LA LETTERATURA INGLESE DEL XVIII E XIX SECOLO, Dispense di Letteratura Inglese

Scarica LA LETTERATURA INGLESE DEL XVIII E XIX SECOLO e più Dispense in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! IDENTITÀ MARGINALI DAI ROMANTICI AI VITTORIANI Issues of liberty, freedom, equality, the respect of minotities and diversity. ® Where doesthe very idea of civil rights come from? e Howdidthese new ideas influence poets and writers? e Howdidliterature influence the development of these ideas? Period of French Revolution, which has a great influence all over Europe. Declaration of the Right of Man and of the Citizen (1789). Issued on August 26 by the French National Assembly, it was inspired by the principles ofthe French Revolution. The basic principle of the Declaration was that all “men are born and remain free and equal in rights” (Article 1), which were the rights of liberty, private property, the inviolability of the person, and resistance to oppression (Article 2). All citizens were equal before the law and were to have the right to paiticipate in legislation directly or indirectly (Article 6), no one was to be arrested without a judicial order (Atticle 7). Freedom of religion (Aiticle 10) and freedom of speech (Article 11) were safeguarded within the bounds of public “order” and “law.” The Declaration did not contemplate extending civil and political rights to women. The Declaration did not revoke the institution of slavery and, together with the 1215 Magna Charta, the English Bill of Rights (1688), the United States Declaration of Independence (1786), and the United States Bill of Rights (1788) inspired in great pait the United Nations declarations of Human Rights (1948). The institution of slavery, fundamental for economical issue, its abolition will be a fundamental moment. United Nation, definition of Human Rights: «Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status. Human rights include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education and many more. Everyone is entitled to these rights, without discrimination.» Mata C. Nussbaum, Not for Profit. Why Democracy Needs the Humanities (2010), it has been considered a landmark text for those who are in the humanities and education. The humanities are fundamental for keeping democracy alive. The idea is using literature as an instrument of analysis to understand foreign cultures. «We need to cultivate students’ ‘inner eyes’, and this means carefully crafied instruction in the arts and humanities [... ] that will bring students in contact with issues of gender; race, ethnicity, and cross-cultural experience and understanding. The artistic instruction can and should be linked to the citizen-of-the-world instruction, since works of art are frequently an invaluable way of beginning to understand the achievements and sufferings of a culture different from one s own.» THE RESTORATION, 1660-1702 Charles II, 1660-1685 James II 1685-1688 ‘William and Mary 1688-1702 Anne 1702-1714 The return of the Stuart family and the Restoration: after Oliver Cromwell’s death in 1658, the English republican experiment faltered. Cromwell’s son Richard proved an ineffectual leader, and the public resented the strict Puritanism of England's military rulers. In 1660 the royalist troops managed to restore the monarchy. The new ruler (Charles II) arrived from France, ending a long period of fighting in England. It wasn't a particularly lucky reign, even though it was an important symbolic period. The Restoration of Charles II ended nearly two decades of Civil Wars across England. The first years of the reign of Charles II were decidedly not very glorious and characterized by a series of unfortunate events. In 1665 the city of London was devastated by a terrible plague; not even a year later the city was largely destroyed by the great fire of London. An aristocratic culture, led by Charles II himself, aggressively celebrated pleasure and the right of the elite to behave extravagantly. The delights of the court also took more refined forms. Having lived in France, Charles operated a cultural restoration and re-opened theatres. Moreover, for the first time we see women acting on stage (boy actors are over). Until the rising of actresses (18005), the figure of actresses is still very close to prostitution: women actresses were not seen as respectables. Reign of great stability and re-birth of the arts. Driden, first poet laureate of English History. An aristocratic culture, led by Charles II himself, aggressively celebrated pleasure and the right of the elite to behave extravagantly. The delights of the cowt also took more refined forms. French and Italian musicians, as well as painters from the Low Countries, migrated to England, and playhouses—closed by the Puritans since 1642—sprang back to life. In 1660 Charles authorized two new companies of actors, the King's Players and the Duke's; their repertory included witty, bawdy comedies written and acted by women as well as men. Upon his Restoration in 1660, Charles II almost immediately reversed Puritan sobriety by encouraging the kind of entertainment and theatrical activities that he had seen during his years of exile at the French cowt. Until his death in 1685 Charles II provided England with stability. When Charles II died in 1685, the Stuart kingdom seemed stable and secure, thanks to the shrewdness and political ability that had characterized the sovereign. Things were destined to change with the accession to the throne, in 1685 ofthe brother of Charles II, James II Stuart, who was openly Catholic. The new ruler, James II seemed intent on bringing England back into Roman Catholicism. The birth of James's son in 1688 made these fears more concrete for the Protestants. A group of English Protestants therefore went on a diplomatic mission to Holland to ask William III of Orange, Statholder of Holland from 1672 - who had married Mary II of England in 1677, the eldest of the two daughters of James's first bed - to accept to be the new king of England. William of Orange accepted and landed on the southern English coast in November 1688. James fled to France and was declared an abdicatary by the Parliament, who, in February 1689 elected William III of Orange and his wife Mary II. THE BILL OF RIGHTS (1689): It outlined specific constitutional and ci Parliament power over the monarchy. It also prescribed specific rights of individuals, including the il rights and gave prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. Matia's death in 1694 left William as the only monarch, but unfortunately without a legitimate heir. And since neither William nor James Il's surviving daughter Anne had children, the English Protestants feared that the throne might retum to James II, or his son. To avoid this danger, the ACT OF SETTLEMENT was issued in 1701 which established that, after the death of William II of Orange, the crown would be passed on to his sister-in-law Anne Stuart and therefore to the descendants of King James I. The English crown therefore passed to George of Hanover (who didn’t even speak English) son of Sophia of the Palatinate, a granddaughter of James I. In order to avoid a catholic monarch, a group of protestants asked William of Orange to rule England (he was matried to Mary II). The Glorious Revolution is the first revolution that didn't require spilling of blood. ACT OF UNION, 1707: Union between the English and Scottish Crowns. The creation of a unitary state straddling the four nations, England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, was a long and complex process. Wales had been conquered by England already at the end of the thirteenth century, but the formal union between England and Wales occurred only in 1536. With the rise to the throne of James ® William Congreve, The Way of the World (1700). These comedies expressed a reaction against Puritanism and the sexual repression it had attempted to enforce. Fashionable intrigues, sex, marriage and adultery were treated with cynicism, with worldly wit and a sense of the comedy of life. The characters in the plays no doubt owed much to the courtiers, the wits, and the men about town as well as to ladies of fashion, citizens, wives and country girls. The Rise of Literary C; sm The re-opening of the theatre and the need to select the plays encouraged the rise of Literary Criticism. A sudden change of taste seemed to occur around 1660. The change had been long prepared, however, by a trend in European culture, especially in seventeenth-century France: the desire for an elegant simplicity. Reacting against the difficulty and occasional extravagance of late Renaissance literature, writers and critics called for a new formal restraint, clarity, regularity, and good sense. Charles and his followers brought back from exile an admiration of French literature as well as French fashions, and the aesthetic ideals of such writers as Pierre Corneille, Renè Rapin, and Nicolas Boileau came into vogue. THE AUGUSTAN AGE (1702 - 1745) - [Anne, George I, George II] The period of the enlightemment. The term “Augustan” derived from the name ofthe Roman emperor Augustus Caesar, whose reign was considered the height of Roman history and culture. He was taken as an exemple, because it was seen as the highest period of roman history and culture. During this period, England was characterised by a stable government, a growing empire, prosperity and the flourishing of the arts. Some critics prefer to limit the English Augustan Age to the period covered by the reign of Queen Anne (1702-14), but usually the end ofthe Augustan period is extended to the death of Alexander Pope (1744) and/or of Jonathan Swift (1745). Anne was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland, based much of her administration on the advice of her ministers. She reigned together with the Parliament and tried to work very much in tune with it, using less of her powers. Queen Arme reigned from 1702 until 1714. She succeeded her brother in- law, William III, and her sister Mary. In 1707, the Act of Union became official during Queen Anne’s reign. It abolished the Scottish Parliament and gave the Scots a proportion of seats at Westminster. In 1714, George, Elector of Hanover and cousin of Queen Anne, became king in accordance with the Act of Settlement, 1701. George I (1714-1727), the first protestant (Act of Settlement), Georgian Period. (until 1745 we talk about Augustan). The Act stipulated that, after the death of the childless Queen Anne (the last legitimate Stuart monarch) the British monarchy should be Protestant and Hanoverian. The Act imposed a series of statutory limitations on the monarch, who had to be a conforming Anglican; it stipulated that parliamentary consent was necessary for foreign wars; and it freed the judiciary from royal interference. The Act of Settlement was perhaps the most notable of the constitutional victories achieved over the crown during William's reign. The Act of Settlement was perhaps the most notable of the constitutional victories achieved over the crown during William's reign. During George I’s reign: 1. The powers of the monarchy diminished; 2. Ministers met without the King in the cabinet led by the Prime Minister, 3. The actual power was held by Sir Robeit Walpole, Britain's first prime minister. After the death of George I, George II (his son), (1727-1760) succeeded to the throne. Among the many changes that took place in Augustan England two trends deserve special attention: - The growth of the state - The emerging «public sphere» The development of the state and the public sphere were accompanied by the growth of trade, science, and technology, the waning of religious zeal, the rise of reason and politeness, and the legitimation of political “parties” (Whigs and Tories). During this period, the role of the Prime Minister is close to the king. It is a great moment of changes and improvements from a technical point of view, together with the legitimation of the political parties. ‘What was going on in France also had a great influence (idea of cafés, coffee-houses in Britain, place of circulation of ideas). Coffee-houses allowed the circulation of news, opinions, they were attended by artists, journalists, fashionable people; they became gathering places where people exchanged ideas and gossip; they were exclusively attended by men. These places were exclusively attended by men, whereas women were relegated to the domestic sphere: it was not considered possible that women could attend public places. Political stability, (the Hanoverians embodied it); Individualism; Liberal thought and free will (philosophical ideas were circulating); Optimism: political and technical innovation; Reason and common sense; Desire for balance, symmetty, refinement (the heroic couplet); These concepts are embraced by the current literature (Dryden, Pope). What is important about creating categories is realizing that changes happen slowly: everything is gradual. Characteristics from one period transpire in another. We also have periods that go against what came before: Augustan period vs. the Romantic era (the moment of soul and relationship with nature, against reason, balance and refinement, caring about everyday life and nature). Joumalism and the jourmnalist as a New Profession: The expansion of literacy and the new middle-class readership (because the development of schooling) encouraged the development of the publishing industry and the rise of modern journalism. Joumals like The Tatler, The Spectator and The Review became particularly popular and developed a new way of writing and communicating through a simple and witty style in order to reach a wider public as possible. The role of the king is balanced by the new roles of the Prime Minister and Parliament, in tune with the idea that aristocracy is not the only dominating class in England and not only in England. The middle class becomes the new rising class, you're no more only important if you're pait of aristocracy. If you want to become a writer you have to be published. Also, the rise of modern journalism. PEOPLE STARTED READING (initially newspapers and then also novels). No more manuscripts print. Still patronage, you could become a writer if sustained by the king or aristocracy and you have to publish and print your stuff. People start reading novels but most of all newspapers. Journalists saw themselves as social reformers. Daniel Defoe’s The Review (1704-13; thice weekly), appealed to the middle class: thuift, prudence, industry, respectability. Sir Richard Steele’s The Tatler (1709-11; thrice weekly), to which Joseph Addison soon contributed, Addison and Steele’s The Spectator (1711-12, briefly revived in 1714). The Review introduced the opinion-forming political article on domestic and foreign affairs. The refined essays of The Tatler and The Spectator did much to shape the manners and taste of the age. The Tatler had countless imitators in Britain and in Europe. The creation of the figure of the journalist is English. The rise of the novel more or less coincides with the rise of journalism, whose language is easier. The female readership also arises. The rise of the middle class allows women to be at home and have a lot of leisure time because domestic activities were made by the servants, working class, lower classes, so the bourgeoisie had free time. The publishers of the time immediately understood this so the audience of the Tatler and others was also female. There were articles exclusively directed to females with fashion of the time etc but still very sexist and they were very light topic articles because women had a different education from men, only on shallow stuff because all that was expected from them was to marry, the line was drawn at classics. Women were not allowed to study the classics and latin or greek. The idea was to instruct women only about shallow stuffin order to get married, which was their only goal. ‘Women”s Magazines - The Female Tatler (1709-1710) - The Ladies” Library (1714) - The Female Spectator (1744-1746) - The Ladies’ Magazine (1770) THE NEOCLASSICISM Pope and other Augustan writers believed in imitating the best of their classical predecessors through adopting classical genres (i.e. epic, pastoral, satire), The most dominant figure of English Neoclassicism was Alexander Pope. He always prefered neoclassical forms such as long moralistic essays, mock epics. In his final years he produced a series of Imitations of Horace”s Satires (always in heroic-couplets). ALEXANDER POPE (1688-1704) Alexander Pope is certainly the most representative poetic figure of the Augustan Age. Born into a Catholic family, he was heavily penalized by the law that prohibited Catholics from accessing teaching, forbade attending university, voting, and accessing public employment. Pope first received private education and then attended Catholic schools in London, which although illegal, were tolerated in some areas. If we exclude some youthful works of moderate success, such as the Virgilian The Pastorals (1709), the work that imposed him on the literary panorama of the time was An Essay on Criticism (1711), a treatise in verse inspired by Horace’s Ars Poetica. Alexander Pope was one of the greatest translators of his time. Between 1715 and 1720 his translation of the Iliad was published, and between 1725 and 1726 his translation of the Odyssey came out, the latter completed however with the help of William Broome and Elijah Fenton. The extraordinary success of these translations will make Pope a wealthy man, the first English writer to live on the proceeds of his work. In 1712 Pope published The Rape of the Lock, a poem of five cantos, written in rhyming couplets. It is frequently referred to as a mock-heroic or mock-epic poem, on account of its parodic relationship with classical epics such as Homer”s Iliad, and with the English epic tradition, especially John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Pope borrows much of the structure of The Rape of the Lock from the epic world, using terms of battles, heroes, gods and nymphs, glory and misfortune, but then applies those terms to a domestic, clearly un-epic scene. The poem’ very first couplet announces that it will deal with: > What dire offence from amorous causes springs, > What mighty contests rise from trivial things Trivial topic in epic style: The ‘rape of the lock’ to which the poem’s title refers, is the seizing, by force of a lock of hair from a young lady named Belinda by her suitor, the wicked Baron. This does not happen until the end of the poem’s third canto. The delay itself is a parody of the way in which Milton, for example, makes his reader wait until over halfway through Paradise Lost before detailing the crucial event of the Fall of Mankind. Satire in his essays. He was a catholic and he wasn't allowed in the university. He didn't feel as a part of society. e HemyFielding (1707-1754) They are the first great writers of English literature who do not draw inspiration for their plots from mythology, history, epic, or previous literature. They take reality as inspiration. Credibility and probability are essential qualities of these novels. The reality of their time offers these new authors an inexhaustible repertoire of human experience in its various forms. Focus on the experience ofthe INDIVIDUAL AS SUBJECT MATTER. The characters struggle for survival or social success in their contemporary social setting. The new characters in the novels are given common names and sumames to emphasize contact with reality: they are everyday characters. Great attention is also given to the setting: the place and time of the action always have a very specific connotation. Therefore, readers can identify with them. DANIEL DEFOE (1660-1731), the first father of the english novel e 1685-92: Becomes a prosperous businessman dealing in hosiery, tobacco, wine, and other goods. IT WAS A TYPICAL BOURGEOISIE MAN. He was a dessenter= non conforming, English protestants that didn’t follow the English Church. They tended to have a more radical idea. The dissenters were strong in the 18th century in England, but had sometimes problems with the establishment, which is the case of Defoe. He was supporting the liberal ideas and he also wrote an essay. 1697-1701: Defoe acts as an agent for William III in England and Scotland. 1692: he declared bankruptcy for £17,000 and was imprisoned for debt. Inspiration for some of his characters. ® 1704-13 Defoe acts as secret agent and political journalist for Harley and other ministers, travelling widely in England and Scotland, promoting the union ofthe two countries. He was not a professional writer, he did something else before and then started writing. He began writing when he was quite old (at the age of 59), the idea ofthe novelist as we know now didn’t exist yet so the novelists at that time stat writing after having done other things in their lives. (He was not the only one, this is a common tendency at the time). Some of his most famous works: - Robinson Crusoe (1719), his masterpiece - Captain Singleton (1720) - Moll Flanders (1722) a woman who does everything thank to her resources in order to become rich. She is one of the first female protagonists in English literature; she had a very pasticular life, she married five men, she had children, she was imprisoned and became the owner of a plantation. She did everything to become rich. This character was loved by Virginia Woolf, who saw her as an example of a very strong and individual character. In this novel there is an incredible spirit ofindividualism. - ColonelJack(1722) - Roxana (1724), it is the story ofa young, sophisticated lady who had everything thanks to her capacity to seduce men. ROBINSON CRUSCE, (a 19-year-old man who leaves his family to become someone. He embarks on a journey to buy slaves to work in his barzilian plantation. During the joumey, he shipwrecks. He meets a indigenous on a desert island and teaches him to read.): Regarded as the first novel in English. A fictional autobiography natrated in first person (he writes a diary). I Watt: “Robinson Crusoe is certainly the first novel in the sense that it is the first fictional narrative in which an ordinary persons daily activities are the centre of continuous literary attention”. The novel represents the embodiment of economic individualism (homo economicus): “with money in the pocket one is at home everywhere” (Moll Flanders). Defoe: “Crusoe is a strict utilitarian” AUTONOMY OF THE INDIVIDUAL: he becomes responsible in order to determine his political, economic, social and religious role. Emotional issues and personal relationships play a secondary role in Robinson, except when they are linked to economic matters. Defoe is not really interested in his character’s personal life: emotional issues and personal relationships play a secondary role in Robinson, except when they are linked to economic matters. Money is always in the center of Defoe’s novels, because what matters in life is to gain money to become rich. IT IS A MATERIALISTIC TEXT (Carl Marx: Crusoe is the first capitalistic). Coleridge on R. Crusoe: “He is the universal representative, the person, for whom every reader could substitute himself... nothing is done, thought, suffered, or desired, but what every man can imagine himself doing, thinking, feeling, or wishing for”. Idea of identification, feeling the same way as the characters. The idea of the identification into this character was fundamental for writers such as Defoe; Robinson was one of the typical bowgeois middle-class men focused on money. THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE, &c. I Was born in the Year 1612, in the City of York, of a good Family, the not of that Country, my Father being a foreigner of Bremen who settled first at Hull. He got a good Estate by Merchandise, and leaving off his Trade, lived afterward at York, from whence he had married my Mother, whose Relations were named Robinson a, very good Family in that Country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer, but by the usual Corruption of Words in England, we are now called, nay we call ourselves, and write our Name Crusoe so my Companions always call’d me. I had two elder Brothers, one of which was Lieutenant Collonel to an English Regiment of Foot in Flanders, formerly commanded by the famous Coll. Lockhart, and was killed at the Battle near Dunkirk against the Spaniards: What became of my second Brother I never knew any more than my Father or Mother did know what was become of me. Being the third Son of the Family, and not bred to any Trade, my Head began to be fill’d very early with rambling Thoughts: My Father, who was was very ancient, had given me competent Share of House-Education, and a Country Free-School generally goes, and design'd me for the Law but I would be satisfied with nothing but going to Sea, and my Inclination to this led me so strongly against.the Wild, may the Communde of my Father, and against all the Ehtreatics And Persons of my Mother and other Friends that there seed to be something fatal in that Propension of Nature tending directly to the life of Misery ‘which was to befal me. My Father, wise and grave Man, gave me serious and excellent Counsel against what he foresaw was my Design. He call'd me one Morning into his Chamber, where he was confined by the Gout, and expostulated very warmly with me upon this Subject: He ask’d me what Reasons more than a meer wandring Inclination I had for leaving in my Father and my native Country where I might be well introduced, and had a Prospect of raising my Fortunes by Application and Industry, with a Life of Ease and Pleasure. He told me it was for Men of desperate Fortunes on one Hand, or of aspiring, superior Fortunes on the other, who went abroad upon Adventures to rise by Enterprise, and make themselves famous in Undertakings of a Nature out of the common Road, that these things were all either too far above me, or too far below me; that mine was the middle State, or what might be called the upper Station of Law Life, which he had found by long Experience was the best State in the World, the most suited to human Happiness, not exposed to the Miseries and Hardships, the Labour and Suffering of the mechanick Part of Mankind, and not embarass'd with the Pride, Luxury Ambition and Envy of the upper Part of Mankind. He told me. I might judge of the Happiness of this State, by this one thing, siz That this was the State of Life which all other People envied, that Kings have frequently lamented the miserable Consequences of being bom to great things, and wish'd they had been placed in the Middle of the two Extremes, between the Mean and the Great that the wise Man gave his Testimony to this as the just Standard of true Felicits, when he prayed to have neither Poverty or Riches. He bid me observe it, and I should always find, that the Calamities of Life were shared among the upper and lower Part of Mankind, but that the middle Station had the fewest Disasters, and was not expos'd to so many Vicissitudes as the higher or lower Part of Mankind; nay, they were not subjected to so many Distempers and Uncasinesses either of Body or Mind, as those were who, by vicious Living, Luxury and Extravagancies on one Hand, or by hard Labour, Want of Necessaries, and mean or insufficient Diet on the other Hand, bring Distempers upon themselves by the natural Consequences of their Way of Living, That the middle Station of Life was calculated for all kind of Vertues and all kinds of Enjoyments that Peace and Plenty were the Handmaids of middle Fortune that Temperance, Moderation, Quietness, Health, Society all agree able Diversions. and all desirable Pleasures were the Blessings attending the middle Station of Life, that this Way Men went silently and smoothly thro' the World, and comfortably out of it, not embered with the Labours of the Hands or of the Head, not sold to the Life of Slavery for daily Bread, or harrast with perplex’d Circumstances, which rob the Soul of Peace, and the Body of Rest; not entag'd with the Passion of Envy, or secret buming Lust of Ambition for great things, but in easy Circumstances sliding gently thro the World, and sensibly tasting the Sweets of living, without the bitter, feeling that they are happy, and learning by every Day's Experience to know it more sensibly. But what need I had been concern’d at the Tediousness of any thing I had to do, secing I had time enough to do it in, nor had I any other Employment if that had been over, at least, that I could foresee, except the ranging the Island to seek for Food, which I did more or less every Day. I now began to consider seriously my Condition, and the Circumstance I was reduc'd to, and I drew up the State of my Affairs in Writing, not so much to leave them to any that were to come after me, for I was like to have but few Heirs, as to deliver my Thoughts from daily poring upon them, and afflicting my Mind; and as my Reason began now to master my Despondency, I began to comfort my self as well as I could, and to set the good against the Evil, that I might have something to distinguish my Case from worse, and I stated it very impartially like Debtor and Creditor, the Comforts 1 enjoy'd, against the Miseries I suffer'd, Thus, Evil Good I am cast upon a horrible desolate Island, void of all | But I am alive, and not drown’d as all my Ship's hope of Recovery. Company was. I am singl’d out and separated, as it were, from all But I am singl’d out too from all the Ship's Crew to the World to be miserable. be spar’d from Death; and he that miraculously sav’d me from Death, can deliver me from Condition. I am divided from Mankind, a Solitaire, one banish’d from humane Society. But I am not starv’d and perishing on a barren Place, I have not Clothes to cover me. affording not Sustenance. But I am in a hot Climate, where if I had Clothes I I am without Defence ir Means to resist any Violence | could hardly wear them. of Man or Beast. But I am cast on an Island, where I see no wild I have no Soul to speak to, or relieve me. Beasts to hurt me, as I saw on the Coast of Africa: And what ifI had been Shipwreck”d there? But God wonderfully sent the Ship in near enough to the Shore, that I have gotten out so many necessary things as wil either supply my Wants, or enable me to supply my self even as long as I live Upon the whole, here was an undoubted Testimony, that there was scarce any Condition in the World so miserable, but there was something Negative or something Positive to be thankful for in it; and let this stand as a Direction from the Experience of the most miserable of all Conditions in this World, that we may always find in it something to comfort our selves from, and to set in the Descrip tion of Good and Evil, on the Credit Side of the Accompt. Having now brought my Mind a little to relish my Condition, and given over looking out to Sea to see if I could spy a Ship, I say, giving over these things, I began to apply my self to accommodate my way of Living, and to make things as easy to me as I could. I have already describ'd my Habitation, which was a Tent under the Side of a Rock, surrounded with a strong Pale of Posts and Cables, but I might now rather call it a Wall, for I rais'd a kind of Wall up against it of Turfs, about two Foot thick on the Out-side, and after some time, I think it was a Year and Half, I raised Rafters from it leaning to the Rock, and thatch'd or cover'd it with Bows of Trees, and such things as I could get to keep out the Rain, which I found at some times of the Year very violent. I have already obsery'd how I brought all my Goods into this Pale, and into the Cave which I had made behind me: But I must observe too, that at first this was a confus'd Heap of Goods, which as they lay in no Order, so they took up all my Place, I had no room to tum myself: so I set my self to enlarge my Cave and By May 1741 pamela reached its fouth edition and was dramatized in england and all over europe (in Italy by Goldoni). LETTERI Dear Father and Mother, I Have great Trouble, and some Comfort, to acquaint you with. The Trouble is that my good Lady died ofthe Illness I mention'd to you, and left us all much griev'd for her Loss for she was a dear good Lady, and kind to all us her Servants. Much I fear'd, that as I was taken by her Goodness to wait upon her Person, I should be quite destitute again, and forc'd to retum to you and my poor Mother, who have so much to do to maintain y ourselves; and, as my Lady's Goodness had put me to write and cast Accompts, and made me a little expert at my Needle, and ether Qualifications above my Degree, it would have been no easy Matter to find a Place that your poor Pamela was fit for But God, whose Graciousness to us we have so often experienc'd at a Pinch, put it into my good Lady's Heart, on her Death bed, just an Hour before she expir'd, to recommend to my young Master all her Servants, one by one, and when it came to my Tum to be recommended, for I was sobbing and crying at her Pillow, she could only say, My dear Son! and so broke off a little, and then recovering - Remember my poor Pamela!-And these were some of her last Words! O how my Eyes run! -Don't wonder to see the Paper so blotted! Well, but God's Will must be done and so comes the Comfort, that I shall not be oblig'd to retum back to be a Clog upon my dear Parents! For my Master said, I will take care of you all, my lasses, and for you, Pamela, (and took me by the Hand: yes, he took me by the Hand before them all) for my dear Mother's sake, I will be a Friend to you, and you shall take care of my Linen. God bless him! and never with me my dear Father and Mother for God to bless him:For he has given Mouming and a Years Wages to all my Lady's Servants; and I having no Wages as yet, but what my Lady said she would do for me as I deserv'd, order'd the House-keeper to give me Mouming with the rest, and gave me with his own Hand Four golden Guineas, besides lesser Money, ‘which were in my old Lady's Pocket when she dy d; and said, I was a good Girl, and faithful and diligent, he would be a Friend to me, for his Mother's sake, And so I send you these four Guineas for your Comfort; for God will not let me want And so you may pay some old Debt with Part; and keep the other Part to comfort you both. If I get more, I am sure it is my Duty. and it shall be my Care to love and cherish you both; for you have lov'd me and cherish'd me, when I could do nothing for myself And so you have for us all, or what must have become of us! I send it by John our Footman, who goes your way, but he does not know what he carries, because I seal it up in one of the little Pill-boxes which my Lady had, wrapt close in Paper, that it mayn't chink, and be sure don't open it before him. I know, dear Father and Mother, I must give you both Grief and Pleasure, and so I will only say, Pray for your Pamela; who will ever be, Your most dutiful Daughter. I have been scared out of my Senses; for just now, as I was folding this Letter, in my late Lady's Dressing-room, in comes my young Master! Good Sirs! how was I frightned! I went to hide the Letter in my Bosom, and he seeing me frighted, said, smil ing. Who have you been writing to, Pamela?-1 said, in my Fright, Pray your Honour forgive me! --Only to my Father and Mother. He said, Well then, Let me see how you are come on in your Writing! O how I was sham'd! -He, in my Fright, took it, without saying more, and read it quite thro', and then gave it me again,-and 1 said, Pray your Honour forgive me yet 1 know not for what. For he was always dutiful to his Parents, and why should he be angry, that I was so to mine! And indeed he was not angry, for he took me by the Hand, and said, You are a good Girl, Pamela, to be kind to your aged Father and Mother I am not angry with you. Be faithful, and diligent; and do as you should do, and I like you the better for this. And then he said, Why, Pamela, you write a very pretty Hand, and spell tolerable too. I see my good Mother's Care in your Leaming has not been thrown away upon you. My Mother used to say, you lov'd reading: you may look into any of her Books to improve yourself, so you take care of them. To be sure I did nothing but curchice and cry, and was all in Confusion, at his Goodness. Indeed he is the best of Gentlemen, 1 think! But I am making another long Letter. So will only say more, I shall ever be, Your dutiful Daughter PAMELA ANDREWS LETTER Il. In Answer to the preceding. Dear PAMELA, YOUR Letter was indeed a great Trouble and some Comfort to me, and your poor Mother. We are troubled, to be sure, for your good Lady's Death, who took such care of you, and gave you Learning and for Three Years past has always been giving you Cloaths and Linen, and every thing that a Gentlewoman need not be asham'd to appear in But our chief Trouble is, and indeed a very great one, for fear you should be brought to any thing dishonest or wicked, by being set so above yourself Every body talks how you have come on, and what a genteel Girl you are, and some say you are very pretty: and indeed, Six Months since, when I saw you last, I should have thought so too, ifyou was not our Child. But what avails all this, ifyou are to be ruin'd and undone! - Indeed, my dear Child, we begin to be in great Fear for you; for what signifies all the Riches in the World with a bad Conscience, and to be dishonest? We are, 'tis true, very poor, and find it hard enough to live; tho once, as you know, it was better with us. But we would sooner live upon the Water and Clay ofthe Ditches I am fure'd to dig, than to live better at the Price of our dear Child's Ruin. I hope the good 'Squire has no Design, but when he has given you so much Money, and speaks so kindly to you, and praises your coming on and Oh that fatal Word, that he would be kind to you, if you would do as you should do, almost kills us with Fears. I have spoken to good old Widow Mumford about it, who, you know, has formerly lived in good Families, and she puts us in some Comfort: for she says, it is not unusual, when a Lady dies, to give what she has about her to her Waiting maid, and to such as sit up with her in her Illness. But then, why should he smile so kindly upon you? Why should he take such a poor Girl as you by the Hand, as your Letter says he has done twice? Why should he stoop to read your Letter to us, and commend your Writing and Spelling? And, why should he give you Leave to read his Mother's Books! - Indeed, indeed, my dearest Child, our Hearts ake for you; and then you seem so full of Joy at his Goodness, so taken with his kind Expressions, which truly are very great Favours, if he means well, that we fear Yes, my dear Child, we fear- you should be too grateful -- and reward him with that Jewel, your Virtue, ‘which no Riches, nor Favour, nor any thing in this Life, can make up to you. I, too, have written a long Letter; but will say one Thing more and that is, That in the Midst of our Poverty and Misfortunes, we have trusted in God's Goodness, and been honest, and doubt not to be happy hereafter, if we continue to be good, tho' our Lot is hard here, but the Loss of our dear Child's Virtue, would be a Grief that we could not bear, and would bring our grey Hairs to the Grave at once. If you love us then, ifyou value God's Blessing, and your future Happiness, we both charge you to stand upon your Guard, and, if you find the least Attempt made upon your Virtue, be sure you leave every thing behind you, and come away to us, for we had rather see you all cover'd with Rags, and even follow you to the Church-yard, than have it said, a Child of ours preferr'd worldly Conveniencies to her Virtue. We accept kindly of your dutiful Present, but "till we are out of our Pain, cannot make use of it, for fear we should partake of the Price of our poor Daughter's Shame So have laid it up in a Rag among the Thatch, over the Window, for a while, lest we should be robbed With our Blessings and our hearty Prayers for you, we remain. Your careful, but loving Father and Mather, JOHN and ELIZABETH ANDREW. WEDNESDAY Moming I Find I am watched and suspected still very close; and I wish I was with you, but that must not be, it seems, this Fortnight. I don't like this Fortnight, and it will be a tedious and a dangerous one to me, I doubt. My Master just now sent for me down to take a Walk with him in the Garden. But I like him not at all, nor his Ways. For he would have all the way his Arm about my Waist, and said abundance of fond Things to me, enough to make me proud, if his Design had not been apparent. After walking about, he led me into a little Alcove, on the further Part of the Garden; and really made me afraid of myself For he began to be very teazing, and made me sit on his Knee, and was so often kissing me, that I said, Sir, I don't like to be here at all, I assure you. Indeed you make me afraid! - And what made me the more so, was what he once said to Mrs. Jewkes, and did not think I heard him, and which, tho always uppermost with me, I did not mention before, because I did not know how to bring it in, in my Writing. She, I suppose, had been encouraging him in his Wickedness; for it was before the last dreadful Trial: and I only heard what he answer'd. Said he, I will try once more; but I have begun wrong. ForI see Terror does but add to her Frost; but, she is a charming Girl, and may be thaw”d by Kindness, and I should have melted her by Love, instead of freezing her by Fear. Is he not a wicked sad Man for this:- To be sure, I blush while I write it. But I trust that that God, who has deliver'd me from the Paw of the Lion and the Bear, that is, his and Mrs Jerkes's Vio- lences; will also deliver me from this Philistine, myself, and my own Infirmities, that I may not defy the Commands of the Living God! But, as I was saying, this Expression coming into my Thoughts, I was of Opinion, I could not be too much on my Guard, at all times; more especially when he took such Liberties: For he professed Honour all the Time with his Mouth, while his Actions did not correspond. I begg'd and pray'd he would let me go: And hadI not appear'd quite regardless of all he said, and resolv’d not to stay, if I could help it, I know nt how far he would have proceeded: For I was forc’d to faall down upon my Knees. At last he walk'd out with me, still bragging of his Honour, and his Love. Yes, yes, Sir, said I. your Honour is to destroy mine; and your Love is to ruin me, I see it too plainly, But, indeed, I will not walk with you, Sir, said I, any more. Do you know, said he who you talk to, and where you are? You may believe I had Reason to think him not so decent as he should be; for I said, As to where I am, Sir, I know it too well, and thatI have no Creature to befriend me: And, as to who you are, Sir, let me ask you, what you would have me answer? Why tell me, said he, what Answer you would make? It will only make you angry, said I; and so I shall fare worse, if possible. I won't be angry, said he. Why then, Sir, said I, you cannot be my late good Lady's Son; for she lov'd me, and taught me Virtue. You cannot then be my Master; for no Master demeans himself so to his poor Servant. He put his Arm round me, and his other Hand on my Neck; which made me more angry and bold, and he said, What then am I? Why, said I (struggling from him, and in a great Passion to be sure you are Lucifer himself in the Shape of my Master, or you could not use me thus. These are too great Liberties, said he, in Anger, and I desire that you will not repeat them, for your own sake: For ifyou have no Decency towards me, TIl have none to you. I was running from him; and he said, Come back, when I bid you.-So, knowing every Place was alike dangerous to me, and I had nobody to run to, I came back, at his Call, and I held my Hands together, and wept, and said, Pray, Sir, forgive me! No, said he, rather say, Pray, Lucifer, forgive me, and now, since you take me for the Devil, how can you expect any Good from me!-How, rather, can you expect any thing but the worst Treatment from me?-You have given me a Character, Pamela, and blame me not that I act up to it. Sir, said I, let me beg you to forgive me. I am really sorry for my Boldness; but indeed you don't use me like a Gentleman, and how can I express my Resentment, if I mince the Matter, while you are so indecent?Precise Fool, said he, what Indecencies have I offer'd you? - I was bewitch'd I had not gone thro' my Purpose last Sunday Night; and then your licentious Tongue had not given the worst Names to little puny Freedoms, that shew my Love and my Folly at the same time. But begone, and learn another Conduct and more Wit, and I will lay aside my foolish Regard for you, and assert myself. Begone, said he, again, with a haughty Air. Indeed, Sir, said I, I cannot go, till you pardon me, which I beg on my bended knees. I am truly sorry for my Boldness.-But I see how you go on: You creep by little and little upon me; and now sooth me, and now threaten me; and ifI should forbear to shew my Resent ment, when you offer Incivilities to me, would not that be to be lost by degrees? Would it not shew that I could bear any thing from you, if I did not express all the Indignation I could express, at the first Approaches you make to what I dread? And, have you not as good as avow'd my Ruin? - And have you once made me hope, you will quit your Purposes against me. How then, Sir, can I act, but by shewing my Abhorrence of every Step that makes towards my Undoing? And what is left me but Words And can these Words be other th: such strong ones, as shall shew the Detestation, which, from the Bottom of my Heart, I have for every Attempt upon my Virtue? Judge for me, Sir, and pardon me. Pardon you, said he, what, when you don't repent? - When you have the Boldness to justify yourself in your Fault? Why don't you say, you never will again offend me? I will endeavour, Sir, said I, always to preserve that Decency towards you which becomes me.But really, Sir, I must beg your Excuse for saying, That when you forget what belongs to Decency in your Actions, and when Words are all that are left me, to shew my Resentment of such Actions, I will not promise to forbear the strongest Expressions that my distressed Mind shall suggest to me; nor shall your angriest Frowns deter me, when my Honesty is in Question. What then, said he, do you beg Pardon for? Where is the Promise of Amendment for which I should forgive you? Indeed, Sir, said I, I own that must absolutely depend on your Usage of me: For I will bear any thing you can inflict upon me with Patience, even to the laying down of my Life, to shew my Obedience to you in other Cases; but I cannot be patient, I cannot be passive, when my Virtue is at Stake! -It would be criminal in me, if I was. He said he never saw such a Fool in his Life! And he walk'd by the Side of me some Yards, without saying a Word, and seem'd vex'd; and, at last walked in, bidding me attend him in the Garden after Dinner. So, having a little Time, I went up, and wrote thus far. The Epistolary Novel: Extremely popular during the eighteenth century. Richardson and other novelists of his time argued that the letter allowed the reader greater access to a character's thoughts and it allowed the writer to analyse the character’s psychological development. There's the possibility to feel the characters inner life, LESS ATTENTION ON ACTION AND MORE ATTENTION ON inspiration from the travel literature of his time. The Grand Tour: young men who, before starting university, they took off to travel through Europe. It was supposed to be a cultural journey. It is inspired by this type of literature. The Grand Tour created a new genre oftravel literature. JONATHAN SWIFT (1667-1745) He is an Anglo-irish Most relevant prose satirist in the English language. He wrote many of the speeches of William Temple and knew very well the political world of his times. During the reign of Queen Anne he was one of the central figures in the literary and political life in London. Educated at Trinity College in Dublin. Between 1689 and 1699 he worked as a private secretary to Sir William Temple, a retired diplomat. He also started to write satirical texts. Through Temple he learned much about the vice, hypocrisy, intrigues, deception and corruption of the political world. He also wrote forjoumals. In 1713 he became an anglican priest. His major works: The battle of the books (1697) - a satirical text e Ataleofatub(1704) e AModest Proposal (1729) © Gulliver’s Travels (1726) - his first novel, he started writing it in 1721. Travels into several remote nations of the world by Samuel Gulliver: Published anonymously and divided in 4 books. The whole satirical aspect is one of the reasons why it is anonymous. Different layers of narration (children couldn't understand the satire concerning politics). The anonymity of Gulliver’s Travels allowed it to be a mock-book. /t parodied examples of voyage literature that were popular in the period. These accounts were ‘true’ stories of travels to remote areas of the globe. A New Voyage Round the World (1697) by William Dampier was pasticularly influential. Unreliable first person narrator: it is the parody of a travel story of Samuel gulliver, a ship's surgeon, who voyages in different parts of the world. A mix of Utopian fiction and the novel a satire of man's vanities and irrationality, It is a critique of society and its absurdities describing imaginary worlds in which the defects ofthe real world are exaggerated. Feature of being a text that could be read by both children and adults, it was considered later on for children, but they would only understand a past, not the political satire/sense. Gulliver lands to different islands. His travels allow the narrator to make a comparison with England and the political situation he was living in a negative vision. Selfish, corrupted men. Harsh opinion of the society of his time. He can also be interpreted as an utopian texte [Thomas More]. Idea of a joumey on an island, where he underlines what's wrong in his country. It also can be read as a children story. When the ship Gulliver is traveling on is destroyed in a storm, Gulliver ends up on the island of Lilliput, where he awakes to find that he has been captured by Lilliputians, very small people — approximately six inches in height. Gulliver is treated with compassion and concern. In tum, he helps them solve some of their problems, especially their conflict with their enemy, Blefuscu, an island across the bay from them. Gulliver falls from favor, however, because he refiuses to support the Emperor's desire to enslave the Blefuscudians and because he "makes water" to put out a palace fire. Gulliver flees to Blefuscu, where he converts a large war ship to his own use and sets sail from Blefuscu eventually to be rescued at sea by an English merchant ship and retumed to his home in England. As he travels as a ship's surgeon, Gulliver and a small crew are sent to find water on an island. Instead they encounter a land of giants. As the crew flees, Gulliver is left behind and captured. Gulliver's captor, a farmer, takes him to the farmer's home where Gulliver is treated kindly, but, of course, curiously. The farmer assigns his daughter, Glumdalclitch, to be Gulliver's keeper, and she cares for Gulliver with great compassion. The farmer takes Gulliver on tour across the countryside, displaying him to onlookers. Eventually, the farmer sells Gulliver to the Queen. At court, Gulliver meets the King, and the two spend many sessions discussing the customs and behaviors of Gulliver's country. In many cases, the King is shocked and chagrined by the selfishness and pettiness that he hears Gulliver describe. Gulliver, on the other hand, defends England. One day, on the beach, as Gulliver looks longingly at the sea from his box (portable room), he is snatched up by an eagle and eventually dropped into the sea. A passing ship spots the floating chest and rescues Gulliver, eventually returning him to England and his family. Gulliver is on a ship bound for the Levant. After arriving, Gulliver is assigned captain of a sloop to visit nearby islands and establish trade. On this trip, pirates attack the sloop and place Gulliver in a small boat to fend for himself. While drifting at sea, Gulliver discovers a Flying Island. While on the Flying Island, called Laputa, Gulliver meets several inhabitants, including the King. All are preoccupied with things associated with mathematics and music. In addition, astronomers use the laws of magnetism to move the island up, down, forward, backward, and sideways, thus controlling the island's movements in relation to the island below (Balnibarbi). While in this land, Gulliver visits Balnibarbi, the island of Glubbdubdrib, and Luggnagg. Gulliver finally arrives in Japan where he meets the Japanese emperor. From there, he goes to Amsterdam and eventually home to England. While Gulliver is captain of a merchant ship bound for Barbados and the Leeward Islands, several of his crew become ill and die on the voyage. Gulliver hires several replacement sailors in Barbados. These replacements tum out to be pirates who convince the other crew members to mutiny. As a result, Gulliver is deposited on a "strand" (an island) to fend for himself. Almost immediately, he is discovered by a herd of ugly, despicable human-like creatures who are called, he later learns, Yahoos. They attack him by climbing trees and defecating on him. He is saved from this disgrace by the appearance of a horse, identified, he later learns, by the name Houyhnhnm. The grey horse (a Houyhnhnm) takes Gulliver to his home, where he is introduced to the grey's mare (wife), a colt and a foal (children), and a sorrel nag (the servant). Gulliver also sees that the Yahoos are kept in pens away from the house. It becomes immediately clear that, except for Gulliver's clothing, he and the Yahoos are the same animal. From this point on, Gulliver and his master (the grey) begin a series of discussions about the evolution of Yahoos, about topics, concepts, and behaviors related to the Yahoo society, which Gulliver represents, and about the society of the Houyhnhnms. Thanks to the critics of the seventies, many female writers were re-discovered. Many of the leading writers ofthe period were women: - Aphra Behn (1640?-1689), considered the first woman who earned her living thanks to writing (Her husband was imprisoned for a long time). 1688: Oroonoko, story of an enslaved African prince. - Delarivière Manley (1663 -1724), she was also an actress writing for the stage. Satire ofthe english society, The New Atlantis, 1709. She was a collaborator of Swift and wrote many political pamphlets. - Eliza Haywood (1693-1756), the editor of the female Spectator. She was a translator from the french and wrote over 70 pieces. - Sarah Fielding (1710-1768), she was Hemy Fielding' sister. First children book: The Govemess ofthe little female academy. CHARLOTTE LENNOX (1730ca-1804): Novelist and critic admired by authors like Richardson and Fielding. One of the first female Shakespearean ciitics: Shakespeare Illustrated (1753-54), Analysis of Shakespeare”s sources. Her text was an aid to Johnson's Edition...who eclipsed the impoitance of the female critics. She was one of the first who attempted to write a critical essay influencing the emergence of Shakespeare”s fame through the page, rather than through the stage. She tried to locate Shakespeare®s Plays in their Most relevant novels: e TheLife ofHasriot Stuait (1750) ® The Female Quixote (1752) e Henietta (1758) The female Quixote or the adventures of Arabella: The young daughter of a marquis, raised in an isolated castle, Arabella is depicted as a female version of Cervantes’ don Quixote, and spends her life in the obsessive and voracious reading of seventeenth-century French romances, believing them to be historically accurate. She is incapable to recognise the difference between fiction and life. She is constantly confused. Like don Quixote, Arabella is incapable of distinguishing real life from the imagination. Her mad reading is represented as an instrument of virtue and strength that helps her to subveit the submitted role to which women were relegated in society. Women that escapes from reality, hiding in literature, where women can have power. The finale may be written by Samuel Johnson. Richard Samuel: Portrait in the characters of the muses in the Temple of Apollo (1778): the muses are all writers of the time. All of them belonged to the Bluestocking circle, a network formed around a group of women who from the mid-eighteenth century introduced a new kind of informal sociability and mutured a sense of intellectual community. [Café were exclusively allowed for men]. The chief bluestocking hostesses were Elizabeth Montagu (1718-1800) [she created it, she wanted to give women the possibility to discuss literary and philosophical issue and giving them the possibility to write], Elizabeth Vesey (1715-1791), and Frances Boscawen (1719-1805), all of whom were wealthy and well-connected women who used their influence to attract the leading minds of their day to their London homes. Here they aimed to combine learning with pleasure, scholarship with sociability, and luxury with virtue. The group originated as a particular assembly of notable individuals, of both sexes, who met regularly from the mid- to the late eighteenth century. But such was bluestocking support for female education and writing that by the 1770s the term stated to refer solely to women. One of the most significant achievements of the original bluestocking hostesses was to encourage, by example and through patronage, women who might not have considered publishing their work to enter the public literary sphere. The bluestocking circle may be compared to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French salons, from which it drew significant inspiration. However, the British bluestockings were distinct from their French counterparts in insisting upon sexual and moral virtue and also in offering an arena that was parallel to, but separate from, the royal court. Bluestocking assemblies were socially mixed, providing the opportunity for a broad range of politicians, artists, musicians, actors, writers, and thinkers to enjoy intellectual exchange. Originally used to identify a specific and intimate circle of friends (who continued to meet into the 1790, an informal place where men could wear blue stockings, instead of the white ones), by the late eighteenth century the term ‘bluestocking’ had achieved a wider currency, evoking independent women bound together by a common spirit and inspired by the example of others to create their own literary and social circles, both in London and the provinces. At a time when women had little access and no right to education, let alone legal or economic equality with men, the bluestockings achieved remarkable cultural visibility and even celebrity for the intellectual woman. It was seen as too subversive by a In A Room of One's Own (1929), Virginia Woolf paid tribute to the original bluestockings and especially to the success of many ‘blues’ in securing a living from their writing. As Woolf observed: “towards the end of the eighteenth century a change came about which, if I were rewriting history, I should describe more fully and think of greater importance than the Crusades or the Wars of the Roses”. FRANCES BURNEY (1752-1840) Initiator of the Novel of Manner, a work of fiction that recreates a social world. She was one of the figures who had the most influence on Jane Austen. ® 1739: he embarks on a Grand Tour of France and Italy (with Thomas Gray, who will be one of the greatest writers of the pre-romantic period), the idea of this trip was visiting the places people had studied. 1749: he begins the magnificent refurbishment of his house 1760: Anecdotes of Painting in England, a history of English art. 1764: first edition of The Castle of Otranto (anonymously: he printed it on his own, since he was ridiculously wealthy, it is an exceptional case) - the first edition was supposed to be presented as a translation to the already existing original italian manuscript. e 1765: second edition of The Castle of Otranto, with the subtitle “a gothic story”: he gives the name to the genre, therefore he is considered his creator. The second edition is no longer presented as a translation. In his introduction, the author tries to explain to the reader that his text is something in between a romance and a novel. He says that Sheakespeare was his leading inspiration for the text; 1768, The Mysterious Mother (atragedy in 5 acts). — Strawberry Hill House, Twickenham (London), 1749-1776, Walpole dedicated his life to creating this building. The Castle of Otranto (1764): The gothic novel is characterised by a specific obsession for the past and in paiticular medieval past. It was indeed, from the Renaissance on, that the term “gothic” came to be used (as a derogatory term) to describe the art and architecture of Medieval times. Eighteenth-century gothic novels are usually set in ruined castles, cathedrals, and in dark and gloomy cellars. It is canonically considered as the first gothic novel, because of its mixture of medieval and exotic settings, and supernatural and sensational features. The central theme of Walpole’s book is Manfred’s usurpation of the throne. Manfred’s blind desire for power is the main drive of the plot; it motivates the mysterious and supernatural events taking place at the castle. A clear example of the success of Walpole”s novel was the publication, in 1778, of The Old English Baron, a Gothic Story by Clara Reeve (1729-1807). Directly inspired by The Castle of Otranto, Reeve’s novel mitigates its visionary and surreal elements, enhancing the sentimental aspect, and gives more plausibility to the story. Clara Reeve was the first female gothic author. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION The favourable manner in which this little piece has been received by the public, calls upon the author to explain the grounds on which he composed it. But before he opens those motives, it is fit that he should ask pardon of his readers for having offered his work to them under the borrowed personage of a translator. As diffidence of his own abilities, and the novelty of the attempt, were his sole inducements to assume that disguise, he flatters himself he shall appear excusable. He resigned his performance to the impartial judgment of the public; determined to let it perish in obscurity, if disapproved; nor meaning to avow such a trifle, unless better judges should pronounce that he might own it without a blush. It was an attempt to blend the two kinds of romance, the ancient and the modem. In the former all was imagination and improbability: in the latter, nature is always intended to be, and sometimes has been copied with success. Invention has not been wanting; but the great resources of fancy have been dammed up, by a strict adherence to common life. But if in the latter species Nature has cramped imagination, she did but take her revenge, haying been totally excluded from old romances. The actions, sentiments, conversations, of the heroes and heroines of ancient days were as unnatural as the machines employed to put them in motion. The author of the following pages thought it possible to reconcile the two kinds. Desirous of leaving the powers of fancy at liberty to expatiate through the boundless realms of invention, and thence of creating more interesting situations, he wished to conduct the mortal agents in his drama according to the rules of probability: in short, to make them think, speak and act, as it might be supposed mere men and women would do in extraordinary positions, He had observed, that in all inspired writings. the per sonages under the dispensation of miracles, and witnesses to the most stupendous phoenomena, never lose sight of their human character: whereas in the productions of romantic story, an improbable event never fails to be at tended by an absurd dialogue. The actors seem to lose their senses the moment the laws of nature have lost their tone. As the public have applauded the attempt, the author must not say he was entirely unequal to the task he had undertaken: yet if the new route he has struck out shall have paved a road for men of brighter talents, he shall own with pleasure and modesty, that he was sensible the plan was capable of receiving greater embellishments than his imagination or conduct of the passions could bestow on it. With regard to the deportment of the domestics, on which I have touched in the former preface, I will beg leave to add a few words. The simplicity of their behaviour, almost tending to excite smiles, which at first seem not consonant to the serious cast of the work, appeared to me not only not improper, but was marked designedly in that manner. My rule was nature. However grave, important, or even melancholy, the sensations of princes and heroes may be, they do not stamp the same affections on their domestics: at least the latter do not, or should not be made to express their passions in the same dignified tone. In my humble opinion, the contrast between the sublime of the one, and the naîveté of the other, sets the pathetic of the former in a stronger light. The very impatience which a reader feels, while delayed by the coarse pleasantries of vulgar actors from arriving at the knowledge of the important catastrophe he expects, perhaps heightens, certainly proves that he has been artfully interested in, the depending event. But I had higher authority than my own opinion for this conduct. That great master of nature, Shakespeare, was the model I copied. Let me ask if his tragedies of Hamlet and Julius Caesar would not lose a considerable share of their spirit and wonderful beauties, if the humour of the grave-diggers, the fooleries of Polo minus, and the clumsy jests ofthe Roman citizens were omitted, or vested in heroics? Is not the eloquence of Antony, the nobler and affectedly-unaffected oration of Brutus, artificially exalted by the rude bursts of nature from the mouths of their auditors? These touches remind one of the Grecian sculptor, who, to convey the idea of a Colossus within the dimensions of a seal, inserted a little boy measuring his thumb. No, says Voltaire in his edition of Corneille, this mixture of buffoonery and solemnity is intolerable - Voltaire is a genius - but not of Shakespeare's magnitude. Without recurring to disputable authority, I appeal from Voltaire to himself. I shall not avail myself of his former encomiums on our mighty poet; though the French critic has twice translated the same speech in Hamlet, some years ago in admiration, latterly in derision; and I am sorry to find that his judgement grows weaker, when it ought to be farther matured. But I shall make use of his own words, delivered on the general tople of the theatre, when he was neither thinking to recommend or decry Shakespeare's practice; consequently at a moment when Voltaire was impartial. In the preface to his Enfant prodigue, that exquisite piece of which I declare my admiration, and which, should I live twenty years longer, I trust I should never attempt to ridi cule, he has these words, speaking of comedy, [but equally applicable to tragedy, if tragedy is, as surely it ought to be, a picture of human life; nor can I conceive why occasional pleasantry ought more to be banished from the tragic scene, than pathetic seriousness from the comic] On y voit un melange de serieur et de plaisanterie, de comique et de touchant; souvent méme une seule avanture produit tous ces contrastes. Rien n'est si commun qu'une maison dana laquelle un pere gronde, une fille occupée de sa passion pleure; le fils se moque des deux, et quelques parens prennent part differemment à la scene, de. Nous n'inferons pas de la que toute comedie doive avoir des scenes de bouffonnerie et des scenes attendrissantes: il y a beaucoup de tres bonnes pieces ou il ne regne que de la gayelé; d'autres toutea serieusea; d'autres melangées: d'autres où l'attendrissement va jusques aux larmes: il ne faut donner l'exclusion è aucun genre: et si l'on me demandoil, quel genre est le meilleur, je repondrois, celui qui est le mieux traité. Surely if a comedy may be toute serieuse, tragedy may now and then, soberly, be indulged in a smile. Who shall proscribe it? Shall the critic, who in self-defence declares that no kind ought to be excluded from comedy, give laws to Shakespeare? I am aware that the preface from whence I have quoted these passages does not stand in monsieur de Voltaire's name, but in that of his editor; yet who doubts that the editor and author were the same person? Or where is the editor, who has so happily possessed himself of his author's style and brilliant case of argument? These passages were indubitably the genuine sentiments of that great writer. In his epistle to Maffei. prefixed to his Merope, he delivers almost the same opinion, though I doubt with a little irony. I will repeat his words, and then give my reason for quoting them. After translating a passage in Maffei's Merope, monsieur de Voltaire adds, Tous ces traits sont naifs: tout y est convenable à ceux que vous introduisez sur la acene, et aux meurs que vous leur donnez. Ces familiarités naturelles eussent été, d ce que je crois, bien recues dans Athenes; mais Paris et notre parterre veulent une autre espece de simplicite. I doubt, I say, whether there is not a grain of sneer in this and other passages of that epistle; yet the force of truth is not damaged by being tinged with ridicule. Maffei was to represent a Grecian story: surely the Athenians were as competent judges of Grecian manners, and of the propriety of introducing them, as the parterre of Paris. On the contrary, says Voltaire [and I cannot but admire his reasoning] there were but ten thousand citizens at Athens, and Paris has near eight hundred thousand inhabitants, among whom one may reckon thirty thousand judges of dramatic works. - Indeed! - But allowing so numerous a tribunal, I believe this is the only instance in which it was ever pretended that thirty thousand persons, living near two thousand years after the &ra in question, were, upon the mere face of the poll, declared better judges than the Grecians themselves of what ought to be the manners of a tragedy written on a Grecian story. I will not enter into a discussion of the espece de sim plicité, which the parterre of Paris demands, nor of the shackles with which the thirty thousand judges have cramped their poetry, the chief merit of which, as I gather from repeated passages in The New Commentary on Comeille, consists in vaulting in spite of those fetters; a merit which, if true, would reduce poetry from the lofty effort of imagination, to a puerile and most contemptible labour - dificiles nuga with a witness! I cannot help however mentioning a couplet, which to my English cars always sounded as the flattest and most trifling instance of circumstantial propriety; but which Voltaire, who has dealt so severely with nine parts in ten of Comeille's works, has singled out to defend in Racine; De son appartement cette porte est prochaine, Et cette autre conduit dans celui de la reine, In English, To Cesar's closet through this door you come, And t'other leads to the queen's drawing-room. Unhappy Shakespeare! hadst thou made Rosencrans in- form his compeer Guildenstern of the ichnography of the palace of Copenhagen, instead of presenting us with a moral dialogue between the prince of Denmark and the grave-digger, the illuminated pit of Paris would have been instructed a second time to adore thy talents. The result of all I have said, is to shelter my own daring under the cannon of the brightest genius this country, at least, has produced. I might have pleaded, that having created a new species ofromance, I was at liberty to lay down what rules I thought fit for the conduct of it: but I should be more proud of having imitated, however faintly, weakly, and at a distance, so masterly a pattem, than to enjoy the entire merit of invention, unless I could have marked my work with genius as well as with originality, Such as it is, the public have honoured it sufficiently, whatever rank their suffrages allot to it. Preface of the second edition, he tries to explain what he has done and he tries to highlight that his work has a lot in common with the novel (even though he talks about the modem and the ancient: at his time the “modem” was not still labelled as “novel”). He makes a distinction between the ancient and the modem romance (which is clearly what we call novel). He gives more dignity to his texte, creating his characters as someone taken from everyday life. It is not a totally abstract romance. ANN RADCLIFFE (1764-1823) She is the most popular writer of her days: Radcliffe was the first bestilling-seller. Defined by her contemporaries as “the Shakespeare of romance writers”, became one of the most popular female writers of gothic novels of her time. There are many weird stories about her, since we don't know much of her private life. We do know however that her husband was very supportive of her writings. - A Sicilian Romance (1790) - The Romance of the Forest (1791) - The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) Radcliffe was recognised as the creator of a new literary genre, the Romance of Suspense that combined Walpole”s gothic novel with the novel of sensibility that had a young and innocent girl as its protagonist. She was interested in making her reader wonder what would happen in the future (suspense). The typical plot of a Radcliffe novel is about a young and innocent girl being persecuted by a villain in picturesque settings. The heroine is involved in many incredible adventures, during which she always seems about to escape but is constantly forced to face new dangers and problems, ‘until the happy ending in which she is reunited with her friends and family and marries the man of her dreams. She was particularly interested in the description of the landscape: definition of picturesque, in the same manner in which we enjoy and transmit our property and our lives. The institutions of policy, the goods of fortune, the gifts of providence are handed down to us, and from us, in the same course and order. Our political system is placed in a just correspondence and symmetry with the order of the world and with the mode of existence decreed to a permanent body composed of transitory parts, wherein, by the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old or middle-aged or young, but, in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression. Thus, by preserving the method of nature in the conduct of the state, in what we improve we are never wholly new; in what we retain we are never wholly obsolete». «It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in, - in glittering like the moming star, full of life, and splendor, and joy. Oh! What a revolution! and what an heart must I have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! [...] little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. — But the age of chivalry is gone. — That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom.» Karl Marx on Edmund Burke (The Capital, 1867) - The idea of the bowgeois is vulgar, it is now an insult: «The sycophant — who in the pay of the English oligarchy plaved the romantic laudator temporis acti against the French Revolution just as, in the pay of the North American colonies at the beginning of the American troubles, he had played the liberal against the English oligarchy, was an out-and-out vulgar bourgeois» Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Man (1790): Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Man was the first response (published by the radical bookseller and publisher Joseph Johnson) that opened the pamphlet war originated by Burke’s Reflections. Providing a close reading of Burke”s text, she moved from his arguments about the hereditary principle, the constitution and the law attacking the patriarchal ideal present in his message. Wollstonecraft’s attack on hierarchy and rank are at the core of the Vindication, she berates Burke for his contempt for the people, the masses, and accuses him of supporting the elite, the aristocracy, exemplified by his famous defense of the queen Marie Antoinette. As Janet Todd underlines "the vision of society revealed [in] A Vindication of the Rights of Men was one of talents, where entrepreneurial, unprivileged children could compete on equal terms with the now wrongly privileged” Wollstonecraft emphasizes the importance of hard work, parsimony, and motality, values she opposed to the "vices ofthe rich", like "insincerity" and the "want of natural affections". It was Joseph Johnson that persuaded Mary to write in response to Burke. On the one hand we have Marie Antoinette and on the other the parisians women who took the Bastille. Importance of hard work and morality, values that Wollstocraft oppose to the Ancien Régime. In the Rights of Men, Wollstonecraft objects in particular against Buike's rhetoric. She redefines the concepts of sublime and beautiful, aesthetic categories he had theorised in his essay Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful (1757). While Burke associates the beautiful with an idea of frailty and femininity, and the sublime with fortitude and masculinity, Wollsto alls i ke n ed that thev a ; «You may have convinced [women] that littleness and weakness are the very essence of beauty; and that the Supreme Being, in giving women beauty in the most supereminent degree, seemed to command them, by the powerful voice of Nature, not to cultivate the moral virtues that might chance to excite respect, and interfere with the pleasing sensations they were created to inspire. Thus confining truth, fortitude, and humanity, within the rigid pale of manly morals, they might justly argue, that to be loved, woman's high end and great distinction! they should 'learn to lisp, to totter in their walk, and nick-name God's creatures.' Never, they might repeat after you, was any man, much less a woman, rendered amiable by the force of those exalted qualities, fortitude, justice, wisdom, and truth; and thus forewamed of the sacrifice they must make to those austere, unnatural virtues, they would be authorised to tum all their attention to their persons, systematically neglecting morals to secure beauty». According to Wollstonecraft Burke describes womanly virtue as weakness, thus leaving women no relevant roles in the public sphere and relegating them to superficial and frivolous roles. Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man (Part I, 1791; Part II, 1792) - political theorist and philosopher, he gave a great contribution to the script of the American Constitution. The political activist and philosopher Thomas Paine (1737-1809), emigrated to America in 1774, his ground-breaking essay Common Sense (1776) advocating American independence proved a major intellectual stimulus to the colonies’ secession from Britain. Paine lived in France in the 1790s, and was a strong supporter of the French Revolution. The Rights of Man began as a defense ofthe French Revolution and evolved into an analysis of the basic reasons for the general discontent in European society of the time. In The Rights of Man Paine defended the values of the Revolution — ‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité’ — and explored the idea that government based on true justice should support not only mankind's natural rights (life, liberty, free speech, freedom of conscience) but also its civil rights (relating to security and protection). Paine underlined the fact that only a fraction of the people who paid taxes were entitled to vote. Using detailed analysis, Paine demonstrated how a tax system, including a form of income tax, could provide social welfare in suppoit ofthose civil rights. Decades ahead of his time, he outlined a plan covering widespread education, child benefit, pensions for the elderly, poor relief and much more. The book sold tens of thousands of copies and became one of the most widely read books in the Western world at the time. MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT “I do not wish them [women] to have power over men; but over themselves” (ch.4) ‘Writer and advocate of women's rights, Mary Wollstonecraft came from a merchant’s family. Her father used to abuse his wife and seven children after heavy drinking sessions. Mary, who often intervened to protect her mother, later told her husband William Godwin, how much she had despised him. Mary went only for a few years to a day school in Beverley, Yorkshire, where she leamed to read and write. All the rest of her impressive learning, including several foreign languages, was self-acquired. often with great difficulty. The passionate indignation with which Wollstonecraft later inveighed against the disparity between men and women's educational opportunities was anger acquired at first hand. By the end of the 1770s the Wollstonecraft family was having many economic problems. Teaching, governessing, needlework, serving as alady’s companion: these were among the few jobs open to genteel women of small means, and by the late 1780s Mary Wollstonecraft had done them all. Literary work was also open to women, and in 1786, while running a girls’ school in north London, Mary decided to try her hand. She published her first book, Thoughts on the Education of Daughters which eamed her 10 pounds. In Wollstonecraft”s case the tum towards professional writing was facilitated by a new circle of acquaintances: the rational dissenters living around Newington Green in London, where Mary and her sisters opened their school for girls in 1784. Since most rational dissenters supported women's equality, in their company Wollstonecraft found an environment useful to the unfolding of her own intellectual talents. It was Joseph Johnson, the official publisher of rational dissent — a large minded man with an appreciation of ability regardless of sex — who agreed to publish her Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, and after she lost her last teaching post as governess, employed her to write for his new literary review, The Analytical Review. Joseph Johnson encouraged her to take up her pen in defense of her radical political ideas. In 1789 the Bastille fell, and in 1790 Edmund Burke published his famous attack on The French Revolution (Reflections on the Revolution in France). Johnson encouraged her to write a refutation, which she did, publishing in 1791 A Vindication of the Rights of Man, an immediate success. In 1792 she published A Vindication of the Righis of Woman, her famous manifesto for female equality, that became an immediate bestseller. According to William Godwin, Wollstonecraft, was at that time the most famous woman in Europe. Wollstonecraft lived in France from 1793 to 1795, and the direct experience of revolution convinced her that, to be truly liberating, political reform needed to be more gradual, but also more far-reaching, than anything so far achieved by the sanguinary struggles of French factionalism. She also led a very interesting and quite revolutionary and daring private life. First in love with the painter Henry Fuseli (at the time a married man); in the early months of 1793, she met Captain Gilbert Imlay, an American revolutionary soldier turned commercial adventurer, with whom Wollstonecraft had a tormented love story (they had a daughter together, Fanny, bom in 1794). In 1796, after her final break up with Imlay she met again the philosopher and writer William Godwin, whom she had met in November 1791 at a dinner party at Joseph Johnson's. Very soon they became lovers, and in the early months of 1797, after having found out that she was pregnant, Wollstonecraft and Godwin got married. Wollstonecraft gave birth to her daughter, Mary, on 30 August 1797, but died eleven days later. William Godwin published the Memoirs of his wife in 1798. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was a revolutionary essay that still resonates in feminist and human rights movements of today. Before that date there had been books that advocated a reform of female education, but usually for moral reasons or to better prepare women for their role as companions for men. Wollstonecraft's work argued that the educational system of her time deliberately instructed women to be fatuous and superficial. She strongly believed that an educational system that allowed girls the same advantages as boys would result in women who would be not only exceptional wives and mothers but also capable workers in many professions. Wollstonecraft's work was unique in implying that an amelioration of women's status should be done through the radical reform of the national educational system. She believed that such change would benefit the whole society. In both Vindications Wollstonecraft uses the political treatise, the most masculine of gentes. In the Vindication of the Rights of Woman she responds to many of the arguments raised about the status and education of women by J. J. Rousseau in his Emilius and Sophia: Or, A New System of Education (1762). According to Wollstonecraft women are humans created in the image of God, and therefore their path to perfection is the same as men. Throughout the text she compares women to slaves: their ignorance and absence of power places them in the same position as slaves: man’s dominance of a woman is the same as that of a planter’s over a slave. Wollstonecraft compares also women to soldiers: Soldiers are subordinate to generals as women are subordinate to men, like soldiers they learn only to behave and to blindly obey to orders. Only if women are educated will they hold responsibility for their actions, if they are not educated they won't hold responsibility for their actions. because it will be assumed that they can't think for themselves. Education will improve their role as mothers and wifes. It will allow unmarried women to become economically independent. Since men and women live and woik together, it is for the progress and the advantage of both sexes that women should be educated. Reading ofthe extract. Directness of her style. MW from the very first line is addressing to the French aristocrat, idea of sisterhood, she is not talking for herself but for her sex, she immediately talks about independence as a blessing of life. She is writing for the majority of women, she is identifying her genre and identifying herself speaking for women. She talks for the majority, talks about independence, about virtues, what should be done in society to allow women to be virtues: then there will be a better society. Great paradox: modesty is the basis of conduct books, they should never observations-for a glimpse of this truth seemed to open before you when you observed, that to see one half of the human race excluded by the other from all participation of government, was a political phaenomenon that, ac- cording to abstract principles, it was impossible to explain. If so, on what does your constitution rest? If the abstract rights of man will bear discussion and explanation, those of woman, by parity of reasoning, will not shrink from the same test: though a different opinion prevails in this country, built on the very arguments which you use to justify the oppression of woman-prescription. Consider, address you as a legislator, whether, when men con tend for freedom, and to be allowed to judge for themselves respecting their own happiness, it be not inconsistent and unjust to subjugate women, even though you firmly believe that you are acting in the manner best calculated to promote their happiness? Who made man the exclusive judge, if woman partake with him the gift of reason? In this style, argue tyrants of every denomination, from the weak king to the weak father of family; they are all eager to crush reason; yet always assert that they usurp its throne only to be useful. Do you not act a similar part, when you force all women, by denying them civil and political rights, to remain immured in their families grop ing in the dark? for surely, Sir, you will not assert, that duty can be binding which is not founded on reason? If indeed this be their destination, arguments may be drawn from reason: and thus augustly supported, the more understanding women acquire, the more will be attached to their duty-comprehending it-for unless they comprehend it, unless their morals be fixed on the same immutable principle as those of man, no authority can make them discharge it in a virtuous manner. They may be convenient slaves, but slavery will have its constant effect, degrading the master and the abject dependent. But, if women are to be excluded, without having voice, from a participation of the natural rights of mankind, prove first, to ward off the charge of injustice and inconsistency, that they want rea son-else this flaw in your NEW CONSTITUTION will ever shew that man must, in some shape, act like tyrant, and tyranny, in whatever part of society it rears its brazen front, will ever under mine morality. I have repeatedly asserted, and produced what appeared to me irrefragable arguments drawn from matters of fact, to prove my assertion, that women cannot, by force, be confined to domestic concerns; for they will, however ignorant, intermeddle with more weighty affairs, neglecting private duties only disturb, by cunning tricks, the orderly plans of reason which rise above their comprehension. Besides, whilst they are only made to acquire personal accomplishments, men will seek for pleasure in variety, and faithless hus bands will make faithless wives, such ignorant beings, indeed, will be very excusable when, not taught to respect public good, nor allowed any civil rights, they attempt to do themselves justice by retaliation. The box of mischief thus opened in society, what is to preserve private virtue, the only security of public freedom and universal happiness? Let there be then no coercion established in society, and the com mon law of gravity prevailing, the sexes will fall into their proper places. And, now that more equitable laws are forming your citizens, marriage may become more sacred: your young men may choose wives from motives of affection, and your maidens allow love to root out vanity. The father of a family will not then weaken his constitution and debase his sentiments, by visiting the harlot, nor forget, in obeying the call of appetite, the purpose for which it was implanted. And, the mother will not neglect her children to practise the arts of coquetry, when sense and modesty secure her the friendship of her husband. But, till men become attentive to the duty of a father, it is vain to expect women to spend that time in their nursery which they, ‘wise in their generation," choose to spend at their glass; for this exertion of cunning is only an instinct of nature to enable them to obtain indirectly a little of that power of which they are unjustly denied a share: for, if women are not permitted to enjoy legitimate rights, they will render both men and themselves vicious, to obtain illicit privileges. I wish, Sir, to set some investigations of this kind afloat in France, and should they lead to a confirmation of my principles, when your constitution is revised the Rights of Woman may be respected, if it be fully proved that reason calls for this respect, and loudly demands JUSTICE for one half ofthe human race. I am, SiR, Your's respectfully, M.W. INTRODUCTION After considering the historic page, and viewing the living world with anxious solicitude, the most melancholy emotions of sorrowful indignation have depressed my spirits, and I have sighed when obliged to confess, that either nature has made a great difference between man and man, or that the civilization which has hitherto taken place in the world has been very partial. I have tumed over various books written on the subject of education, and patiently observed the conduct of parents and the management of schools; but what has been the result?-a profound conviction that the neglected education of my fellow-creatures is the grand source of the misery I deplore; and that women, in particular, are rendered weak and wretched by a variety of concurring causes, originating from one hasty conclusion. The conduct and manners of women, in fact, evidently prove that their minds are not in a healthy state; for, like the flowers which are planted in too rich a soil, strength and useful ness are sacrificed to beauty; and the flaunting leaves, after having pleased a fastidious eye, fade, disregarded on the stalk, long before the season when they ought to have arrived at maturity. One cause of this barren blooming I attribute to a false system of education, gathered from the books written on this subject by men who, con sidering females rather as women than human creatures, have been more anxious to make them alluring mistresses than affectionate wives and rational mothers; and the understanding of the sex has been so bubbled by this specious homage, that the civilized women of the present century, with a few exceptions, are only anxious to inspire love, when they ought to cherish a nobler ambition, and by their abilities and virtues exact respect. In a treatise, therefore, on female rights and mamners, the works which have been particularly written for their improvement must not be overlooked; especially when it is asserted, in direct terms, that the minds of women are enfeebled by false refinement; that the books of instruction, written by men of genius, have had the same tendency as more frivolous productions; and that, in the true style of Mahometanism, they are treated as a kind of subordinate beings, and not as a part of the human species, when improveable reason isallowed to be the dignified distinction which raises men above the brute creation, and puts a natural sceptre in a feeble hand. Yet, because I am a woman, I would not lead my readers to suppose that I mean violently to agitate the contested question respecting the equality or inferiority of the sex; but as the subject lies in my way, and I cannot pass it over without subjecting the main tendency of my reasoning to misconstruction, I shall stop a moment to deliver, in a few words, my opinion. In the government of the physical world it is observable that the female in point of strength is, in general, inferior to the male. This is the law of nature; and it does not appear to be suspended or abrogated in favour of woman. A degree of physical superiority cannot, therefore, be denied--and it is a noble prerogative! But not content with this natural pre emi nence, men endeavour to sink us still lower, merely to render us alluring objects for a moment; and women, intoxicated by the ado ration which men, under the influence of their senses, pay them, do not seek to obtain a durable interest in their hearts, or to become the friends of the fellow creatures who find amusement in their society. I am aware of an obvious inference:—from every quarter have I heard exclamations against masculine women; but where are they to be found? If by this appellation men mean to inveigh against their ardour in hunting, shooting, and gaming, I shall most cordially join in the cry; but if it be against the imitation of manly virtues, or, more properly speaking, the attainment of those talents and virtues, the exercise of which ennobles the human character, and which raise females in the scale of animal being, when they are comprehensively termed mankind;-all those who view them with a philosophic eye must, I should think, wish with me, that they may every day grow more and more masculine. This discussion naturally divides the subject. I shall first consider women in the grand light of human creatures, ‘who, in common with men, are placed on this earth to unfold their faculties; and after wards I shall more particularly point out their peculiar designation.I wish also to steer clear of an error which many respectable writers have fallen into; for the instruction which has hitherto been addressed to women, has rather been applicable to ladies, if the little indirect advice, that is scattered through Sandford and Merton, be excepted; but, addressing my sex in a firmer tone, I pay particular attention to those in the middle class, because they appear to be in natural Perhaps refinement, immo great. Weak, artificial beings, common affections premature unnatural manner, undermine foundation virtue, corruption through whole society! mankind strongest educa render helpless, the unfolding strengthened practice those duties dignify human character. amuse themselves, the which nature invariably certain effects, afford barren amusement. But as I purpose taking separate different ranks society, moral character women, each, present, alluded subject, because appears to essence introduction cursory account contents work introduces. hope, excuse treat them rational creatures, instead flattering fascinating graces, viewing perpetual childhood, unable alone. eamestly point what dignity human happiness consists—I to persuade women endeavour acquire strength, mind body, convince them phrases, susceptibility heart, delicacy sentiment, refinement taste, almost synonymous with epithets weakness, those beings only objects love, which been termed sister, soon become objects Dismissing those pretty feminine phrases, which men condescendingly use soften slavish dependence, despis weak elegancy mind, exquisite sensibility, and sweet manners, supposed sexual characteristics the weaker vessel, wish shew elegance is inferior virtue, that object laudable ambition obtain character human being, regardless distinction sex; and that secondary views should brought simple touchstone. This rough sketch my plan; and should express my conviction with the energetic emotions that feel whenever think subject, dictates experience and reflection will felt some my readers. Animated this important object, shall disdain to cull my phrases or polish my style:—I aim at being useful, and sincerity will render me unaffected; for, wishing rather to persuade by the force of my arguments, than dazzle by the elegance of my language, I shall not waste my time in rounding periods, or in fabricating the turgid bombast of artificial feelings, which, coming from the head, never reach the heart.-I shall be employ ed about things, not words! -and, anxious to render my sex more respectable members of society, I shall try to avoid that flowery diction which has slided from essays into novels, and from novels into familiar letters and conversation. These pretty superlatives, dropping glibly from the tongue, vitiate the taste, and create a kind of sickly delicacy that turns away from simple unadorned truth; and a deluge of false sentiments and overstretched feelings, stifling the natural emotions of the heart, render the domestic pleasures insipid, that ought to sweeten the exercise of those severe duties, which educate a rational and immortal being for a nobler field of action. The education of women has, of late, been more attended to than formerly; yet they are still reckoned a frivolous sex, and ridiculed or pitied by the writers who endeavour by satire or instruction to improve them. It is acknowledged that they spend many of the first years of their lives in acquiring a smattering of accomplishments; meanwhile strength of body and mind are sacrificed to libertine notions of beauty, to the desire of establishing themselves, the only way ‘women can rise in the world, by marriage. And this desire making mere animals of them, when they marry they act as such children may be expected to act:—they dress; they paint, and nickname God's creatures. Surely these weak beings are only fit for a seraglio! Can they be expected to govern a family with judg ment, or take care of the poor babes whom they bring into the world? If then it can be fairly deduced from the present conduct of the sex, from the prevalent fondness for pleasure which takes place of ambition and those nobler passions that open and enlarge the soul; that the instruction which women have hitherto received has only tended, with the constitution of civil society, to render them insig nificant objects of desire-mere propagators of fools!--if it can be proved that in aiming to accomplish them, without cultivating their understandings, they are taken out of their sphere of duties, and made ridiculous and useless when the short-lived bloom of beauty is over, I presume that rational men will excuse me for endeavouring to persuade them to become more masculine and respectable. Indeed the word masculine is only a bugbear: there is little reason to fear that women will acquire too much courage or fortitude; for their apparent inferiority with respect to bodily strength, must render them, in some degree, dependent on men in the various relations of life; but why should it be increased by prejudices that give a sex to virtue, and confound simple truths with sensual reveries? Women are, in fact, so much degraded by mistaken notions of female excellence, that I do not mean to add a paradox when I assert, that this artificial weakness produces a propensity to tyrannize, and gives birth to cunning, the natural opponent of strength, which leads them to play off those contemptible infantine airs that under mine esteem even whilst they excite desire. Let men become more chaste and modest, and if women do not grow wiser in the same ratio, it will be clear that they have weaker understandings. It seems scarcely necessary to say, that I now speak of the sex in general. Many individuals have more sense than their male relatives; and, as nothing preponderates where there is a constant struggle for an equilibrium, without it has naturally more gravity, some women govern their husbands without degrading themselves, because intellect will always govern. Addressed to a french bishop, who served Louis XVI. He talks about the separation of the spheres. ‘Women didn’t need different education from the one they already had. Idea of responding to someone, She refers to him directly. She immediatly gives an idea of sisterhood, she PLEEDS FOR HER SEX, she doesn't talk only for herself. Independence as a basic factor of life. Women must be taught to be virtuous, so people can have a greater society. Modesty is the basis of the conduct books literature. Women are taught to behave in society. In spite of that, the greater power that they have is their sexuality, being seductive. Not only an exterior beauty, they should be taught to have a mental beauty. Men as tyrants. Create an advantage to both the mother and the father, in the case that women had the same education as men. She asks women to pardon her since she is treating them as rational creature, rather than silly shallow girls. She writes in a very passionate way. People found her style too much revolutionary. Very duract and passion, without thinking too much about the style. Very abruptly written. Genre: the same by thomas paine and Edomund BUrke. She poses herself on their same level. the genre is the political treaty. NO absolute power of the monarchy. Idea of gente William Wordsworth was a supporter of the Republican cause in France, until he gradually became disillusioned about the Revolutionaries. Political change that according to writers should take place on the level ofthe verse, the topics that should be discussed and the political idea of novelty: poor people should be able to read and literature should narrates the everyday life. THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MIND, new ideas. Very complex and contradictory period, very difficult to define. ‘Writers have to create their literary persona against what happened before, in contrast with the stability/balance of the Neoclassicism: individual at the centre of their interest, also freedom, collapsing of ancien regime and arrival of new ideas of equality in European society ofthe time. Idea to write something in a new language that could be understood by everyone, not idealised difficult texts, as Dryden or Pope, texts that could talk to everyone. Ideological ideas behind: political idea of political change; stylist idea of change; a matter of topics. — revolution on many levels (verse, topics, language, political novelty =understood by everyone). The romantic period is a movement of ideas, many of which are still discussed nowadays. Idea of vegetarians/rights of animals is now introduced. Idea to reverence to everything that is nature, environmental ideas, nature should be defended over the threat of the changes that are taking place, we have to have respect for nature. Environmental consciousness is now created. This is the making of the modern time. Importance of the idea of anarchy. Isaiah Berlin, The Roots of Romanticism (1965): Romanticism was «the greatest single shift in the consciousness of the West that has occurred» It «embodied a new and restless spirit, seeking violently to burst through old and cramping forms, a nervous preoccupation with perpetually changing inner states of consciousness a longing for the unbounded and the indefinable, for perpetual movement and change, an effort to return to the forgotten sources of life, a passionate effort at selfassertion both individual and collective, a search after means of expressing an unappeasable yearning for unaittanable goals». Key-words: - Inspiration (poetry that spoke of personal experiences in a simple unadomed language) - Intuition (Wordswoith will describe poetry as «the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings) - Imagination (healing power of the imagination: it could enable people to transcend their troubles) - Individuality (Romantic poets celebrated the importance of individual liberty and subjective experience) THE ‘BIG SIX”: ® First generation: o William Blake (1757-1827) o William Wordswoith (1770-1850) o Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) ® Secondgeneration: (they all died young) o JohnKeats (1795-1821) o Percy Bhysse Shelley (1792-1822) o LordByron(1788-1824) Byron: idea of self destruction. Idea of dying young, as Keats, Shelley die young, but not Wordswoith (he became old, also conservative at the end of his life), while others such as Coleridge died young (drug addict). Self-destruction commected to the artist is still present nowadays. Many works produced ‘under a state of trance (drugs). It is usually drug-addicts or people who transgress that produce great literature. Blake — Wordsworth - Coleridge the great three + also poets outside the canon, such as Keats, Shelley and Byron. Themes: - Nature (John Frank Newton and John Oswold start to talk about vegetarianism) - The transforming city and the dangers of the industrial revolution (respecting nature is important); - The sublime; - Children (importance ofinnocence), - The marginalised and oppressed in society (one of the revolutionary novelty), - The abolition ofthe slave trade The sublime: First published in 1757, Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful exercised a strong influence on the Romantic and Gothic movements. In this work, Burke discusses the appeal of the grotesque, the terrible and the wild, a sheer contrast to the dominant 18th-century preferences for the disciplined and balanced. Burke proposes that beauty stimulates love, but that the sublime excites horror. While beauty relaxes, the sublime brings tension. The feeling that something is sublime is triggered by extremes — vastness, extreme height, difficulty, darkness or excessive light. This work provided an argument for why grotesque or extravagant architecture, Gothic novels and vast wilderness were so attractive. A key idea in Romantic poetry is the concept of the sublime. This term conveys the feelings people experience when they see breathtaking landscapes, or find themselves in extreme situations (like the crossing ofthe Alps) which evoke both fear and admiration. The beautiful, on the contrary, is based on order, regularity and conveys a form of pleasure that is balanced and reassuring. — Joseph Wright of Derby: Vesuvius in Eruption with a View over the Islands (1776-1780) - Tate, London. This is what we think about the sublime: almost so powerful that we are not able to describe it — JM.W. Turner, Mere de Glace,in the Valley of Chamouni, Switzerland (1803) - Yale Center of British Ait. Byron Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Overwhelming descripiton of the beauty of the landscape. Lord Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage(1812-1818) and Percy Bysse Shelley"s Mont Blanc 1816) provide two particularly significant examples of the romantic sublime. Both poems reflect their authors’ keen interest in the aesthetics of the sublime. (Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto 3, stanza 72): I live not in myself, but I become Portion of that around me; and to me, High mountains are a feeling, but the bum Of human cities torture: I can see Nothing to loathe in nature, save to be A link reluctant in a fleshly chain, Class’ d among creatures, when the soul can flee, And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain Ofocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain. Lyrical Ballads: This collection of poems published anonymously for the first time in 1798, testified a joint poetical program formulated by Wordsworth and Coleridge. It opened with Coleridge’s long poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and closed with Wordswo:th®s Tintem Abbey. (However, they are really different). 1800”s: their names came out as the authors of the text. The Preface to the second edition published two years later is generally considered the manifesto of the English Romantic movement. The Lyrical Ballads is the most interesting example of collaboration. Wordswoith and Coleridge: different and distant poets. Wordsworth came from the North (Lake District) maintained in his life a particular relationship with nature, he walked for all his life in nature, he loved being outdoors. He received a typical education of the English gentleman. During the time in Cambridge he was interested in the French Rev so he decided to go on a walking vacation to france. Relation with a French woman. When war started he had to go back to England, he never saw her daughter. He met C. Prolific collaboration with Coleridge, they started writing and producing when W was living in Bristol as well as Coleridge: they thought about a new production of poems. Lyrical Ballads: opened the idea of collection of poems, At the beginning no preface to LB, it was only in the second edition, in this edition Wordsworth theorises the novelty presented by these poems and this kind of poetry, after this ‘Wordsworth and Coleridge’s relationship fell apart: they argued. Preface to the Lyrical Ballads: Role of the poet, use of the language (a language that is understandable by everyone, DEMOCRATISATION OF POETRY), topic (interest). The first Volume of these Poems has already been submitted to general perusal. It was published, as an experiment, which, I hoped, might be of some use to ascertain, how far, by fitting to metrical arrangement a selection of the real language of men in a state of vivid sensation, that sort of pleasure and that quantity of pleasure may be impaited, which a Poet may rationally endeavour to impart. [...]. The principal object, then, which I proposed to myself in these Poems was to chuse incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible, in a selection of language really used by men; and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way; and, further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manmer in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement. Low and rustic life was generally chosen, because in that condition, the essential passions of the heait find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language; because in that condition of life our elementary feelings coexist in a state of greater simplicity, and, conse que nily, may be more accurately contemplated, and more forcibly communicated; because the manners of rural life germinate from those elementary feelings; and, from the necessary character of rural occupations, are more easily comprehended, and are more durable; and lastly, because in that condition the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature. The language, too, of these men is adopted (purified indeed from what appear to be its real defects, from all lasting and rational causes of dislike or disgust) because such men hourly communicate with the best objects from which the best part of language is originally derived; and because, from their rank in society and the sameness and narrow circle of their intercourse, being less under the influence of social vanity they convey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions. Accordingly, such a language, arising out of repeated experience and regular feelings, is a more permanent, and a far more philosophical language, than that which is frequently substituted for it by Poets, who think that they are conferring honour upon themselves and their art, in proportion as they and also (as far as the limits of a preface will permit) to explain some of the chief reasons which have determined me in the choice of my purpose: that at least he may be spared any unpleasant feeling of disappointment, and that I myself may be protected from the most dishonorable accusation which can be brought against an author, namely, that of an indolence which prevents him from endeavouring to ascertain what is his duty, or, when this duty is ascertained, prevents him from performing it. The principal object, then, which I proposed to myself in these poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible, in a selection of language really used by men; and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way; and, further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement. Low and rustic life was generally chosen, because in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language; because in that condition of life our elementary feelings coexist in a state of greater simplicity, and, consequently, may be more accurately contemplated, and more forcibly communicated; because the manners of rural life germinate from those elementary feelings; and, from the necessary character of rural occupations, are more easily comprehended; and are more durable; and lastly, because in that condition the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature. The language, too, ofthese men is adopted (purified indeed from what appear to be its real defects, from all lasting and rational causes of dislike or disgust) because such men hourly communicate with the best objects from which the best part of language is originally derived; and because, from their rank in society and the sameness and narrow circle of their intercourse, being less under the influence of social vanity they convey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions. Accordingly, such a language, arising out of repeated experience and regular feelings, is a more permanent, and a far more philosophical language, than that which is frequently substituted for it by poets, who think that they are conferring honour upon themselves and their art, in proportion as they separate themselves from the sympathies of men, and indulge in arbitrary and capricious habits of expression, in order to fumish food for fickle tastes, and fickle appetites, of their own creation. I cannot, however, be insensible of the present outery against the triviality and meanness both of thought and language, which some of my contemporaries have occasionally introduced into their metrical compositions; and I acknowledge, that this defect, where it exists, is more dishonorable to the writer's own character than false refinement or arbitrary innovation, though I should contend at the same time that it is far less pernicious in the sum of its consequences. From such verses the poems in these volumes will be found distinguished at least by one mark of difference, that each of them has a worthy purpose. Not that I mean to say, that I always began to write with a distinct purpose formally conceivedì; but I believe that my habits of meditation have so formed my feelings, as that my descriptions of such objects as strongly excite those feelings, will be found to carry along with them a purpose. If in this opinion I am mistaken, I can have little right to the name of a poet. For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: but though this be true, poems to which any value can be attached, were never produced on any variety of subjects but by a man who, being possessed of more than usual organic sensibility, had also thought long and deeply. For our continued influxes of feeling are modified and directed by our thoughts, which are indeed the representatives of all our past feelings; and, as by contemplating the relation of these general representatives to each other we discover what is really important to men, so, by the repetition and continuance of this act, our feelings will be connected with important subjects, till at length, if we be originally possessed of much sensibility, such habits of mind will be produced, that, by obeying blindly and mechanically the impulses of those habits, we shall describe objects, and utter sentiments, of such a nature and in such connection with each other, that the understanding of the being to whom we address ourselves, if he be in a healthful state of association, must necessarily be in some degree enlightened, and his affections ameliorated. I have said that each of these poems has a purpose. I have also informed my reader what this purpose will be found principally to be: namely, to illustrate the manner in which our feelings and ideas are associated in a state of excitement. But, speaking in language somewhat more appropriate, it is to follow the fluxes and refluxes of the mind when agitated by the great and simple affections of our nature. This object I have endeavored in these short essays to attain by various means; by tracing the maternal passion through many of its more subtile windings, as in the poems of the Idiot Boy and the Mad Mother; by accompanying the last struggles of a human being, at the approach of death, cleaving in solitude to life and society, as in the poem ofthe Forsaken Indian; by shewing, as in the stanzas entitled We Are Seven, the perplexity and obscurity which in childhood attend our notion of death, or rather our utter inability to admit that notion; or by displaying the strength of fraternal, or to speak more philosophically, of moral attachment when early associated with the great and beautiful objects of nature, as in The Brothers; or, as in the Incident of Simon Lee, by placing my reader in the way of receiving from ordinary moral sensations another and more salutary impression than we are accustomed to receive from them. It has also been part of my general purpose to attempt to sketch characters under the influence of less impassioned feelings, as in the Two April Morings, The Fountain, The Old Man Travelling, The Two Thieves, &c., characters of ‘which the elements are simple, belonging rather to nature than to manners,5 such as exist now, and will probably always exist, and which from their constitution may be distinctly and profitably contemplated. I will not abuse the indulgence of my reader by dwelling longer upon this subject; but it is proper that I should mention one other circumstance which distinguishes these poems from the popular poetry ofthe day; it is this, that the feeling therein developed gives importance to the action and situation, and not the action and situation to the feeling. My meaning will be rendered perfectly intelligible by referring my reader to the poems entitled Poor Susan and the Childless Father, particularly to the last stanza of the latter poem. I will not suffer a sense of false modesty to prevent me from asserting, that I point my reader's attention to this mark of distinction, far less for the sake of these particular poems than from the general importance of the subject. The subject is indeed important! For the human mind is capable of being excited without the application of gross and violent stimulants; and he must have a very faint perception of its beauty and dignity who does not know this, and who does not firther know, that one being is elevated above another, in proportion as he possesses this capability. It has therefore appeared to me, that to endeavour to produce or enlarge this capability is one of the best services in which, at any period, a writer can be engaged; but this service, excellent at all times, is especially so at the present day. For a multitude of causes, unknown to former times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and, unfitting it for all voluntary exertion, to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor. The most effective of these causes are the great national events which are daily taking place, and the increasing accumulation of men in cities, where the uniformity of their occupations produces a craving for extraordinary incident, which the rapid communication of intelligence hourly gratifies. To this tendency of life and manners the literature and theatrical exhibitions of the country have conformed themselves. The invaluable works of our elder writers, I had almost said the works of Shakespeare and Milton, are driven into neglect by frantic novels, sickly and stupid German tragedies,8 and deluges of idle and extravagant stories in verse.—When I think upon this degrading thirst after outrageous stimulation, I am almost ashamed to have spoken ofthe feeble effort with which I have endeavoured to counteract it; and, reflecting upon the magnitude of the general evil, I should be oppressed with no dishonorable melancholy, had I not a deep impression of certain inherent and indestructible qualities of the human mind, and likewise of certain powers in the great and permanent objects that act upon it ‘which are equally inherent and indestructible; and did I not further add to this impression a belief, that the time is approaching when the evil will be systematically opposed, by men of greater powers, and with far more distinguished success. Having dwelt thus long on the subjects and aim of these poems, I shall request the reader's permission to apprize him of a few circumstances relating to their style, in order, among other reasons, that I may not be censured for not having performed what I never attempted. The reader will find that personifications of abstract ideas9 rarely occur in these volumes; and, I hope, are utterly rejected as an ordinary device to elevate the style, and raise it above prose. I have proposed to myself to imitate, and, as far as is possible, to adopt the very language of men; and assuredly such personifications do not make any natural or regular part of that language. They are, indeed, a figure of speech occasionally prompted by passion, and I have made use of them as such; but I have endeavoured utterly to reject them as a mechanical device of style, or as a family language which writers in metre seem to lay claim to by prescription. I have wished to keep my reader in the company of flesh and blood, persuaded that by so doing I shall interest him. I am, however, well aware that others who pursue a different track may interest him likewise; I do not interfere with their claim, I only wish to prefer a different claim of my own. There will also be found in these volumes little of what is usually called poetic diction; I have taken as much pains to avoid it as others ordinarily take to produce it; this I have done for the reason already alleged, to bring my language near to the language of men, and further, because the pleasure which I have proposed to myself to impart is of a kind very different from that which is supposed by many persons to be the proper object of poetry. I do not know how, without being culpably particular, I can give my reader a more exact notion of the style in which I wished these poems to be written than by informing him that I have at all times endeavoured to look steadily at my subject, consequently, I hope that there is in these poems little falsehood of description, and that my ideas are expressed in language fitted to their respective importance. Something I must have gained by this practice, as it is friendly to one property of all good poetry, namely, good sense; but it has necessarily cut me off from a large portion of phrases and figures of speech which from father to son have long been regarded as the common inheritance of poets. I have also thought it expedient to restrict myself still further, having abstained from the use of many expressions, in themselves proper and beautiful, but ‘which have been foolishly repeated by bad poets, till such feelings of disgust are connected with them as it is scarcely possible by any art of association to overpower. If in a poem there should be found a series of lines, or even a single line in which the language, though naturally arranged and according to the strict laws of metre, does not differ from that of prose, there is a numerous class of critics, who, when they stumble upon these prosaisms as they call them, imagine that they have made a notable discovery, and exult over the poet as over a man ignorant of his own profession. Now these men would establish a canon of criticism which the reader will conclude he must utterly reject, if he wishes to be pleased with these volumes. And it would be a most easy task to prove to him, that not only the language of a large portion of every good poem, even of the most elevated character, must necessarily, except with reference to the metre, in no respect differ from that of good prose, but likewise that some of the most interesting parts of the best poems will be found to be strictly the language of prose, when prose is well written. The truth of this assertion might be demonstrated by innumerable passages from almost all the poetical writings, even of Milton himself. I have not space for much quotation; but, to illustrate the subject in a general manner, I will here adduce a short composition of Gray, who was at the head of those who by their reasonings have attempted to widen the space of separation betwixt prose and metrical composition, and was more than any other man curiously elaborate in the structure of his own poetic diction. In vain to me the smiling momings shine, And reddening Phoebus lifts his golden fire: The birds in vain their amorous descant join, Or cheerful fields resume their green attire: These ears, alas! for other notes repine; A different object do these eyes require; My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine; And in my breast the imperfect joys expire; Yet Moming smiles the busy race to cheer, And new-bom pleasure brings to happier men; The fields to all their wonted tribute bear; To warm their little loves the birds complain. I fruitless moum to him that cannot hear And weep the more because I weep in vain. It will easily be perceived that the only part of this sonnet which is of any value is the lines printed in italics: it is equally obvious, that, except in the rhyme, and in the use of the single word "‘fruitless" for fruitlessly, which is so far a defect, the language of these lines does in no respect differ from that of prose. By the foregoing quotation I have shewn that the language of prose may yet be well adapted to poetry; and I have previously asserted that a large portion of the language of every good poem can in no respect differ from that of good prose. I will go further. I do not doubt that it may be safely affirmed, that there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition. We are fond of tracing the resemblance between poetry and painting, and, accordingly, we call them sisters: but where shall we find bonds of connection sufficiently strict to typify the affinity betwixt metrical and prose composition? They both speak by and to the same organs; the bodies in which both of them are clothed may be said to be of the same substance, their affections are kindred and almost identical, not necessarily differing even in degree; poetry sheds no tears "such as Angels weep," but natural and human tears; she can boast of no celestial ichor that distinguishes her vital juices from those of prose; the same human blood circulates through the veins of them both. Taking up the subject, then, upon general grounds, I ask what is meant by men who, from the circumstance of their compositions being in metre, it is expected will employ a particular language. It is not, then, in the dramatic parts of composition that we look for this distinction of language; but still it may be proper and necessary where the poet speaks to us in his own person and character. To this I answer by referring my reader to the description which I have before given of a poet. Among the qualities which I have enumerated as principally conducing to form a poet, is implied nothing differing in kind from other men, but only in degree. The sum of what I have there said is, that the poet is chiefly distinguished from other men by a greater promptness to think and feel without immediate extemal excitement, and a greater power in expressing such thoughts and feelings as are produced in him in that manner. But these passions and thoughts and feelings are the general passions and thoughts and feelings of men. And with what are they connected? Undoubtedly with our moral sentiments and animal sensations, and with the causes which excite these; with the operations of the elements and the appearances of the visible universe; with storm and sunshine, with the revolutions of the seasons, with cold and heat, with loss of friends and kindred, with injuries and resentments, gratitude and hope, with fear and sorrow. These, and the like, are the sensations and objects which the poet describes, as they are the sensations of other men, and the objects which interest them. The poet thinks and feels in the spirit of the passions of men. How, then, can his language differ in any material degree from that of all other men who feel vividly and see clearly? It might be proved that it is impossible. But supposing that this were not the case, the poet might then be allowed to use a peculiar language, when expressing his feelings for his own gratification, or that of men like himself. But poets do not write for poets alone, but for men. Unless therefore we are advocates for that admiration which depends upon ignorance, and that pleasure which arises from hearing what we do not understand, the poet must descend from this supposed height, and, in order to excite rational sympathy, he must express himself as other men express themselves. I have said that Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till by a species of reaction the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind. In this mood successful composition generally begins, and in a mood similar to this it is carried on; but the emotion, of whatever kind and in whatever degree, from various causes is qualified by various pleasures, so that in describing any passions whatsoever, which are voluntarily described, the mind will upon the whole be in a state of enjoyment. Now, if Nature be thus cautious in preserving in a state of enjoyment a being thus employed, te Poet ought to profit by the lesson thus held forth to him, and ought especially to take care, that whatever passions he communicates to his Reader, those passions, if his Reader's mind be sound and vigorous, should always be accompamied with an overbalance of pleasure. Now the music of harmonious metrical language, the sense of difficulty overcome, and the blind association of pleasure which has been previously received from works of rhyme or metre of the same or similar construction, an indistinct perception perpetually rene wed of language closely resembling that of real life, and yet, in the circumstance of metre, differing from it so widely, all these imperceptibly make up a complex feeling of delight, which is ofthe most important use in tempering the painful feeling, which will always be found intermingled with powerful descriptions ofthe deeper passions. This effect is always produced in pathetic and impassioned poetry; while, in lighter compositions, the ease and gracefulness with which the Poet manages his numbers are themselves confessedly a principal source of the gratification of the Reader. I might perhaps include all which it is necessary to say upon this subject by affirming, what few persons will deny, that, oftwo descriptions, either of passions, manners, or characters, each of them equally well executed, the one in prose and the other in verse, the verse will be read a hundred times where the prose is read once. [Powerful feelings that are recollected in tranquility (the Daffodils, we feel something very strongly, but what is very important is the power of MEMORY).] I know that nothing would have so effectually contributed to further the end which I have in view, as to have shewn of what kind the pleasure is, and how the pleasure is produced, which is confessedly produced by metrical composition essentially different from that which I have here endeavoured to recommend: for the reader will say that he has been pleased by such composition; and what can I do more for him? The power of any art is limited; and he will suspect, that, if I propose to finish him with new friends, it is only upon condition of his abandoning his old friends. Besides, as I have said, the reader is himself conscious of the pleasure which he has received from such composition, composition to which he has peculiarly attached the endearing name of poetry; and all men feel an habitual gratitude, and something of an honorable bigotry for the objects which have long continued to please them: we not only wish to be pleased, but to be pleased in that particular way in which we have been accustomed to be pleased. There is a host of arguments in these feelings; and I should be the less able to combat them successfully, asI am willing to allow, that, in order entirely to enjoy the poetry which I am recommending, it would be necessary to give up much of what is ordinarily enjoyed. But, would my limits have permitted me to point out how this pleasure is produced, I might have removed many obstacles, and assisted my reader in perceiving that the powers of language are not so limited as he may suppose; and that it is possible that poetry may give other enjoyments, of a purer, more lasting, and more exquisite nature. This part of my subject I have not altogether neglected; but it has been less my present aim to prove, that the interest excited by some other kinds of poetry is less vivid, and less worthy of the nobler powers of the mind, than to offer reasons for presuming, that, if the object which I have proposed to myself were adequately attained, a species of poetry would be produced, which is genuine poetry; in its nature well adapted to interest mankind permanently, and likewise important in the multiplicity and quality of its moral relations. From what has been said, and from a perusal of the poems, the reader will be able clearly to perceive the object which I have proposed to myself: he will determine how far 1 have attained this object; and, what is a much more important question, whether it be worth attaining; and upon the decision of these two questions will rest my claim to the approbation of the public. S.T. Coleridge, Biographia Literaria (1817) Chapter XIV — he is interested in the supernatural (vs. Wordsworth, everyday life). During the first year that Mr. Wordsworth and I were neighbours, our conversations tumed frequently on the two cardinal points of poetry, the power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of nature, and the power of giving the interest of novelty by the modifying colours of imagination. The sudden charm, which accidents of light and shade, which moon-light or sun-set diffused over a known and familiar landscape, appeared to represent the practicability of combining both. These are the poetry of nature. [...] In this idea originated the plan of the 'Lyrical Ballads", in which it was agreed, that ny endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith. Mi: Wordsworth on the other hand was to propose to himself as his object, to give the charm of novelty to things of every day, and to excite a feeling amalogous to the supernatural, by awakening the mind's attention from the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders ofthe world before us; an inexhaustible treasure, but for which in consequence ofthe film of familiarity and selfish solicitude we have eyes, vet see not, ears that hear not, and hearts that neither feel nor understand. With this view I wrote the 'Ancient Mariner,' and was preparing among other poems, the "Dark Ladie,' and the 'Christabel,' in which I should have more nearly realized my ideal, than I had done in my first attempt. But Mr. Wordsworth's industry had proved so much more successful, and the number of his poems so much greater, that my compositions, instead of forming a balance, appeared rather an interpolation of heterogeneous matter. Mr. Wordsworth added two or three poems written in his own character, in the impassioned, lofty, and sustained diction, which is characteristic of his genius. In this form the "Lyrical Ballads' were published; and were presented by him as an *experiment*, whether subjects, which from their nature rejected the usual ornaments and extra-colloquial style of poems in general, might not be so managed in the language of ordinary life as to produce the pleasurable interest, which it is the peculiar business of poetry to impart. Dorothy Wordsworth, The Grasmere Joumal , (Thursday, 15 April 1802): the role of women poets. She lived all her life together with her brother, with whom she had an extremely productive literary collaboration. She was a great inspiration to him. Many critics has seen Wordswoith borrowing some ideas from his sister in her journal. When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow park we saw a few daffodils close to the water side, we fancied that the lake had floated the seed ashore and that the little colony had so sprung up — But as we went along there were more and yet more and at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country tumpike road. I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about and about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness and the rest tossed and reeled and danced and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the Lake, they looked so gay ever glancing ever changing. This wind blew directly over the lake to them. There was here and there a little knot and a few stragglers a few yards higher up but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity and unity and life of that one busy highway — We rested again and again. The Bays were stormy and we heard the waves at different distances and in the middle of the water like the Sea. THE DAFFODILS I wandered lonely as a cloud (A) That floats on high o'er vales and hills, (B) When all at once I saw a crowd.(A) A host, of golden daffodils;(B) Beside the lake, beneath the trees, (C) Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.(C) 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, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed—and gazed—-but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: 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. 4 stanzas, 6 lines each, a very typical rhyming scheme. recollection, memory, the inward eye, insight of the mind. easy understandable poem, he is describing a field of daffodils and the image that they create in the mind. Same ideas and metaphors as Dorothy. “crowd”: the daffodils are presented as human beings, PERSONIFICATION. Metaphire of dancing, of the power of nature, moving their heads as they were human. Power of nature that impresses the poet even more when it thinks back to this moment. A recorded experience in which he finds pleasure whenever recollecting it. importance of memory and nature. It is also an easy language that he can transfer to his audience. The poet is so much part of nature that he becomes a cloud. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE - The Rime ofthe Ancient Mariner A tale in verses. There's a frame at the beginning which narrates about a mariner who goes to a wedding, where he tells the story of his doomed ship. When things get really bad, an albatross appears: things start to get bad again when the sailors kill it. Sense of oppression, gloominess. He is more interested in contemplating beauty rather than explaining it to the reader. willingness to let what is mysterious and doubtful to remain as it is. Sparks of beauty. Moment of literary perfection who needs to be understood as it is. Composed between 1798-1798, it was constantly revised between 1800 and 1834. The Rime is written in the ballad form: chosen for commercial reasons, ballads were The ice did split with a thunder-fit; The helmsman steered us through! And a good south wind sprung up behind; The Albatross did follow, And every day, for food or play, Came to the mariner's hollo! In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, It perched for vespers nine; Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, Glimmered the white Moon-shine.” "God save thee, ancient Mariner! From the fiends, that plague thee thus! — Why look'st thou so?—With my cross-bow I shot the ALBATROSS. (parte 2)The sun now rose upon the right: Out of the sea came he. Still hid in mist and on the left Went down into the sea. And the good south wint still blew behind, But no sweet bird did follow, Nor any day for food or play Came to the mariners” hollo! And I had done a hellish thing, And it would work em woe: For all averred, I had killed the bird That made the breeze so blow. Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay, That made the breeze to blow! Nor dim nor red, like God°s own head, The glorious Sun uprist: Then all averred, I had killed the bird That brought the fog and mist. *Twas right, said they, such birds to slay, That bring the fog and mist. The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew The furrow followed free; We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea. Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down *Twas sad as sad could be; And we did speak only to break The silence of the sea! AIl in hot and copper sky, The bloody Sun, at noon, Right up above the mast did stand, No bigger than the Moon. Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean. Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrick; Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink. The very deep did rot: O Christ! That ever this should be! Yes, slimy things did crawl with legs Upon the slimy sea. About, about, in reel and rout The death-fires danced at night; The water, like a witch's oils, Bumt green, and blue, and white. And some in dreams assured were Of the spirit that plagued us so; Nine fathom deep he had followed us from the land of mist and snow. And every tongue, through utter drought, Was withered at the root; We could not speak, no more than if We had been chocked with soot. AN! well a day! what evil looks Had I from old and young! Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung. (part 3)There passed a weary time. Each throat Was parched, and glazed each eye A weary time! A weary time! How glazed each weary eye! When looking westward I beheld A something in the sky. At first it semeda little speck, And then it seemed a mist; It moved and moved, and took at last A certain shape, I wist. A speck, a mist, a shape. I wist! And still it neared and neared: As if it dodged a water sprite, It plunged and tacked and veered. With throats unslaked, with black lips backed, We could nor laugh nor wail; Through utter drought all dumb we stood! I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, And cried, A sail! a sail! With throats unslaked, with black lips backed, Agape they heard me call: Gramercy! they for joy did grin, And all at once their breath drew in, As they were drinking all. See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more! Hither to work us weal; Without a breeze, without a tide, She steadies with upright keel! The western wave was all a-flame, The day was well nigh done! Almost upon the western wave Rested the broad bright Sun. When that strange shape drove suddendly Betwixt us and the Sun. And straight the Sun was flecked with bars, (Heaven®s Mother send us grace!) As if through a dungeon-grate he peered With broad and buming face. Alas! (thought I, and mi heart beat loud) How fast she nears and nears! Are those her sails that glance in the Sun, Like restless gossameres? Are those her ribs through which the Sun Did peer, as through a grate? And is that Woman all her crew? Is that a Death? and are there two? Is Death that Woman”s mate? Her lips were red, her looks were free. Her locks were yellow as gold: Her skin was as white as leprosy, The Night-mare Life-in-Death was she, Who thicks man”s blood with cold. And when they reared, the elfish light Fell off in hoary flakes. Within the shadow of the ship, I watched their rich attire: Blue glossy green, and velvet black, They coiled and swam; and every track Was a flash of golden fire. O happy living things! no tongue Their beauty might declare: A spring of love gushed from my heart, AndI blessed them unaware: Sure my kind saint took pity on me, AndI blessed them unaware. The self same moment I could pray; And from my neck so free The Albatross fell off, and sank Like lead into the sea (part 5) Oh sleep! It is a gentle thing, Beloved from pole to pole! To Mary Queen the praise be given ! She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven, That slid into my soul The stilly buckets on the deck, That had so long remained, I dreamt that they were filled with dew; And whenI awoke, it rained. My lips were wet, my throath was cold, My garments all were dank; Sure I had drunken in my dreams, And still my body drank. I moved, and could not feel my limbs: I was so light—almost I thought that I had died in sleep, And was a blessed ghost. And soon I heard a roaring wind: It did not come anear; But with its sound it shook the sails, That were so thin and sere. The upper air burst into life! And a hundred fire-flags sheen, To and fro they were hurried about! And to and fro, and in and out, The wan stars danced between. And the coming wind did roar more loud, And the sails did sigh like sedge; And the rain poured down frome one black cloud The Moon was at its edge. The tick black cloud was cleft, and still The Moon was at its side: Like waters shot from some high crag, The lightning fell with never a jag. Ariver steep and wide. The loud wind never reached the ship, Yet now the ship moved on! Beneath the lightning and the Moon The dead men gave a groan. They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose Nor spake, nor moved their eyes; It had been strange, even in a dream, To have seen those dead men rise. The helmsman steered, the ship moved on Yet never a breeze up blew; The mariners all *gan work the ropes, Where they were wont to do. They raised their limbs like lifeless tools... We were a ghastly crew. The body of my brother”s son Stood by me, knee to knee: The body and I pulled at one rope, But he said nought to me.» «I fear thee, ancient Mariner!» «Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest! *Twas not those souls that fled in pain, Which to their corses came again, But a troop of spirit blest: For when it dawned — they dropped their arms And clustered round the mast; Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths And from their bodies passed. Around, around, flew each sweet sound, Then darted to the Sun; Slowly the sounds came back again, Now mixed, now one by one . Sometimes a-dropping from the sky I heard the sky-lark sing; Sometimes all little birds that are How they seemedto fill the sea and air With their sweet jargoning ! And now ’twas like all instruments, Now like a lonely flute; And now it is an angel’s song, That makes the heavens be mute. It ceased; yet still the sails made on A pleasant noise till noon, A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, That to the sleeping woods all night Singeth a quiet tune. Till noon we quietly sailed on, Yet never a breeze did breathe: Slowly and smoothly went the ship, Moved onward from beneath. Under the keel nine fathom deep, From the land of mist and snow, The Spirit slid: and it was he That made the ship to go. The sails at noon left off their time, And the ship stood still also. The Sun, right up above the mast, Had fixed her to the ocean: But in a minute she ’gan stir, With a short uneasy motion — Backwards and forwards half her lenght With a short uneasy motion. Then like a pawing horse let go, She made a sudden bound: It flung the blood into my head, AndI fell down in a swound. How long in that same fit I lay, I have not to declare; But ere my living life retumed, I heard, and in my soul discemed Two voices in the air. «Is it he® quoth one, «Is this the man? By Him who died on cross, With his cruel bow he laid full low The harmless Albatross. The spirit who bideth by himself I tumed my eyes upon the deck — Oh, Christ! what saw I there! Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat, And, by the holy rood! A man all light, a seraph-man, On every corse there stood. This seraph-band, each waved his hand, It was a heavenly sight! They stood as signals to the land, Each one a lovely light; This seraph-band, each waved his hand: No voice did they impart — No voice; but oh! the silence sank Like music on my heart. But soon I heard the dash of oars, I heard the Pilot®s cheer; My heard was tumed perforce away, AndI saw a boat appear. The Pilot and the Pilot’s boy, I heard them coming fast: Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy The dead men could not blast. I saw a third — I heard his voice; It is the Hermit good! He singeth loud his godly hymns That he makes in the wood. Hell shrieve my soul, he'1l wash away The Albatross”s blood. This Hermit good lives in that wood Which slopes down to the sea. How loudly his sweet voice he rears! He loves to talk with mariners That come from a far countree. He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve— He hath a cushion clump: It is the moss that wholly hides The rotted old cak-stump. The skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk: «Why this is strange, I now! Where are those lights so many and fair, That signal made but now?» «Strange, by my faith! (the Hermit said) — And they answered not our cheer! The planks look warped! and see those sails, How thin they are and sere! I never saw aught like to them, Unless perchance it were Brown skeletons of leaves that lag My forest-brook along, When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow, And the owlet whoops to the wolf below That eats the she-wolf°s young.» «Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look— (The Pilot made reply) I am a-feared—« Push on, push on!» Said the Hermit cheerily. The boat came closer to the ship, But I nor spake nor stirred; The boat came close beneath the ship And straight a sound was heard. Under the water it rumbled on, Still louder and more dread: It reached the ship, it split the bay; The ship went down like lead. Stummed by that loud and dreadful sound, Which sky and ocean smote, Like one that hath been seven days drowned My body lay afloat; But swift as dreams, myself I found Within the Pilot’s boat. Upon the whirl, where sank the ship, The boat spun round and round; And all was still, save that the hill Was telling of the sound. I moved my lips — the Pilot shrieked And fell down in a fit; The holy Hermit raised his eyes, And prayed where he did sit. I took the oars: the Pilot’s boy, Who now doth crazy go, Laughed loud and long, and all the while His eyes went to and fro, «Ha! ha!» quoth he, «full plain I see The Devil knows how to row.» And now, all in my own countree, I stood on the firm land! The Hermith stepped forth from the boat, And scarcely he could stand. «Oh shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!» «The Hermit crossed his brow. «Say quick» quoth he, «I bid thee say» What manner of man art thou% Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched With a woful agony, Which forced me to begin my tale; And then it left me free. Since then, at an uncertain hour, That agony retums; And till my ghastly tale is told, This heart within me burns. I pass, like night, from land to land; I have strange power of speech; That moment that his face I see, I know the man that must hear me: To him my tale I teach. What loud uproar bursts from that door! The wedding-guests are there: But in the garden-bower the bride And bride-maids singing are: And hark the little vesper bell, Which biddeth me to prayer O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been Alone on a wide wide sea: So lonely 'twas, that God himself Scarce seemed there to be. O sweeter than the marriage-feast, “Tis sweeter far to me, To walk together to the kirk With a goodly company!-- To walk together to the kirk, And all together pray, While each to his great Father bends, Old men, and babes, and loving friends, And youths and maidens gay! Farewell, farewell! but this I tell To thee, thou Wedding-Guest! He prayeth well, who loveth well Both man and bird and beast. anticlimax, change of mood, the speaker is thining about what they left behind. they left a place where they won't ever come back. CHANGE OF TONE. Who are these coming to the sacrifice? (A) To what green altar, O mysterious priest,(B) Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,(A) And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? (B) What little town by river or sea shore,(C) Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,(D) Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn9(E) And, little town, thy streets for evermore (C) Will silent be; and not a soul to tell (D) Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. (E) idea of consolation: when the time is passed, thou shall remain. negative capability: etemity, perfection, literary beauty that we don't really need to interrogate, but only appreciate. idea of great consolation, that infuses calmness and consolation. O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede (A) Of marble men and maidens overwrought, (B) With forest branches and the trodden weed;(A) Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought(B) As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! (C) When old age shall this generation waste,(D) Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe(E) Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,(D) "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all (C) Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." (E) Female poets also contributed to the Romantic movement, but their strategies tended to be more elusive and less radical. Although Dorothy Wordsworth (1771-1855) produced journals and travel narratives that certainly provided inspiration for her brother, her own poems are particularly remarkable for the imaginative power of her depictions of nature. Poems like Anna Seward's (1742-1809) To Colebrooke Dale described how the industrial revolution was dramatically changing the relationship with the rural world, and others like Mary Robinson’s (1758-1800) London Summer Morning described the frenetic movements and sounds of the modern metropolis, or The Birth-Day again by Mary Robinson highlighted the enormous discrepancy between life of the rich and the poor. Female poets played a prominent role in the campaign for the abolition of the slave trade. As women, they themselves felt deprived of civil and economic rights and felt the need to embrace a cause they truly believed in. Poets like Hannah More (1745-1833), Amelia Opie (1769-1853), Anne Yearsley (1753-1806), Mary Birkett (1774-1817), wrote some of the best poems on the topic, trying to raise awareness in the reading public about the necessity to revolt against such an inhuman practice. GEORGE GORDON BYRON - (1788-1824) Eccentricities and Cosmopolitanism: Scottish on the mother’s side, he came from an aristocratic family and inherited the title and a seat in the house of lords from his uncle. A Lord with Whig affiliations, advocate of social reform, defender of the Luddites (first speech), textile workers who started to destroy the machine as a form of protest, worried that the machines would substitute the human labour. e 1809-1811: European Grand Tour with Hobhouse (Spain, Portugal, Malta, Greece and Turkey). he after embarked in a very dangerous relationship with his half sister. identified as a scandalous character, he eventually decided to marry Isabella MIdbaik (?), but divorced soon afterwards. ® Post-Waterloo exile (from 1816 to 1823 in Italy), voluntarily, mostly because of personal issues. He went to Switzerland and joined the Shelleys, together with Godwin's half sister, with whom he had a daughter, who died young in Italy. He then moved to Italy in 1816. ® Involvement in the Carbonari movement (Teresa Guiccioli, ha una storia con lei, lei figlia di un'importante figura tra i carbonati) against Austria and (from 1823 till his death in 1824) in the Greek war of independence against the Turks. He moved to Greece, where he died because of fever in 1824. Major works: > Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812-1818), biological opera, polemic with the English society. The first step to construct the concept of the bionic hero. The Giaour (1813) The Bride of Abydos (1813) The Corsair (1814) The Siege of Corinth (1815) Manfred (1817) The Prophecy of Dante (1819) Marino Faliero (1820) The Two Foscari (1821) Cain (1821) Don Juan (1819-1824) VVVVYWWWWWWwW — Joseph-Denis von Odevaere, The Death of Byron (1826), Groeninge Museum, Bruges MANFRED (1817): «I wrote a sort of mad Drama, for the sake of introducing the Alpine scenery in description» Hybrid genre: Byron — man ofthe theatre (he was a pat ofthe Drury Lane subcommittee in 1815) but sceptical about modem production (especially popular theatre). «closet» drama: a drama suited primarily for reading rather than staging. «dramatic poem»: «a ‘poem in dialogue’»; psychodrama and ‘dialogue of the mind with itself’. Byron described Manfred as a metaphysical drama, meant for the «mental theatre of the reade». Intemal VS. external action: mind over body — audience’s imagination over sensorial experience. Composition: Switzerland 1816 — Venice 1817. Journey through the Alps with Hobhouse: from the Alp of Wengen he saw the Jungfrau. They were both writing a diary. Inspired by: - Alpine landscape - Goethe”s Faust (read to him in translation by M. G. Lewis) - Supematural tales heard in Lake Geneva (Villa Diodati) in 1816 The alpine journal, dedicated to his sister. Plot: «It is in three acts, but of a very wild, metaphysical and inexplicable kind. Almost all the persons [...] are spirits of the earth and air, or of the waters; the scene is in the Alps; the hero a kind of magician, who is tormented by a species of remorse, the cause of which is left half unexplained. He wanders about invoking these spirits, which appear to him, and are of no use; he at last goes to the very abode of the Evil Principle in propria persona, to evocate a ghost which appears and gives him an ambiguous and disagreeable answer: and in the third act he is found by his attendants dying in a tower where he had studied his art» (Byron to John Murray in 1817) Central themes: ® Battle against fatality in order to forget a past crime (only hinted at in the end) — search for self-oblivion vs. life as fatality (body vs. mind split) Guilt and remosse / search for forgiveness Titanism of the protagonist who is alienated from the world, refuses all external helpers and decides to confront destiny alone Antecedents / Intertextuality e Aeschylus’s Prometheus Vinctus He stole the fire to kindle man’s soul (Manfred describes himself as «The enlightener of nations» - III, 1, 107) e Elizabethan supermen — Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great (1588), Doctor Faustus (1592) Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) Vico’s human heroism in Scienza Nuova (1725) Goethe’s Die Leiden des Jungen Weither (1774); Faust (1808) - Love of solitude and introspection - Sadness & melancholia Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798) — guilt to purge Gothic villain in theatre and fiction: - H. Walpole - A. Radcliffe - W. Beckford The Byronic Hero ® greattalent but flawed strong passion distaste for society and its systems rebel suffering alienation hiding an unsavory past ultimately, acting in a self-destructive manner Major characteristics of the Byronic Hero: rebellious, passionate, ambitious, proud, above/beyond social nomms, selfish, sensitive, strong, passionate. Examples include: Heathcliff [Wuthering Heights], Rochester [Jane Eyre], Capitan Acab [Moby Dick], modern day batman. Atara Stein, The Byronic Hero in Film, Fiction, and Television (2004): Lord Byron MANFREDA Dremati Poem e cene the roma mont he ghe ps porti e Cote of Mon, rd port i che Mo MANFRED alone -Scone Colbie aly Time, Minighe. snrneo "To lamp must he replnishà br avente etnie sboa be the intructr otte wise: Sorrow is Knewlege: hey wo know he most At mou be dgpes. er te ata ta, av Ray o. oo have baie many ie cor me î pet Since tt lt ace ho | ave no dd, dla rs o ave ont i rina o dr bet i pr wish OrArta re stacco gioni ee Be If Roi cai ca i e it i e bs Fonts mne Fic sera five Fast wa ni ma e ps o nce tchi den nta nor bt v ik ere heriese granite: into be torrencani te mie te cit ic fe new resin eve n these my cai strengià enltedi or eg e sigh he moving moon, Bestopemens or cc Tre dari genesi my ve reed rta ok sig, on tested tatoo i were td ene. then di to th ovs ode cino cei sce str Fr ei tal ud yin du, Treo tpo imma Seribo ole mo pa te wonder “And spl that o compass ir and crt Such a Bare me, i he M Meo o te out dveltisei st do th; and te power an oy Sto most bright ntellienc unt vr Procedi Patt ici e drv amg de. N RE nd toe dae Tre fore Tower Te ERMAN IA, rp MANFRE, i : N È ireretaaenne 10 ion n The orto my die erede Sateriroft tI SLAVERY, ABOLITION AND THE CULTURE OF RESISTANCE Captain John Hawkins made the first known English slaving voyage to Africa, during the reign of Elizabeth I. Hawkins made three such journeys over a period of six years. He captured over 1200 Africans and sold them as goods in the Spanish colonies in the Americas. To stat with, British traders supplied slaves for the Spanish and Portuguese colonists in America. However, as British settlements in the Caribbean and Noith America grew, often through wars with European countries such as Holland, Spain and France, British slave traders increasingly supplied British colonies. The establishment of the Royal African Company in 1672 formalised the Slave Trade under a royal charter and established the monopoly of the port of London. The ports of Bristol and Liverpool. in particular, fought to have the charter changed and, in 1698, the monopoly was taken away. British involvement expanded rapidly in response to the demand for labour to cultivate sugar in Barbados and other British West Indian islands. In the 1660s, the number of slaves taken from Africa in British ships averaged 6,700 per year. By the 1760s, Britain was the foremost European country engaged in the Slave Trade. Of the 80,000 Africans chained and transpoited across to the Americas each year, 42,000 were carried by British slave ships. The Middle Passage refers to the part of the trade where Africans, densely packed onto ships, were transported across the Atlantic to the West Indies. The voyage took three to four months and, during this time, the enslaved people mostly lay chained on the floor. The Middle Passage was the crossing from Aftica to the Americas, which the ships made carrying their ‘cargo’ of slaves. It was so-called because it was the middle section of the trade route taken by many ofthe ships. The first section (the “Outward Passage” ) was from Europe to Africa. Then came the Middle Passage, and the “Return Passage” was the final journey from the Americas to Europe. The Middle Passage took the enslaved Africans away from their homeland. They were from different countries and different ethnic (or cultural) groups. They spoke different languages. Many had never seen the sea before, let alone been on a ship. They had no knowledge of where they were going or what awaited them there. There are a very few accounts of the Middle Passage, written by enslaved Africans who had experienced conditions on a slave ship at first-hand. This was because many Africans who made the crossing would not have known how to write, or had the chance to learn later in life. A Liverpool slave ship by William Jackson (c. 1780) - International Slavery Museum, Liverpool: This unidentified 16-gun ship is typical of the vessels used in the slave trade. She is shown in a port profile against a wooded coastline, intended to represent West Africa. The ship is about to drop anchor and a boat is to be launched. The ventilation holes below her deck suggest she is intended to carry slaves. In a section of this painting recent cleaning revealed three small boats with Africans on board approaching from the coast. It is thought that this part of the painting was covered to distance the ship's links with the slave trade. The transatlantic slave trade generally followed a triangular route: Traders set out from European ports towards Africa's west coast. There they bought people in exchange for goods and loaded them into the ships. The voyage across the Atlantic, known as the Middle Passage, generally took 6 to 8 weeks. Once in the Americas those Africans who had survived the journey were off-loaded for sale and put to work as slaves. The ships then returned to Europe with goods such as sugar, coffee, tobacco, rice and later cotton, which had been produced by slave labour. The triangle, involving three continents, was complete. European capital, African labour and American land and resources combined to supply a European market. European traders captured some Africans in raids along the coast, but bought most of them from local African or African-European dealers. These dealers had a sophisticated network of trading alliances collecting groups of people together for sale. Most of the Africans who were enslaved were captured in battles or were kidnapped, though some were sold into slavery for debt or as punishment. The captives were marched to the coast, often enduring long journeys of weeks or even months, shackled to one another. At the coast they were imprisoned in large stone forts, built by European trading companies, or in smaller wooden compounds. The main European nations involved in slaving were Portugal, Spain, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden. Britain began large-scale slaving through private trading companies in the 1640s. The London-based Royal African Company was the most important and from 1672 had a monopoly of the British trade. Other merchants who wanted to enter this lucrative trade opposed the monopoly and it was ended in 1698. In the early 1700s most of Britain's slave merchants were from London and Bristol. However, Liverpool merchants were increasingly involved and from about 1740 were outstripping their rivals. Although London, Bristol and other ports continued to send ships to Africa, Liverpool dominated the trade until its abolition in 1807. Indeed Liverpool was the European fact, resistance and action on the part of the enslaved themselves was crucial to the abolition of slavery in Britain. The Abolitionist campaign - The politician and leading abolitionist in Parliament, William Wilberforce (1759-1833) as well as many other key figures of the campaign — the economist and banker Henry Thornton (1760-1815), the writer and philanthropist Hannah More (1745-1833) — were all Evangelicals Christians who, centred on the church of John Venn (1759-1813), rector of Clapham and from about 1790 until the 18305, struggled tirelessly for the abolition of slavery. In particular after the official ending of the trade, in 1807, the Evangelicals led by Wilberforce had a fundamental role in the fight against the illicit flourishing of the trade. In April 1791 Wilberforce’s motion against the trade came to a vote, but it was defeated by 163 to 88. It was after 15 years, in 1806 that a general motion against abolition was introduced into. In the years after 1807 when, despite its official abolition, the trade, that continued to be economically extremely lucrative, prospered illegally to the point that in 1811 a new legislation (the Slave Trade Felony Act) passed that made the transgression punishable by transportation (up to 14 years). Thomas Clarkson The History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament, 2 vols. London: Longman, Hurst, Reese and Orme, 1808. Te value the blessing of the abolition as we ought, or to appretime the joy and gratitude which w ought to feel conceming it, we must enter a little into the circumstances ofthe trade. Our statement, however, of these needs not be lang, A few pages will do all that is necessary! A glance only into such a subject as this will be sufficient to all the heart-to arouse our indignation and our pity- and to teach us the importance of the victory obtained. The first subject for consideration, towards enabling us to make the estimate in question, will be that of the nature of the evil belonging to the Slave-trade. This may be seen by examining it in three point of view:- Fiest, As it has been proved to arise on the continent of Africa in the course of reducing the inhabitants of it to slavery --Secondly, in the course of conveying them trom thence to the lands or colonies of other nations;-And Thirdly, In continuing then there as slaves. Ko see it as it has been shown to arise in (u) the first case, let us suppose ourselves on the Continent just mentioned. Well then-We are landed-We are already upon our travels -We have just passed through one forest-We are now come to a more open place, which indicates an approach to habitation. And what object is that, which first obtrudes itself upon our sight? Who is that wretched woman, whom we discover under that noble tree, wringing her hands, and beating her breast, as if in the agonies of despair? Three days has she been there at intervals to look and to watch, and this in the fourth moming, and no tidings of her children yet. Beneath its spreading bough they were accustomed to play-But alas! the savage man-stealer interrupted their playful mirth, and has taken them for ever from her sight. “There were specimens of articles in Liverpool, which I entirely overlooked at Bristol, and which I believe I should have overlooked here, also, had it not been for seeing them at a window in a shop; I mean those of different iron instruments used in this cruel traffic. I bought a pair of the iron hand-cuffs with which the men-slaves are confined.” Diagram of the 'Brookes' Slave Ship - The diagram ofthe 'Brookes' slave ship is probably the most widely copied and powerful image used by the abolitionist campaigners. It depicts the ship loaded to its full capacity - 454 people crammed into the hold. The 'Brookes' sailed the passage from Liverpool via the Gold Coast in Africa to Jamaica in the West Indies. The diagram was a very useful piece of propaganda. Thomas Clarkson commented in his History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade (1808) that the 'print seemed to make an instantaneous impression of horror upon all who saw it, and was therefore instrumental, in consequence ofthe wide circulation given it, in serving the cause of the injured Africans'. Liverpool family who became pasticularly rich thanks to slavery. S. T. Coleridge, Lecture ‘On the Slave Trade” Coleridge, Lecture “On the Slave Trade” — Bristol, 16 Jun. 1795 — Publ. The Watchman, No. 4 — 25 March 1796 I have dwelt anxiously on this subject, with a particular view, to the Slave-trade, which, I knew, has insinuated in the minds of many, uneasy doubts respecting the existence of a beneficent Deity. And indeed the evils arising from the formation of imaginary Wants, have in no instance been so dreadfully exemplified, as in this inhuman Traffic. We receive from the West-India Islands Sugars, Rum, Cotton, Logwood, 2 Cocoa, Coffee, Pimento, Ginger, Indigo, Mahog any, and Conserves. Not one of these articles are necessary; indeed with the exception of Cotton and Mahogany we cannot truly call them even useful: and not one of them is at present attainable by the poor and labouring part of Society. In retum we expoit vast quantities of necessary Tools, Raiment, and defensive Weapons, with great stores of Provision. So that in this Trade as in most others the VERY POWERFUL LECTURE IN WHICH HE ACCUSES DIRECTLY THE GOVERMENT. Poor are employed with unceasing toil first to raise, and then to send away the Comforts, which they themselves absolutely want, in order to procure idle superfluities for their Masters. If this Trade had never existed, no one human being would have been less comfortably cloathed, housed, or nourished. Such is its value—they who would estimate the price which we pay for it, may consult the evidence delivered before the House of Commons. I will not mangle the feel ings of my readers by detailing enormities, which the gloomy Imagination of Dante would scarcely have dared attribute to the Inhabitants of Hell. For the honour of our common nature, I would fain hope that these accounts have been exaggerated. Who have joined in this tartarean confederacy? Who are these kid nappers, and assassins? In all reasonings neglecting the intermediate links we attribute the final effect to the first cause. And what is the first and constantly acting cause ofthe Slave-trade? That cause, by which it exists and deprived of which it would immediately cease? Is it not self-evidently the consumption of it's products? And does not then the guilt rest on the consumers? And is it not an allowed axiom in morality, that wickedness may be multiplied, but cannot be divided; and that the guilt of all, attaches to each one who is know ingly an accomplice? Think not of the slave-captains and slave holders! these very men, their darkened minds, and brutalized hearts, will prove one part of the dreadful charge against you! They are more to be pitied than the slaves; because more depraved. I address myself to you who independently of all political distinctions profess yourself Christians! As you hope to live with Christ hereafter, you are commanded to do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you. Would you choose, that a slave merchant should incite an intoxicated Chieftain to make war on your Country, and murder your Wife and Children before your face, or drag them with yourself to the Market? Would you choose to be sold? to have the hot iron ON YOU. The poor classes dont’ get the benefits of the trade, accusation against the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy. It is a benefit that belongs only to the selected few of society. Idea of the common guilt: everyone is guilty. It is not the traders who are gulty (theìy have to be pitied), but the society that accept this is also guilty. John Newton (1725-1807), he was part of the Clapham sect, where he had a very active role. Amazing Grace, hymn, an American musician then put it in music. The text relates to his authors life. Nowadays he is particularly important. 2015, mass murdered in Charleston church. 9 black people were killed. eulogy from barack obama. John Newton was a slave trafficker who played a very active role in the slave trade. He underwent a spiritual conversion after which he became a prominent supporter of abolitionism. A strong supporter of Evangelicalism in the Church ofEngland, in 1779 he became the rector of St Mary Woolnoth, Lombard Street (London). Adviser and friend of well-known figures such as H. More and W. Wilberforce, he convinced the latter to remain in Parliament and continue the battle for abolition. Since it was first published in 1779, "Amazing Grace" has become a global anthem of redemption, and the life of its author, John Newton, a symbol of spiritual awakening. In 1835 the American Composer William Walker set it into the tune known as «New Britain» to which it has been sung since then. ‘WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827) Bom into a family of humble origin, he trained as an engraver (he had an incredible capacity), a craft he practiced until his death. Hee was an artist even before becoming a poet. For every poem ofthe age of innocence he produced an engraving, calling it the illuminated book. Deeply aware of the great political and social issues of his age, he was a political freethinker, he supported the French Revolution and remained a radical throughout his life. Much in demand as an engraver, he experimented with combining poetry and image in a printing process he invented himself in 1789. Among the extraordinary works of art this produced were - . The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, - Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793), - Songs of Innocence and Experience (Innocent pastoral world vs. the experience of the adult, cumuptcy) - (1794), - Jerusalem (1804). Although always successful as an aitist, Blake”s intense personal mythology led to wild mental highs and lows, and later in life he was accused of being close to insanity. On his deathbed, he saw one last glorious vision, and «burst out in Singing of the things he Saw in Heaven». A fervent believer in racial and sexual equality, Blake used his art to challenge many different forms of mental, physical and social enslavement. Unique writer for his capacity of linking together writing and art. He was a strong supporter of equality, believe in free love and didn't support the institution of marriage. The Little Black Boy - Collected in Songs of Innocence and Experience (1789), the poem addresses critically the racist and colonialist attitude typical of Blake°s age. The poem centers on a spiritual awakening to a divine love that transcends race. The complexity of the images of sun and shade poses questions about the role that religion, in particular Christianity plays in the life of an enslaved African. The poem is highly problematic and somehow contradictory in representing the little black boys struggle (in his double role of child of Africa and child of God) to find answers about his life Mother bore me in the southern wild, AndI am black, but O! my soul is white; White as an angel is the English child: But I am black as if bereav'd of light My mother taught me underneath a tree And sitting down before the heat of day, She took me on her lap and kissed me, And pointing to the east began to say. Look on the rising sun: there God does live And gives his light, and gives his heat away. And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive Comfort in moming joy in the noonday. And we are put on earth a little space, That we may leam to bear the beams of love, And these black bodies and this sun-bumt face Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove. For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear The cloud will vanish we shall hear his voice. Saying: come out from the grove my love & care, Fair Truth, a hallow'd guide! inspires my song. 50 Here Art wou'd weave her gayest flow'rs in vain, For Truth the bright invention wou'd disdain. For no fictitious ills these numbers flow, But living anguish, and substantial woe; No individual griefs my bosom melt, 55 For millions feel what Oronoko felt: Fir'd by no single wrongs, the countless host I moum, by rapine dragg'd from Aftic's coast. Perish th'illiberal thought which wou'd debase The native genius of the sable race! 60 Perish the proud philosophy, which sought To rob them of the pow'rs of equal thought! Does then th' immortal principle within Change with the casual colour of a skin? Does matter gover spirit? or ismind 65 Degraded by the form to which 'tis join'd? No: they have heads to think, and hearts to feel, And souls to act, with firm, tho' erring, zeal; For they have keen affections, kind desires, Love strong as death, and active patriot firess 70 AIl the rude energy, the fervid flame, Ofhigh-soul'd passion, and ingenuous shame: Strong, but luxuriant virtues boldly shoot From the wild vigour of a savage root. Nor weak their sense of honour's proud control, 75 For pride is virtue in a Pagan soul; A sense of worth, a conscience of desert, A high, unbroken haughtiness of heart: That self-same stuff which erst proud empires sway'd, Of which the conquerers of the world were made. 80 Capricious fate of man! that very pride In Aftic scourg'd, in Rome was deify'd. No Muse, O * Quashi! shall thy deeds relate, No statue snatch thee from oblivious fate! * It is a point of honour among negroes of a high spirit to die rather than to suffer their glossy skin to bear the mark of the whip. Qua-shi had somehow offended his master, a young planter with whom he had been bred up in the endearing intimacy of a play-fellow. His services had been faithful; his attachment affectionate. The master resolved to punish him, and persued him for that purpose. In trying to escape Qua-shi stumbled and fell; the master fell upon him; they wrestled long with doubtful victory; at length Qua-shi got uppermost, and, being firmly seated on his master's breast, he secured his legs with one hand, and with the other drew a sharp knife; then said, "Master, I have been bred up with you from a child; I have loved you as myself: in For thou wast bom where never gentle Muse 85 On Valour's grave the flow'rs of Genius strews; And thou wast bom where no recording page Plucks the fair deed from Time's devouring rage. Had Fortune plac'd thee on some happier coast, Where polish'd souls heroic virtue boast, 90 To thee, who sought'st a voluntary grave, Th' uninjur'd honours of thy name to save, Whose generous arm thy barbarous Master spar'd, Altars had smok'd, and temples had been rear'd. Whene'er to Afric's shores I turn my eyes, 95 Horrors of deepest, deadliest guilt arise; retum, you have condemned me to a punishment of which I must ever have borne the marks: thus only can I avoid them;" so saying, he drew the knife with all his strength across his own throat, and fell down dead, without a groan, on his master's body. Ramsay's Essay on the Treatment of African Slaves. I see, by more than Fancy's mirror shewn, The buming village, and the blazing town: See the dire victim tom from social life, The shrieking babe, the agonizing wife! 100 She, wretch forlom! is dragg'd by hostile hands, To distant tyrants sold, in distant lands! Transmitted miseries, and successive chains, The sole sad heritage her child obtains! Ev'n this last wretched boon their foes deny, 105 To weep together, or together die. By felon hands, by one relentless stroke, See the fond links of feeling nature broke! The fibres twisting round a parent's heart, Tom from their grasp, and bleeding as they part. 110 Hold, murderers, hold! not aggravate distress; Respect the passions you yourselves possess; Ev'n you, of ruffian heart, and ruthless hand, Love your own offspring, love your native land. AN! leave them holy Freedom's cheering smile, 115 The heav'n-taught fondness for the parent soil; Revere affections mingled with our frame, In every nature, every clime the same; In all, these feelings equal sway maintain; In all the love of HOME and FREEDOM reign: 120 And Tempe's vale, and parch'd Angola's sand, One equal fondness of their sons command. Th' unconquer'd Savage laughs at pain and toil, Basking in Freedom's beams which gild his native soil. Does thirst of empire, does desire of fame, 125 (For these are specious crimes) our rage inflame? No: sordid lust of gold their fate controls, The basest appetite of basest souls; Gold, better gain'd, by what their ripening sky, Their fertile fields, their arts * and mines supply. 130 What wrongs, what injuries does Oppression plead To smooth the horror of th' unnatural deed? What strange offence, what aggravated sin? They stand convicted--of a darker skin! Barbarians, hold! th' opprobious commerce spare, 135 Respect his sacred image which they bear: Tho' dark and savage, ignorant and blind, They claim the common privilege of kind; Let Malice strip them of each other plea, They still are men, and men shou'd still be free. 140 Insulted Reason, loaths th' inverted trade-- Dire change! the agent is the purchase made! * Besides many valuable productions of the soil, cloths and carpets of exquisite manufacture are brought from the coast of Guinea. Perplex'd, the baffled Muse involves the tale; Nature confounded, well may language fail! The outrag'd Goddess with abhorrent eyes 145 Sees MAN the traffic, SOULS the merchandize! Plead not, in reason's palpable abuse, Their sense of * feeling callous and obtuse: From heads to hearts lies Nature's plain appeal, Tho' few can reason, all mankind can feel. 150 Tho' wit may boast a livelier dread of shame, A loftier sense of wrong refinement claim; Tho' polished manners may fresh wants invent, And nice distinctions nicer souls torment; Tho' these on finer spirits heavier fall, 155 Yet natural evils are the same to all. * Nothing is more frequent than this cruel and stupid argument, that they do not feel the miseries inflicted on them as Europeans would do. Tho' wounds there are which reason's force may heal, There needs no logic sure to make us feel. The nerve, howe'er untutor'd, can sustain A sharp, unutterable sense of pain, 160 As exquisitely fashion'd in a slave, As where unequal fate a sceptre gave. Sense is as keen where Congo's sons preside, As where proud Tiber rolls his classic tide. Rhetoric or verse may point the feeling line, 165 They do not whet sensation, but define. Did ever slave less feel the galling chain, When Zeno prov'd there was no ill in pain? Their miseries philosophic quirks deride, Slaves groan in pangs disown'd by Stoic pride. 170 When the fierce Sun darts vertical his beams, And thirst and hunger mix their wild extremes; When the sharp iron * wounds his inmost soul, And his strain'd eyes in burning anguish roll; Will the parch'd negro find, ere he expire, 175 No pain in hunger, and no heat in fire? For him, when fate his tortur'd frame destroys, What hope of present fame, or future joys? For this, have heroes shorten'd nature's date; For that, have martyrs gladly met their fate, 180 But him, forlom, no hero's pride sustains, And clear the foulest blot that dims its fame. As the mild Spirit hovers o'er the coast, A fresher hue the wither'd landscapes boast; Her healing smiles the ruin'd scenes repair, And blasted Nature wears a joyous air 280 She spreads her blest commission from above, Stamp'd with the sacred characters of love; She tears the banner stain'd with blood and tears, And, LIBERTY! thy shining standard rears! As the bright ensign's glory she displays, 285 See pale OPPRESSION faints beneath the blaze! The giant dies! no more his frown appals, The chain untouch'd, drops off; the fetter falls. Astonish'd echo tells the vocal shore, Opression's fall'n, and Slavery is no more! 290 The dusky myriads crowd the sultry plain, And hail that mercy long invok'd in vain. Victorious Pow'r! she bursts their tow-fold bands, And FAITH and FREEDOM spring from Mercy's hands. Sensibility, the slaves are people and have a private life. (only female writers undezline this aspect). Line 80: comparison between Africans and ancient , she introduces Quasi. Enterplay between her notes and the poem. Quasi was accused of something he didn’t do and decided to take his life. (a typical example of abolitionist poetry and women's literature). Attitude ofthe evangelical speaking to underline the necessity of change for the English. Paternalistic, mild colonialism that doesn't kill, but teaches. She takes for granted that the European are superior. Desire of leaving everything that is fiction behind. the wording is not metaphorical, the iron was actually used. 218-20: comparison between two types of colonisation: the Spanish one as an example of a bad colonialism (cortez and columbus),m and the English one (providing heroes of the British stock, Penn is an example, he was a quaker). Cristianity should be the leading voice to fight oppression. Slavery, a poem. 1788, a narrative verse, narration in verses. There are some notes in prose that the author gave us. Invocation of liberty, but a more conservative view arises. idea of the sun that distributes its rise (‘?9?) only partially. Not the same way every way. Opposition nord/south, she works with opposing pairs (as Blake). north/ south, night/light. britain (graced by life) vs Africa (dark), typical representation. 40/45: reference to Aphra Ben. (note of the author). The text is talking about something true. Focusing on the private world. Understand the umanitarien consequences of slavery, analyzing e single life. Don't be fascinated by a play, that is actually true, you have to focus on the historical reality. (oroonoko was played on stage at the time). Never questioning the establishment at its roots: the status quo doesn't need to be put into question. Paternalistic position, she has a typical conservative attitude that many women writers had, still believing in the importance of the british nation, the british superiority, nationalistic and christian position: conservative politically speaking and she was evangelical: religion should improve the situation but they never actually believed in a subversive position (nationalism). These two poems have been studied together usually, obsession in the critics to find a link between the poems, idea that maybe ann wrote her poem in opposition of H’s: poems wrote on the same days so it is impossible to find a link, also bc their friendship had ended two years before, they did not even speak to each other — same necessity to speak out about the injustices to convince the audience that we need a change. Poems: example of the production of the BSC, they represent the experience of H deciding to bring A from her activity to help her publish her stuff. (lines 70-90), she introduces the story of a slave. Interplay ntw prose and poetry, the notes are provided by H herself, she herself explains some elements. Story of a young african who offended his master, he was accused of smt he did not do, he felt offended and deeply ashamed bc accused of smt he didn't do: to protest against these accusations he kills himself. Another topos used by many antislavery texts: representing storues of slaves who kill themselves as a sign of protest: let yorself ide or kill yourself (=slaves). Desperation of slaves is underlined. Suicide is also a topos not only in abolitionists poets, but also in many texts in women writers in the late 18 and early 19 century: they protest against the patriarchal society (killing themselves): let themselves die as an act of protest. H is using this example to underline the comparison btw idea of letting oneself die as a sign of desperation and protest. Hanna More came from the working class. She was working very openly in favour of abolitionism. She studied and was very colta. Talking instead about Anna Yearsley, the production of her works is very unique, unique case of an ignorant writer. Gender issues are evident here, she searches the female audience. Typical attitude of women of the time to write in favour of the slaves as they see them similar to women: totally submitted. Directly sensibility, not only talking about the injustice of slavery but also the sensibility about slaves that are human beings with emotions and families. This way of discussing slavery is just a female writers thing. In the way of discussing injustice we find different approaches. In Hanna More we find the general discussion about the comparison of north and south, light and dark... line 79-80 she makes a comparison between Africans and ancient women. She also introduced the story of a slave name Quashi, she used to include in her poetry some story. Quashi is a n African slave that was accused of something he didn't do, after this accusation he killed himself. Sort of revolt against his master. Typical topos used by many anti-slavery text: idea of representing story of slaves that kill themselves as protestants. From line 111 “hold murders hold..”, Home and Freedom are in maiuscolo, we find very much the attitude of evangelic, the home is the British home and needs to change. Line 134 ---. This is a text full of contradictions, she said that British are barbarian, but we find so many example of paternalistic attitude. Another interesting element is that Hanna More at the beginning ofthe text said that there are millions of men as Oronooko. Line 173, the words that she use are not metaphorical. Make reference to reality. Line 218, she is clearly making a comparison between to type of colonization: Spanish vs Ametican(?? penso american). She uses this historical example where the British people should find the inspiration. Very solid position, she is definitely an antithesis of the position embrace by mary luston for example. ANN YEARSLEY (1753-1806) - the milk woman of Bristol. Yearsley, known also as "Lactilla" or "the Poetical Milkwoman of Bristol", was one of a small number of successful eighteenth-century working-class writers. Her contribution to the antislavery movement was a famous poem, A Poem on the Inhumanity of the Slave-Trade, which appeared in 1788. Yearsley began working as a seller of milk. She was taught to read and write by family members, and in 1774 she married John Yearsley, a poor yeoman farmer, and spent the following ten years developing her writing skills while working as a farmers wife and mother of six children. During the winter of 1783-1784 Yearsley met Hannah More who became quickly aware of Ann Yearsley's literary abilities, and helped her to publish her poems by subscription, using her connections. Yearsley"s Poems on Several Occasions appeared in 1785 but its success led to a quarrel between the two women over access to the trust in which the profits of the poems were held. Over the following years Yearsley continued to write poetry. In 1788 she published A Poem on the Inhumanity of the Slave-Trade, a clear answer to More’s poem Slavery. She eventually opened a circulating library in order to maintain herself. [ 1] BRISTOL, thine heart hath throbb'd to glory.—Slaves, E'en Christian slaves, have shook their chains, and gaz'd With wonder and amazement on thee. Hence Ye grov'ling souls, who think the term I give, Of Christian slave, a paradox! to you I do not tum, but leave you to conception She addresses to Bristol. Poetry as an ethical weapon. VERY RADICAL ANTI-SLAVERY ETHIC. Lactilla is her. [ 2] Narrow; with that be blest, nor dare to stretch Your shackled souls along the course of Freedom. Yet, Bristol, list! nor deem Lactilla's soul Lessen'd by distance; snatch her rustic thought, Her crude ideas, from their panting state, And let them fly in wide expansion; lend Thine energy, so little understood By the rude million, and I'll dare the strain Of Heav'n-bom Liberty till Nature moves Obedient to her voice. Alas! my friend, Strong rapture dies within the soul, while Pow'r Drags on his bleeding victims. Custom, Law, Ye blessings, and ye curses of mankind, What evils do ye cause? We feel enslaved, Yet move in your direction. Custom, thou Rozze idee, rustico pensiero: she comes from the working class. She has the capacity to understand Bristol and the slaves. She is not distant from them. Emotionalism. BLANK VERSE (Hanna More uses the rhyming couplet). William Cooper's use of the blank verse. She uses it in the same way. Story of a Sentimental narrative ‘which is at the centre of this poem. Slave, centre of the poem. The reader is convinced that the Slave is right (he kills his master. She is using fiction to give an example of a radical point of view). [3] Wilt preach up filial piety; thy sons Will groan, and stare with impudence at Heav'n, As if they did abjure the act, where Sin Sits full on Inhumanity; the church They fill with mouthing, vap'rous sighs and tears, Which, like the guileful crocodile's, oft fall, Nor fall, but at the cost of human bliss. Custom, thou hast undone us! led us far From God-like probity, from truth, and heaven. But come, ye souls who feel for human woe, Tho' drest in savage guise! Approach, thou son, Whose heart would shudder at a father's chains, And melt o'er thy lov'd brother as he lies Gasping in torment undeserv'd. Oh, sight [4] Horrid and insupportable! far worse Than an immediate, an heroic death; Yet to this sight I summon thee. Approach, Thou slave of avarice, that canst see the maid Weep o'er her inky sire! Spare me, thou God Of all-indulgent Mercy, ifI scorn The cave's wide entrance, he would swift descend To bless his Incilanda. Ten pale moons Had glided by, since to his generous breast He clasp'd the tender maid, and whisper'd love. [ 11] Oh, mutual sentiment! thou dang'rous bliss! So exquisite, that Heav'n had been unjust Had it bestowd less exquisite of ill; When thou art held no more, thy pangs are deep, Thy joys convulsive to the soul; yet all Are meant to smooth th'uneven road of life. For Incilanda, Luco rang'd the wild, Holding her image to his panting heart; For her he strain'd the bow, for her he stript The bird of beauteous plumage; happy hour, When with these guiltless trophies he adorn'd The brow of her he lov'd. Her gentle breast With gratitude was fill'd, nor knew she aught Of language strong enough to paint her soul, Or ease the great emotion; whilst her eye [ 12] Pursued the gen'rous Luco to the field, And glow'd with rapture at his wish'd return. Ah, sweet suspense! betwixt the mingled cares Of friendship, love, and gratitude, so mix'd, That ev'n the soul may cheat herself —Down, down, Intruding Memory! bid thy struggles cease, At this soft scene of innate war. What sounds Break on her ear? She, starting, whispers "Luco." Be still, fond maid; list to the tardy step Of leaden-footed woe. A father comes, But not to seek his son, who from the deck Had breath'd a last adieu: no, he shuts out The soft, fallacious gleam of hope, and tums Within upon the mind: horrid and dark Are his wild, unenlighten'd pow'rs: no ray [13] Of forc'd philosophy to calm his soul, But all the anarchy of wounded nature. Now he arraigns his country's gods, who sit, In his bright fancy, far beyond the hills, Unriveting the chains of slaves: his heart Beats quick with stubborn fury, while he doubts Their justice to his child. Weeping old man, Hate not a Christian's God, whose record holds Thine injured Luco's name. Frighted he starts, Blasphemes the Deity, whose altars rise Upon the Indian's helpless neck, and sinks, Despising comfort, till by grief and age His angry spirit is forced out. Oh, guide, Ye angel-forms, this joyless shade to worlds Where the poor Indian, with the sage, is prov'd distress felt by the women who lose their husbands. She is inviting the reader to sympathize with Luco”s wife. strength of the sentimental element. [ 14] The work of a Creator. Pause not here, Distracted maid! ah, leave the breathless form, On whose cold cheek thy tears so swiftly fall, Too unavailing! On this stone, she cries, My Luco sat, and to the wand'ring stars Pointed my eye, while from his gentle tongue Fell old traditions of his country's woe. Where now shall Incilanda seek him? Hence, Defenceless moumer, ere the dreary night Wrap thee in added horror. Oh, Despair, How eagerly thou rend'st the heart! She pines In anguish deep, and sullen: Luco's form Pursues her, lives in restless thought, and chides Soft consolation. Banish'd from his arms, She seeks the cold embrace of death; her soul Escapes in one sad sigh. Too hapless maid! [ 15] Yet happier far than he thou lov'dst; his tear, His sigh, his groan avail not, for they plead Most weakly with a Christian. Sink, thou wretch, Whose act shall on the cheek of Albion's sons Throw Shame's red blush: thou, who hast frighted far Those simple wretches from thy God, and taught Their erring minds to moum his * partial love, Profusely pour'd on thee, while they are left Neglected to thy mercy. Thus deceiv'd, How doubly dark must be their road to death! Luco is borne around the neighb'ring isles, Losing the knowledge of his native shore * Indians have been often heard to say, in their complaining moments, "God Almighty no love us well; he be good to } buckera; he bid buckera bum us; he no bum buckera." { White man [ 16] Amid the pathless wave; destin'd to plant The sweet luxuriant cane. He strives to please, Nor once complains, but greatly smothers grief. His hands are blister'd, and his feet are worn, Till ew'ry stroke dealt by his mattock gives Keen agony to life; while from his breast The sigh arises, burthen'd with the name Of Incilanda. Time inures the youth, His limbs grow nervous, strain'd by willing toil; And resignation, or a calm despair, (Most useful either) lulls him to repose. A Christian renegade, that from his soul Abjures the tenets of our schools, nor dreads A future punishment, nor hopes for mercy, Had fled from England, to avoid those laws [ 17] Which must have made his life a retribution To violated justice, and had gain'd, By fawning guile, the confidence (ill placed) Of Luco's master. O'er the slave he stands With knotted whip, lest fainting nature shun The task too arduous, while his cruel soul, Unnat'ral, ever feeds, with gross delight, Upon his suff rings. Many slaves there were, But none who could supress the sigh, and bend, So quietly as Luco: long he bore The stripes, that from his manly bosom drew The sanguine stream (too little priz'd); at length Hope fled his soul, giving her struggles o'er, And he resolv'd to die. The sun had reach'd His zenith—pausing faintly, Luco stood, Leaning upon his hoe, while mem'ry brought, In the moment of greatest suffer he thinks about his family and the people he left behind. [ 18] In piteous imag'ry, his aged father, His poor fond mother, and his faithful maid: The mental group in wildest motion set Fruitless imagination; fury, grief, Alternate shame, the sense of insult, all Conspire to aid the inward storm; yet words Were no relief, he stood in silent woe. Gorgon, remorseless Christian, saw the slave Stand musing, 'mid the ranks, and, stealing soft Behind the studious Luco, struck his cheek With a too-heavy whip, that reach'd his eye, Making it dark for ever. Luco turn'd, In strongest agony, and with his hoe Struck the rude Christian on the forehead. Pride, With hateful malice, seize on Gorgon's soul, moment of climax, she shows the slaves taking violence against the planter. (RUDE CRISTIAN). [ 19] By nature fierce; while Luco sought the beach, And plung'd beneath the wave; but near him lay A planter's barge, whose seamen grasp'd his hair Dragging to life a wretch who wish'd to die. Rumour now spreads the tale, while Gorgon's breath Envenom'd, aids her blast: imputed crimes Oppose the plea of Luco, till he scorns Even a just defence, and stands prepared. The planters, conscious that to fear alone They owe their cruel pow'r, resolve to blend New torment with the pangs of death, and hold Their victims high in dreadful view, to fright The wretched number left. Luco is chain'd To a huge tree, his fellow-slaves are ranged To share the horrid sight; fuel is plac'd