BRITISH LITERATURE (2nd YEAR, 1st semester)

ROMANTICISM

Course and seminar coordinator: Dr. Lucia Opreanu

Duration: 7 weeks

Lectures:1. Introductory course: The Romantic Age2. The poetry of William Blake3. The poetry of William Wordsworth 4. The poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge5. The poetry of George Gordon Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley6. The poetry of John Keats7. The early nineteenth century novel: Jane Austen

Seminars:1. A selection of poems by William Blake and William Wordsworth2. A selection of poems by George Gordon Byron and John Keats3. Jane Austen – Pride and Prejudice

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary texts:

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. London: Everyman, 1997.

Blake, William Blake. Selected Poems. London: Penguin Books, 1996. [“Introduction” to Songs of

Innocence, “Introduction” to Songs of Experience, “The Lamb”, “The Tyger”, “The Garden of Love”,

“The Sick Rose”, “London”]

Byron, George Gordon. Complete Poetical Works. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1970.

[Manfred (Incantation), “On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year”, Don Juan (Canto the First)]

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. The Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Poetry

Library, 1994. “Kubla Khan”]

Keats, John. The Works of John Keats. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Poetry Library, 1994. [Endymion (Book

I), La Belle Dame Sans Merci, “Ode to a Nightingale”, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, “To Autumn”]

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. The Selected Poetry and Prose of Shelley. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Poetry Library,

2002. [“Ode to the West Wind”, excerpt from Prometheus Unbound]

Wordsworth, William. The Works of William Wordsworth. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Poetry Library, 1994.

[Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”, “The Solitary Reaper”]

Secondary texts:

McGann, Jerome J. "Poetry." An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age. British Culture 1776-1832. Ed.

Iain McCalman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. pp. 270-279

Wu, Duncan (ed.) "Introduction.” Romanticism. An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999. pp. xxx-xxxvii

SEMINAR MARK FORMULA:

3 points SEMINAR ATTENDANCE (1p x 3 seminars) + 2 points COURSE ATTENDANCE (0.33p x 6

lectures) + 5 points ASSIGNMENTS (between 2 and 5 topics of your choice)

1. Discuss the Romantic fascination with:* mythology (identify and analyse one or more mythological heroes favoured by the Romantics) * the Bible (identify and analyse one or more Biblical episodes alluded to in Romantic poetry) * the Orient (identify and analyse references to one or more exotic locations and characters in Romantic poetry)* nature (identify and analyse one or more descriptions of landscapes in Romantic poetry)* love (identify and analyse one or more descriptions of love in Romantic poetry)* suffering (identify and analyse one or more descriptions of physical or mental suffering in Romantic poetry)

2. Analyse a Byronic hero of your choice (Childe Harold, Manfred, Don Juan).

3. Discuss the title of one of Jane Austen’s novels and its relevance to the text.

4. Discuss the significance of social conventions / social status / personal finances in a Jane Austen novel of your choice.

5. Identify and compare the different types of marriages in a Jane Austen novel of your choice.

6. Compare and contrast one of the following pairs of protagonists (or another pair of your choice from one of Jane Austen’s novels): Elinor and Marianne Dashwood / John Willoughby and Colonel Brandon / Edward and Robert Ferrars / Elizabeth Bennet and Caroline Bingley / Mr. Darcy and Mr. Wickham / Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley / Emma Woodhouse and Jane Fairfax.

7. Analyse one of the following couples (or another couple of your choice from one of Jane Austen’s novels) in terms of personal identity, evolution, relationship coordinates: Elinor Dashwood and Edward Ferrars / Marianne Dashwood and John Willoughby / Marianne Dashwood and Colonel Brandon / Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy / Mr. and Mrs. Bennet / Emma Woodhouse and Mr. Knightley.

[approximately 500 words – 2.5 points each]

8. Contextualise and comment:poetic texts: approximately 250 words – 1 point each; narrative texts: approximately 300 words – 2 points eachAnd I pluck'd a hollow reed  And I made a rural pen  And I stain'd the water clear  And I wrote my happy songs Every child may joy to hear.

Hear the voice of the Bard!Who present, past, and future sees;Whose ears have heardThe Holy Word,That walked among the ancient trees,Calling the lapsed soul,And weeping in the evening dew;

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire?

When the stars threw down their spears, And watered heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the lamb make thee?

In every cry of every man,In every infant's cry of fear,In every voice, in every ban,The mind-forged manacles I hear:

To see a World in a Grain of SandAnd a Heaven in a Wild Flower,Hold Infinity in the palm of your handAnd Eternity in an hour.

Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks

of Religion.

What is now proved was once only imagin’d. One thought fills immensity.The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction. Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils;Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.

Behold her, single in the field,Yon solitary Highland Lass!Reaping and singing by herself;Stop here, or gently pass!

Alone she cuts and binds the grain,And sings a melancholy strain;O listen! for the Vale profoundIs overflowing with the sound.

I listened, motionless and still;And, as I mounted up the hill,The music in my heart I bore,Long after it was heard no more.

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree : Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. (…)It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !

In the wind there is a voiceShall forbid thee to rejoice;And to thee shall night denyAll the quiet of her sky;And the day shall have a sun,Which shall male thee wish it done.

By thy delight in others’ pain,And by thy brotherhood of Cain,I call upon thee! And compelThyself to be thy proper Hell! (…)Nor to slumber, nor to die,Shall be in thy destiny;

So we’ll go no more a roving So late into the night,Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright.

Brave men were living before AgamemnonAnd since, exceeding valorous and sage,A good deal like him too, though quite the same none;But then they shone not on the poet's page,And so have been forgotten: I condemn none,But can't find any in the present ageFit for my poem (that is, for my new one);So, as I said, I'll take my friend Don Juan.

[poetic texts: approximately 250 words – 1 point each]

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

Tis time the heart should be unmoved,      Since others it hath ceased to move:

Yet, though I cannot be beloved,              Still let me love!

   My days are in the yellow leaf;        The flowers and fruits of love are gone;

The worm, the canker, and the grief              Are mine alone!

    The fire that on my bosom preys        Is lone as some volcanic isle;

No torch is kindled at its blaze—              A funeral pile.

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keepA bower quiet for us and a sleepFull of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheardAre sweeter; (…)

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leaveThy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,Though winning near the goal -- yet, do not grieve;She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shedYour leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;And, happy melodist, unwearied,For ever piping songs for ever new;

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shedYour leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;And, happy melodist, unwearied,For ever piping songs for ever new;

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," -- that is allYe know on earth, and all ye need to know.

I met a lady in the meads Full beautiful, a faery's child;Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild.

I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long;For sideways would she lean, and sing A faery's song.

[narrative texts: approximately 300 words – 2 points each]

IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of someone or other of their daughters.

The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news.

Mr. Bingley was good-looking and gentlemanlike; he had a pleasant countenance, and easy, unaffected manners. His sisters were fine women, with an air of decided fashion. (…) but his friend Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien, and the report which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year. The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud; to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared with his friend.

"You are dancing with the only handsome girl in the room," said Mr. Darcy, looking at the eldest Miss Bennet. "Oh! she is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld! But there is one of her sisters sitting down just behind you, who is very pretty, and I dare say very agreeable. Do let me ask my partner to introduce you." "Which do you mean?" and turning round he looked for a moment at Elizabeth, till catching her eye, he withdrew his own and coldly said: "She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me; I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men. You had better return to your partner and enjoy her smiles, for you are wasting your time with me." Mr. Bingley followed his advice. Mr. Darcy walked off; and Elizabeth remained with no very cordial feelings towards him. She told the story, however, with great spirit among her friends; for she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in anything ridiculous.

‘Engaged to Mr. Collins! my dear Charlotte - impossible!’ (…) ‘I see what you are feeling,’ replied Charlotte, - ‘you must be surprised, very much surprised - so lately as Mr Collins was wishing to marry you. But when you have had time to think it all over, I hope you will be satisfied with what I have done. I am not romantic, you know. I never was. I ask only a comfortable home; and considering Mr Collins's character, connections, and situation in life, I am convinced that my chance of happiness with him is as fair as most people can boast on entering the marriage state."