of a “dark valley” that produces the effect of trans on the reader. The epithets and images they create evoke deep emotions in readers. In Samuel Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, one can see the descriptions of the sea. The storm and the dead calm of the sea are the main means to reveal the essence of the story.

Moreover, the author uses the bird albatross as a metaphor that meant “the will of God” and sometimes compared with the symbol death. The images of nature in work of every author are quite different, Wordsworth describes it gently using special epithets; Shelley uses the images of nature in order to show the flow of time and his sorrow, his pictures are more dark and ferocious. Coleridge describes the sea, and even when it is calm, it still evokes horror and foreboding of evil.

One more wonderful writer of the period of Romanism is Mary Shelley with her famous Frankenstein. This writer is probably the one who used the images of nature in order to reveal every single thought and emotion of one of the main characters Victor.

The author uses natural phenomena metaphorically in order to describe Victor’s early years: “I find it arise, like a mountain river, from ignoble and almost forgotten sources; but swelling as it proceeded, it became the torrent which, in its course, has swept away all my hopes and joys” (Shelley, 21). In addition, every Victor’s emotion is connected with nature. The nature is one that helps him to survive horrible moments in his life.

To sum up it all, it should be mentioned one more time that nature and its images served as the main tool for the writers of Romanticism. They perceived the world through the nature and searched answers for eternal questions of being. Finally, all romantic writers were great masters of description.

Works Cited

Gleckner, Robert, Gerald E. Enscoe. Romanticism: points of view. USA: Wayne State University Press, 1974.Print

Gunderson, Jessica. Romanticism. Minnesota: Creative Education, 2008. Print

Oerlemans, Onno. Romanticism and the Materiality of Nature. London: University of Toronto Press. Inc, 2002. Print

“Romanticism.” Online Encyclopedia 2007. Microsoft Encarta, Microsoft Corporation, n. d.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. United States of America: Dover Publications, Inc, 1994

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Volume 2. BiblioBazzar, LLC, 2000. Print

Travers, Martin. European Literature from Romanticism to Postmodernism: A Reader in Aesthetic. New York NY, 2001. Pront

Wordsworth, William. The Major Works. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc, 2000. Print

Introduction

The author Goethe has been critically acclaimed for initiating romantic literature. It is essential to determine which elements of this work were responsible for these claims. There is no doubt that the controversy in his book was attributed towards this romantic element as no one had ventured into this area before.

Critic

Goethe writes his novel based on his personal experiences and those of another individual who lived during his lifetime. It is the fruitless reconciliation of the impulsive and sensitive to the society that makes Young Werther’s journey so powerful. Generally speaking, this narrative was written in a confessional tone. Werther is highly personal even at a time when his society was immensely religious. What is even more interesting is that this general tone is what led to the development of romantic thought in the future.

Different parts of the novel keep mentioning attributes that can only be associated with the latter concept. For example, Werther exemplifies the importance of creative genius and frequently endorses impulsion as a necessary part of artistic work. His is a focus on instinct more than anything else. The very fact that romantic thought had yet to take effect in society could be the reason why Young Werther was always at odds with society.

He appears to be critical of society because his values were in direct contradiction to theirs. That stance explains why Werther always disliked society; he felt that it had intolerance for the unusual or even the great. This is what he says “I have come to realize in my own way that people have always felt a need to decry the extraordinary men who accomplish great things that seemed impossible as intoxicated or insane.” (Goethe, 61)

It is also interesting to note how the author was daring enough to openly defy the principles of the prevalent era at that time i.e. enlightenment. Through the main character, the author argues that greatness through art can never be accomplished through the principles of objectivity and logic as argued in enlightenment thought. Instead, he believes that these thoughts need to come from the heart.

The finality with which the author ends his novel is also illustrative of romantic thought. Suicide was not a common occurrence in literature then (1774). Furthermore, to go ahead and support or defend suicide was simply out of the world. By offering a context for suicide, the author was in a way defying the prevailing times. There was a storm raging in Young Werther’s heart and as he continued to be dissatisfied with life, this storm kept getting even more tumultuous.

As one reads the story of Werther, one starts identifying with his plight; he was never able to requite his love for the inaccessible and gorgeous Charlotte, he was never able to fit into his regular workplace and eventually became quite unhappy with the changes that his mother made concerning his childhood home. The audience can therefore identify with these struggles and it therefore makes it possible to understand why Werther made the final decision to commit suicide. It is indeed possible to see the hypocrisy and insincerity of his community. Therefore romantic thought made its mark through the book because Goethe dared to embrace and explain what was initially presumed to be untouchable; suicide and the defense of it.

The story of Young Werther is one that is packed with emotions and personal sentiment. It is one of unfulfilled longings and illusive passions. For example, when Werther first gets to know Charlotte, he is immediately captivated by her beauty. When they get to know each other, they soon find out that they have the same preferences and interests. Werther’s insights on life and nature are quite in tune with those of Charlotte. Therefore, one would presume that happiness and fulfillment are what lie ahead. However, after Charlotte’s fiancé comes back, this happiness is soon turned to misery because he realizes that he can no longer be with her.

The excessive changes in mood that he goes through and perpetual unhappiness are a result of his love life. He now becomes critical about life because it always seems to hand him the short end of the stick. It may therefore be said that Werther’s sentimentality is what made him so close to Charlotte. On the other hand, it eventually led to his conflict with the rest of society. Werther did not fit into the usual profile of what a man should be. In fact, at no point is this highly contrasted than when he interacts with Albert – Charlotte’s wife. Werther himself comments that he holds Albert in such high esteem. Here, he believes that Albert is firmly in control of his temper so that makes him the exact opposite of Werther.

The protagonist goes ahead to say that “He has a great deal of feeling and is fully sensitive of the treasure he possesses in Lotte. He is free from ill humor which you know is the only fault I detest most.” (Goethe, 34) Upon realizing what a stark contrast he was to Albert, Werther started to loathe him. He was not content with the fact that he could not be able to communicate with her. This realization that Werther could never really be in the same category as the likes of Albert is what causes him so much sorrow.

The love of his life rejected him for being so different from what society expected. Werther was unable to take this rejection in his stride and instead opted to end his existence. The balance between passion and reason can be easily blurred and this is what happened to Werther. Charlotte and the protagonist’s affair were indicative of the irrationality of Werther’s actions. This was indeed a symptom of a romantic era where minimal emphasis was given to rational actions.

Goethe was therefore endorsing romanticism by featuring a protagonist who chose to make decisions on the basis of his emotions rather than reality. Werther knew from the start that Charlotte was already taken but he still went on to pursue her. He was destined for disaster but because he was caught up in these feelings, he still went on and developed them. Romanticism often defies the logical and endorses the pursuance of the opposite in just the same way Werther did.

As stated earlier, this book endorses the issue of sentimentality very clearly through Werther. It is that endorsement that makes it one of the pioneer works of romantic literature. This can be witnessed when Werther gives his opinion about the inadequacy of words. He says “..words fail to convey the tenderness of his whole being; everything I could attempt to say would only be clumsy…”(Goethe, 14). In this statement, Werther is illustrating his disdain for language.

He hates using simple and traditional phrases to express himself because none of that would be adequate enough to convey what he is really all about. He wanted language that is true to him and one that effectively communicates how he sees the world. Romanticism is built around the inadequacy of language and the failure of the enlightenment to fully express such sentiments is what has lead to problems today.

Conclusion

Through the protagonist Young Werther, Goethe is able to defy the inadequacies of the enlightenment. He endorses the subjective, sentimental and irrational through this character. Goethe shows how society tends to be at odds with the unpredictable and new and this is why the book set precedent for other romantic literature around the world.

Works Cited

Goethe, Wolfgang. Sorrows of young Werther. Leipzig: Weygand’sche publishers, 1774.

Every period of time is, of course, considered with the current historical cut full of global changes and peculiarities which fell into artistic manifestations in every type of art. In this respect, literature can be proud of the Romanticism and Victorian literature, because of their gradual framework and applicable emergence due to the significant events, such as the French Revolution, American Revolution, the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo and the period of the longest reign in Great Britain outlined with Queen Victoria.

Romanticism is the period when poets and writers were intended to find out the ways of better living involving the ideas of love, freedom, passion, natural unity and natural man. Romantic poets were idealists and their likely themes were about youth and innocence and the process of growing up. Furthermore, they wanted to depict a man compared with nature. These touches were accompanied with the lyrical poetry and courageous attitudes toward peoples’ state of freedom and prosperity by George Gordon Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sir Walter Scott and others. This period in the literature is emphasized with more intensive and patterned language. “Romantic poet writes an “ode,” he refers to a state of mind, not so much to an ancient poetic “genre” (Drake para. 15). It was allegedly waiting for something new and progressive, because, for example in England the defeat in the thirteenth colony, America. Nonetheless, a desire to feel happy in a beautiful state of innocence in a man’s life was greatly described in the poem by William Blake The Ecchoing Green. In this work the poet provides his mastership in making the vivid scenes of youth’s beautiful life compared with oncoming changes in the civilized world:

Such such were the joys,
When we were all girls & boys,
In our youth time were seen,
On the Ecchoing Green (Abrams and Greenblatt 25).

The Romantic era was disturbed by the resonance event of the French Revolution and the impact of industrial progress. The flow of artistic thought was shaped at the beginning of the reign of Queen Victoria. This time is outlined as the period of relevant stability and prosperity. However, it was not so in all spheres of British influence in the world arena. There were also cases of poverty and even famine in Ireland (Drake para. 7). Nonetheless, the period of Romanticism was not so splendid and fascinating, if there were not such poets as Coleridge, Blake, Shelley, Arnold, etc. The motives of love and passion accompanied with tints of a prolific tendency for the renovation of mind and heart are felt in Romantic poetry. In fact, Coleridge shared such ideas with his contemporaries and Wordsworth, in particular. The poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge Christabel encompassed the poet’s passions which he had toward some significant women in his life:

She stole along, she nothing spoke,
The sighs she heaved were soft and low,
And naught was green upon the oak,
But moss and rarest mistletoe:
She kneels beneath the huge oak tree,
And in silence prayeth she (Abrams and Greenblatt 45).

Some among the most outstanding poets of the Victorian epoch were Charles Lamb, Thomas Moore, John Clare and others. The main difference between the two periods is in the fact that in the Victorian era a large middle class emerged, and writers were intended to please the interests of also a new class of people instead of only rich ones. The manner of writing poems is presupposed with the wealth and beauty of the writing style. However, Victorian poets did not reject the heritage of previous poetry and some motives from earlier epochs of literature are heard within Victorian poets. Thus, a Victorian poet Walter Savage Landor in his poem Mother, I cannot mind my Wheel described a fabulous picture of his feelings toward life in an allegedly constructed dialogue with his mother. The splendid organization of the poem provided a distinct and straightforward adornment about the world of relationships between close relatives:

MOTHER, I cannot mind my wheel;
My fingers ache, my lips are dry:
O, if you felt the pain I feel!
But O, who ever felt as I (Abrams and Greenblatt 108)?

The points on Darwinian Theory of evolution as well as the fast development of industrialization were outlined with social affairs and the emergence of emancipation, as a women’s movement for their rights. “Laissez-faire economics” was provided for the manufacturers of the middle class, but it resulted in nothing, but women being oppressed by the hardships of their workdays and children who were like slaves in workhouses (Drake para. 3). The story by Charles Dickens Oliver Twist greatly depicts the realities of this peculiarity in the Victorian era. Elizabeth Barrett Browning described this sad period in the lives of many children living in the Victorian period in her outstanding poem The Cry of the Children:

Go out, children, from the mine and from the city,
Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do.
Pluck you handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty.
Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through (Browning para. 5)!

Thus, the idea of prosperity and stability in Victorian times was also outlined with the inconveniences in the social internal life of Britain. Romantic poetry was not outlined with a mere silence and harmony, but with the impulsiveness of its ideas finding their implementation in the times foregoing the Revolution and industrial as well as social innovations in the everyday life of human beings. Literature just reflected the differences of both periods with the help of artistic features, so that to make the whole picture of the splendid and diverse themes of poems.

Reference

Abrams, Meyer Howard and Greenblatt, Stephen. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol. 2. W W Norton & Co Inc, 1999.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. The Cry of the Children. Web.

Drake, Alfred J. Romantic and Victorian Characteristics. Web.

O’Gorman, Francis. Victorian poetry: an annotated anthology. Hobboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2004.

Wordsworth, William. The World Is Too Much With Us. Web.

Nature is one of the most important elements of poetry used by authors to express the deep feelings and emotions of speakers. Poets had preached the sounding doctrine that the environment is a primary influence on the developing character. There was only a short step from the influence of nature on the individual to the influence of the created environment.

The remarkable feature of 18th-century poetry is that poets used nature to depict their emotions and feelings symbolically. For instance, in The Deserted Village” (1770), Oliver Goldsmith portrays his feelings using images of seasons and fieldwork:” And many a gambol frolick’d o’er the ground, And sleights of art and feats of strength went round/ And still, as each repeated pleasure tired” (Goldsmith). The anxiety inherent in a sketch — the feeling of being unsettled — leads Goldsmith to other stylistic choices, most notably the creation of illusions and the reliance upon sentiment, both of which smooth away all the nonductile, nonpliant qualities of the English landscape (Enscoe and Gleckner 4).

Once Goldsmith realized that the meaning he sought in English institutions and culture was not to be emotionally his, he fabricated an illusion of stability through the very design and construction of the poem and its meaning. Similar to Goldsmith, William Cowper uses nature and landscapes to impress readers and depict the natural beauty and uniqueness of his feelings. In his works, an illusion, of course, is a distortion of reality, a deception of sorts, wherein misleading appearance is perceived as the real or true nature of something. Cowper’s commitment to an ideal as that of a wanderer on a quest drives him to weave a fabric of illusion around and through all of his experience. The wild spirit which resides in the landscapes is expressed by Cowper upon the polite world of English nature. Readers are withdrawn into the folds of an impersonal power which does not care for human attachment and love (Brown 23).

In contrast to 18th-century poetry, romantic poetry sees and depicts nature at a distance observing its beauty and charm. Using nature, romantics connect readers to heroic deeds, courage on the battlefield. Poems by Wordsworth and Coleridge portray that in contrast to 18th-century poets, romantics depicted God through nature. A predominantly visual relationship with nature implies, in fact, separation, “a state of alienation or detachment from it” (Barth 21) since the very process of seeing emphasizes the space between the eye and the object. The romantics, who relied so heavily on sight, did not make an emotional connection to the landscape. They were distant watchers, and when they sang their songs, they brought into being their own worlds (Barth 22). Of central importance in romanticism, then, is the formulation of these “verbal webs,” which offer protection while promoting self-expansion.

It is the American poet’s own voice, often in the form of a ritualistic chant, that recreates nature; rarely in his works do we find a concentration on specific and local sights and sounds. Coleridge turned imagination onto the world to meditate and modify it, but the European romantic was able to draw upon resources such as “history, legend, memory,” friends and lovers, “visions of future societies” (Barth 38), and the landscape itself to combat isolation and despair. The romantic depends more heavily on the intricacies of his own creations. The poetic flights and visions of the European romantics were not alien to their natural and human surroundings and interpenetrated with them. Critics admit that romantic poets were neither preoccupied with nature nor alive to their surroundings in quite the way as those authors who make up our first great wave of national genius (Barth 82).

Yet it requires no leap of faith to see that there are many affinities between Wordsworth and the romantics, especially in terms of the relationship between writer, word, and world, and the development of a personal, idiosyncratic style. In Tintern, Abbey Wordsworth writes: “And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; / A motion and a spirit, that impels / All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things” (Wordsworth). These lines portray that having reached maturity in a country whose very distinction was to have repudiated the past, he had no accumulated consciousness of an extended cultural tradition, no deeply internalized sense of communal history. What romantic poets the traveler and pilgrim really wanted, therefore, was history as it existed (and as he could imagine it to exist) in the present moment, surrounding him with its wondrous and ever-arresting images, liberating him from the tyranny of his own oppressive insecurities. It is built on the associations poets bring with them (Enscoe and Gleckner 23).

In sum, during the 18th century, nature was used as a background and the main method to portray the inner feelings and thoughts of speakers.

The Romantic contemplates nature, both the natural world around him and his own inner nature. There are certain aspects of each that he is particularly concerned about exploring. In the course of the eighteenth century, we can trace a movement of taste away from admiration of ordered, cultivated nature towards the worship of wild, untamed, mountainous nature.

Works Cited

Barth, J. S. Romanticism, and Transcendence: Wordsworth, Coleridge, and the Religious Imagination. University of Missouri Press, 2003.

Brown, R. H. Nature’s Hidden Terror: Violent Nature Imagery in 18th-Century Literature (Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture). Camden House; 1st ed edition, 1992.

Enscoe E. Gerald, Gleckner, Robert F. Romanticism: Points of View. Prentice-Hall, 1962.

Generally, Restoration Literature period in the English literature is the period between 1660 and 1689. Such commonly accepted literature pieces as “The imperfect Enjoyment”, “The disappointment”, “Country Wife”, “Oroonoko”, “A Modest Proposal” were written during this period. This period can be described as unusual in the English literature as it is marked by an unusual historic event of the Stuart monarchy’s restoration. King Charles’s presence is evident in numerous literature pieces of that period: poets and writers are united in their efforts to reflect on Charles’ personality and interests both positively and, in case of his adversaries, negatively.

First of all, this literature period is marked as an outstanding blossoming in poetry. The king was its main inspirer and each of his acts and accomplishments were immediately addressed in pieces of poetry. Thus, poetry became the most popular and the most wide-spread genre during this period. The main objective among poets of this period is considered to be creating English epic. Such efforts were made by Sir William Davenant; however, his work Gondibert was criticized as not enough sufficient and in addition, of a balladic nature (Greenblatt, p. 275). Unfortunately, there occurred no successful efforts in writing English epic; still, later the scientists discovered Beowulf which occupied this niche in the English literature. Observing the tendencies within lyric poetry where the poet expresses one’s own feelings and emotions from the first person, it should be said that it is not common for this period. The narrators of this period promote intellectual values and public interests rather than personal feelings and emotions. The poetry mainly features such genres as ariel verse, ode, and pastoral poetry (Hammond, 2009). Thus, devaluation of personal concerns, feelings and emotions to public matters, philosophic ideas and political propaganda is present during that period.

Discussing themes of this period, it should be said again that all the literature works along with the other pieces of art are addressed to king Charles and his personality. Namely, the literature pieces have two common tendencies in the peculiarities of topic choice: praising the king, or on the contrary, critiquing him. The diction of this period is strong, dry and pragmatic with minimum details and lyric deviations. The tone is serious and epic featuring dithyrambic phrases and proclamations.

All in all, the period of Restoration in the English literature can be described as the vindication of mind, intellectual values and political interests. All the literature works of this period are connected to the king in a way both praising and sometimes critiquing him. The period is especially marked by the flourishing of poetry which becomes the most popular and the most wide-spread genre in literature.

Romantics Literature

Romanticism in the English literature is the period which is believed to begin in the second half of the eighteenth century and continue till the Industrial Revolution. Such commonly accepted literature pieces as “Vindication of Rights of Men and Women”, “Ode to a Nightingale”, “Ode to the West Wind” can be mentioned with reference to this period. The literature of this period can be characterized as the protest against all the aristocratic values established during the earlier period of Restoration. Significant amount of literature scholars believe this period to be initiated by William Wordsworth and his “Lyrical Ballads” who established a new tendency in literature addressing personal values and concerns of common people. Among the other outstanding artisans of that period such names Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, John Keats Samuel Coleridge, Jane Austen , Robert Burns, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Daniel Defoe, Charles Lamb, William Blake, Mary Wollstonecraft and Sir Walter Scott are to be mentioned. Basically, this period can be described as the vindication of humanism and the flourishing of creativity and expression of feelings.

Discussing the themes common for this period, it is important to mention that the literature of this period is the protest against the values and ideas of previous period. Poets and writers strive to promote personal concerns of every human including romantic feelings, admiration of nature beauty, the pursuit for happiness, understanding one’s place in the universe and so on. They reject intellectual and political values of the Restoration era calling it the time of “head” and promote the other values calling such tendency a time for “heart” (Huntington Fletcher, 2008). This period is marked by the efforts to prove the “glory of Imperfection” rather than pursuit for perfect things. The other common tendency during this period is the cult of “sensibility” which was centered around topics related to women, children, and the isolation of a poet as a narrator (Huntington Fletcher, 2008). One more popular theme in Romanticism is appealing to previously popular notions such as myths and gothic elements. The diction of this period is soft, inspiring, light and moving. The tone is calm and lyric.

As a final point, the literature of Romanticisms is a vindication of humanity and personal values of every human. It rejects political and ideological values by aristocracy relevant to the previous period.

Works Cited

1. Greenblatt, Stephen. The Norton anthology of English literature. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2005. Print.
2. Hammond, Paul. Restoration Literature: An Anthology. United Stated: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print.
3. Huntington Fletcher, Robert. “Period VI. The Restoration, 1660-1700”. About.com, 2008.