Just before the French Revolution, America also held a revolution against England. The revolution resulted in the colonies of the New World separating themselves from the control of England and becoming their own bosses. The very confident and powerful England felt a little differently after the declaration of the colonies independence. The separation not only hurt England's pride, but also hurt their economy.
2. During these times, I imagine that people living through these events were one of two kinds of people. The first kind being the rebels and supporters of change, who stomped their foot down and told the government how things were going to be. These were the people that participated in the riots and were literally the "Revolutionists" or the ones who made the change happen, or supported the cause without participating. These types of people were just plain out angry with the government or monarchy and were willing to show their behinds to prove their point. The settlers in the New World for example did exactly that, when they rebelled against England and declared their independence.
The second category of people were those who liked things just the way that they were. These were the people who did not support change and were usually extremely conservative and supporters of the controlling government or monarchy and had money. Money playing an important factor especially in the French Revolution. I imagine these people living in a lot of fear during this time, hence king Louis the 16th fleeing Versailles to take cover in Paris. Old Louis was afraid of the revolutionists chopping his head off with that scary looking guillotine. His supporters were just as scared, including those in England who did not want revolution to spread.
3. I think that in their literature, poets were expressing what was going on during the times of revolution. To me, it seems that they used nature a lot to express what was going on nationally and politically. The poets also explore the human mind by challenging it to think "outside of the box" and gave nature a voice. I think that the poets tried to use their poetry to send a message to the people and get the readers to think along the same lines as they did.
William Blake- I Heard an Angel
http://www.online-literature.com/blake/2886/
This poem is saying that no matter what "blessing" comes along there is always a curse that comes with it. When the angel came and sang the song of relief and positivity, "mercy, pity, peace is the world's release" the devil comes along and kind of curses what the angel said by saying that good things can't exist without the bad things. Or in other words, the bad things is what makes the good things good. I think that the poet is trying to also send a message of peace as well as tell everyone that with every good thing comes suffering.
I think that this is a perfect example of Romantic poetry because it uses spirituality and tries to get the human mind to "think outside the box" and see things from a different, more imaginative perspective. For example, no other person would really think to put a message of peace and suffering into a poem using the devil and an angel, which are complete opposites to express the message. For one thing, it is really smart because people of the time would listen to anything religious and an angel and devil theme would really catch their attention and give them something familiar to think about and process the message that is trying to be expressed.
William Wordsworth- "The Nightingale"
http://www.online-literature.com/wordsworth/2221/
The nightingale was about a bird who is supposed to be a happy creature and always sings happy songs. However, one day the poet hears the nightingale singing a sad song when he is in the woods one day. He states in the poem that "In nature there is nothing melancholy". I think that he is trying to say that in these times there is no happiness and that even nature itself is sad. To the extent that a nightingale, who is usually a happy bird is singing sad songs to express it's sadness.
I think that this is a good example of Romantic poetry because it was written in 1789, right when the romantic period and the French Revolution was beginning. It is already starting to show the sadness that was emerging from a time of lots of revolution and people being frightened or extremely angry. I imagine it was hard not having a reliable government and people were trying to overthrow what was running the country. So, I think that this poem was mainly expressing the emotions of the people as a whole at the time.
George Gordon, Lord Byron-"Solitude"
http://www.online-literature.com/byron/696/
This poem was really interesting. He is putting a new description on the word solitude. He describes being alone in the woods, appreciating nature and as he puts it "Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled". Although he is all alone, he says that this is not solitude. this is something that you can appreciate because you are kind of at peace with yourself and in the presence of nature. Then he describes being in a crowd of people who are "Minions of splendour shrinking from distress!" and he is wandering in what I think is what he is describing the political situation of the time. He says that being alone with nature is not solitude because you are connecting with nature and you are in it's presence and everything is peaceful. But when he is in a crowd of people who are mixed up and confused and distressed in a mixed up time, this is what being solitude is.
I think that this is a good example of Romantic poetry because he makes a reference of the conditions at the time "And roam alone, the world's tired denizen,With none who bless us, none whom we can bless;" which were very sad and depressing. The people felt as though there was no guidance because people were rebelling against governments (France and the New World) and the monarchies were freaking out and not taking care of their countries (hence the rebellion). Plus, monarchies were scared of the rebellions and fleeing or hit hard economic hardships, so that is where I think that he is describing the roaming alone part. This poem as well uses nature to describe the feelings and emotions of the people and describes the social conditions.
Percy Bysshe Shelley-Ozymandias
http://www.online-literature.com/shelley_percy/672/
This poem is a little more difficult to understand than the rest. It talks about a sculpture that is alone in the middle of a desert. The person who made it put some expressions on the sculpture that were described as "whose frown and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command". These expressions were apparently the emotions of the sculptor and he made the sculpture be represented as the "king of kings". The message on the pedestal says "`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'" I think that the poet is using the sculptor as a representation of himself, expressing his own emotions onto the king sculpture and representing his idea of the monarchy, or what was representative of authority and saying that everyone should despair.
This example of Romantic poetry displays the emotions of the people with the frown and wrinkled lip mentioned as well as representing the poets and obviously the people's opinion of the king. The people of the time were disgusted with the monarchy hence the rebellions, and this poem displays what the people thought of it by making the stature a representation of the king who was frowning and saying that all should despair and be sad. He also used the desert (nature) to represent solitude and struggle for survival.
John Keats-"To Sleep"
http://www.online-literature.com/keats/499/
In this poem, I think that he is using sleep to represent his desires to escape from the time and world that he was living in. It is like, when he thinks that sleep is coming on he practically begs it to stay. He asks sleep to "Save me from curious conscience", which is of course being awake and living from day to day. He describes sleep as a way to get away from having to live and suffer life. This is a good example of Romantic poetry because it describes how people just wanted an escape and wanted to find a way to make everything bad go away. He states that he does not want to see day because it is when you have to be awake and dealing with every day. He welcomes night because it is when everything is calm and he can sleep and go into an entirely different world.
Victorian Period
Two events that happened during the Victorian period was that there was a depression in 1842 that put a million and a half unemployed workers on a type of welfare. The government was finding out about child labor and thing that happened to the children. One of the things that happened to children is that they got caught in machines and died because they fell asleep after working for 12 hours straight with no break. This was a huge problem in England and the economy began to suffer considerably as a result.
Queen Victoria began her reign in 1837 which was the first year of the depression that hit the country. During her reign, there were mass rallies protesting government policies that kept the prices for bread rising and unaffordable. There were some good outcomes from the rallies, like the Factory Acts, that limited child labor and reduced the working day to 10 hours and everyone got a half holiday on Saturday. State established schools were also a good thing that happened post-rallying.
Life for normal people during this time was really hard because of the economic conditions. England got a population boom when there was a famine in Ireland that forced 2 million people to emigrate to England. This caused an over population in cities and 10-12 people lived in one room with 1 toilet for every 250 people. These were hard conditions to live under and on top of that, the people had hard working conditions. These people who lived during this time had it hard all around.
The difference between the Romantic and Victorian periods is that Romantic times were really depressing and the monarchies took no initiative to improve the hard times that hit their countries. peopled rebelled and everything was violent. During the Victorian time, the monarchy at least tried to make improvements to relieve the stress and poverty. People still got mad and rallied, but improvement came without the people running the monarchy out of town or beheading them.
I think that the Victorian poets tried to express sadness that was felt at the time due to poverty. Poverty was a big major thing that took place during Victorian times and there was a depression going on so people were very poor and struggling for survival. Survival was another thing that I think Victorian poets tried to express in their poems because in times that were so poor, that there was 1 toilet for every 250 people, there was a lot of struggling no matter where you turned. So Struggling, Survival, sadness and poverty were the things that I think that poets during the Victorian poets expressed in their poetry the most.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson-"Wages"
http://www.online-literature.com/tennyson/734/
This poem is about a woman who is just wanting to live and nothing fancy. I think that the author is trying to use the woman to say that she is fighting for life and her right to live. As a result of fighting to live, she does not want glory or to sit on a throne as a hero. The only thing she wants to do is live her life and enjoy the simple pleasures that life gives her. She is fighting to live and wants no other reward such as glory, but just wants to be rewarded with her life.
I think that this example of Victorian poetry defines the era well because it talks about the struggle to survive and how this person is fighting to live. It describes the common person's simple desire to have the right to life and that that was what was worth fighting for. The poem says that she only wants the "wages of going on, and not to die." The wages that are talked about is what I think are representative of the low wages and poverty that these people were living in. All that they wanted was enough money to make ends meet and support their lives. This was a poem reflecting the depression that was going on.
Robert Browning-"The Pied Piper of Hamelin"
http://www.online-literature.com/robert-browning/2764/
This poem was REALLY interesting. This was basically about Peter Piper who lured a bunch of rats out of a city. The rats were taking over the city and destroying everything and eating all of the food and biting children. Then the town went to town hall and said that if the mayor did not find a solution they would run him out of town. Then the piper showed up and said that if they paid him he would take all of the rats out of the city. He did just that and when he came back for his payment, the council refused to pay what they owed him. To get back at them, Piper lured all of the children into a cave and shut them inside never to be seen again. People went looking for them to give piper silver and gold or whatever he wanted in exchange for the children. They were never to be found however and the story of what happened to the children was written on a column across from the cave where the children disappeared to remind people to keep their promises.
I think this relates to the Victorian period because the whole country is taken over by vermin and the monarchy and the government is promising to do something about it. The government however is not keeping their promises at the time to end poverty and as a result worse things happen. For example, Piper wants his money that he is promised and the council refuses and tries to give him less than they promised "But as for the guilders, what we spoke Of them, as you very well know, was in joke. Beside, our losses have made us thrifty. A thousand guilders! Come, take fifty!" They did not do what they said that they were going to do and things get worse. All of these bad things happen because the government did not keep their promise and the people suffer as a result. So as said in the poem, the moral of the story is "If we've promised them aught, let us keep our promise!" or in other words, keep the promise that you make because if not bad things can happen. This is from the Victorian government saying that there was going to be relief an none was coming.
Matthew Arnold-"Youth and Calm"
http://www.island-of-freedom.com/ARNOLD2.HTM
This poem is about death and youth and it talks about how calming it would be to be dead and not not have to go about day to day. The youth is also mentioned in this and how the youth do not want calmness. Maybe what the author is talking about is how in the poverty and times of suffering, some people want everything to be calm and others, like the youth want to rally and get what they deserve. I think that this is a good example of Victorian poetry because it goes over the escape thing again where there is no calm in the world only how everyone is dying. He says that "Calm's not life's crown, though calm is well.'Tis all perhaps which man acquires,But 'tis not what our youth desires." So he says that calm is good but the youth does not want calm, they want to rally.
Thomas Hardy-"The Man He Killed"
http://www.online-literature.com/hardy/910/
This poem was a little weird and I had a hard time understanding it's meaning. Apparently this man met another man outside an old inn. Then he describes shooting the other man dead. "I shot him dead because--Because he was my foe," so apparently they were enemies and the second that they saw each other they wanted to kill each other.
I think that this poem may reflect the foes that the people had with each other at the time. People fighting over jobs with one another, people fighting with the government. I think that the man also makes a reference to the times because he says that he sold the other man's traps and that is why they were foes. "I--Was out of work--had sold his traps--" He says that they were both out of work and so he sold his traps to get money. That was a characteristic of the Victorian time because many were out of work and poor. I think that the author is portraying this aspect of their time when he wrote the part about being out of work and the means of survival. Even if it meant stealing and killing.
No comments:
Post a Comment