Poetic Form and British RomanticismOxford University Press, 1990 M02 22 - 288 pages Across Europe, and particularly in Great Britain, the Romantic age coincided with a large-scale revival of lost literatures and the first attempts to create a coherent history of Western literature. Calling into question that history, Stuart Curran demonstrates that the Romantic poets, far from being indifferent or hostile to popular forms of literature were actually obsessed with them as repositories of literary conventions and conveyors of implicit ideological value. Whether in their proccupation with fixed forms, which resulted in the incomparable artistry of Romantic odes, or in their rethinking of major genres like the pastoral, the epic, and the romance, the Romantic poets transformed every element they touched to suit their own democratic, secular and skeptical ethos--a world view recognizably modern in its dimensions. |
Contents
3 | |
14 | |
Chapter 3 The Sonnet | 29 |
Chapter 4 The Hymn and Ode | 56 |
Chapter 5 The Pastoral | 85 |
Chapter 6 The Romance | 128 |
Chapter 7 The Epic | 158 |
Chapter 8 Composite Orders | 180 |
Chapter 9 Form and Freedom in European Romantic Poetry | 204 |
Notes | 221 |
Index | 253 |
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Common terms and phrases
antipastoral antistrophe appears artistic ballad bard Blake Blake's Bowles Bowles's British Romanticism Byron canto celebrated Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Christian classical Coleridge Coleridge's complex Composite Orders conception contemporary context continually conventions critical culture dialectical Don Juan drama Eclogues Edinburgh Review edition eighteenth century elements embody English epic epic poetry Essay fiction force genre georgic human hymn ideological imaginative irony John Keats Keats's later literary literature logic London lyric Lyrical Ballads medieval Milton mind minstrel mode modern narrative nature Paradise Paradise Lost Paradise Regained paradox pastoral perspective Pindaric poem poet poet's poetic poetry political preface Prelude Princeton Prometheus Prometheus Unbound published quest reader Renaissance revival Robert Southey romance satire Scott self-reflexive sense sestet Shelley Shelley's simply song sonnet Southey Southey's Spenser stanza structure suggests Theocritus Tintern Abbey tion tradition translation University Press verse Virgil vision volume Warton's William Wordsworth writing
Popular passages
Page 99 - Paradise, and groves Elysian, Fortunate Fields — like those of old Sought in the Atlantic Main — why should they be A history only of departed things, Or a mere fiction of what never was ? For the discerning intellect of Man, When wedded to this goodly universe In love and holy passion, shall find these A simple produce of the common day.
Page 55 - AN old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king ; Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow Through public scorn — mud from a muddy spring ; Rulers, who neither see, nor feel, nor know. But leech-like to their fainting country cling...
Page 204 - NATUR UND KUNST sie scheinen sich zu fliehen, Und haben sich, eh man es denkt, gefunden; Der Widerwille ist auch mir verschwunden, Und beide scheinen gleich mich anzuziehen. Es gilt wohl nur ein redliches Bemühen! Und wenn wir erst in abgemeßnen Stunden Mit Geist und Fleiß uns an die Kunst gebunden, Mag frei Natur im Herzen wieder glühen.
Page 90 - The birds their quire apply ; airs, vernal airs, Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune The trembling leaves, while universal Pan, Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance, Led on the eternal Spring.
Page 108 - Which the great lord inhabits not ; and so This grove is wild with tangling underwood, And the trim walks are broken up, and grass, Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths. But never elsewhere in one place I knew So many Nightingales ; and far and near, In wood and thicket, over the wide grove, They answer and provoke each other's song, With skirmish and capricious passagings, And murmurs musical and swift jug jug, And one low piping Sound more sweet than all...
Page 150 - The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy ; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted...
Page 51 - Tis not in battles that from youth we train The Governor who must be wise and good, And temper with the sternness of the brain Thoughts motherly, and meek as womanhood. Wisdom doth live with children round her knees : Books, leisure, perfect freedom, and the talk Man holds with week-day man in the hourly walk Of the mind's business : these are the degrees By which true Sway doth mount ; this is the stalk True Power doth grow on ; and her rights are these.
Page 141 - Action is transitory — a step, a blow, The motion of a muscle — this way or that — 'Tis done, and in the after-vacancy We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed : Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark, And shares the nature of infinity.
Page 120 - I love all waste And solitary places; where we taste The pleasure of believing what we see Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be...
Page 125 - twere a little sky Gulphed in a world below ; A firmament of purple light, Which in the dark earth lay, More boundless than the depth of night, And purer than the day — In which the lovely forests grew As in the upper air, More perfect both in shape and hue Than any spreading there. There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn, And through the dark green wood The white sun twinkling like the dawn Out of a speckled cloud. Sweet views which in our world above Can never well be seen, Were imaged by the...