19th Century British Poetry

William Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, Cumberland, in the north of England’s Lake District, and was educated at St. John’s College, Cambridge. A walking tour of Europe in his early twenties brought him into contact with the first throes of the French Revolution, whose ideals he supported until the onset of the Terror. Upon his return to England, he settled with his sister, Dorothy, in the Lake District, where, apart from some few brief travels, he remained for the rest of his life. In 1795 he met the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, with whom he published Lyrical Ballads (1798), one of the most important works in the history of English literature, both for its innovative poetry and for Wordsworth’s preface to its second edition (1800). In his later years Wordsworth grew increasingly conservative, and many former devotees accused him of apostasy, but his poetry remained both popular and influential – so influential and so formative of modern ideas about poetry that the scope of his achievement is easily overlooked. In his preface to the Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth attacks the poetic diction and elaborate figures of speech characteristic of eighteenth-century poetry, asserting that he had “taken as much pains to avoid it as others take to produce it,” and advocating the “language really used by men.” He rejected the notion of a poetic hierarchy ranking epic and tragedy over the subjective mode of lyric; declared “incidents and situations from common life” as fit subjects for art; and substituted sincerity for studied artifice. The accessibility of Wordsworth’s poetry and his “democratizing” theory should not divert attention from his painstaking and complex technique. Many of his poems are written in strict and elaborate forms, or blank verse; their effect might be one of spontaneity, but it results from careful construction. Wordsworth ascribed to art the duty of cultivating emotional and moral response in an increasingly desensitized age, one more interested in titillation than meditation.

From: The Norton Anthology of Poetry. 4th Edition.

Reread William Blake’s poem “A Poison Tree” again, then:

1. write a paraphrase of the poem,
2. perform scansion on the poem,
   
3. and identify the meter of the poem.

Reread William Blake's poem "The Tyger", then answer the questions on "Understanding and Evaluating Poetry" on the handout that will be provided in class.

Following are the paraphrases that you came up with in class:
 
The narrator is telling a rose that it is sick. The narrator says that an invisible flying worm which flies in the night during a noisy storm discovered the rose’s bed of “crimson joy” and his “dark secret love” is killing the rose.


The narrator is saying that she moved around between fields and tasted “all the summer’s pride”, until she saw “the prince of love” who flew in the sunlight. The prince of love showed her flowers (lilies and “blushing” roses) for her hair and head and he took her to his garden where “golden pleasures” grow. Her wings got wet because of the “sweet” dew in May. Phoebus “fir’d” her voice anger. The prince of love caught her in his net of silk and imprisoned her in his cage of gold. He likes to sit and listen to her sing. He then jokes and fools around with her, pulls out her wing of gold, and ridicules her loss of freedom.


The narrator says that he walks around in the “charter’d” streets close by the “charter’d” Thames River and notices signs of weakness and sadness in the faces of the people that he meets. The narrator hears the crying of men, scared children, voices, and laws. In these cries he hears “mind-forg’d” fetters. The narrator hears how the cry of the chimney-cleaners is shocking the “blackning Church.” The unlucky soldier’s sigh flows in blood down the walls of the Palace. The narrator hears most clearly the harsh swearing of the young prostitute at the crying new-born baby.

The decided that the italicized sentences in the “London” paraphrase may still need some work.

Rhythm

Poetry often have a clearly identifiable rhythm. This rhythm is caused by some syllables that have a "heavy stress" and other syllables that have a "light stress". Heavy stressed and light stressed syllables are also known as simply "stressed" or "unstressed" syllables.

Meter

"If a poem's rhythm is structured into a recurrence of regular -- that is, approximately equal -- units, we call it meter (from the Greek word for measure)." Norton's Anthology of Poetry, 3rd Edition. p. 1404.

Metrical Feet

The lines in poetry are grouped into "metrical feet". Each foot usually consists of two or three syllables. A poem's line's can be described according to how many metrical feet it has. For instance, a line with four feet is called a tetrameter.

1 = monometer
2 = dimeter
3 = trimemeter
4 = tetrameter
5 = pentameter
6 = hexameter
7 = heptameter
8 = octameter

Two-Syllable Feet

• Iamb (adv. iambic)

An iamb has contains a light stress followed by a heavy stress. The iamb is the most common foot in English poetry because it is closest to natural speech.

Because the stress is at the end of the foot, iambic rhythm is considered "rising". [Rising meter]

• Trochee (adv. trochaic)
  

The trochee consists of a heavy accent (stressed syllable) followed by an unstressed syllable. Most English words are trochaic. Two-syllable words that start with a prefix (e.g. because, sublime) are usually NOT trochaic.

Since the final syllable in trochee is unstressed, it is considered "falling". [Falling Meter]

• Spondee (adv. spondaic)

A spondee has two stressed syllables per foot.

• Pyrrhic (adv. pyrrhic)

A pyrrhic has two unstressed syllables per foot.

Three-Syllable Feet

• Anapest (adv. anapestic)

The anapest has two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable. It causes rising meter.

• Dactyl (adv. dactylic)

The dactyl has one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables. It causes falling meter.

Scansion

Scansion is the act of scanning or determining the meter in a poem by marking the stressed and unstressed syllables using the accent and breve symbols, indicating metrical feet and marking caesurae (pauses).

For more on scansion, including definitions, follow the following link.

• Read the poem closely – more than once.
• Go through it line by line. Don’t skip lines or sentences or any key details. In your own words, what does each line say?
• Write your paraphrase as ordinary prose. Don’t worry about line and stanza breaks.
• Describe the literal meaning of the poem. Don’t worry about any deeper meanings.
• After you have described what literally happens in the poem, go over you paraphrase and see if you have captured the overall significance of the poem along with the details.

Kennedy, X. J. and Gioia, D. 2007. An Introduction to Poetry. 12th Edition. Pearson-Longman.

Exercises:

Write paraphrases for all the poems by William Blake that we have discussed so far. "The Sick Rose", "The Lamb", "The Tiger", "A Poison Tree", "Song" and "London".

Poets often make use of allusions; that is, they make reference to another text (art, myth, story, etc.). In recent years literary theorists opted for the term “intertextuality” to refer to references between different texts.


William Blake’s poem “Song” has many intertextual references to Greek mythology. Some of these references are obvious, like naming the god Phoebus (i.e. Apollo, who is the sun-god and also the god of poetic inspiration). Other references are not as obvious, but can be inferred. For instance “the prince of love” is probably a reference to Eros (or Cupid). This seems to be an appropriate assumption as “the prince of love” can “glide” (i.e. fly); after all, Cupid does have wings.

Exercise:

Read the poems “Song”, “The Lamb”, “The Tyger” and “A Poison Tree” and try to identify different examples of allusions or intertextual references.

What do you think a “intratextual reference” is? Can you find an example from one of these poems?

"The Lamb"

Two readings of "The Lamb":





A musical interpretation (choir) of "The Lamb":





"The Tyger"
Two readings of the "The Tiger":





A musical interpretation (acoustic) of "The Tyger":



A short film by Guilherme Marcondes based on "The Tyger":



A short lecture on the symbolism in "The Tyger":



The Lamb & The Tyger

A combined musical interpretation of "The Lamb" and "The Tyger":

Write a paragraph in which you discuss the symbolism in William Blake's "The Sick Rose".

• Is the poem about England that is corrupted by politicians (the "worm")?
• Is the poem about a prostitute that is infected with a sexual transmitted disease?
• Is the poem about a virgin, that lost her virginity, maybe through rape?
• Do you have another interpretation?

Motivate your answer.

Imagery

Imagery refers to anything in the poem that you can imagine. The most common form of imagery in poetry is (1) visual imagery. Images related to sound is called (2) auditory imagery; those related to touch is called (3) tactile imagery; referring to smells, (4) olfactory imagery; and imagery to do with taste or with the gastric system is called (5) gustatory imagery. Imagery concerning movement, i.e. (6) kinesthetic imagery, is sometimes also identified.

When you notice imagery, ask yourself: What is the purpose of the imagery? Is it merely to describe something, or does it reveal a mood or attitude? Do the imagery act symbolically?

Symbolism

A symbol is something that stands for, or represents, something else. For example, the flag below stands for, or symbolizes, the Republic of Korea.

Often, symbolism is "undefined". In other words, the symbol could refer to more than one thing.

There are two other ways in which something can stand for something else. They are called simile and metaphor.

If I say the sun is like an orange, then an orange becomes a symbol for the sun. They are similar in color and in form (spherical). When I use terms such as "like", "as", "than", "resembles", we call it simile.

"The sun is like an orange", is an example of a simile. When I omit such words of reference, and merely say X = Y, it is a metaphor. For example, "The sun is an orange" is a metaphor.

Simile and metaphor are usually considered "defined". We are certain what it represents.

Apostrophe

Apostrophe is a way of speaking to someone or something which one do not ordinarily speak to. For example, if I speak to my chair, or speak to Elvis Presley, it is called apostrophe.

Personification

When a thing, animal or something abstract (e.g. Truth), is made human, it is called personification. In "To the Evening Star", William Blake refers to "every flower that shuts its sweet eyes". Flowers do not have eyes -- this is an example of personification.

William Blake was born in London. He attended art schools, including the Royal Academy school, and at the age of fourteen was apprenticed to an engraver. In 1800 he secured a patron at Gelpham, but found the arrangement stultifying. Determined to follow his “Divine Visions,” he returned to London. He published numerous collections of poetry illustrated with his own fantastic etchings until the 1820s, when he devoted himself exclusively to pictorial art. His early work reveals his dissatisfaction with the prevailing literary styles of his day; he took as his models the Elizabethan and early seventeenth-century poets, the Ossianic poems, and the work of Collins, Chatterton, and other eighteenth-century poets working outside the prevailing contemporary literary conventions. He discarded the heroic couplet for lines ending in near and partial rhyme, and employed novel rhythms and bold figures of speech that conveyed a multiplicity of meanings. Between 1795 and 1820, Blake developed a complex mythology to explain human history and suffering and came to see himself as a visionary, prophet figure, or Bard. His writings in this vein center around the biblical stories of the Fall, the Redemption, and the reestablishment of Eden, but Blake gave these materials his own spin. In his mythos, the Fall is seen as a psychic disintegration that results from the “original sin” of Selfhood, and the Redemption and return to Eden as a reinstitution of psychic wholeness, a “Resurrection of Unity.” His schema centers around a “Universal Man” who incorporates God rather than around a transcendent Being distinct from humanity.

From: The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 4th Edition.

Romanticism can be seen as a rejection of the precepts of order, calm, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality that typified Classicism in general and late 18th-century Neoclassicism in particular. It was also to some extent a reaction against the Enlightenment and against 18th-century rationalism and physical materialism in general. Romanticism emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental. Encyclopaedia Britannica

You should be able to describe the "Romantic Era", and give a definition of "Romanticism".

To understand the English poetry of the 19th Century, you need to understand the Romantic Era. Specifically, you need to understand how the Romantic Era protested against its predecessor, Neo-Classicism.

Look at the YouTube-video below. Take special note of the list of differences between Classicism and Romanticism.




Write a paragraph in which you define "Romanticism" in your own words.

There are basically three types or forms of poetry; i.e. Lyrical Poetry, Narrative Poetry and Dramatic Poetry.

Lyrical Poetry

"Lyric", derives from the word "lyre" which is a type of stringed instrument. It therefore refers to music. Lyrical Poetry used to be sung. They tend to be relatively short and often convey the feelings and thoughts of a single speaker.

William Wordsworth's poem, "Daffodils", is an example of a Lyrical Poem. In the YouTube-video below, a rapper performs an adapted version of Wordsworth's "Daffodils".



Narrative Poetry

You should know two types of narrative poetry; the first is the epic. An epic is a type of story. Epic Poetry are basically "storrytelling poems". They tend to be quite long, often several hundred lines and are often divided into several sections.

Another type of narrative poetry is the ballad. A ballad also tells a story, but is similar to Lyrical Poetry, in that it also used to be sung. Lord Alfred Tennyson's "The Lady of Shallot" is an example of a ballad. In the YouTube-video below, Loreena McKennit performs this poem in a Celtic style.



Dramatic Poetry

Dramatic Poetry is poetry that includes drama, i.e. it is theatrical. This means that it can be performed like a play. Sometimes there are many "characters" that are in dialogue. If only one "character" is speaking, it is called a monologue.

Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" is an example of Dramatic Poetry. In the YouTube-video, Vincent Price recites "The Raven". Note the dramatized style.

For the exam you need to be able to give a good definition of "poetry" / "poem".

You can build your definition off of the one below from TheFreeDictionary.Com:

Poem: A verbal composition designed to convey experiences, ideas, or emotions in a vivid and imaginative way, characterized by the use of language chosen for its sound and suggestive power and by the use of literary techniques such as meter, metaphor, and rhyme.

In this blog I will list some (not all) notes from our class on 19th Century Romantic Poetry, such as main points and definitions.

The poets we will discuss are: William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Alfred Tennyson.

Our source book is The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 3rd Edition. Also make sure that you have a good dictionary that shows the etymology of the words (the origin of the words). You will also need a notepad for making notes in class.