EN227/RVP EJM2012/2013 Romanticism: revision lecture Overview •
Romantic themes •
Poetic form •
The exam Themes The individual: celebration of the subjective, self-­‐defining, self-­‐inventing individual who discovers his/her own identity rather than assuming the identity s/he is born into. The individual is defined by the imagination The poet: the Romantic poet expresses a new model of selfhood or individualism; one that is autonomous, subjective and grounded in feelings Childhood: a site of memory, innocence, nature and individuality; and a state of emotional vulnerability; children are also closer to God for the Romantics and so and free from the burdens of adulthood Nature: nature is not so much a topic for the Romantics, but rather the way they experience the world; its tranquillity allows for reflection on the past, not to idealize it, but to enable understanding of the present Sublime: a feeling of awe and terror which temporarily paralyzes the mind; as the feeling recedes, the individual is left with a newly invigorated sense of self and being; it works differently for male and female poets; related to the feeling of ‘wonder’ Imagination: a productive not reproductive faculty able to produce knowledge more profound than that available to reason; poetry acts as an index to the imagination as it best records the imagination’s workings Memory: the process of reflection nature allows leads to a valuing of memory, a creative (not nostalgic) faculty sensitive to a past that can modify and even reverse a present state of mind Sensibility: a way of engaging with society and culture through tasteful, polite and regulated feeling that highlights the good character of the individual Sympathy: a way of engaging with society and culture by imagining, and so feeling, the suffering of others, fine-­‐tuning ones own feelings by emotionally interacting with one’s community Religion: Romanticism is sometimes referred to as a ‘secular religion,’ but is also variously described as ‘prophetic’ and ‘apocalyptic’ EN227/RVP Form Lyric: Lyrical ballad: Ode: Sonnet: Elegy: Revising Format: subjective, personal reflection (the opposite of ‘epic’) combination of the subjective lyric and communal song/story Romantics mainly use/revise the Horatian ode, not the Pindaric Shakespearean or Petrarchan, or a spin on one of these poem of mourning through a reflection on death The exam is two hours; there is 15 minutes reading time. The rubric for section A is: ‘Write an essay on ONE of the following pairs of texts’ (you must choose one pair from a choice of 2 pairs); the rubric for section B is: ‘Answer ONE question. You should discuss at least TWO and not more than FOUR poets of the period’ (there are 8 questions) Section A: practice close reading by reading the set texts and thinking about what themes discussed on the module these poems address; Section B: revise 3-­‐4 themes in relation to 3-­‐4 poets and practice writing out answers of about 1000 words (roughly 4 x A4 pages of written text) How to revise: Quotations: The exam: EJM2012/2013 Learn a few that will work in different essays Your answers should be full essays with an introduction and argument; do not write summaries of different ways to answer the question. Be focused and clear. Your answers should look like Dog A, not Dog B. DOG A DOG B