Jane Austen

Jane Austen was an English author who wrote during the romantic period. Today, she is viewed as one of the most respected authors in the romance genre whose novels are considered pure classics. Her six novels include Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Mansfield Park. These novels shared common plots involving the marriages of young women and the realities of their lives. The social class structure in England was also a prominent theme in her works. The admired females in Austen’s books “are independent women who share ideals in a male-dominated society. In her novels she expresses the feminist feelings of her time. Therefore, Austen makes connections with choice in marriage and the logical female thoughts. Austen’s heroines are unique women who try to stand up for themselves in a society which is an ideal of feminism” (Güney 4). Her support for feminism is obvious as it is an embedded theme in all of her works, yet she often used the women in her novels as a target for Satire. Marianne Dashwood, a hopeless romantic in Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility, behaved in ways that we in the twenty-first century view as ridiculous, childish, and even annoying and comical. It is quite possible that Austen herself, though an obviously strong and passionate feminist, disagreed with the way that women acted and carried themselves during this particular era in order to obtain their goals of marriage.

It is thought that Austen might have adopted some of the same principles as Aristotle, though it cannot be determind for sure. Like Aristotle, Austen clearly portrayed "marriage as the foundation of society and, for most, the source of meaning and purpose in life; social barriers such as class often present themselves as unjust obstacles to romantic desire" (Garbitelli 1). Jane Austen is even sometimes viewed “as a partisan of Aristotelian rationalism against the dominant principles of modernity…to celebrate classical friendship as the core of romantic love” (Garbitelli 1).

Also portrayed in the novel Sense and Sensibility is the love for art that Austen obtained. Matt Fisher states, "In the early chapters of Sense and Sensibility, as we become acquainted with Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, we find frequent references to art. Elinor and Marianne are both creative girls—Elinor draws; Marianne plays music" (Fisher 1). This is obviously accurate, as we saw the unique artist in each girl reveal itself through the course of the movie. Art plays a great role in Austen's other novels as well, solitifying even more that she had a great appreciation for the subject.

It is no surprise that Jane Austen is one of the most well respected novelists not only of her time, but of all time. Her name and novels are not only discussed as topics of classroom education, but amongst readers and romantics everywhere. There is even discussion of a period being named after her. However, the "difficulty may have something to do, like the mythical phases of the moon, with a desire to comprehend the phenomena of girlhood, womanhood, and spinsterhood…at recurrent moments, Austen has caused trouble for literary history" through her "problematic femaleness … compounded by spinsterhood and childlessness" (Favret 2).

To me, Jane Austen is one of the best writers of all time. Not only do I admire the pure and desirable romance that she implants into her novels, (because what girls doesn't?) but I also respect how she reveals the truth about peoples' values and about the society during the Romantic Period. I do not think that it would be too far fetched to claim that most other romantics and readers would agree.

Works Cited

Favret, Mary A. "Jane Austen's Periods." Novel: A Forum on Fiction 42.3 (2009): 373-379. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.

Fisher, Matt. "'Love' and 'Connoisseurship' in Jane Austen's SENSE AND SENSIBILITY." Explicator 68.4 (2010): 216-218. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.

Garbitelli, Mary Beth, and Douglas Kries. "Virtue and Romance: Allan Bloom on Jane Austen and Aristotelian Ethics." Modern Age 52.1 (2010): 25-36. World History Collection. EBSCO. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.

Güney, Ajda, and Mehmet Ertuğ Yavuz. "THE NINETEENTH CENTURY LITERATURE AND FEMINIST MOTIVES IN JANE AUSTEN'S NOVELS." e-Journal of New World Sciences Academy (NWSA) 3.3 (2008): 523-531. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, Cumberland on April 7, 1770 (Poets.org). He grew up in the Lake District of England where he developed his strong love of nature. Wordsworth was “a poet concerned with the human relationship to nature” (Duemer). This love of nature soon developed into Wordsworth’s passion. Being a Romantic, he believed that nature evoked deep personal emotion and therefore unlocked the human spirit. Wordsworth’s inspiration came from many mediums including his sister, Dorothy. After being separated at a young age, Dorothy and William became very close friends in their adult lives. Dorothy was the inspiration for many of Wordsworth’s ideas and poems. Wordsworth ultimately hoped to mirror Dorothy’s life with her love for nature and great emotion.

The poet had other influences in his life that shaped his poetry such as the French Revolution. Wordsworth initially praised the revolution in France, claiming that it was a much needed glorious renovation. He was convinced that “revolutionary France strengthened and developed his convictions” (Duemer). After spending a great amount of time in France during the revolution, however, Wordsworth became more and more reluctant to liberal ideas. In fact, Wordsworth met a French woman, Annette Vallon, during his time in France and even conceived a child with her. Financial troubles ultimately tore their relationship apart and Wordsworth returned to England. After gaining a significant amount of money from a friend, Wordsworth moved into a nice country home with his sister in England. During this time he became reunited with a high school love, Mary Hutchinson, and took her hand in marriage. Together, the couple had four children. Wordsworth produced many of his great poems during this time because he encountered many personal hardships. Two of his children passed away along with his brother. His sister Dorothy also developed a mental illness which greatly affected Wordsworth.

While these events were tragic to Wordsworth, they greatly sparked his imagination and inner self. Most, if not all, of Wordsworth’s poetry is centered around nature and deep personal connection. In his poetry, Wordsworth replaced a “higher power” with nature’s ability to unlock the human spirit. He believed the definition of poetry to be the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings arising from “emotion recollected in tranquility.” Wordsworth is known for pioneering the use of common language in poetry. He had great “sympathy for ordinary people” because Wordsworth could relate to the common man (Duemer). He believed that simple speech was the only way to express true emotion. Other poets greatly opposed his use of ordinary language, arguing that it was vulgar and silly. Wordsworth’s literary works began to dwindle toward the end of his life. This is a great paradox because he was at peace with the world, unlike earlier in his career. Wordsworth died in 1850, leaving his masterpiece, The Prelude, incomplete. “A careful reading of Wordsworth's prose will lead, perhaps, to a clearer understanding of the path he traveled from the eighteenth century to the Victorian age, and modern readers will recognize the origins of their own literary and political culture” (Duemer).

Works Cited

Duemer, Joseph. "William Wordsworth." DISCovering Authors. Online ed. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resource Center - Gold. Web. 5 Apr. 2011.

The Norton Anthology of English Literature The Romantic Period Through the Twentieth Century and After. 8th ed. Vol. D. W W Norton & Co, 2006. Print.

"William Wordsworth." Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More. Web. 05 Apr. 2011. http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/296.

Picture Citation: “William Wordsworth.” Poets.org. 1997-2011. 04 Apr. 2011.

"WORDSWORTH, William." (n.d.): Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia. EBSCO. Web. 5 Apr. 2011.

Nature Poetry

During the Romantic period, 1785-1830, several different themes are present in the literature. Some of the themes include: the creative power of the human mind, prophecy, emotion and nature. Of these four themes, nature is the most prevalent. "Romanticism in literature was commonly known as "nature poetry"" (The Norton Anthology...). The theme of nature is commonly found in literature because authors are known to live away from the city enabling them to capture the beauty of nature and all that lies within. Being away from the city not only allows the author to capture nature as it is, but it also allows him to vividly describe the beauty of nature in a way that allows the reader to become a part of his world. Authors of the Romantic period would meditate outside, connecting with nature; thus permitting them to express personal crisis and emotion. Percy Shelly once said, "I always seek in what I see the likeness of something beyond the present and tangible object" (The Norton Anthology...). Nature poetry represents the author's ability to look at something small and see the larger meaning behind it.

Nature is the main theme in several of William Wordsworth's poems. One example is, "...the bright blue river passed Along the margin of our terrace walk; A tempting playmate whom we dearly loved" ("The Prelude"). This quote from his poem illustrates how he connects being care-free to the river and its flowing waters. Another example of nature used as a main theme in poetry is "Work Without Hope" by Samuel Coleridge. This is illustrated in the line, "And WINTER, slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!" ("Work Without Hope"). This line is my personal favorite because it gave me, as the reader, the image of a huge cloud that is surrounded by the cold, winter air; smiling, waiting for the warmth of spring. In "The Nutting" by Wordsworth, the thorns represent the guilt and evil inside the boy that he wishes to destroy. After researching some of the other themes in poetry written during the Romantic period, I do believe that nature is the most interesting and the most profound theme.

Picture Source:

"Songs of Innocence and Experience." Poetry: 2nd Class. Web. 4 April 2011. http://usm.maine.edu/~rabrams/120Poy3.html.

Sources:

Author Unknown. "Introduction, The Romantic Period." The Norton Anthology of English Literature: 8th ed. Vol. D. M.H. Abrams and Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W.W. Norton Company. 2006. Pgs 11-12. Print.

"The Prelude." Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Museum. 2007. Web. 1 April 2011. http://www.wordsdworth.org.uk/poetry/index.asp?pageid=173.

"Work Without Hope." Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 22 April 2003. Web. 1 April 2011. http://www.orgs.muohio.edu/anthologies/bijou/vissat/Workwithouthope.htm .

Romanticism Culture: what's behind the emotion of a Romantic

"The Tree of Crows by Caspar David Friedrich."

Romanticism was more than an era in history or a specific culture; it was a way of being. We talked about the themes of the Romantic era in class, but we didn’t cover in depth as to why these people in this period were so emotionally developed.

Although many poems were unpublished during the war, from the fall of the Bastille in 1789 to the defeat at Waterloo in 1815, war was the most important part of British life, and was what the major Romantic writers like Wordsworth were concerned with (Bennet 1). The fall of the Bastille during the French Revolution was a symbol for Romantics as the “overthrow of the feudal, tyrannical rule of the Bourbons, and poets celebrated it in these terms immediately and for some years to follow” (4). Romantics “rejected those aspects of the French Revolution like the Reign of Terror and which seemed to them to have sprung from the heads of the Enlightenment itself” (“Romanticism”). The French Revolution inspired British poets and Romantics to create a new way of being, and the Romantic Movement was almost a reaction against war and the “methods and ideals of the preceding eighteenth-century Enlightenment” (Brinton 4).

Romanticism was the “new thought, the critical idea and the creative effort necessary to cope with the old ways of confronting experience…and an indicative of an age of crisis that would dominate European culture for the next century” (“Romanticism 10). Romantics did what was completely opposite of the Enlightenment. Whereas the famous quote of the Enlightenment was “I think therefore I am,” the Romantic quote may have been “I feel therefore I am” (8). Romantics thought mostly of the emotional self expression through “art, music, poetry, drama, and literature,” whereas the Enlightenment covered only “logic, balance, and rationalism” (Brinton 9). Also, the eras had two very different approaches to love. People from the Enlightenment defined love as “the rubbing together of two membranes” while Romantics thought of love as a “mystery and magic of sexuality in an extensive cult of love” (10). The Enlightenment and Romantic styles of being differ so much that “present-day psychologists have gone so far as to contend that the Enlightenment and Romantic styles of sensibility map onto two fundamentally different personality types” (12). The culture of the era may have started out of spite of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment way of thinking, but it has shown people the right of expression and creativity through the arts, and it has influenced the minds of today.

“Discover yourself -- express yourself, cried the Romantic artist. Play your own music, write your own drama, paint your own personal vision, live, love and suffer in your own way. So instead of the motto, "Dare to know!" take up the battle cry, "Dare to be!" (Kreis 9).

Works Cited

Bennett, Betty T. "British War Poetry in the Age of Romanticism 1793-1815 - Electronic Editions - Romantic Circles." Home - Romantic Circles. Ed. Neil Fraistat and Steven E. Jones. University of Maryland. Web. 03 Apr. 2011. .

Brians, Paul. "Romanticism." Washington State University - Pullman, Washington. 11 Mar. 1998. Web. 04 Apr. 2011. .

Brinton, Crane. "Romanticism." Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed. Donald M. Borchert. 2nd ed. Vol. 8. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2006. 485-489. Gale World History In Context. Web. 4 Apr. 2011.

Kreis, Steven. "The Romantic Era." The History Guide: Lectures on Modern European Intellectual History. Florida Atlantic University, 2001. Web. 03 Apr. 2011.

"Romanticism." Romanticism. Brooklyn College., 12 Feb. 2009. Web. 03 Apr. 2011. .

"The Tree of Crows by Caspar David Friedrich." History in Context: World. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Gale World History In Context. Web. 4 Apr. 2011.

Romanticism in the Arts

Illustrations created during the Romantic period centered on themes such as nature and the creative power of the human mind. William Blake was a great artist who was able to capture the themes of his poetry into his works of art. He was better known for his poetry rather than his art because his style greatly differed from the common style of art during the romantic era. In a scholarly journal about Blake it states, “When you look at Blake's paintings and watercolors you'll readily understand why his art was neglected, dismissed or vigorously rejected throughout his life and for decades thereafter. Colors scream with a flame-like quality. His men and women look like creatures from outer space. And his image of God is that of an old man with bristling looks and muscular arms that further emphasize unreality” (Stern). Blake was very interested in prophecy, which was a common topic of poetry during the era. He focused on futuristic themes that made his artwork stick out in a negative way to the public.

One of Blake’s creations known as Age Teaching Youth foreshadows the theme of nature. An analysis of the picture states, “It has been suggested that the leaf and tendril motif on the dress of the youth in the foreground (who seems to be drawing) identifies him as representative of a mind limited to nature and its imitation. The old man might represent the law, which is contradicted by the girl who, gesturing heavenwards towards the infinite, might represent imagination” (Tate Collection…). The child in the painting would represent a more optimistic view of the world appealing to the child’s innocence in society foreshadowing Blake’s poem called From Songs of Innocence. The elderly man could represent the meaning of reality in the world and foreshadow one of the meanings of Blake’s poem called From Songs of Experience. The painting parallels and contradicts nature and the aspect of innocence verses experience.

Another of Blake’s works called Lear and Cordelia in Prison portrays a scene in the Shakespearian play King Lear. The painting shows when Edmund kept Cordelia and Lear imprisoned. A document about romantic prisons states, “The prison was the central institutional means for silencing dissent in 1790 Britain” it further goes on to state, “ The birth of ‘prison literature’ is twin to the birth of British Romanticism”(Bugg 37). Blake’s painting foreshadows “prison literature” and reveals the theme in writing during the era known as the creative power of human kind. Prison literature was written in a time when many poets and writers feared imprisonment and the literature was written by poets and writers who experienced life in a jail (Bugg 37). Wordsworth uses the idea of “mind in a state of confinement” in his works and Blake portrays this idea in Lear and Cordelia in Prison (Bugg 44).



Works Cited:

Blake, William. Age Teaching Youth. 1785-90. Tate Collection. Tate Online. Web.4 Apr.2011.

Blake, William. Lear and Cordelia in Prison. 1779. Tate Collection. Tate Online. Web. 4 Apr.2011.

Bugg, John. "Close confinement: John Thelwall and the Romantic prison." European Romantic Review. 37-56. 2009. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.

Stern, Fred. "William Blake, Visionary Rebel." World & I 24.8 (2009): 1. MAS Ultra – School Edition. EBSCO. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.

"Tate Collection: British Art and International Modern and Contemporary Art." Tate: British and International Modern and Contemporary Art. Web. 05 Apr. 2011. .

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley may best be known for being married to, the author of “Frankenstein,” Mary Shelley. However, Percy Shelley has created quiet the legacy of his own with his romantic works of art. Percy was born on August 4, 1792 in England (Victorian).  Being the oldest of six children in a wealthy family, Percy was born rich and was in line to inherit a large estate and a seat in parliament (Poets.org). In 1810, Percy attended Oxford, but after just one year he was expelled due to his publishing of a pamphlet called, “The Necessity of Atheism” with fellow student Thomas Jefferson Hogg (Victorian). This was possibly the start of Percy’s “bad-boy” behavior, because shortly after his expulsion from Oxford, he eloped with 16 year old Harriet Westbrook against his families wishes (Infoplease). Percy and Harriet Shelley had two children together (Infoplease), but once again the “bad-boy” in Percy showed up. In 1814, Percy met 16 year old Mary Goodwin, and fell in love, secretly eloping (Poets.org).  Tragically, Harriet committed suicide in 1816, so Percy and Mary officially and publicly married (Infoplease). The two had three children together (Infoplease). Unfortunately, Percy drowned on July 8, 1822 while sailing (Poets.org). The life of Percy Bysshe Shelley may have been relatively short lived, but the works of art he left behind are timeless. Shelley wrote many poems and pamphlets, but some of his more note able works of art include: “The Cenci,” “Epipsychidion,” “Alastor,” “Hellas,” “Ode to the West,” “When the Lamp is Shattered,” and of course his masterpiece, “Prometheus Unbound” (Infoplease). Due to Percy Shelley’s brilliance and surroundings, the world has been given a glimpse in to the eloquence and beauty of the works of art from the Romantic era.

Works Cited:

"English literature: The Romantic Period." The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia.

 1994, 2000-2006, on Infoplease. 2000–2007 Pearson Education, publishing as Infoplease. 04 Apr. 2011. <http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/ent/A0858004.html>.     

Everett, Glenn. “Shelley Biography.” The Victorian Web. July 2000. 05 Apr. 2011. <http://www.victorianweb.org/previctorian/shelley/bio.html>.

“Percy Bysshe Shelley.” Poets.org. 1997-2011. 04 Apr. 2011. http://www.poets.org//poet.php/prmPID/179.

“Shelley, Percy Bysshe.” The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. 1994, 2000-2006, on Infoplease. 2000–2007 Pearson Education, publishing as Infoplease. 04 Apr. 2011. http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0844819.html.

            Picture Citation:

           “Percy Bysshe Shelley.” Poets.org. 1997-2011. 04 Apr. 2011.