Benha University Faculty of Arts Dept of English
Benha University Faculty of Arts Dept. of English Subject: History of English Language and Literature in the 18 th & 19 th Centuries Grade: Third Year students Lecturer: Dr. Wafaa M. El-Deftar Week 7: Satanic Poets (Byron, Shelly and Keats)
Satanic poets Byron, Shelley and Keats
Lord Byron and his creation w George Gordon, Lord Byron, was born in 1788. w The romance of his life was crowned by a romantic and generous death. In 1824 he went to Greece, to put himself at the head of the revolutionary forces gathered to liberate that country from the tyranny of the Sultan. He was seized with fever in the swamps of Missolonghi, and died before he had time to prove his ability as a leader. w
w Byron’s creation: w Hours of Idleness w English Bards and Scotch Reviewers(1809). w Childe Harold Pilgrimage (1812) w The Giaour (1813) w The Corsair (1814), w Oriental tales w Manfred (1817)and Cain (1821) w Masterpiece. Don Juan.
w One term: w Byronic hero: w As a leading Romanticist, Byron's chief contribution is his creation of the "Byronic hero", a proud, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin. w With immense superiority in his passions and powers, this Byronic hero would carry on his shoulders the burden of righting all the wrongs in a corrupt society, and would rise single-handedly against any kind of tyrannical rules either in government, in religion, or in moral principles with unconquerable wills and inexhaustible energies. w The figure is, to some extent, modeled on the life and personality of Byron himself, and makes Byron famous both at home and abroad.
Shelley and his creation w Shelley was born in 1792, just when the eyes of all Europe were fixed in hope and fear upon France, and the stars fought in their courses for the triumph of a new order. In 1822 the poet was drowned off Leghorn, in one of those swift storms which sweep the Mediterranean during the summer heats. His body was burned on the beach, and his ashes were placed in the Protestant cemetery at Rome, near the grave where, a few months before, Keats had been laid.
The Necessity of Atheism Address to the Irish People Queen Mab The Revolt of Islam Prometheus Unbound The Cenci The Sensitive Plant and Adonais and other shorter poems, among them the wonderful Ode to the West Wind, and the best known of all Shelley’s lyrics, The Skylark.
Keats and his creation w John Keats was born in 1795 in London. His father was a stable keeper. Before he was fifteen, both his parents died and his guardian, a merchant, took him from school and apprenticed him to a surgeon. For five years, he served his apprenticeship and for two years more he was surgeon’s helper in the hospitals. w He died in 1821, shortly after his arrival in Rome. His grave in Rome bears the epitaph: “here lies one whose name is writ in water. ” w Keats’s first collection of poems was published in 1817 His second book “Endymion” appeared in 1818.
Bright Star w Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art-Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors-No--yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake forever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever--or else swoon to death.
Fireside Poets w Characterization: reveals personality traits of a character (Direct and Indirect) w Represented a literary coming of age w The first generation of acclaimed American poets w Used American settings w Conservative literary styles were used w Some of the most read and most beloved poets w Wrote poems that were usually told around the fire
Transcendentalism Background w Everything in the world and God are 1 w So… God is in everything w So… Everything in the world (nature) contains laws and meanings of existence w So… each soul also contains the soul of the world and all the world contains, including God w The Oversoul connects us all through the current of the world that we all share
Dark Romanticism Background Can be referred to as anti-transcendentalism Thought transcendentalists were too optimistic Focused on the perceived darkness of the human soul Felt humans were inherently selfish Began the gothic movement Imagery: use of language to evoke a picture or concrete sensation of a person, thing, place, or experience w Gothic Style: (Poe) remote settings, violent acts, tormented characters, and often supernatural elements w Allegory: story/poem that can be read on one level for its literal meaning and on a second level for its symbolic meaning w Paradox: statement that appears self-contradictory, but that reveals a kind of truth w w w
Writers and Works of the Period w Romantics ª Washington Irving - “The Devil and Tom Walker” ª Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - “The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls”, “A Psalm of Life” ª William Cullen Bryan - “Thanatopsis” w Dark Romantics ª Edgar Allen Poe - “The Raven” ª Emily Dickinson - “Because I could not stop for Death”, “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died” ª Walt Whitman - “I Hear America Singing” w Transcendentalism ª Ralph Waldo Emerson – “Nature”, “Self-Reliance” ª Henry David Thoreau – “Walden”, “Civil Disobedience”
Other major writers of the Romanticism Movement w w w Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 -1864) Mary Shelley (1797 -1851) Herman Melville (1819 -1891) James Fenimore Cooper (1789 -1851) James Russell Lowell (1819 -1891) John Greenleaf Whittier (1807 -1892)
Assignment: Poem analysis w Read Keats’ “Bright Star”; try to analyze its structure & theme, and demonstrate how it represents the style of its writer.
- Slides: 15