FROM ROMANTIC QUEST TO VICTORIAN ANTI-QUEST

BRITISH LITERATURE IIIKate Liu, Fall 2012

OUTLINE

1. General Introduction2. Romanticism 3. William Blake4. About the Course

WHAT IS ROMANTICISM? AND VICTORIAN SOCIETY?

WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THEM? CAN YOU FIND THEIR TRACES IN TAIWAN/TAIPEI?

ROMANTIC TAIPEI 《浪漫台北》

【金片子─愛臺北】首獎 李承峻 , 2011

Of/For Romance, Emotional,Passionate, Fanciful …

INTRODUCTION TO WESTERN CIVILIZATION (AN INTERPRETATION)

CONSTABLE, THE HAY WAIN, 1821

ROMANTICISM IN CHINESE/TAIWANESE LITERATURE …

• 李白 • 徐志摩• 余光中、夏宇。。。

THE VICTORIAN IN TAIWAN …

• 英國維多利亞時期傢俱復舊展　淡水紅毛城展出• (2011/12/08 11:57 (source NOWnews)

Google -- 維多利亞的相關搜尋•維多利亞女王•維多利亞校服•維多利亞的秘密•維多利亞酒店•維多利亞茶餐廳•維多利亞幼稚園•維多利亞酒店內湖•維多利亞花園•維多利亞一號•維多利亞港

• Victorian House

• Victorian Gothic • (e.g. Jane Eyre and 庭院深深 )

IN POPULAR CULTURE

OUR “VICTORIAN” SOCIETY

• Social Earnestness (Pretentiousness) vs. Doubts

• Rich vs. Poor

• Sex as a Taboo and Discursive/Media Focus

ANOTHER THING IN COMMON?QUEST AND ANTI-QUEST

HISTORY

• The Romantic Age 1798—1832 -- Industrial Revolution + 1789 French Revolution -- 1798 the publication of Wordsworth & Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads -- Byron’s death (1824)-- to Sir Walter Scott’s death (1832) & the passage of the first Reform Bill in the parliament.

• The Victorian Age 1832 (– 1838-1870)-1901 •The early period (1832-1848): a time of social unrest•The middle period (1848-1870): a period of economic prosperity & religious controversy; •The last period (1870-1901): a period of decay of Victorian values.

Workers’ Strike – 1811’s - 1818

The Romantics (2005) & The Victorians (2009) --Opening

1. MODERNITY

(from medievalism, feudalism and agriculturalism to)A Society dominated by • Industrialism + Science • Capitalism • Secularization • Rationalization• Building of Nation-State

Phases•16th-18th centuries: early modernity•19th century: classical modernity•1901-1950’s – late modernity

QUEST AND ANTI-QUEST

Romantic Quest• for love, self-identity,

poetic beauty, natural supernaturalism, and individual freedom/heroism

Victorian Anti-Quest• frustration and

transformation of quest• Done through some

extreme measures or vicariously

Instead of the holy grail, the objective is usually to reach

beyond human limits.

WOMEN’S POSITIONS AS OBJECT OR SUBJECT OF QUEST

Jane Eyre• Social critique (e.g. the

religious hypocrisy of charity institutions) and a woman’s quest?

Alice in WonderlandA girl’s quest?

ROMANTICISM

QUEST FOR INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM AND POETIC IDEALS

NEOCLASSICISM(MS. WEN-LING SU)

• The Grand Manner (Joshua Reynolds)

• Reason // clarity // order // restraint

• Goodness // virtue // truth

• Moral

• Simple // austere // monumental

• Balanced // symmetric // geometric

THE ROMANTICS –(1) LIBERTY (BBC)• 19:02 Joshua Reynold vs. William Blake• “London”

• Blake the other radicals (e.g. Brissot)• 34:42 Wordsworth –Annette and their child –The Great

Terror (killings of the supporters of the King)• 43:30 – Wordsworth, a wanderer in Nature • 47:30 – Wordsworth and Coleridge’s friendship and

cooperation. • 51:00 – The Lyrical Ballads (poetry of and for individuals)

THE ROMANTICS –(2) NATURE (BBC)

• Opening • 1:30 – Age of industrialization; Man’s relation

with Nature in an increasingly mechanized world • 3:40 – vision of Blake as a child – Child’s

imagination vs. “Chimney Sweeper”

THE ROMANTICS--FEATURES

• Against Industrialism/Materialism

• Idealistic, • Revolutionary, Iconoclastic,• [first generation] Sympathetic with Peasants • Quest for -- poetic imagination-- being one with Nature or -- some supernatural vision (the sublime).

ROMANTICISM

• (1) Subjectivism: poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings ” which expresses the poet’s mind. Emphasis on imagination. • (2) Spontaneity: This emphasis on spontaneity

is opposed to the “rules” and “regulations” imposed on the poets by neo-classic writers• (3) Singularity: love for the remote, the

unusual, the strange, the supernatural, the mysterious, the splendid, the picturesque, & the illogical. (source: teaching notes)• (4) Nature: As a source of spiritual replenishment

and guidance.

WILLIAM BLAKE

WILLIAM BLAKE• an English writer, poet,

and illustrator of the Romantic period; • Had visions of angels as

a child; • 1787 the technique of

"illuminated writing," or relief-etching. • Songs of Innocence

(1789) • 1797 –Songs of

Innocence and of Experience ("the two Contrary States of the Human Soul." )

• Image source: http://members.aol.com/lshauser2/wmblake.html

SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE (1794)

• "Innocence" -- the state of the unfallen man; • "Experience" -- man's

state after the Fall.

e.g. the two "Chimney Sweepers," the two "Nurse's Songs,“

the two "Holy Thursdays"; "Infant Joy" vs. "Infant Sorrow," Infant Joy" vs. "Infant Sorrow," "The Divine Image" vs. "A Divine Image.“"The Lamb"

vs. "The Tyger"

"INFANT JOY" (1789)

1. Who are the speakers of this poem? What do they talk about? Can a baby be talking to its mother?

2. What are the functions of repetition in this poem?

"INFANT JOY" (1789)

"I have no namename, I am but two days oldtwo days old." What shall I call theecall thee? "I happy am, Joy is my nameJoy is my name." Sweet joy befall theethee! Pretty joy! Sweet joy, but two days oldtwo days old. Sweet joy I call theecall thee Thou dost smile, I sing the while-- I sing the while-- Sweet joy befall theeSweet joy befall thee.

"INFANT JOY" (1789)

1. the speakers—the mother and her baby (imagined to be speaking)

2. About its namelessness, and how it is named after its joy.

3. Repetition – a. How the mother is attentive and caring; b. The interchange (beyond words) between

the baby and the mother.

INFANT SORROW

• 1. Who is the speaker, considering his/her usage of the words 'groaning,' 'weeping' and 'fiend.'  What is his tone like?• 2. Again, pay attention to the sound effects.

What do we make of the end rhymes? • 3. Why does the infant 'sulk' but not 'suck'

upon the mother's breast?  Are there any words with the same effects? • 4. Main idea: Is this infant seeking freedom,

or just food, in all its struggling and striving and sulking?

INFANT SORROW

My mother groaned, my father weptwept;Into the dangerous world II leaptleapt,Helpless, naked, piping loudloud,Like a fienda fiend hid in a cloudcloud.

Struggling in my father's handshands,Striving against my swaddling bandsswaddling bands,Bound and weary, I thought bestbestTo sulksulk upon my mother's breastbreast.

INFANT SORROW

• 1. The speaker – an adult, who knows the parents’ hardship and what they think about a kid.

• 2. the end rhymes– shows the contrariescontraries of the father’s weeping and the infant’s leaping, the latter’s loudness and its being in a cloud; struggling in the first two lines vs. ‘sulking’ in the third and fourth.

• 3. 'sulk‘-- 'suck‘; ’best’– breast; • 4. Main idea: 1) Poverty dooms the family; 2)

this infant seeks freedom against the constraints imposed on it.

“INFANT JOY” & “INFANT SORROW”

“INFANT JOY” & “INFANT SORROW”

1. Please try to compare the two poems both in terms of their line and sound patterns. 

2. Is an infant ‘joyful’ by birth? Why is the infant in “Infant Sorrow” not 'sorrowful'?

3. Are there other ways of reading them? Can there be causes for sorrow in "Infant Joy" and spaces for joy in "Infant Sorrow"? 　

“TYGER” AND “SICK ROSE”

THE SICK ROSE

O Rose, thou art sick! The invisible worm That flies in the night, In the howling storm, Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy, And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy.

TYGER

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright, In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare sieze the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

TYGER (2)What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp? When the stars threw down their spears, And water'd heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

•Review/Quiz: Blake’s Poems •Your discussion: Wordsworth’s Short Poems •My Role: “Tinturn Abbey” and “Immortality Ode”

NEXT WEEK

REF (1) THE ROMANTICS –(1) LIBERTY (BBC)

• Opening • 19:02 Joshua Reynold vs. William Blake• “London” • Blake the other radicals (e.g. Brissot)• 34:42 Wordsworth –Annette and their child –The

Great Terror (killings of the supporters of the King)• 43:30 – Wordsworth, a wanderer in Nature • 47:30 – Wordsworth and Coleridge’s friendship and

cooperation. • 51:00 – The Lyrical Ballads (poetry of and for

individuals)• 54:00 --”The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

REF (2)THE ROMANTICS –(2) NATURE (BBC)• Opening • 1:30 – Age of industrialization; Man’s relation

with Nature in an increasingly mechanized world • 3:40 – vision of Blake as a child – Child’s

imagination vs. “Chimney Sweeper”• 51:00 -- Mary Shelley and Frankenstein