...Romancing the Heart The Romantic period was a time when not only the world was changing but also the way people were thinking the writers of the period started writing from a different approach than authors of the past. Romantic period writers took notice of the importance of the individual and the many forms of these experiences connection with nature, embrace of pride, and a rejection of social standards. This essay will focus on connections with nature and the authors of the times who emphasized glory, beauty, and power of the natural world. In the poets of this era there is a development in the works, the celebration of nature for its own sake in doing so the authors have broken with their predecessors. Although writers, such as Dante or Chaucer would have viewed nature as part of God’s creation and a reflection of divine power in the world in regard to its beauty and a reflection of evil in the world in regard to its dangers. As man moves into the modern romantic age the natural world of Europe has changed dangerous border regions and highways have been put under control, making travel safer and easier than ever before leading to new recreational sports such as hiking. Urban cities have grown larger, and that leads many people to desire a return to nature in all its simplicity, it is nostalgia for an old Europe. The perfect example of an author who mixed a desire for simplicity with nostalgia for the past is Williams Wordsworth in Tintern Abbey both these impulses can...
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...The Romantic Age was a time for the emergence of imaginative stories that allowed writers to break free from the typical European models of literature. Romantic writers were idealistic; they put emphasis on emotions rather than intellect. For example, writers like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Washington Irving are representatives of this literary age because their works exhibit the Romantic ideals of the supernatural, a love for nature, and larger-than-life heroes and villains. In the short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving, he displays many characteristics of the Romantic Age such as supernatural occurrences and the character's use of emotion over logic. The mention of many ghost stories throughout the story indicates elements of supernatural events. Towards the end of the story the main character, Icabod, is riding home through the forest from his love, Katrina's, party when he recalls the tale of the Headless Horseman. Ichabod is paranoid with every sound he hears thinking that he is being...
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...The Advent of Romanticism The Romantic era (1770-1870) was the term used to define the rebellion against the political and social devastation that followed the French Revolution. The Romantic era was the time when artists revolted against the classical values of balance, control, order, and proportionality promoted by neoclassical artists (Sayre 878). This revolt against the formalism of the Classical age produced a flood of emotional lyric, music, art, and poetry that peaked in works such as Ludwig van Beethoven’s (1770-1827) The Ninth Symphony (1824). The romantic characteristic of emotions, individualism, and imagination can be found in The Ninth. Francisco de Goya’s (1746-1828) Saturn Devouring One of his Children (1820-1823) posses the horrifically natural or true to life, as well as the emotional characteristics he so genially portrayed. On the softer side of the romantic scale, Percy Bysshe Shelley’s (1792-1822) Indian Girl’s Song (1819) beautifully portrayed the natural and emotional characteristics of Romanticism. There are also references to the supernatural, as well as the exotic, in this work, which most certainly leaves his readers yearning for more. Artists approached the world with an outpouring of feeling and emotional passion that came to be called Romanticism. The key characteristics of Romanticism are emotion, the exotic, nature, imagination, individualism, and the supernatural. Romanticism was an overt reaction against the Enlightenment, which was...
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...spread of it and how it impacted the different cultures within the medieval age. From the rise of the Christian Churches to the time of courtly love, troubadours and the romantic love era vernacular languages impacted the people of France throughout Western Europe and the rest of the world. Though the people of the general population where not able to interpret and understand the Latin language known as the language of the elite (the educated or the people of higher and political authority) until mid to late middle ages, they began to write and speak through the common languages within their countries to make it easier to communicate and understand laws, romantic love and to also spread the words of god within the Christian churches. The Catholic Church was established in 325 CE (Sayre,2013), approximately 300 years after the death of Jesus Christ. By 476 BE, the Germans had taken over the Roman Empire under the rule of Constantine as he started to build his empire known as the Byzantine Empire . Constantine, the first Christian ruler, a believer of Jesus Christ, moved the Roman Empire to Instanbul, formerly known as modern day, Turkey. Upon establishing his empire and the Christian church Constantine named that city after himself, Constantinople. After the Christian Church was established came the Medieval Ages which took place in Britain. The Medieval Age was also known as the dark or the middle ages. Not many things changed or were created during this time, as the people...
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...Romanticism Unshackled: a Study of the Modern Prometheus The most remarkable aspect about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is the ability to label the novel in so many different ways amongst many genres, ranging from science fiction, to fantasy, to horror, and have all of them be correct. At such a young age, Mary Shelley constructed a narrative so revolutionary, intricate, and involved that it is still pertinent to be written about in college essays almost 200 years after it was written. As the author, Shelley is often attributed with vast creative intellect, and rightly so, as is evidenced while reading through her novel. It is imperative to recognize, however, just how much influence her colleagues—the Romantic poets—had on the ideas that became manifested in her writing. Frankenstein should bear the title of Romantic literature because the novel embodies trademark Romantic ideas, situations, and characteristics throughout the text. In an attempt to categorize any novel as Romantic, however, one must first attempt to identify what, exactly, makes a work Romantic. A group of poets, including the likes of William Blake, Samuel Coleridge, William Wordsworth, John Keats, Lord Byron and—Mary’s husband—Percy Shelley, who are commonly credited as being the ground-breaking authors of the Romantic movement (Ferguson). A prime example of this method of poetry was introduced in the 1798 collection, Lyrical Ballads. This work, written by Wordsworth and Coleridge, is a compilation...
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...Modern-day Western society holds excessively strict views about gender roles in society, specifically when concerning who performs certain moves in the intricate dance of relationships. Many stereotypes have developed due to different pieces of literature and society in general. Men court women and rescue them from danger. Women learn the necessary skills to become a proper housewife and mother. For a man to successfully complete the requirements of his “part” in the relationship, he must provide for his spouse and assert his dominance as the head of the household. The woman must then complete the dance by deferring to her husband’s wishes and presenting the perfect picture of a cultured, subservient wife. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer and Lanval by Marie de France challenge this notion. In both works, the women represent the dominant force in the relationship, reversing gender roles and overturning modern-day gender stereotypes. However, despite the fact that both pieces of literature oppose the standards of the time, the social commentary the two works provide greatly contrast. Although Lanval still incorporates many of the common romantic stereotypes, The Canterbury Tales does not address these stereotypes; not only does the work present a profoundly different picture, illustrating a highly negative image of what occurs when women contain the power in a relationship, but also it also gives this classic piece of literature less relevancy in the eyes of the modern-day...
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...in China were made from pottery and jade in the Neolithic period. The gist of Chinese art encompasses fine arts, folk arts, and performance arts. The most common types/forms of arts and entertainment in the Chinese culture and China are as follows: 1. Literature 2. Chinese Folk Art 3. Visual Art 4. Film 5. Chinese Music 6. Performing Arts 7. Gardening 8. Architecture The start era for Chinese literature was the Spring and Autumn period. Chinese culture contains various groups of literature, including: Early Chinese poetry, Han and Northern dynasties poetry, Golden Age of Chinese poetry, Li Bai and Du Fu, Late Tang and Five dynasties, Song, Ming and Qing literature, Western influence: the big three, and Modern. These are all forms of early and late poetry in the Chinese culture. The love poems are among the most appealing in the freshness and purity of the Chinese language. There are several famously recognized poets in the Chinese culture. In modern poetry, Xu Zhimo, a romantic poet who cherished the poetry of the English romantics like Keats and Shelley, was among the first Chinese authors that effectively naturalized western romantic forms into contemporary Chinese poetry. Early Chinese poetry, in the Golden age, contained notable poets like Bai Juyi, Luo Binwang, Jia Dao, Wang Wei, and etc. Another form of entertainment in China that is probably the most common is Chinese music. The origins of Chinese music (and poetry) can be found in the Book of Songs. The...
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...The Concept of Nature in the Poetry of William Wordsworth and Robert Frost : A Comparative Study Chapter One Introduction 1. Background Poets have long been inspired to tune their lyrics to the variations in landscape, the changes in season, and the natural phenomena around them. The Greek poet Theocritus began writing idylls in the third century B.C.E. to glorify and honor the simplicity of rural life--creating such well known characters as Lycidas, who has inspired dozens of poems as the archetypal shepherd, including the famous poem "Lycidas" by John Milton. An idyll was originally a short, peaceful pastoral lyric, but has come to include poems of epic adventure set in an idealized past, including Lord Alfred Tennyson's take on Arthurian legend, The Idylls of the King. The Biblical Song of Songs is also considered an idyll, as it tells its story of love and passion by continuously evoking imagery from the natural world. The more familiar form of surviving pastoral poetry that has retained its integrity is the eclogue, a poem attuned to the natural world and seasons, placed in a pleasant, serene, and rural place, and in which shepherds often converse. The first eclogue was written by Virgil in 37 B.C.E. The eclogue also flourished in the Italian Renaissance, its most notable authors being Dante and Petrarch. It became something of a requirement for young poets, a form they had to master before embarking upon great original work. Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia and Edmund Spenser’s...
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...1. Literature of the 17th century. John Milton. “Paradise Lost”. John Bunyan. “Pilgrim’s Progress”. The peculiarities of the English literature of the 17th century are determined by the events of the Engl. Bourgeois Revolution, which took place in 1640-60. King Charles I was beheaded in 1649& General Oliver Cromwell became the leader of the new government. In 1660, shortly after Cro-ll’s death, the dynasty of the Stuarts was restored. The establishment of new social&eco-ic relations, the change from feudal to bourgeois ownership, escalating class-struggle, liberation movement and contradictions of the bourgeois society found their reflection in lit-re. The main representatives of this period is: John Milton: was born in London&educated at Christ’s College. He lived a pure life believing that he had a great purpose to complete. At college he was known as the The Lady of Christ’s. he Got master’s degree at Cambridge. It’s convenient to consider his works in 3 divisions. At first he wrote his short poems at Horton. (The Passion, Song on May Morning, L’Allegro). Then he wrote mainly prose. His 3 greatest poems belong to his last group. At the age of 23 he had still done little in life&he admits this in one of his sonnets. (On his 23d B-day) In his another sonnet he wrote on his own blindness. (On his Blindness) Milton wrote diff. kinds of works. His prose works were mainly concerned with church, affairs, divorce & freedom. The English civil war between Charles...
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...Jibananda Das During the later half of the twentieth century, Jibanananda Das emerged as the most popular poet of modern Bengali literature. Popularity apart, Jibanananda had distinguished himself as an extraordinary poet presenting a paradigm hitherto unfamiliar. It is said that his unusual poetic diction, selection of words and thematic inclination took time to reach the heart of the readers. The poetry of Jibanananda has become the defining essence of modernism in twentieth century Bengali poetry. He is considered one of the precursors who introduced modernist poetry to Bengali Literature, at a period when it was influenced by Rabindranath Tagore's Romantic poetry. Towards the later half of the twentieth century the poetry of Jibanananda has become the defining essence of modernism in twentieth century Bengali poetry Surrealism was one of his tools that he used to navigate in the Bengali literature with courage. He has shown his majestic mastery in lot of poems like Banalata Sen, Eight years ago one day, chil, poems of Rupashi Bangla and others. Jibanananda Das's poetry is occasionally result of profound feeling painted in imagery of a type not readily and easily comprehendable. At times the connection between the sequential lines is not apparent and clear. Jibanananda Das also deviated from the traditional circular structure of poetry (introduction-middle-end) and the pattern of logical sequence of words, lines and stanzas. As a result, the thematic undertone is often...
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...The American Renaissance period, circa 1876-1917, heralded a new sense of nationalism with a pride linking to a spirit akin to Greek democracy, the rule of Roman law, and a cultural and educational reform movement often referred to as Renaissance humanism. This American nationalism focused on the expression of modernism, technology, and academic classicism. Renaissance technological advancements include wire cables supporting the Brooklyn Bridge in the State of New York, along with cultural advancements found in the Prairie School houses, Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in architecture and sculpture. The political heir of American nationalism evolved with the Gilded Age and New Imperialism school of thought. The American Renaissance produced major influential literary works from some of the most brilliant minds in U.S. history, including Ralph Waldo Emerson's the "Representative Man (1850)", Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlett Letter (1850)" and "The House of Seven Gables (1851)," Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick," Henry David Thoreau's "Walden (1854)," and Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass (1855)." American Renaissance Literary Masterpieces The American Renaissance, a literary and cultural period circa extending from 1820 to the mid-1860s, gained inspiration from the unresolved issues of the American Revolution. The American Renaissance literary style was coined as "Romanticism," an international philosophical movement that redefined the perceptions of Western cultures, and...
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...PREFACE This major project examines the indispensable desiderata of Transcendentalism in comparison to the Dark Romantics background and how these technicalities prepare this work of art as an influential synthesis of human imagination incorporated with mystic facts. Transcendentalism and Dark Romanticism were two literary movements that occurred in America during roughly the same time period (1840—1860). Although the two had surface similarities, such as their reverence for Nature, their founding beliefs were quite different, enough to make one seem almost the antithesis of each other. Moreover one’s genesis is ventured out from other; i.e. Dark Romanticism from the roots of Transcendentalism or precisely the lacunae are best determined for raising up the term called Dark Romanticism. Contents S. No. Page no. Chapter 1.........................................................................................................4-14 Chapter 2.........................................................................................................15-23. Chapter 3..........................................................................................................24-27 Resolution.........................................................................................................28-29 Work Cited................................................................
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...rocks, etc. in the world and all the features, forces, and processes that happen or exist independently of people, such as the weather, the sea, mountains, the production of young animals or plants, and growth”. However, Marcel Isnard stated in Nature (1992) that “nature also means the principle or power that animates or even creates the objects of nature, and we speak of the laws of nature, sometimes spelt Nature.” (p. 185). Marcel continues with the idea that the interest of the Romantics in...
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...A. Expressive Theory Formerly “Expressionism” is a German movement in painting but later on, it extended its access to other literary arts too. Expressive criticism treats a literary work primarily in relation to the author. It defines poetry as an expression, or overflow, or utterance of feeling, or as the products of poet’s feelings. The theory tends to judge the work by its sincerity to the poets’ vision or the state of mind. Such views were developed mainly by the Romantic critics and remain current in our time too. Wordsworth’s definition of poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected in tranquility” is taken as the ground idea of the expressive theory of art. The most powerful impetus in expressive critical thought was the Romantic Movement that began in late eighteenth century. This movement has deeply affected our modern consciousness and the common sense discourse of literary commentary. The three key concepts associated with this movement are: imagination, genius and emotion. Expressive theorists firmly stick to these three key terms. They believe that authorial individuality is something to be conveyed by a literary work, and to go beyond objectivist theorists’ prescription that a poet’s effort should be to flee personality and that criticism should focus on the poem not on the poet. Wordsworthian notion that “a poem is inner made outer” puts an emphasis on the poet in a poem, and this emphasis has never eased. B. Objective Theory ...
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...December 8, 1811 in Richmond, Virginia, left Poe an orphan at the young age of three. After his mother’s death, John, a strict unemotional tobacco merchant, and Frances Allan, a weak woman due to health problems, took in Poe; his paternal grandparents took in his brother William Henry; and foster parents cared for his sister Rosalie. Poe was educated with the Allan’s aid, in private academies, excelling in Latin, in writing verse, and declamation. However, despite his education, he was looked down upon and regarded as an outsider by the upper class of Richmond’s society; perhaps because the Allan’s never legally adopted Poe. Also, the culture of Richmond during Poe’s young adulthood did not regard actors in a high manner. This could have attributed to his reputation since his biological parents were actors. The loss of his mother at an early age definitely affected Poe. “The angels, whispering to one another, Can find, among their burning terms of love, None so devotional as that of ‘Mother’” Poe wrote that in To My Mother. In Tamerlane, he not only wrote about his father, but he wrote about his mother as well; he had more respect for his mother than he did for his father. This respect can be found in “Tamerlane” because in it he speaks much nicer of his mother. For example, he writes, “O, she was worthy of all love! Love – as in infancy was mine – ‘Twas such as angel minds above Might envy; her young heart the shrine on which my every hope and thought.’” Tamerlane also shows...
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