The
Romantic Age (1798 – 1832) Part – I
Topics
so far –
1.
The Road Map for NET/JRF in English
Now
-
16.
The Romantic Age: Part – I
Outline
to the Romantic Age
Poetry:
The First Generation of Poets
Novel
Miscellaneous
Prose & Utilitarians
Poetry:
The Second Generation of Poets
The
Semi-Romanticists
Literary
Criticism
Periodical
Literature
The
Essay
Other
Prose Works
The Romantic Age – I
Romanticism in Itself and in Relation to Society: The first thirty years of the nineteenth
century form a natural period. We witness the realization in all its plenitude
of a type of emotional and imaginative literature that has escaped from the
constraining forces of sovereign reason! This consummation is brought about by
an inner progress, but at the same time it is favoured by the general
influences of the social and moral surroundings.
After the great
upheaval caused by the transformation of industry, after the religious
awakening of Methodism and Evangelicalism, the decisive shock to thought comes
with the French Revolution. It is legitimate enough to date the beginning of
the new age in literature from the publication of the anonymous work which
united the young talents of Wordsworth and Coleridge (1798). Romanticism in
England is the affirmation of an innovatory aesthetic creed, as opposed to
orthodox art. English Romanticism does not consist in the triumph of ‘self’.
The personality of the writer has a characteristic place in it, because
sensibility and imagination are of the very essence of individuality.
Classicism laid stress upon the impersonal aspects of the life of the mind; the
new literature, on the other hand, openly shifts the centre of art, bringing it
back towards what is most proper and particular in each individual.
The Romantic
spirit can be defined as an accentuated predominance of emotional life,
provoked or directed by the exercise of imaginative vision, and in its turn
stimulating or directing such exercise. Intense emotion coupled with an intense
display of imagery, such is the frame of mind which supports and feeds the new
literature.
The Elizabethan
age had already been essentially an age of Romanticism. What are the traits
which distinguish the later Romanticism from the earlier? In the first place
there are delicate differences due to the immediate happenings and to near
historical influences. (for an elaborate intro to Romanticism do read Legouis
and Cazamian’s wonderful book History of English Literature)
The general features of the Romantic movement
were -
a) A return to Nature - to the real
nature of earth and air, and not to the bookish nature of the artificial
pastoral.
b) A fresh interest in man's position
in the world of nature. This led to great activity in religious and political
speculation
c) An enlightened sympathy for the poor
and oppressed. In English literature during this time one has but to think of
the work of Cowper, Burns, and Crabbe, and even of the classically minded Gray,
to perceive the revolution that is taking place in the minds of men.
d) A revolt against the conventional
literary technique, such as that of the heroic couplet. On the other
hand, we have a desire for strength, simplicity, and sincerity in the expression
of the new literary ideals.
e) Fresh treatment of Romantic themes
in such poems as The Lay of the Last Minstrel, The
Ancient Mariner, La Belle Dame sans Merci. Writers
turned to supernatural stories, legends, and the more colourful periods of
history, especially the Middle Ages.
Political and Periodical Writing: The age did not produce a pamphleteer of the first class
like Swift or Burke, but the turbulence of the period was clearly marked in the
immense productivity of its political writers. The number of periodicals was
greatly augmented, and we notice the first of the great daily journals that are
still a strong element in literature and politics. The Morning Chronicle (1769) was started by William Woodfall, The Morning Post (1772)
by a syndicate of London tradesmen, and The
Times (1785), under the name of The Daily Universal Register, by John Walter. Of a more irresponsible type were the
Radical Political Register (1802) of Cobbett and The
Examiner (1808) of Leigh Hunt. A race of powerful
literary magazines sprang to life: The
Edinburgh Review (1802), The Quarterly Review (1809), Blackwood's
Magazine (1817), The London Magazine (1820), and The
Westminster Review (1824). Such excellent publications
reacted strongly upon authorship, and were responsible for much of the best
work of Hazlitt, Lamb, Southey, and a host of other miscellaneous writers.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH:
Wordsworth’s creative originality among English poets remains closely linked
with the revolutionary faith. A spiritual bond was formed never to be broken.
Asserting
in the preface to his Lyrical
Ballads that
poetry should comprise ‘‘language really used by men,’’ William Wordsworth
challenged the prevailing eighteenth century notion of formal poetic diction
and thereby profoundly affected the course of modern poetry. His major work, The Prelude, a study of the role of the imagination and
memory in the formation of poetic sensibility, is now viewed as one of the most
seminal long poems of the
nineteenth
century. The freshness and emotional power of Wordsworth’s poetry, the keen
psychological depth of his characterizations, and the urgency of his social
commentary make him one of the most important writers in English.
Writing Habits and Lifelong Friends: Following a brief sojourn in London,
Wordsworth settled with his sister at Racedown in 1795. Living modestly but
contentedly, he now spent much of his time reading contemporary European
literature and writing verse. An immensely important contribution to
Wordsworth’s success was Dorothy’s lifelong devotion: She encouraged his efforts
at composition and looked after the details of their daily life. During the
first year at Racedown, Wordsworth wrote The Borderers, a verse drama based on the ideas of William Godwin and the
German Sturm und Drang writers, who emphasized emotional expression in their
work. The single most important event of his literary apprenticeship occurred
in 1797 when he met the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The two had corresponded
for several years, and when Coleridge came to visit Wordsworth at Racedown,
their rapport and mutual admiration were immediate. Many critics view their
friendship as one of the most extraordinary in English literature.
In 1802,
Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson. Realizing that Wordsworth now required a
more steady source of income, Coleridge introduced him to Sir George Beaumont,
a wealthy art patron who became Wordsworth’s benefactor and friend. Beaumont
facilitated the publication of the Poems of
1807; in that collection, Wordsworth once again displayed his extraordinary talent
for nature description and infusing an element of mysticism into ordinary
experience. Always fascinated by human psychology, he also stressed the influence
of childhood. Most reviewers singled out ‘‘Ode: Intimations of Immortality from
Recollections of Early Childhood’’ as perhaps Wordsworth’s greatest production.
Romantic Movement: Wordsworth was a quintessential Romantic poet. The Romantic
Movement in literature, which began in the late eighteenth century, was a reaction
against what was seen as the cold rationality of the Enlightenment period.
During the Enlightenment, developments in science and technology ushered in the
massive social changes in western society. The Industrial Revolution brought
about population explosions in European cities while the works of political
scientists and philosophers laid the groundwork for the American and French
Revolutions. The Romantics viewed science and technology skeptically, and
stressed the beauty of nature and individual emotion in their work.
Early
response to his poetry begins with Francis Jeffrey’s concerted campaign to thwart
Wordsworth’s poetic career. His reviews of the works of the Lake
poets—Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Robert Southey—and of Wordsworth’s poetry in
particular, were so vitriolic that they stalled public acceptance of the poet
for some twenty years but brought many critics to his defense. To Jeffrey,
Wordsworth’s poetic innovations were in ‘‘open violation of the established laws
of poetry.’’ He described Wordsworth’s stylistic simplicity as affectation.
Like Jeffrey, many readers may have believed Wordsworth ‘‘descended too low’’
in his writing, as an advertisement
printed with the Lyrical
Ballads in 1798
warns. The advertisement recognizes that the familiar tone Wordsworth uses may
not be what poetry readers prefer and tries to frame Wordsworth’s poetic
inclusion of ordinary language as an ‘‘experiment’’ that attempts ‘‘to ascertain
how far the language of conversation in the middle and lower classes of society
is adapted to the purposes of poetic pleasure.’’ Despite this public
hesitation, Wordsworth’s poetry eventually gained acceptance. By the 1830s,
Wordsworth was England’s preeminent poet.
Wordsworth’s
The Prelude was
published shortly after his death. Begun some fifty years earlier, the poem was
completed in 1805 and then drastically revised over time. Greeted with uneven
praise at its first appearance, the poem is now hailed as Wordsworth’s greatest
work. Scholar Alan Richardson notes that because of the work’s autobiographical
slant, many literary critics view The Prelude through a variety of lenses, particularly psychoanalytic.
Wordsworth,
or the poet, becomes the subject, while the critic becomes amateur analyst. At
the same time, some critics tend to explore the poem through historical
criticism, preferring, as David Miall suggests, to see how ‘‘Wordsworth engages
with contemporary events . . . at the local level and . . . on a broader canvas.’’
In this vein, scholars like to analyze the way Wordsworth
may ‘‘position himself as a historical figure.’’
In
general, critics laud The Prelude’s blending of autobiography, history, and epic, its theme of loss
and gain, its mythologizing of childhood experience, and its affirmation of the
value of the imagination.
Note:-
Wordsworth
was keenly interested in depicting idealized portraits of rural people. Here
are some other works that champion or examine ‘‘common’’ rural, hardworking
lives:
So Big! (1924), a novel by Edna Ferber. Ferber’s Pulitzer Prize–winning
novel shows a moral contrast between the hardworking farm woman and her
city-dwelling architect son.
The Grapes of Wrath (1939), a novel by John Steinbeck. This novel set during the
Great Depression follows Tom Joad and his family on their journey to the
promised land of California.
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), a book by James Agee with photographs by Walker Evans.
Agee and Evans photographed and detailed the real lives of sharecropper
families in the U.S. South. Their portraits are a far cry from Wordsworth’s
idealized visions.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE was a poet, philosopher, and literary
critic whose writings have been enormously influential in the development of
modern thought. In his lifetime, Coleridge was renowned throughout Britain and
Europe as one of the Lake Poets, a close-knit group of writers including
William Wordsworth and Robert Southey. Today, Coleridge is considered the
premier poet-critic of modern English tradition, distinguished for the scope
and influence of his thinking about literature as much as for his innovative
verse.
Coleridge
was born on October 21, 1772, in the village of Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire, England,
where he lived until the age of ten, when his father died. The boy was then
sent to school at Christ’s Hospital in London. Later, he described his years
there as desperately lonely; only the friendship of future author Charles Lamb,
a fellow student, offered solace. From Christ’s Hospital, Coleridge went to
Jesus College, Cambridge, where he earned a reputation as a promising young
writer and brilliant conversationalist. He left in 1794 without completing his
degree. Coleridge then traveled to Oxford University, where he befriended
Robert Southey. The two developed a plan for a ‘‘pantisocracy,’’ or egalitarian
agricultural society, to be founded in Kentucky. By this time, the American
colonies had completed their revolution, and the United States was in its
infancy. Kentucky became a state in 1792. For a time, both Coleridge and
Southey were absorbed by their revolutionary concepts and together composed a
number of works, including a drama, The Fall of Robespierre (1794), based on their radical politics. Since their plan also
required that each member be married, Coleridge,
at Southey’s urging, wed Sara Fricker, the sister of Southey’s fiancée.
Unfortunately, the match proved disastrous, and Coleridge’s unhappy marriage
was a source of grief to him throughout his life. To compound Coleridge’s
difficulties, Southey lost interest in the scheme, abandoning it in 1795.
Focused on Poetry Writing: Career Coleridge’s fortunes changed when in 1796
he met the poet William Wordsworth, with whom he had corresponded casually for
several years. Their rapport was instantaneous, and the next year, Coleridge
moved to Nether Stowey in the Lake
District, where he and Wordsworth began their literary collaboration.
Influenced by Wordsworth, whom he considered the finest poet since John Milton,
Coleridge composed the bulk of his most admired work. Because he had no regular
income, he was reluctantly planning
to become a Unitarian minister when, in 1798, the prosperous china
manufacturers Josiah and Thomas Wedgwood offered him a lifetime pension so that
he could devote himself to writing.
Aided by
this annuity, Coleridge entered a prolific period that lasted from 1798 to
1800, composing The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Christabel, Frost
at Midnight, and Kubla
Khan.
In 1798, Coleridge also collaborated with Wordsworth on Lyrical
Ballads, a volume of poetry that they published anonymously. Coleridge’s
contributions included The
Rime of the Ancient Mariner, published
in its original, rather archaic form. Most critics found the poem
incomprehensible, including Southey, who termed it ‘‘a Dutch attempt at German
sublimity.’’ The poem’s unpopularity impeded the volume’s success, and not
until the twentieth century was Lyrical Ballads recognized as the first literary document of English
Romanticism.
Coleridge
traveled to what later became Germany, where nationalism was on the rise. He
developed an interest in the philosophies of Immanuel Kant, Friedrich von
Schelling, August
Wilhelm,
and Friedrich von Schlegel. Coleridge later introduced German aesthetic theory
in England through his critical writings.
The poem
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner perhaps best incorporates both Coleridge’s imaginative use of
verse and the intertwining of reality and fantasy. The tale of a seaman who
kills an albatross, the poem presents a variety of religious and supernatural
images to depict a moving spiritual journey of doubt, renewal, and eventual
redemption.
Influence of German Romantic
Philosophy: Coleridge’s
analyses channeled the concepts of the German Romantic philosophers into
England and helped establish the modern view of William Shakespeare as a master
of depicting human character. The Biographia Literaria, the most
famous of Coleridge’s critical writings, was inspired by his disdain for the
eighteenth-century empiricists who relied on observation and experimentation to
formulate their aesthetic theories. In this work, he turned to such German
philosophers as Kant and Schelling for a more universal interpretation of art.
From Schelling, Coleridge drew his ‘‘exaltation of art to a metaphysical role,’’
and his contention that art is analogous to nature is borrowed from Kant.
Definition of Imagination: Of the different sections in the Biographia
Literaria, perhaps the most often studied is Coleridge’s definition of the
imagination. He describes two kinds of imagination, the primary and the secondary:
the primary is the agent of perception, which relays
the details of experience, while the secondary interprets these details and
creates from them. The concept of a dual imagination forms a seminal part of
Coleridge’s theory of poetic unity, in which disparate elements are reconciled
as a unified whole. According to Coleridge, the purpose of poetry was to
provide pleasure ‘‘through the medium of beauty.’’
As a
major figure in the English Romantic movement, he is best known for three
poems, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, and Christabel. Although the three poems were poorly
received during Coleridge’s lifetime, they are now praised as classic examples of
imaginative verse. The influence of Ancient Mariner rings clear in Shelley and Keats in the next generation, and in
Tennyson, Browning, Rossetti, and Swinburne among their Victorian inheritors.
In the title of W. H. Auden’s Look,
Stranger! (1936), the echo of the Mariner’s
exhortation, ‘‘Listen, Stranger!’’ from the text of 1798, shows how far
Coleridge’s voice would carry.
Coleridge
was also influential as a critic, especially with Biographia
Literaria. His
criticism, which examines the nature of poetic creation and stresses the
relationship between emotion and intellect, helped free literary thought from
the neoclassical strictures of eighteenth century scholars.
Kubla Khan: For many years, critics considered Kubla
Khan merely a novelty of limited meaning, but John
Livingston Lowes’s 1927 study, The Road to Xanadu: A Study in the
Ways of the Imagination, explored its imaginative complexity and the many literary sources
that influenced it, including the works of Plato and Milton. Though Coleridge
himself dismissed the poem as a ‘‘psychological experiment,’’ it is now
considered a forerunner of the work of the Symbolists and Surrealists in its
presentation of the Unconscious.
Note:-
Coleridge
claimed Kubla Khan was
inspired by an opium induced dream. Here are some other works that were
inspired by dreams, opium experiences, or flights of imagination:
Confessions
of an English Opium Eater (1822),
a memoir by Thomas de Quincey. Coleridge’s friend and fellow opium addict wrote
of his experiences with addiction.
The Castle of Otranto (1764), a novel by Horace Walpole. The first Gothic novel, this
story set the genre’s conventions, from crumbling castles to secret passageways
to melodramatic revelations. A sensation upon its publication, it
single-handedly launched a genre.
Compendium of Chronicles (1307), a literary work by Rashid al-Din. This
fourteenth-century Iranian work of literature and history includes the detail
that the inspiration for Kubla Khan’s palace was given to the Mongolian ruler
in a dream. The book was published in English for the first time twenty years
after the final revision of Coleridge’s masterpiece.
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793), a poem by William Blake. This poem explicitly
explores the relationship between the conscious and the unconscious minds and
the role of imagination as prophecy.
ROBERT SOUTHEY: He
was made Poet Laureate in 1813. His poems, which are of great bulk, include Joan of Arc (1798),
Thalaba the Destroyer (1801), The Curse
of Kehama (1810), and Roderick, the Last of the Goths (1814). Typically romantic in theme, most of them were too
ambitious for a poet of Southey's limitations. In style they are
straightforward and unaffected, but they lack the transfiguring fire of true
genius and are now almost forgotten. Some shorter pieces, such as The Holly-tree, The Battle Of Blenheim, and The
Inchcape Rock, are Still in favour, and deservedly so.
His numerous prose works include The
History of Brazil (1810-19) and The History of the Peninsular War (1823-32). The slightest of them all, The Life of Nelson (1813),
is the only one now freely read. It shows Southey's easy 'middle' style at its
best.
WALTER
SCOTT: Modern scholars consider Scottish author
Sir Walter Scott both the inventor of the historical novel and the first
best-selling novelist. In addition to elevating the novel to a status equal to
that of poetry, Scott singlehandedly created the genre of historical fiction,
vividly bringing to life both Scottish and English history.
Poetic Success: In Minstrelsy of
the Scottish Border
(1802), his first publication, Scott’s
interests as a poet, an antiquarian, and a Scottish cultural nationalist came together
for the first time. This work contained the Scottish ballads he had collected
over the years, many of which
had never before appeared in print. Encouraged both by praise from friends and
by the popularity of this collection, Scott wrote the highly successful
narrative poem The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), a work Scott intended to illustrate the customs and
manners of inhabitants on both sides of the Scottish-English border during medieval
times.
Around
this time, Scott quit practicing law full time and entered into a longtime
relationship with the printer James Ballantyne, purchasing a third share in the
business that would publish many of his works throughout the years. Scott
followed the success of The Lay of the Last Minstrel with a series of highly popular poems featuring
Scottish backgrounds and themes. Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field (1808), for example, tells of a famous—and disastrous—Scottish
battle against the English. In 1810, Scott published his best-known long poem, The
Lady of the Lake,
set in the Scottish Highlands.
The Waverly Novels: The triumph of the first two cantos of
Lord Byron’s poem Childe
Harold in 1812 convinced
Scott that he could not compete with the younger poet. By the time Scott’s next
work, Rokeby, appeared
in 1813, readers were beginning to lose interest in his poetry. Anxious to keep
his audience and income, Scott decided to revise and complete a fragment of a novel
that he had begun ten years before about the Jacobite revolution in Scotland,
an attempt to restore the old Stuart line to the Scottish and English thrones. Published in 1814, Waverley;
or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since
quickly became the most successful work of
its kind ever to appear, and the novel brought huge profits to Scott and his
publisher. Over the next seventeen years, Scott wrote more than two dozen
novels and stories in a series now known as the Waverly Novels. Because he
never worked out his plots ahead of time, rarely revised his manuscripts, and followed
strict work habits, Scott was able to maintain an impressively prolific pace.
Through the speech, manners, and customs of past ages, most of the Waverly
Novels describe the lives of ordinary individuals who become involved in
historical events. This body of work is often divided into three groups: the
‘‘Scotch Novels,’’ including Old Mortality (1816), which deal with Scottish culture and history; the novels
that focus on medieval history in England and Europe, such as Ivanhoe
(1820); and those
that are concerned with the Tudor-Stuart era in England, including Woodstock (1826).
Because
writing novels was considered less respectable than writing poetry during this
time, Scott published the Waverly Novels anonymously. Even when the success of
this series increased general public appreciation for novelists, Scott chose to
remain anonymous—most likely a result of his perception that the mystery
surrounding the novels contributed to their sales. The Waverly Novels were
published as ‘‘by the Author of Waverly,’’
and the author was often referred to simply as the Great Unknown. Although the
Waverly Novels were published anonymously, many readers and critics alike knew
Scott’s identity, and he became not only the most popular writer in
contemporary English literature, but also a highly esteemed personality
throughout Europe. In 1818, Scott was made a baronet and thereafter was known
as Sir Walter Scott.
Influenced by History: Scott’s reading of the works of Edmund
Spenser and Torquato Tasso and Thomas Percy’s Reliques of
Ancient English Poetry
(1765) did much to shape his later poetry,
as did his many expeditions to the countryside, where he spent time collecting ballads,
local legends, and folklore. Scott was greatly influenced by the history and
life of people who lived in his native Scotland.
Novel Incorporations: Scott worked a number of ballads, songs,
and other lyrics into his novels. Gothic writers such as Ann Radcliffe and
Matthew Lewis had revived the convention of interspersing lyric poems in prose
narratives that was characteristic of earlier English romances such as Sir Philip
Sidney’s Arcadia
(1590, 1593) and Thomas Lodge’s Rosalynde
(1590). Scott used
this device to much greater effect than his Gothic predecessors did. His early
mastery of song and ballad forms enabled him to establish atmosphere and
character,
and his
use of lyrics to comment on or foreshadow the action of the novels is often
quite subtle and effective.
Influence: Twentieth-century critics have emphasized Scott’s important role
in English literary history, as well as his considerable impact on nineteenth-century
European literature. Literary historians have traced his influence on the
masterpieces of novelists as diverse as Charles Dickens, Gustave Flaubert,
Honore de Balzac, and William Makepeace Thackeray. Scholars have also explored Scott’s
significant contribution—through his invention and development of the
historical novel—to the history of ideas, specifically with respect to the
modern concept of historical perspective.
Waverly; or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since: The first in the Waverly Novels series, Waverley (1814), proved a popular sensation when first published and
quickly became the most successful work of its kind ever to appear. Contemporary
critical reaction, though also positive, did cite certain deficiencies in the
work, including careless construction and prolixity. Yet most early reviewers quickly
acknowledged the strengths of the novel, noting its originality, vivid
portrayal of history, and lively characters.
Like
most of Scott’s novels, Waverley
has fallen out of favor, although it
continues to attract the attention of scholars interested in the view of
history it offers. In the late 1960s, Robert C. Gordon wrote in Under
Which King? A Study of the Scottish Waverly Novels, ‘‘Waverly,
then is
one of the most distinguished innovations in literary history. It is also a
splendid work in its own right. Scott found his solution to the problems of
dealing with Jacobitism in the story of an immature, vain yet fundamentally
proper young hero who becomes a warrior.’’
Other
studies have been greatly influenced by the criticism of Georg Luka`cs in The Historical Novel. In this work, Lukacs examined Scott as a
dialectical historian, claiming that he ‘‘endeavors to portray the struggles
and antagonisms of history by means of characters who, in their psychology and
destiny, always represent social trends and historical forces.’’ Numerous
critics have taken up Lukacs’s idea and applied this thinking to Edward Waverley
as he represents a significant moment of cultural transition in Scottish and
English history.
Note:-
Scott
essentially invented the genre of historical fiction, a genre that still
flourishes today. Here are some more recent works of historical fiction:
Gudrun’s Tapestry (2003), a novel by Joan Schweighardt. Set in the fifth century,
this story vividly brings to life Attila the Hun and an ancient Norse saga.
I, Mona Lisa (2006), a novel by Jeanne Kalogridis. The author creates the
life of a young woman in fifteenth century Florence, Italy, who is the model
for Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting.
Joshua’s Bible (2003), a novel by Shelly Leanne. This novel follows a young
African American man in the 1930s who goes to South Africa as a missionary and
confronts the early days of apartheid.
Night of Flames (2007), a novel by Douglas W. Jacobson. In this novel, a married
couple is separated while fleeing Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2006), a novel by Lisa See. This novel,
set in nineteenth-century China, examines
women’s
roles in rural China.
The Sugar Cane Curtain (2000), a novel by Zilia L. Laje. This novel explores the Cuban
Revolution and Fidel Castro’s rise to power in Cuba.
Mary Shelley (1797–1851): British writer, married to Romantic poet Percy
Bysshe Shelley; her best-known work is the 1818 novel Frankenstein.
Frankenstein (1818), a novel by Mary Shelley. Geneva is the hometown of the
original mad scientist Victor Frankenstein, and much of the action in the novel
takes place in and around Switzerland. Frankenstein was
inspired, the story goes, by an evening which Mary Shelley spent with the poets
Byron and Shelley and their friend John Polidori on the shores of Lake Geneva in
1816. All four of them were to write something ‘supernatural’. Byron and
Shelley
incorporated the ideas into poems. Polidori
wrote The Vampire, published in 1818, a story which started a long line
of vampire tales in English.
Note:-
Farah has
been credited with writing the first feminist novel to come out of Africa.
However, feminism in literature dates back at least to the late eighteenth
century, and has been produced in many cultures around the world. Here are a
few more prominent feminist texts that argue that women deserve more freedom
than society then allowed them:
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), a treatise by Mary Wollstonecraft. This work, written by
the mother of Mary Shelley—the author of Frankenstein—is one of the first to present an argument for women’s rights
in general, and the right to an education in particular.
The Feminine Mystique (1963), a nonfiction work by Betty Friedan. In this work,
Friedan discusses the stifling nature of the role to which women were relegated
at that time in America: the role of housewife, a position that she finds
‘‘terrifying’’ because of the loneliness the housewife must feel to be all day
cut off from interactions with other adults.
The Subjection of Women (1869), an essay by John Stuart Mill. Arguing against the
patriarchal system in which he lived and in favor of equality between the
sexes, John Stuart Mill became one of the first major authors to support the
burgeoning feminist movement.
A Room of One’s Own (1929), an essay by Virginia Woolf. One of the arguments made
against the equality of men and women in the artistic sphere during Woolf’s
lifetime was that women had not proven themselves capable of producing high
art. Woolf argued that women would produce high art if aspiring female artists
had their own money and ‘‘a room of one’s own,’’ just as men have, to explore
their innate talents.
Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864). Landor had a long life' for he was born five years after
Wordsworth, and lived to see the full yield of the Victorian era. Landor is
seen at his best in his shorter works. The Hellenics,
brief narratives based on Greek
mythology, are for the most part in blank verse. Many of them have a pleasing conciseness
of style and lightness of touch, though some are marred by the weaknesses of Gebir. His
lyrics have often a classical restraint and delicacy.
His dramas, of which the best is Count Julian (1812),
are all lacking in true dramatic qualities, though Landor shows some power as a
creator of individual scenes. His literary fame rests, however, on his Imaginary Conversations, published at intervals between 1824 and 1846. These
dialogues between actual persons of the past, or of Landor's own day deal with
a wide variety of topics--from literary criticism to politics, and the method
of exposition varies almost as much as the subjects discussed.
Francis Jeffrey (1773-1850), one of the founders of The
Edinburgh Review, was born at Edinburgh, educated at the
high school and university of his native city, and was called to the Scottish
Bar. Though for many years an industrious writer for his journal, he maintained
a considerable legal practice, and distinguished himself in politics as an ardent
Whig. When his party came into office he was rewarded by being appointed Lord Advocate,
and played a considerable part in the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832. This
meant the abandonment of his position on the Review,
though he always kept a paternal eye on
its progress. He was finally appointed to the Bench, with the title of Lord
Jeffrey.
The Edinburgh Review was at first a
joint production of a group of young and zealous Whigs, including Sydney Smith
and Henry Brougham. Within a year of its foundation Jeffrey was responsible
editor, and he drew around him a band of distinguished contributors, including
at one time Sir Walter Scott.
Sydney Smith (1771-1845) was for a time a colleague of Jeffrey. He was born in Essex,
was educated at Winchester and Oxford, and became a clergyman. He settled for a
time at Edinburgh as a tutor, and assisted in the launching of The Edinburgh Review (1802). He took a large share in the political squabbles of
the time, and wrote much on behalf of the Whig party. His works consist of many
miscellaneous pieces, most of them of a political character. The most
noteworthy of them is a collection called Letters
on the Subject of the Catholics, to my Brother Abraham, who Lives in the
Country, by Peter Plymley (1807-08), which
deals with Catholic Emancipation. A more general selection from his writings
was published in 1855, and his Wit
and Wisdom in 1860.
John Wilson (1784-1854), who appears in literature as Christo pher North, was born at
Paisley, the son of a wealthy manufacturer. He was educated at Glasgow and Oxford,
wrote poetry, and for a time settled in the Lake District. He lost most of his money,
tried practice as a barrister, and then joined the staff of Blackwood's Magazine. He was appointed in 1820 Professor of Moral Philosophy at
Edinburgh University. His early poems, The
Isle of Palms (1812) and The City of the Plague (1816), are passable verse of the romantic type. His
novels-- for example, The Trials of Margaret Lyridsay (1823)--are sentimental pictures of Scottish life. Wilson's longest
work, and the one that perpetuates his name, is his Noctes Ambrosianae (beginning in 1822), which had a long
and popular run-in Blackwood's until 1835. At times Wilson rises into striking descriptive
passages, more florid and less impressive than De Quincey's, but beautiful in a
sentimental fashion. His taste, however, cannot be trusted, and his humour is
too often crude and boisterous. Here, as in his other writing for Blackwood's Magazine, we have the product of a boisterous, high-spirited critic,
to whose temperament, restraint, whether in praise, blame, or humour, was
alien.
John G. Lockhart (1794-1854) was born at Cambusnethan, educated at Glasgow and Oxford,
and became a member of the Scottish Bar. He soon (1817) became a regular
contributor to Blackwood's Magazine, sharing in its strong Tory views and its still stronger
expression of them. He rather gloried in these literary and political
fisticuffs, which in one case led to actual bloodshed, though he did not participate
in it. In 1820 he married Scott's favourite daughter Sophia, and lived to be the
biographer of his famous father-in-law. He was editor of The Quarterly Review from 1825 till 1853. Lockhart wrote four novels, the best of
which are Valerius (1821) and Adam
Blair (1822). They are painstaking
endeavours, but they lack the fire of genius, and are now almost forgotten. His
poetry is quite lively and attractive, especially his Ancient Spanish Ballads (1823). Peter's
Letters to his Kinsfolk (1819) is a
collection of brilliant sketches of Edinburgh and Glasgow society. Lockhart's
fame, however, rests on Memoirs of the Life of Sir
Walter Scott (1837-38), which was first published in
seven volumes. This book ranks as one of the great biographies in the language.
Though it is full of intimate and loving detail, it possesses a fine sense of
perspective and coherence; and while it is influenced by a natural partiality
for its subject, the story is judiciously told. In this book Lockhart casts
aside his aggressiveness of manner. His descriptions, as, for example, that of
the death of Scott, have a masterly touch.
William Cobbett (1762-1835) was born at Farnham, Surrey, and was the son of a farm-labourer.
He enlisted in the Army, rose to be sergeant-major, emigrated to America, where
he took to journalism, and returned to England, to become actively engaged inpolitics.
In 1831 he was elected to Parliament, but was not a success as a public man. He
was a man of violent opinions, boxed the political compass, and died an extreme
Radical. He was an assiduous journalist, beginning with The Porcupine (1800-01).
His other journal was Cobbett's Weekly Political
Register, which he began in 1802 and carried on almost
unaided until 1835. His literary reputation rests, however, on one of his few
full length books, his Rural
Rides (1830), which gives an account of the
English counties through which he wandered. A true son of the soil, Cobbett
writes with insight and understanding of the agricultural conditions of his
day. His close and honest observation of life and manners finds expression in a
plain, homely style, which has none of the graces of fine writing, but all the
vigour and simple directness of a Defoe. Instinctively right in his choice of
language, he speaks straight to the heart of the reader, and, though his work
is realistic rather than imaginative, the beauty of the English scene is impressed
on many a page of the Rural Rides.
Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868) was educated at Eton and Oxford, and afterward wrote some
plays, including the tragedy Fazio
(1815). His chief historical works are The History of the Jews (1829) and The
History of Latin Christianity (1854-55).
Milman is a solid and reliable historian, with a readable style.
Henry Hallam (1777-1859) was a member of the Middle Temple, but he practiced very
little. He wrote on both literary and historical subjects, and contributed to The Edinburgh Review. His historical works include The Constitutional History of England from the
Accession of Henry Vll to the Death of George II (1827) and his Introduction
to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth. Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries (1837-39). Hallam acquired a great and
deserved reputation for solid scholarship. Like Gibbon, he tried to attune his
style to his subject, and wrote in a grave and impressive manner, but, lacking
the genius of Gibbon, he succeeded only in making his style lifeless and
frigid.
LITERARY CRITICISM: No previous
period had seen literary criticism of such bulk or such generally high standard
as that produced in the age under review. In addition to the work of the
professional critics, such as Hazlitt (see p. 354) and the reviewers, many of the
poets and imaginative prose-writers have left us critical works of great and
enduring value. Mention may be made of Wordsworth's preface to the Lyrical Ballads; Coleridge's
Biographia Literaria and lectures on Shakespeare and the other poets; Shelley's The Defence of Poetry, in reply to the provocative The Four Ages of Poetry of Peacock; and Lamb's Specimens
of English Dramatic Poets, who lived about the Time of Shakespeare.
PERIODICAL LITERATURE: At
the beginning of this chapter we noted the chief members of a great new
community of literary journals. These periodicals were of a new type. Previous
literary journals, like The
Gentleman's Magazine (1731), had been feeble productions,
the work of elegant amateurs or underpaid hackwriters. Such papers had little
weight. The new journals were supreme in the literary world; they attracted the
best talent; they inspired fear and respect; and in spite of many defects their
literary product was worthy of their reputation.
THE ESSAY:
Finding a fresh outlet in the new type
of periodical, the essay acquired additional importance. The purely literary
essay, exemplified in the works of Southey, Hazlitt and Lockhart, increased in
length and solidity. It now became a review--that is, a commentary on a book or
books under immediate inspection, but in addition expounding the wider theories
and opinions of the reviewer. This new species of essay was to be developed
still further in the works of Carlyle and Macaulay.
The miscellaneous essay, represented in
the works of Lamb, acquired an increased dignity. It was growing beyond the
limits set by Addison and Johnson. It was more intimate and aspiring, and
contained many more mannerisms of the author. This kind also was to develop in
the hands of the succeeding generation.
OTHER PROSE
WORKS must receive scanty notice. The art of
letter-writing still flourished, as can be seen in the works of Byron, Shelley,
Keats, and Lamb. Lamb in particular has a charm that reminds the reader of that
of Cowper. Byron's letters, though egotistical enough, are breezy and humorous.
Biographical work is adequately represented in The Life of Byron, by
Moore, and The Life of Scott, by Lockhart. These books in their general outlines follow
the model of Boswell, though they do not possess the artless self-revelation of
their great predecessor. There is an advance shown by their division into
chapters and other convenient stages, a useful arrangement that Boswell did not
adopt. The amount of historical research was very great, and the historians
ranged abroad and tilled many fields; but in their general methods there was
little advance on the work of their predecessors.
Next –
The Romantic Age – II
Source(s) -
English
Literature by Edward Albert [Revised by J. A. Stone]
History of
English Literature, by Legouis and Cazamian
The Routledge
History of Literature in English: Britain and Ireland, by Ronald Carter and
John McRae
Gale’s Contextual
Encyclopedia of World Literature.
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