Teoría Textos Poéticos, Apuntes de Filología Inglesa

¡Descarga Teoría Textos Poéticos y más Apuntes en PDF de Filología Inglesa solo en Docsity! Renaissance poetry I. Elizabethan poetry (1558-1603) Influenced by classical models and genres. New Learning (Humanism) and Platonism. Full of mythological references to the gods and myths of antiquity, but more and more drawing on the native tradition (countryside, images of nature). Emphasis on musicality, elegance, and decorum (the appropriateness of words with matter). Influence by Petrarch, who established the language of love. Courtly love tradition, veneration of the lady as the symbol of purity and virtue, and the concept of love as transcending the mere physical attraction (Platonism). Splendour of the Virgin Queen. Humanism started in the 15th century, and it was an intellectual movement, flourishing of letters and arts influenced by the recovery and study of the Classical texts and arts. Critical debates and Anthologies appeared. Literary patronage: courtiers became fervent supporters of poets and the arts. Castiglione’s Cortigiano (1528 – 1561) set the model of soldier poet. The Courtier Knowledge of classical literature and history. Skilled in the arts (composer, poet…). Skilled fencer and rider. Good converser, trained to rule and to be magnanimous. (Sir Philip Sidney) Models of Elizabethan poetry • Lyric Mode: Hymns, Eclogues, Odes, Songs, Sonnets, Sonnet Sequences… It has to do with the I of the speaker, deals with the feelings of the poet. • Pastoral Mode: idealized world inhabited by shepherds and shepherdesses. Can be linked to the lyrical Mode. • Satirical Mode: ridiculed and scorned certain attitude in society chiefly in rhymed iambic pentameters. It is not descriptive. Some concepts • Decorum: the appropriateness of an element of an artistic or literary work to its particular circumstances or to the composition as a whole. • Wit: power of giving some sudden intellectual pleasure by unexpected combining or contrasting of previously unconnected ideas or expressions. • Conceit: extended comparison or metaphor. Major Elizabethan poets and works • Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586): Astrophel and Stella • Edmund Spencer (1522-1599): Sphepheards Calender, Amoretti, Epithalamion, Faerie Queene • Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593): Hero and Leander • William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Venus and Adonis, Sonnets, Rape of Lucrece Basic vocabulary for the study of poetry • Poem: a metrical composition • Stanza: a recurrent unit of a poem, consisting of a number of verses (lines) • Line: single verse of poetry • Rhyme: consists of a repetition of accented sounds in words • Eye rhyme: are words used as rhymes that look alike but actually sound different • Meter: is the means by which rhythm is measured and described • Rhythm: marked by the regular alternation of stressed and unstressed • Syllables: the unit that is repeated to give steady to rhythm to a poem is called a poetic foot • Iambic foot: combination of an unstressed and stressed syllables • Some verse lengths: Tetrameter (4 feet), pentameter (5 feet), hexameter (6 feet) • Couplet: two lines rhyming together • Heroic couplet: a pair of rhyming iambic pentameters • Blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter • Free verse: it has neither a final metrical pattern, nor rhyme Renaissance poetry II. Elizabethan Sonnets Songs Poetry meant to be sung (at home/taverns). Short lines. Careful attention to rhythm, melody and harmony. Balance between literary and musical elements. Madrigals (amatory and elevated poems), ballads (narrative, popular poems…) Sonnets Conventions established by Petrarch (1304-1374). Introduced in England by Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) and Earl of Surrey (1517-1547). • Parallelism: The parallel construction of phrases, is varied by Chiasmus, repetition in inverted order. • Enjambment (run on line): The statement flows over the end of the line into the next one. • Emphasis: Highlights a word by placing it in an unusual position in the line. • Hyperbaton: A derivation from the common word order in a sentence. • Meaning • Metaphor: A word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison. • Analogy: A comparison between one thing and another. • Metonymy: Involves the substitution of a word or phrase with another closely associated with it. • Synechdoque: A kind of metonymy. • Symbol: A word that has an alternative identity or meaning that represents something else. • Hyperbole: A deliberate exaggeration. • Pun: Play on words for humorous effects. • Irony: When the meaning intended is the opposite of what is said. • Oxymoron: Combination of contradictory words about the same thing. • Paradox: The use of concepts or ideas contradictory to one another. • Allegory: Transforms a general, abstract concept into a concrete image, person or story. • Personification: Transforms things or abstract concepts into human agents. 17th century Renaissance England. Metaphysical poetry Metaphysical as a misleading tag Samuel Johnson famously coined the nickname term to describe the poetry of the early 17th century. “Metaphysics” is an artificial term given to that literature. T. S. Eliot spoke of the Metaphysicals as masters of the kind of poetry he wanted: difficult, complex, learned and simultaneously intellectual, sensual and feeling. 17th century Poetry Map: “races” and “tribes” • John Donne. He is the master. Love poetry. • George Herbert (devotional poets): religious poetry. • Ben Jonson • John Milton Cavalier Poets are royalist poets that write during the Civil Wars. Ben Jonson was not a Cavalier Poet, Cavaliers were in a different generation. While the Tribe of Ben are poets that were with Ben Jonson. Poetry in the Age of Anxiety. The Metaphysical poets Influenced by Puritans who mistrusted the adornments of poetical art. They preferred direct, plain prose. A sense of deep disquiet. Lyric forms of love and devotion tend to incorporate the new intellectual energies. Departures from the Petrarchan tradition in form and expression. Classical influence: Lyric (Carpe Diem), Elegy, Epigram, etc. Love sonnet was turned to religious themes by Donne, and religious and political by Milton. Songs and Madrigals perished. Forms were intricate and irregular. New forms: verse satire and the ode. The Metaphysical poets were much more intellectual both in subject matter and style, and expressed their interest in their own experience. Metaphysical poetry was referred to by contemporaries as strong lines. Metaphysical poetry is famous for its abrupt or addresses his God. Their poems are analytical and follow a logical order of development. Combination of love and feeling; striking imagery. The first characteristic of metaphysical poetry is its concentration. A metaphysical poems tends to be brief, and is always closely woven. The second characteristic is its fondness for conceits. Conceits or extended metaphors to illustrate a theme, leading to a wide range of emotions and subtle analysis of live and love. Direct colloquial language and irregular stanzas. A metaphysical conceit is used to persuade, or to define. In metaphysical poems the conceits are instruments of definition or instruments to persuade. John Donne His poetry is remarkable for its fusion of passionate feeling and logical argument. Conceits and wit were recognized part of the Elizabethan rhetorical apparatus for amplifying a theme, but Donne’s characteristic use of them involves such an extraordinary range of ideas and experience with such startling connexions between them, the whole process seems to work at a so much higher pressure, that in comparison the general Elizabethan use appears merely superficial and ingenious. Donne’s style was the natural expression of his sensibility. In considering the nature of Donne’s poetic originality, it is common to begin with his development of the metaphysical conceit. Donne’s lyrics have a music of their own, though the immediate effect is of vivid speech rather than song. Donne makes use of licences similar to those of dramatic blank verse. Always the formal devices of poetry are made to serve an expressive purpose; a constant control of pause, stress, and tempo works to the same end. Donne’s imagery has always impressed readers by its range and variety and its avoidance of the conventionally ornamental. At its best the Metaphysical conceit communicates a unified experience. The chief advantage of the conceit as Donne uses it is the quality of inclusiveness it makes possible, It is a way of bringing effectively into poetry all his interests, activities, and speculations. Comparison between Metaphysical poets and Elizabethan poetry The Elizabethan poets were simple and concerned with the expressions of the simple and conventional themes in a fairly elaborated an artificial manner, while the metaphysical were much more intellectual both in subject, matter, and style, and expressed their interest in their own experience. The direct colloquial language is different in both, including irregular stanzas, instead of the emphasis on decorum and elegance in Elizabethan Period. Restoration and 18th century poetry John Dryden (1631-1700) He was both a playwright and commentator. As a poet he wrote satire, and mock-heroic poetry, he used the heroic couplet (iambic pentameter rhyming AABBCC…). He used superbly civilised language and his style was dignified, unaffected, precise, and always musical. He was a major influence for the Augustan Poetry and until the 19th century. Great Britain in the 18th century (1689-1789) These dates make reference to what would be the 18th century if we focus on literature. The major events: • Fragmentary rather than complete (many works were left unfinished) • Organic rather than preconceived in form • Interested in nature, the self, the wonderful, and the supernatural • Interested, too, in confusion, fluidity, indeterminacy The Romantic poet • The poet does not escape from the world, but casts a sharp eye on the world around him. • The poet has a sense of enjoyment. • Extraordinary sense of life and energy, of freshness and excitement, they tried to answer questions about their individuality, their existence and role in society, about art and politics, about the future… and struggled to formulate the answers using their own way and own poetic technique. • Interest in nature, but also in dreams, fairy tales, legends, Gothic, enchantments and magic… • Interest in the self. • A new understanding of the poet. The Romantic Poet and Nature • Except Blake, all the romantics celebrated nature. • Nature was opposed to cities. • Landscape is seen for its ability to express some of the elusive truths and perceptions of the mind. • Nature is associated with moral and physical health. • Nature is a site of the numinous. The Romantic Poet and the Imagination • The poet as visionary. • The imagination enjoys a creative freedom. Originality. • The imagination is God-like (it parallels that of God in creation), and unique to every individual. • It is escapism, but also domination of the external world. The Romantic Poet and the Poetic Self • Recognition of power within the individual • Poetry is more preoccupied with expression. • Intense use of metaphors and much more of symbols (biblical, prophetic language). • The moment of inspiration ‘is mysterious, natural, instinctive, and holy, the working of the human spirit inspired by something greater than itself’. Other aspects • The poet as prophet, keeping alive a sense of national identity and encouraging a spirit of resistance. Higher awareness of history. Illuminating the path towards a better future. • Dreams: private and unexpected workings of the individual mind. Make new worlds, combinations and things previously unthought of both beautiful and fearful. Mysterious, freer, and operating in symbols. William Wordsworth • The Prelude: an autobiographical poem is his completion of the introduction. The poet is now the hero. • It is the greatest verse autobiography in English, but not a conventional autobiography. It omits many factual details. • Its purpose is to portray the development of the romantic imagination, that is to explore the psychology of the poet, determining what forces moulded him to poetic utterance. • Lyrical Ballads, published anonymous. The collection had poems from Wordswroth and Coleridge, but in the second edition only Wordsworth’s name appeared. Wordsworth’s revolutionary ideas bout poetry: “The Preface” to lyrical Ballads One main point of this preface is to relate Wordsworth’s intention to depict the common man, using the common language of man in his poetry. Another goal outlined in the preface if to show how feeling gives importance to the action and the situation. A third goal of Wordswroth’s poetry is to illustrate the way in which poetry is a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. Wordsworth’s Conception of Poetry: passion and reflection propounded his views on poetry, its nature and functions and the qualification of a true poet in his Preface. Poetry had its origin in the internal feelings of the poet. It is a matter of passion, mood and temperament. Poetry cannot be produced by strictly adhering to the rules laid down by the Classicists. It must flow out naturally and smoothly from the soul of the poet. But it must be noted that good poetry, according to Wordsworth, is never an immediate expression of such powerful emotions. A good poet must ponder them long and deeply. Samuel Tayler Coleridge (1772-1834) • Born in Devonshire. • Studied at Cambridge (no degree) • Began taking laudanum in 1796. • Travelled to Germany to study philosophy in 1798. • 1802 - 04: Travelled to Italy and Malta. • Set under the care of Dr. Gillman at Highgate. • He did poetry and prose. • Conversational Poems and Supernatural Poems. • Kubla Khan. Coleridge described his notion of imagination (and fancy) in the following terms in the two concluding paragraphs of “Chapter XIII” of his Biographia Literaria: The Imagination then I consider either as primary, or secondary. The primary Imagination I hold to be the living power and prime agent of all human perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM. The secondary Imagination I consider as an echo of the former, co-existing with the conscious will, yet still as identical with the primary in the kind of its agency, and differing only in degree, and in the mode of its operation. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate: or where this process is rendered impossible, yet still at all events it struggles to idealize (opposition: realize) and to unify. It is essentially vital, even as all objects (as objects) are essentially fixed and dead. FANCY, on the contrary, has no other counters to play with, but fixities and definites (they are just concepts, ideas). The fancy is indeed no other than a mode of memory emancipated from the order of time and space; while it is blended with, and modified by that empirical phaenomenon of the will, which we express by the word Choice. But equally with the ordinary memory the Fancy must receive all its materials ready made from the law of association. According to Coleridge, Imagination has two forms; primary and secondary. Primary imagination is merely the power of receiving impressions of the external world through the senses, the power of perceiving the objects of sense, both in their parts and as a whole. It is a spontaneous act of the mind; the human mind receives impressions and sensations from the outside world, unconsciously and involuntarily, imposes some sort of order on those impressions, reduces them to shape and size, so that the mind is able to form a clear image of the outside world. In this way clear and coherent perception becomes possible. The primary imagination is universal, it is possessed by all. The secondary imagination may be possessed by others also, but it is the peculiar and typical trait of the artist. It is the secondary imagination which makes artistic creation possible. Secondary imagination is more active and conscious; it requires an effort of the will, volition and conscious effort. It works upon its raw material that are the sensations and impressions supplied to it by the primary imagination. This secondary imagination is at the root of all poetic activity.