UNIVERSITY OF PRISHTINA

FACULTY OF PHILOLOGY

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

ROMANTICISM

LITERATURE

Shqiprim Cani

2014

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Contents

Fiction/Novels: Pride And Prejudice (Jane Austen)…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………3 Sense And Sensibility (Jane Austen) ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………6 Emma (Jane Austen) …………………………………………………………………………..……………………………………………………………8 Ivanhoe (Walter Scott)……………………………………………………………………………………………………..………..………………….…10 Frankestein (Mary Shelley )………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…….……12

Poetry: Reeds Of Innocence (William Blake) …………………………………………………………………...…………………………………………14

The Tyger (William Blake) ……………………………………………………………………………………….………………………………………15

London (William Blake) …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… .…………..…………16

A Poison-Tree (Will iam Blake) ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…………17

A Red Red Rose (Robert Burns) ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..……18

The Solitary Reaper (Will iam Wordsworth) ………………………………………………………………………………………………….……19

Upon Westminster Bridge (William Wordsworth) ……………………………………………………………………………………………20

Kubla Khan (Samuel Taylor Coleridge) ……………………………………………………………………………………………………..…………21

The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner (Samuel Taylor Coleridge) ………………………………………………………………...………22

She Walks In Beauty (George Gordon Byron) ………………………………………………………………….………….……….………...…23

When We Two Parted (George Gordon Byron) ………………………………………………………………………………………..………24

Ozymandias (Percy Bysshe Shelley) ………………………………………………………………………………………………………….………25

Ode To The West Wind (Percy Bysshe Shelley) ……………………………………………………………………….………….…….....…26

Ode To Autumn (John Keats) ………………………………………………………………….……………………………….………………...…27

Ode To A Grecian Urn (John Keats) ………………………………………………………………….……………………………………….…28

Non-Fiction:

Preface to Lyrical Ballads (William Wordsworth) ………………………………………………………………….……………………….…29

A Defense Of Poetry (Percy Bysshe Shelley ) ………………………………………………………………………………………...…………31

Other

Most Used Exam Questions……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………32

Fiction Movies………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…33

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Fiction/Novels

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (Jane Austen)

The news that a wealthy young gentleman named Charles Bingley has rented the manor of Netherfield

Park causes a great stir in the nearby village of Longbourn, especially in the Bennet household. The

Bennets have five unmarried daughters—from oldest to youngest, Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, and

Lydia—and Mrs. Bennet is desperate to see them all married. After Mr. Bennet pays a social visit to Mr.

Bingley, the Bennets attend a ball at which Mr. Bingley is present. He is taken with Jane and spends

much of the evening dancing with her. His close friend, Mr. Darcy, is less pleased with the evening and

haughtily refuses to dance with Elizabeth, which makes everyone view him as arrogant and obnoxious.

At social functions over subsequent weeks, however, Mr. Darcy finds himself increasingly attracted to

Elizabeth’s charm and intelligence. Jane’s friendship with Mr. Bingley also continues to burgeon, and

Jane pays a visit to the Bingley mansion. On her journey to the house she is caught in a downpour and

catches ill, forcing her to stay at Netherfield for several days. In order to tend to Jane, Elizabeth hikes

through muddy fields and arrives with a spattered dress, much to the disdain of the snobbish Miss

Bingley, Charles Bingley’s sister. Miss Bingley’s spite only increases when she notices that Darcy, whom

she is pursuing, pays quite a bit of attention to Elizabeth.

When Elizabeth and Jane return home, they find Mr. Collins visiting their household. Mr. Collins is a

young clergyman who stands to inherit Mr. Bennet’s property, which has been “entailed,” meaning that

it can only be passed down to male heirs. Mr. Collins is a pompous fool, though he is quite enthralled by

the Bennet girls. Shortly after his arrival, he makes a proposal of marriage to Elizabeth. She turns him

down, wounding his pride. Meanwhile, the Bennet girls have become friendly with militia officers

stationed in a nearby town. Among them is Wickham, a handsome young soldier who is friendly toward

Elizabeth and tells her how Darcy cruelly cheated him out of an inheritance.

At the beginning of winter, the Bingleys and Darcy leave Netherfield and return to London, much to

Jane’s dismay. A further shock arrives with the news that Mr. Collins has become engaged to Charlotte

Lucas, Elizabeth’s best friend and the poor daughter of a local knight. Charlotte explains to Elizabeth that

she is getting older and needs the match for financial reasons. Charlotte and Mr. Collins get married and

Elizabeth promises to visit them at their new home. As winter progresses, Jane visits the city to see

friends (hoping also that she might see Mr. Bingley). However, Miss Bingley visits her and behaves

rudely, while Mr. Bingley fails to visit her at all. The marriage prospects for the Bennet girls appear

bleak.

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That spring, Elizabeth visits Charlotte, who now lives near the home of Mr. Collins’s patron, Lady

Catherine de Bourgh, who is also Darcy’s aunt. Darcy calls on Lady Catherine and encounters Elizabeth,

whose presence leads him to make a number of visits to the Collins’s home, where she is staying. One

day, he makes a shocking proposal of marriage, which Elizabeth quickly refuses. She tells Darcy that she

considers him arrogant and unpleasant, then scolds him for steering Bingley away from Jane and

disinheriting Wickham. Darcy leaves her but shortly thereafter delivers a letter to her. In this letter, he

admits that he urged Bingley to distance himself from Jane, but claims he did so only because he

thought their romance was not serious. As for Wickham, he informs Elizabeth that the young officer is a

liar and that the real cause of their disagreement was Wickham’s attempt to elope with his young sister,

Georgiana Darcy.

This letter causes Elizabeth to reevaluate her feelings about Darcy. She returns home and acts coldly

toward Wickham. The militia is leaving town, which makes the younger, rather man-crazy Bennet girls

distraught. Lydia manages to obtain permission from her father to spend the summer with an old

colonel in Brighton, where Wickham’s regiment will be stationed. With the arrival of June, Elizabeth

goes on another journey, this time with the Gardiners, who are relatives of the Bennets. The trip takes

her to the North and eventually to the neighborhood of Pemberley, Darcy’s estate. She visits Pemberley,

after making sure that Darcy is away, and delights in the building and grounds, while hearing from

Darcy’s servants that he is a wonderful, generous master. Suddenly, Darcy arrives and behaves cordially

toward her. Making no mention of his proposal, he entertains the Gardiners and invites Elizabeth to

meet his sister.

Shortly thereafter, however, a letter arrives from home, telling Elizabeth that Lydia has eloped with

Wickham and that the couple is nowhere to be found, which suggests that they may be living together

out of wedlock. Fearful of the disgrace such a situation would bring on her entire family, Elizabeth

hastens home. Mr. Gardiner and Mr. Bennet go off to search for Lydia, but Mr. Bennet eventually

returns home empty-handed. Just when all hope seems lost, a letter comes from Mr. Gardiner saying

that the couple has been found and that Wickham has agreed to marry Lydia in exchange for an annual

income. The Bennets are convinced that Mr. Gardiner has paid off Wickham, but Elizabeth learns that

the source of the money, and of her family’s salvation, was none other than Darcy.

Now married, Wickham and Lydia return to Longbourn briefly, where Mr. Bennet treats them coldly.

They then depart for Wickham’s new assignment in the North of England. Shortly thereafter, Bingley

returns to Netherfield and resumes his courtship of Jane. Darcy goes to stay with him and pays visits to

the Bennets but makes no mention of his desire to marry Elizabeth. Bingley, on the other hand, presses

his suit and proposes to Jane, to the delight of everyone but Bingley’s haughty sister. While the family

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celebrates, Lady Catherine de Bourgh pays a visit to Longbourn. She corners Elizabeth and says that she

has heard that Darcy, her nephew, is planning to marry her. Since she considers a Bennet an unsuitable

match for a Darcy, Lady Catherine demands that Elizabeth promise to refuse him. Elizabeth spiritedly

refuses, saying she is not engaged to Darcy, but she will not promise anything against her own

happiness. A little later, Elizabeth and Darcy go out walking together and he tells her that his feelings

have not altered since the spring. She tenderly accepts his proposal, and both Jane and Elizabeth are

married.

Themes:

-Love

-Reputation

-Class

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SENSE AND SENSIBILITY (Jane Austen)

When Mr. Henry Dashwood dies, leaving all his money to his first wife's son John Dashwood, his second

wife and her three daughters are left with no permanent home and very little income. Mrs. Dashwood

and her daughters (Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret) are invited to stay with their distant relations, the

Middletons, at Barton Park. Elinor is sad to leave their home at Norland because she has become closely

attached to Edward Ferrars, the brother-in-law of her half-brother John. However, once at Barton Park,

Elinor and Marianne discover many new acquaintances, including the retired officer and bachelor

Colonel Brandon, and the gallant and impetuous John Willoughby, who rescues Marianne after she

twists her ankle running down the hills of Barton in the rain. Willoughby openly and unabashedly courts

Marianne, and together the two flaunt their attachment to one another, until Willoughby suddenly

announces that he must depart for London on business, leaving Marianne lovesick and miserable.

Meanwhile, Anne and Lucy Steele, two recently discovered relations of Lady Middleton's mother, Mrs.

Jennings, arrive at Barton Park as guests of the Middletons. Lucy ingratiates herself to Elinor and informs

her that she (Lucy) has been secretly engaged to Mr. Ferrars for a whole year. Elinor initially assumes

that Lucy is referring to Edward's younger brother, Robert, but is shocked and pained to learn that Lucy

is actually referring to her own beloved Edward.

In Volume II of the novel, Elinor and Marianne travel to London with Mrs. Jennings. Colonel Brandon

informs Elinor that everyone in London is talking of an engagement between Willoughby and Marianne,

though Marianne has not told her family of any such attachment. Marianne is anxious to be reunited

with her beloved Willoughby, but when she sees him at a party in town, he cruelly rebuffs her and then

sends her a letter denying that he ever had feelings for her. Colonel Brandon tells Elinor of Willoughby's

history of callousness and debauchery, and Mrs. Jennings confirms that Willoughby, having squandered

his fortune, has become engaged to the wealthy heiress Miss Grey.

In Volume III, Lucy's older sister inadvertently reveals the news of Lucy's secret engagement to Edward

Ferrars. Edward's mother is outraged at the information and disinherits him, promising his fortune to

Robert instead. Meanwhile, the Dashwood sisters visit family friends at Cleveland on their way home

from London. At Cleveland, Marianne develops a severe cold while taking long walks in the rain, and she

falls deathly ill. Upon hearing of her illness, Willoughby comes to visit, attempting to explain his

misconduct and seek forgiveness. Elinor pities him and ultimately shares his story with Marianne, who

finally realizes that she behaved imprudently with Willoughby and could never have been happy with

him anyway. Mrs. Dashwood and Colonel Brandon arrive at Cleveland and are relieved to learn that

Marianne has begun to recover.

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When the Dashwoods return to Barton, they learn from their manservant that Lucy Steele and Mr.

Ferrars are engaged. They assume that he means Edward Ferrars, and are thus unsurprised, but Edward

himself soon arrives and corrects their misconception: it was Robert, not himself, whom the money-

grubbing Lucy ultimately decided to marry. Thus,x Edward is finally free to propose to his beloved Elinor,

and not long after, Marianne and Colonel Brandon become engaged as well. The couples live together at

Delaford and remain in close touch with their mother and younger sister at Barton Cottage.

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EMMA (Jane Austen)

Although convinced that she herself will never marry, Emma Woodhouse, a precocious twenty-year-old

resident of the village of Highbury, imagines herself to be naturally gifted in conjuring love matches.

After self-declared success at matchmaking between her governess and Mr. Weston, a village widower,

Emma takes it upon herself to find an eligible match for her new friend, Harriet Smith. Though Harriet’s

parentage is unknown, Emma is convinced that Harriet deserves to be a gentleman’s wife and sets her

friend’s sights on Mr. Elton, the village vicar. Meanwhile, Emma persuades Harriet to reject the proposal

of Robert Martin, a well-to-do farmer for whom Harriet clearly has feelings.

Harriet becomes infatuated with Mr. Elton under Emma’s encouragement, but Emma’s plans go awry

when Elton makes it clear that his affection is for Emma, not Harriet. Emma realizes that her obsession

with making a match for Harriet has blinded her to the true nature of the situation. Mr. Knightley,

Emma’s brother-in-law and treasured friend, watches Emma’s matchmaking efforts with a critical eye.

He believes that Mr. Martin is a worthy young man whom Harriet would be lucky to marry. He and

Emma quarrel over Emma’s meddling, and, as usual, Mr. Knightley proves to be the wiser of the pair.

Elton, spurned by Emma and offended by her insinuation that Harriet is his equal, leaves for the town of

Bath and marries a girl there almost immediately.

Emma is left to comfort Harriet and to wonder about the character of a new visitor expected in

Highbury—Mr. Weston’s son, Frank Churchill. Frank is set to visit his father in Highbury after having

been raised by his aunt and uncle in London, who have taken him as their heir. Emma knows nothing

about Frank, who has long been deterred from visiting his father by his aunt’s illnesses and complaints.

Mr. Knightley is immediately suspicious of the young man, especially after Frank rushes back to London

merely to have his hair cut. Emma, however, finds Frank delightful and notices that his charms are

directed mainly toward her. Though she plans to discourage these charms, she finds herself flattered

and engaged in a flirtation with the young man. Emma greets Jane Fairfax, another addition to the

Highbury set, with less enthusiasm. Jane is beautiful and accomplished, but Emma dislikes her because

of her reserve and, the narrator insinuates, because she is jealous of Jane.

Suspicion, intrigue, and misunderstandings ensue. Mr. Knightley defends Jane, saying that she deserves

compassion because, unlike Emma, she has no independent fortune and must soon leave home to work

as a governess. Mrs. Weston suspects that the warmth of Mr. Knightley’s defense comes from romantic

feelings, an implication Emma resists. Everyone assumes that Frank and Emma are forming an

attachment, though Emma soon dismisses Frank as a potential suitor and imagines him as a match for

Harriet. At a village ball, Knightley earns Emma’s approval by offering to dance with Harriet, who has just

been humiliated by Mr. Elton and his new wife. The next day, Frank saves Harriet from Gypsy beggars.

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When Harriet tells Emma that she has fallen in love with a man above her social station, Emma believes

that she means Frank. Knightley begins to suspect that Frank and Jane have a secret understanding, and

he attempts to warn Emma. Emma laughs at Knightley’s suggestion and loses Knightley’s approval when

she flirts with Frank and insults Miss Bates, a kindhearted spinster and Jane’s aunt, at a picnic. When

Knightley reprimands Emma, she weeps.

News comes that Frank’s aunt has died, and this event paves the way for an unexpected revelation that

slowly solves the mysteries. Frank and Jane have been secretly engaged; his attentions to Emma have

been a screen to hide his true preference. With his aunt’s death and his uncle’s approval, Frank can now

marry Jane, the woman he loves. Emma worries that Harriet will be crushed, but she soon discovers that

it is Knightley, not Frank, who is the object of Harriet’s affection. Harriet believes that Knightley shares

her feelings. Emma finds herself upset by Harriet’s revelation, and her distress forces her to realize that

she is in love with Knightley. Emma expects Knightley to tell her he loves Harriet, but, to her delight,

Knightley declares his love for Emma. Harriet is soon comforted by a second proposal from Robert

Martin, which she accepts. The novel ends with the marriage of Harriet and Mr. Martin and that of

Emma and Mr. Knightley, resolving the question of who loves whom after all.

Themes:

-Marriage and Social Status

-The Confined Nature of Women’s Existence

-The Blinding Power of Imagination

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IVANHOE (Sir Walter Scott)

It is a dark time for England. Four generations after the Norman conquest of the island, the tensions

between Saxons and Normans are at a peak; the two peoples even refuse to speak one another's

languages. King Richard is in an Austrian prison after having been captured on his way home from the

Crusades; his avaricious brother, Prince John, sits on the throne, and under his reign the Norman nobles

have begun routinely abusing their power. Saxon lands are capriciously repossessed, and many Saxon

landowners are made into serfs. These practices have enraged the Saxon nobility, particularly the fiery

Cedric of Rotherwood. Cedric is so loyal to the Saxon cause that he has disinherited his son Ivanhoe for

following King Richard to war. Additionally, Ivanhoe fell in love with Cedric's high-born ward Rowena,

whom Cedric intends to marry to Athelstane, a descendent of a long-dead Saxon king. Cedric hopes that

the union will reawaken the Saxon royal line.

Unbeknownst to his father, Ivanhoe has recently returned to England disguised as a religious pilgrim.

Assuming a new disguise as the Disinherited Knight, he fights in the great tournament at Ashby-de-la-

Zouche. Here, with the help of a mysterious Black Knight, he vanquishes his great enemy, the Templar

Brian de Bois-Guilbert, and wins the tournament. He names Rowena the Queen of Love and Beauty, and

reveals his identity to the crowd. But he is badly wounded and collapses on the field. In the meantime,

the wicked Prince John has heard a rumor that Richard is free from his Austrian prison. He and his

advisors, Waldemar Fitzurse, Maurice de Bracy, and Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, begin plotting how to stop

Richard from returning to power in England.

John has a scheme to marry Rowena to de Bracy; unable to wait, de Bracy kidnaps Cedric's party on its

way home from the tournament, imprisoning the Saxons in Front-de-Boeuf's castle of Torquilstone.

With the party are Cedric, Rowena, and Athelstane, as well as Isaac and Rebecca, a Jewish father and

daughter who have been tending to Ivanhoe after his injury, and Ivanhoe himself. De Bracy attempts to

convince Rowena to marry him, while de Bois-Guilbert attempts to seduce Rebecca, who has fallen in

love with Ivanhoe. Both men fail, and the castle is attacked by a force led by the Black Knight who

helped Ivanhoe at the tournament. Fighting with the Black Knight are the legendary outlaws of the

forest, Robin Hood and his merry men. The villains are defeated and the prisoners are freed, but de

Bois-Guilbert succeeds in kidnapping Rebecca. As the battle winds down, Ulrica, a Saxon crone, lights the

castle on fire, and it burns to the ground, engulfing both Ulrica and Front-de-Boeuf.

At Templestowe, the stronghold of the Knights-Templars, de Bois-Guilbert comes under fire from his

commanders for bringing a Jew into their sacred fortress. It is speculated among the Templars that

perhaps Rebecca is a sorceress who has enchanted de Bois-Guilbert against his will; the Grand Master of

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the Templars concurs and orders a trial for Rebecca. On the advice of de Bois-Guilbert, who has fallen in

love with her, Rebecca demands a trial-by-combat, and can do nothing but await a hero to defend her.

To his dismay, de Bois-Guilbert is appointed to fight for the Templars: if he wins, Rebecca will be killed,

and if he loses, he himself will die. At the last moment, Ivanhoe appears to defend Rebecca, but he is so

exhausted from the journey that de Bois-Guilbert unseats him in the first pass. But Ivanhoe wins a

strange victory when de Bois-Guilbert falls dead from his horse, killed by his own conflicting passions.

In the meantime, the Black Knight has defeated an ambush carried out by Waldemar Fitzurse and

announced himself as King Richard, returned to England at last. When Athelstane steps out of the way,

Ivanhoe and Rowena are married; Rebecca visits Rowena one last time to thank her for Ivanhoe's role in

saving her life. Rebecca and Isaac are sailing for their new home in Granada; Ivanhoe goes on to have a

heroic career under King Richard, until the king's untimely death puts an end to all his worldly projects.

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FRANKENSTEIN (Mary Shelley)

In a series of letters, Robert Walton, the captain of a ship bound for the North Pole, recounts to his sister

back in England the progress of his dangerous mission. Successful early on, the mission is soon

interrupted by seas full of impassable ice. Trapped, Walton encounters Victor Frankenstein, who has

been traveling by dog-drawn sledge across the ice and is weakened by the cold. Walton takes him

aboard ship, helps nurse him back to health, and hears the fantastic tale of the monster that

Frankenstein created.

Victor first describes his early life in Geneva. At the end of a blissful childhood spent in the company of

Elizabeth Lavenza (his cousin in the 1818 edition, his adopted sister in the 1831 edition) and friend

Henry Clerval, Victor enters the university of Ingolstadt to study natural philosophy and chemistry.

There, he is consumed by the desire to discover the secret of life and, after several years of research,

becomes convinced that he has found it.

Armed with the knowledge he has long been seeking, Victor spends months feverishly fashioning a

creature out of old body parts. One climactic night, in the secrecy of his apartment, he brings his

creation to life. When he looks at the monstrosity that he has created, however, the sight horrifies him.

After a fitful night of sleep, interrupted by the specter of the monster looming over him, he runs into the

streets, eventually wandering in remorse. Victor runs into Henry, who has come to study at the

university, and he takes his friend back to his apartment. Though the monster is gone, Victor falls into a

feverish illness.

Sickened by his horrific deed, Victor prepares to return to Geneva, to his family, and to health. Just

before departing Ingolstadt, however, he receives a letter from his father informing him that his

youngest brother, William, has been murdered. Grief-stricken, Victor hurries home. While passing

through the woods where William was strangled, he catches sight of the monster and becomes

convinced that the monster is his brother’s murderer. Arriving in Geneva, Victor finds that Justine

Moritz, a kind, gentle girl who had been adopted by the Frankenstein household, has been accused. She

is tried, condemned, and executed, despite her assertions of innocence. Victor grows despondent, guilty

with the knowledge that the monster he has created bears responsibility for the death of two innocent

loved ones.

Hoping to ease his grief, Victor takes a vacation to the mountains. While he is alone one day, crossing an

enormous glacier, the monster approaches him. The monster admits to the murder of William but begs

for understanding. Lonely, shunned, and forlorn, he says that he struck out at William in a desperate

attempt to injure Victor, his cruel creator. The monster begs Victor to create a mate for him, a monster

equally grotesque to serve as his sole companion.

Victor refuses at first, horrified by the prospect of creating a second monster. The monster is eloquent

and persuasive, however, and he eventually convinces Victor. After returning to Geneva, Victor heads

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for England, accompanied by Henry, to gather information for the creation of a female monster. Leaving

Henry in Scotland, he secludes himself on a desolate island in the Orkneys and works reluctantly at

repeating his first success. One night, struck by doubts about the morality of his actions, Victor gl ances

out the window to see the monster glaring in at him with a frightening grin. Horrified by the possible

consequences of his work, Victor destroys his new creation. The monster, enraged, vows revenge,

swearing that he will be with Victor on Victor’s wedding night.

Later that night, Victor takes a boat out onto a lake and dumps the remains of the second creature in

the water. The wind picks up and prevents him from returning to the island. In the morning, he finds

himself ashore near an unknown town. Upon landing, he is arrested and informed that he will be tried

for a murder discovered the previous night. Victor denies any knowledge of the murder, but when

shown the body, he is shocked to behold his friend Henry Clerval, with the mark of the monster’s fi ngers

on his neck. Victor falls ill, raving and feverish, and is kept in prison until his recovery, after which he is

acquitted of the crime.

Shortly after returning to Geneva with his father, Victor marries Elizabeth. He fears the monster’s

warning and suspects that he will be murdered on his wedding night. To be cautious, he sends Elizabeth

away to wait for him. While he awaits the monster, he hears Elizabeth scream and realizes that the

monster had been hinting at killing his new bride, not himself. Victor returns home to his father, who

dies of grief a short time later. Victor vows to devote the rest of his life to finding the monster and

exacting his revenge, and he soon departs to begin his quest.

Victor tracks the monster ever northward into the ice. In a dogsled chase, Victor almost catches up with

the monster, but the sea beneath them swells and the ice breaks, leaving an unbridgeable gap between

them. At this point, Walton encounters Victor, and the narrative catches up to the time of Walton’s

fourth letter to his sister.

Walton tells the remainder of the story in another series of letters to his sister. Victor, already ill when

the two men meet, worsens and dies shortly thereafter. When Walton returns, several days later, to the

room in which the body lies, he is startled to see the monster weeping over Victor. The monster tells

Walton of his immense solitude, suffering, hatred, and remorse. He asserts that now that his creator has

died, he too can end his suffering. The monster then departs for the northernmost ice to die.

Themes:

-Dangerous Knowledge

-Sublime Nature

-Monstrosity

-Secrecy

http://www.sparknotes.com/sparknotes/video/frankenstein

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Poetry

Reeds Of Innocence (William Blake)

This poem consists of five quatrains, some of which follow the heroic stanza form. The rhyme scheme of

the “Introduction” varies depending upon the stanza. Stanzas 1 and 4 follow the traditional ABAB

pattern, while stanzas 2, 3, and 5 use an ABCB pattern. The first and fourth stanzas begin with “Piping”

and the noun form “Piper,” juxtaposing the musical nature of the speaker with the most musical rhymes

of the poem

The poet sees a child in the sky, upon a cloud. This child is both an embodiment of innocence, as he is

young, and the inspiration behind poetry, as he charges the shepherd to play, sing, and write. That the

child charges the shepherd to play the song specifically about “a Lamb” indicates one of the major foci

of Blake’s work, the portrayal of Jesus as the innocent, spotless Lamb of Christianity. Ostensibly, the

intended audience for this collection is also innocent, as the poet writes, “Every child may joy to hear.” It

is not only children, however, but also the childlike at heart who will appreciate his works

Using the reed for a pen and stained water for the ink connects even the act of creation to nature. The

easily acceptable tools provided by the natural world serve to emphasize both the spontaneity of the

works that follow and their place as responses to the bounty and beauty of nature. His subject matter

will (allegedly) be “happy cheer” throughout, although several poems of the Songs of Innocence belive

this suggestion.

The shepherd's progression from piping, to singing, and finally to writing parallels the poet's own

progression from inspiration, the music, to the initial composition of the poem, the lyrics, and finally the

creative act of putting the words on paper. The poem wishes “that all may read,” a phrasing which

suggests the superiority of the written word over the recited word in the former's ability to reach a

wider audience and to exist apart from the author. Blake's own vocations as printer and engraver are

therefore vindicated over that of the performer.

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The Tyger (William Blake)

The poem begins with the speaker asking a fearsome tiger what kind of divine being could have created

it: “What immortal hand or eye/ Could frame they fearful symmetry?” Each subsequent stanza contains

further questions, all of which refine this first one. From what part of the cosmos could the tiger’s fiery

eyes have come, and who would have dared to handle that fire? What sort of physical presence, and

what kind of dark craftsmanship, would have been required to “twist the sinews” of the tiger’s heart?

The speaker wonders how, once that horrible heart “began to beat,” its creator would have had the

courage to continue the job. Comparing the creator to a blacksmith, he ponders about the anvil and the

furnace that the project would have required and the smith who could have wielded them. And when

the job was done, the speaker wonders, how would the creator have felt? “Did he smile his work to

see?” Could this possibly be the same being who made the lamb?

Form:

The poem is comprised of six quatrains in rhymed couplets. The meter is regular and rhythmic,

its hammering beat suggestive of the smithy that is the poem’s central image. The simplicity

and neat proportions of the poems form perfectly suit its regular structure, in which a string of

questions all contribute to the articulation of a single, central idea.

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London (William Blake)

The speaker wanders through the streets of London and comments on his observations. He sees despair

in the faces of the people he meets and hears fear and repression in their voices. The woeful cry of the

chimney-sweeper stands as a chastisement to the Church, and the blood of a soldier stains the outer

walls of the monarch’s residence. The nighttime holds nothing more promising: the cursing of

prostitutes corrupts the newborn infant and sullies the “Marriage hearse.”

Form

The poem has four quatrains, with alternate lines rhyming. Repetition is the most striking formal feature

of the poem, and it serves to emphasize the prevalence of the horrors the speaker describes.

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A Poison-Tree (William Blake)

The speaker is presenting two scenarios here. In the first, he (we're assuming it's a he) is in a tiff with his

friend, a spat if you will. But wait! There's no need to fret. He told his friend about his anger and… guess

what? His anger went away. Presto! Ah, the power of communication.

Scenario #2: We get the same basic set-up here. The speaker's mad again, but this time he's mad at his

enemy. Will he follow the same route? You bet your bippy he won't. He keeps mum about his anger for

his enemy and, well, that anger just grows. The speaker's anger is only heightened by his fears, and his

continued deception about his true feelings.

Then, in an odd, metaphorical twist, the speaker's anger blossoms into an apple. Yum! At least the

speaker's enemy thinks so. One night, he sneaks into the speaker's garden (presumably for a delicious

apple snack), but it doesn't work out so well for him. The next morning, the speaker is happy to see that

his foe lying dead under the tree that bore the (apparently poison) apple. Not good.

The poem is called "A Poison Tree," so, naturally, vegetation plays an important role. Indeed, the

speaker's anger grows until it eventually produces a poisonous apple that, presumably, kills his "foe."

Plants, trees, and especially the processes necessary to make them grow (water, sun, care) are our

speaker's primary metaphors for how anger develops from a feeling into a destructive action.

18

A Red Red Rose (Robert Burns)

The poem opens with the speaker comparing his love to a "A Red, Red Rose" and to a "melodie / That's

sweetly play'd in tune!" In the second and third stanzas, the speaker describes how deep his love is. And

it's deep. He will love his "bonnie lass" as long as he is alive, and until the world ends. At the end, he says

adios, and notes that he will return, even if he has to walk ten thousand miles.

It's a love poem, plain and simple. In fact, "A Red, Red Rose" just so happens to be one of the most

famous love poems of all time, too. Nearly ever line in the poem says something about love, so it.

The entire last stanza of the poem is a big farewell. The speaker is going somewhere, and it's not clear

where (here's hoping it's Vegas). He makes it seem like he won't be back for a while; he says farewell

twice, then says he will come again, even if he has to walk

ten thousand miles. The concluding farewell makes the poem just a little bit sad; after all, when people

are in love it's never fun when one of them has to leave for a while. But we're holding out hope that the

rumors are true—absence really does make the heart grow fonder.

19

The Solitary Reaper (William Wordsworth)

The poet orders his listener to behold a “solitary Highland lass” reaping and singing by herself in a field.

He says that anyone passing by should either stop here, or “gently pass” so as not to disturb her. As she

“cuts and binds the grain” she “sings a melancholy strain,” and the valley overflows with the beautiful,

sad sound. The speaker says that the sound is more welcome than any chant of the nightingale to weary

travelers in the desert, and that the cuckoo-bird in spring never sang with a voice so thrilling.

Impatient, the poet asks, “Will no one tell me what she sings?” He speculates that her song might be

about “old, unhappy, far-off things, / And battles long ago,” or that it might be humbler, a simple song

about “matter of today.” Whatever she sings about, he says, he listened “motionless and still,” and as he

traveled up the hill, he carried her song with him in his heart long after he could no longer hear it.

Form

The four eight-line stanzas of this poem are written in a tight iambic tetrameter. Each follows a rhyme

scheme of ABABCCDD, though in the first and last stanzas the “A” rhyme is off (field/self and

sang/work).

20

Upon Westminster Bridge (William Wordsworth)

The speaker declares that he has found the most beautiful scene on earth. You'd have to be someone

with no spiritual sense, no taste for beauty, to pass over the Westminster Bridge that morning without

stopping to marvel at the sights. London is wearing the morning's beauty like a fine shirt or cape.

London, you're lookin' good.

The time is so early that all is quiet. The various landmarks visible from the bridge, including St. Paul's

Cathedral and the Tower of London, stand before him in all their grandeur in the morning light.

Fortunately, there happens to be no "London fog" to obscure the view.

The speaker compares the sunlight on the buildings to the light that shines on the countryside, and he

seems surprised to feel more at peace in the bustling city than he has anywhere else. The River Thames

moves slowly beneath him. In a burst of emotion, he pictures the city as blissfully asleep before another

busy day.

Wordsworth's claim that his vision of London is the best on earth is clearly an exaggeration, not to

mention impossible to verify. But it's an innocent exaggeration, one that puts us "in the moment" of his

passing experience. It's really not much different from an expression that many people use all the time

nowadays: saying that such-and-such is the most fun ever, or the best movie ever, or the most awkward

party ever. In other words, Wordsworth talks a little like a contemporary teenager.

21

Kubla Khan (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

The speaker describes the “stately pleasure-dome” built in Xanadu according to the decree of Kubla

Khan, in the place where Alph, the sacred river, ran “through caverns measureless to man / Down to a

sunless sea.” Walls and towers were raised around “twice five miles of fertile ground,” filled with

beautiful gardens and forests. A “deep romantic chasm” slanted down a green hill, occasionally spewing

forth a violent and powerful burst of water, so great that it flung boulders up with it “like rebounding

hail.” The river ran five miles through the woods, finally sinking “in tumult to a lifeless ocean.” Amid that

tumult, in the place “as holy and enchanted / As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted / By woman

wailing to her demon-lover,” Kubla heard “ancestral voices” bringing prophesies of war. The pleasure-

dome’s shadow floated on the waves, where the mingled sounds of the fountain and the caves could be

heard. “It was a miracle of rare device,” the speaker says, “A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!”

The speaker says that he once saw a “damsel with a dulcimer,” an Abyssinian maid who played her

dulcimer and sang “of Mount Abora.” He says that if he could revive “her symphony and song” within

him, he would rebuild the pleasure-dome out of music, and all who heard him would cry “Beware!” of

“His flashing eyes, his floating hair!” The hearers would circle him thrice and close their eyes with “holy

dread,” knowing that he had tasted honeydew, “and drunk the milk of Paradise.”

Form

The first stanza is written in tetrameter with a rhyme scheme of ABAABCCDEDE, alternating between

staggered rhymes and couplets. The second stanza expands into tetrameter and follows roughly the

same rhyming pattern, also expanded— ABAABCCDDFFGGHIIHJJ. The third stanza tightens into

tetrameter and rhymes ABABCC. The fourth stanza continues the tetrameter of the third and rhymes

ABCCBDEDEFGFFFGHHG.

22

The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

Three guys are on the way to a wedding celebration when an old sailor (the Mariner) stops one of them at the door (we'll call him the Wedding Guest). Using his hypnotic eyes to hold the attention of the Wedding Guest, he starts telling a story about a disastrous journey he took. The Wedding Guest really wants to go party, but he can't pry himself away from this grizzled old mariner. The Mariner begins his story. They left port, and the ship sailed down near Antarctica to get away from a bad storm, but then they get caught in a dangerous, foggy ice field. An albatross shows up to steer them through the fog and provide good winds, but then the Mariner decides to shoot it. Oops.

Pretty soon the sailors lose their wind, and it gets really hot. They run out of water, and everyone blames the Mariner. The ship seems to be haunted by a bad spirit, and weird stuff starts appearing, like slimy creatures that walk on the ocean. The Mariner's crewmates decide to hang the dead albatross around his neck to remind him of his error.

Everyone is literally dying of thirst. The Mariner sees another ship's sail at a distance. He wants to yell out, but his mouth is too dry, so he sucks some of his own blood to moisten his lips. He's like, "A ship! We're saved." Sadly, the ship is a ghost ship piloted by two spirits, Death and Life -in-Death, who have to be the last people you'd want to meet on a journey. Everyone on the Mariner's ship dies.

The wedding guest realizes, "Ah! You're a ghost!" But the Mariner says, "Well, actually, I was the only one who didn't die." He continues his story: he's on a boat with a lot of dead bodies, surrounded by an ocean full of slimy things. Worse, these slimy things are nasty water snakes. But the Mariner escapes his curse by unconsciously blessing the hideous snakes, and the albatross drops off his neck into the ocean.

The Mariner falls into a sweet sleep, and it finally rains when he wakes up. A storm strikes up in the distance, and all the dead sailors rise like zombies to pilot the ship. The sailors don't actually come back to life. Instead, angels fill their bodies, and another supernatural spirit under the ocean seems to push the boat. The Mariner faints and hears two voices talking about how he killed the albatross and still has more penance to do. These two mysterious voices explain how the ship is moving.

After a speedy journey, the ship ends up back in port again. The Mariner sees angels standing next to the bodies of all his crewmates. Then a rescue boat shows up to take him back to shore. The Mariner is happy that a guy called "the hermit" is on the rescue boat. The hermit is in a good mood. All of a sudden there's a loud noise, and the Mariner's ship sinks. The hermit's boat picks up the Mariner.

When they get on shore, the Mariner is desperate to tell his story to the hermit. He feels a terrible pain until the story had been told.

In fact, the Mariner says that he still has the same painful need to tell his story, which is why he stopped

the Wedding Guest on this occasion. Wrapping up, the Mariner tells the Wedding Guest that he needs

to learn how to say his prayers and love other people and things. Then the Mariner leaves, and the

Wedding Guest no longer wants to enter the wedding. He goes home and wakes up the next day, as the

famous last lines go, "a sadder and a wiser man."

23

She Walks In Beauty (George Gordon Byron)

The poem is about an unnamed woman. She's really quite striking, and the speaker compares her to lots

of beautiful, but dark, things, like "night" and "starry skies." The second stanza continues to use the

contrast between light and dark, day and night, to describe her beauty. We also learn that her face is

really "pure" and "sweet." The third stanza wraps it all up – she's not just beautiful, she's "good" and

"innocent," to boot.

The speaker never says that he's in love with the woman he describes, but you might very well suspect

that he has the hots for her – after all, he goes on and on about how gorgeous she is. But the final line of

the poem seems to be an attempt to dispel the reader's suspicions: he insists that her "love," at least, is

"innocent." He describes her personality almost as much as her exterior beauty, by the end.

It's important to note that the beautiful woman is a brunette. What's so special about that, you ask?

Well, in Byron's day, conventional English beauties were all pale and blonde. So for him to write a poem

that not only praises the beauty of a woman with "raven" (black) hair, but even goes so far as to say that

real beauty requires a contrast of light and dark, or day and night, was pretty startling.

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When We Two Parted (George Gordon Byron)

The first stanza of “When We Two Parted” sets up the parting of the two lovers: for some reason their

split was accompanied by “silence and tears” (line 2). Upon parting, the speaker’s beloved became

physically cold and pale, a change foreshadowing later sorrow which is taking place as the poet writes.

The second stanza continues the sense of foreboding as the speaker awakes with the morning dew “chill

on my brow” (line 10). He believes this chill to have been a “warning / Of what I feel now” (lines 11-12).

His beloved has broken all vows (line 13), and the sound of the beloved’s name bri ngs shame to both

lover and beloved (lines 15-16).

The name of the beloved carries over into the third stanza as an unknown. An equally unknown “they”

speak the beloved’s name, which sounds as a “knell” (line 18) in the speaker’s ear. He shudders and

wonders why the beloved was so dear (either to him or to others). He compares his love to those others’

concern; they do not know of the speaker’s intimate knowledge of the one they name so casually (lines

21-23). The speaker concludes that he shall mourn the beloved’s loss “Too deeply to tell” (line 24).

In the fourth stanza, the speaker reflects upon his relationship with the beloved. They met “in secret”

(line 25) and so he must mourn “in silence” (line 26). What he mourns is that the beloved could forget

him and be deceitful (lines 27-28). Thus, the speaker concludes that he could not again meet the

beloved many years hence without expressing his pain “with silence and tears” (line 32).

25

Ozymandias (Percy Bysshe Shelley)

The speaker describes a meeting with someone who has traveled to a place where ancient civilizations

once existed. We know from the title that he’s talking about Egypt. The traveler told the speaker a story

about an old, fragmented statue in the middle of the desert. The statue is broken apart, but you can still

make out the face of a person. The face looks stern and powerful, like a ruler. The sculptor did a good

job at expressing the ruler’s personality. The ruler was a wicked guy, but he took care of his people.

On the pedestal near the face, the traveler reads an inscription in which the ruler Ozymandias tells

anyone who might happen to pass by, basically, “Look around and see how awesome I am!” But there is

no other evidence of his awesomeness in the vicinity of his giant, broken statue. There is just a lot of

sand, as far as the eye can see. The traveler ends his story.

The statue that inspired the poem was partially destroyed, and the poem frequently reminds us that the

statue is in ruins. The dilapidated state of the statue symbolizes not only the erosive processes of time,

but also the transience of political leaders and regimes.

26

Ode To The West Wind (Percy Bysshe Shelley)

The speaker of the poem appeals to the West Wind to infuse him with a new spirit and a new power to

spread his ideas. In order to invoke the West Wind, he lists a series of things the wind has done that

illustrate its power: driving away the autumn leaves, placing seeds in the earth, bringing thunderstorms

and the cyclical "death" of the natural world, and stirring up the seas and oceans.

The speaker wishes that the wind could affect him the way it does leaves and clouds and waves.

Because it can’t, he asks the wind to play him like an instrument, bringing out his sadness in its own

musical lament. Maybe the wind can even help him to send his ideas all over the world; even if they’re

not powerful in their own right, his ideas might inspire others. The sad music that the wind will play on

him will become a prophecy. The West Wind of autumn brings on a cold, barren period of winter, but

isn’t winter always followed by a spring?

Although there aren’t any literal funerals in "Ode to the West Wind," there’s plenty of funereal imagery

and symbolism. We’ve got dirges, corpses, the "dying year," a sepulcher, and ashes, just to name a few.

Of course, they don’t all come at once – they’re spread throughout the poem as parts of different

metaphors and trains of images. Taken all together, though, they make us feel like this poem is a kind of

elegy (or lament) just as much as it’s an ode.

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Ode To Autumn (John Keats)

Throughout the poem, the speaker addresses autumn as if it were a person. In the first stanza, he notes

that autumn and the sun are like best friends plotting how to make fruit grow and how to ripen crops

before the harvest. The ripening will lead to the dropping of seeds, which sets the stage for spring

flowers and the whole process starting over again. He tells us about the bees that think summer can last

forever as they buzz around the flowers. But the speaker knows better.

The second stanza describes the period after the harvest, when autumn just hangs out around the

granary where harvested grains are kept. Most of the hard work has already been done, and autumn

can just take a nap in the fields, walk across brooks, or watch the making of cider.

In the third stanza, the speaker notes that the music of spring is a distant memory, but that autumn's

music is pretty cool, too. This music includes images of clouds and harvested fields at sunset, gnats fl ying

around a river, lambs bleating, crickets singing, and birds whistling and twittering. All of the sights and

sounds produce a veritable symphony of beauty.

The poem doesn't miss the opportunity to contrast autumn with its competitors, spring and summer.

(Winter gets left out in the cold – thanks, folks, we'll be here all night). Summer is great, but it has to end

sometime, a fact that the bees don't seem to realize. And spring has some kickin' songs, but autumn's

playlist is just as good.

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Ode To A Grecian Urn (John Keats)

A man is whispering sweet nothings to a Grecian urn, an ancient Greek pot that is covered in

illustrations. He thinks the pot is married to a guy named "Quietness," but they haven’t had sex yet, so

the marriage isn’t official. He also thinks that the urn is the adopted child of "Silence" and "Slow Time."

Then the speaker gives us the urn’s profession: it’s a "historian," and it does a much better job of telling

stories than the speaker possibly could. The speaker looks closer at the urn and tries to figure out what’s

going on in the pictures that are painted on it. Illustrated on the urn is some kind of story that might

involve gods, men, or both. It looks like a bunch of guys are chasing beautiful women through the forest.

People are playing pipes and beating on drums. Everyone looks happy. The scene is chaotic and the

speaker doesn’t know quite what’s happening.

Not only is the urn a better storyteller than the poet, but the musicians in the illustration have sweeter

melodies than the poet. The poet then tries to listen to the music played by the people in the image.

That’s right: even though he can’t hear the music with his ears, he’s trying to listen to it with his "spirit."

He looks at the illustration of a young guy who is playing a song under a tree. Because pictures don’t

change, the man will be playing his song as long as the urn survives, and the tree will always be full and

green.

Then the speaker addresses one of the guys who is chasing a maiden, and he offers some advice:

"You’re never going to make out with that girl, because you’re in a picture, and pictures don’t change,

but don’t worry – at least you’ll always be in love with her, because you’re in a picture, and pictures

don’t change."

The speaker starts freaking out a bit. He’s basically yelling at the urn now. Whereas before he was really

excited about the idea of living in the eternal world of the illustrations, now he’s not so sure. Something

about it seems "cold" to him. He thinks about how, when everyone he knows is dead, the urn will still be

around, telling its story to future generations. The urn is a teacher and friend to mankind. It repeats the

same lesson to every generation: that truth and beauty are the same thing, and this knowledge is all we

need to make it through life.

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Non-Fiction

Preface to Lyrical Ballads (William Wordsworth)

The Lyrical Ballads were fist published in 1798 and consisted of a compilation of poems by Romantic

Poets William Wordsworth, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The collection was an enormously important

contribution to the world of literature both in its entirety, as well as by virtue of the individual poems

that it contained – such works as Coleridge's Rime Of The Ancient Mariner and Wordsworth's 'Tintern

Abbey'. But despite the quality and popularity of the poems themselves, perhaps the Lyrical Ballads'

greatest legacy lies in its Preface added by Wordsworth to the second edition published in 1800.The

original 1798 publication of Lyrical Ballads was issued with an 'Advertisement' by Wordsworth, designed

to prepare the reader for the unorthodox style of poetry the work contained. The 'Advertisement'

consisted of several paragraphs which openly condemn the “gaudiness and inane phraseology of many

modern writers” and asks instead that readers “consent to be pleased in spite of that most dreadful

enemy to [their] pleasures: [their] own pre-established codes of decisions.” (Wordsworth,

1798). The Preface added in 1800 however is a much longer apology of the Poet's own style and was in

fact expanded once again for a further edition in 1802.

In essence the Preface is Wordsworth's poetic manifesto. The most obvious point that Wordsworth

makes in it relates directly to the style and technique used in writing the poems themselves, as well as

to the subject matter or focus of the poems which resides in common, everyday scenes of rural life and

folk.

The principle 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. (Wu: 1994:

p357)

It must be kept in mind that though a reader of today may find nothing unusual in the style employed

throughout the Lyrical Ballads, the simplicity of language and the depiction of ‘common' people, places

and events used by Wordsworth, was in open opposition to the poetic convention of his day. Readers

were used to a complex and often artificial (at leat to Wordsworth) poetic code. Early critics were harsh

in their evaluation of the Lyrical Balladsdeclaring the subject matter ‘shocking' and the style ‘unpoetical'.

The fact that Wordsworth chooses for his characters men, women and children from a rural setting, as

opposed to the more cosmopolitan characters of his contemporaries, leads to another important facet

of his poetry which he expounds in his Preface; Wordsworth held a remarkably close affinity to nature.

He argued that one who lives close to nature (as he himself did for most of his life residing in the English

Lake District), lives closer to the well-spring of human-nature. Many of Wordsworth's poems are

autobiographical in as far as they display a love and deep appreciation of the natural environment as

30

experienced by the poet himself. However even more than a simple aesthetic appreciation of nature,

Wordsworth believed that there a was an element of the Divine to be found in nature, which held a

tremendous potential to mould and even to instruct the minds of men who live in its midst and to

conjure a depth of emotional response unattainable outside of nature. Wordsworth set out in

his Preface to convey that “poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin

from emotion recollected in tranquility.”

It is this emphasis on the emotion behind his poetry that separates Wordsworth's writings from those of

his contemporaries. It is this too that he sees as being the primary objective of the poet. Indeed, a large

portion of his Preface forms a direct response to the question “What is a poet?”. Although the language

is gendered, the answer given by Wordsworth forms a summary of the methods and passions held by

the poet and communicated with such lasting effect to his contemporaries, as well as those literary men

and women who, over following 200 years have built upon his extraordinary vision:

What is a poet? . . . He is a man speaking to men – a man (it is true) endued with more lively

sensibilities, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a

more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind; a man pleased with his

own passions and volitions, and who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him,

delighting to contemplate similar volitions and passions as manifested in the goings-on of the universe,

and habitually impelled to create them where he does not find them.

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A Defense Of Poetry (Percy Bysshe Shelley)

Percy Bysshe Shelley was born to a wealthy family in Sussex, England. He attended Eton and Oxford,

where he was expelled for writing a pamphlet championing atheism. Shelley married twice before he

drowned in a sailing accident in Italy at the age of 29. His first wife committed suicide, and shortly

thereafter he married his second wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, who was the author of Frankenstein

and the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Among

Shelley’s closest friends were the other famous Romantic poets of the day, among them John Keats,

whose death inspired Shelley’s “Adonais,” and Lord Byron.

Shelley’s “Defence of Poetry” is unusual compared with similarly titled “defenses” of poetry. Shelley’s

essay contains no rules for poetry, or aesthetic judgments of his contemporaries. Instead, Shelley’s

philosophical assumptions about poets and poetry can be read as a sort of primer for the Romantic

movement in general. In this essay, written a year before his death, Shelley addresses “The Four Ages of

Poetry,” a witty magazine piece by his friend, Thomas Love Peacock. Peacock’s work teases and jokes

through its definitions and conclusions, specifically that the poetry has become valueless and redundant

in an age of science and technology, and that intelligent people should give up their literary pursuits and

put their intelligence to good use. Shelley takes this treatise and extends it, turning his essay into more

of a rebuttal than a reply. To begin, Shelley turns to reason and imagination, defining reason as logical

thought and imagination as perception, adding, “reason respects the differences, and imagination the

similitudes of things.” From reason and imagination, man may recognize beauty, and it is through

beauty that civilization comes. Language, Shelley contends, shows humanity’s impulse toward order and

harmony, which leads to an appreciation of unity and beauty. Those in “excess” of language are the

poets, whose task it is to impart the pleasures of their experience and observations into poems. Shelley

argues, that civilization advances and thrives with the help of poetry. This assumption then, through

Shelley’s own understanding, marks the poet as a prophet, not a man dispensing forecasts but a person

who “participates in the eternal, the infinite, and the one.” He goes on to place poetry in the column of

divine and organic process: “A poem is the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth . . . the

creation of actions according to the unchangeable forms of human nature, as existing in the mind of the

Creator.” The task of poets then is to interpret and present the poem; Shelley’s metaphor here

explicates: “Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted.”

The next portion of Shelley’s argument approaches the question of morality in poetry. To Shelley, poetry

is utilitarian, as it brings civilization by “awaken*ing+ and enlarg*ing+ the mind itself by rendering it the

receptacle of a thousand unapprehended combinations of thought. Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden

beauty of the world.” Shelley also addresses drama and the critical history of poetry through the ages,

beginning with the classical period, moving through the Christian era, and into the middle ages until he

arrives back in his present day, pronouncing the worth of poets and poetry as “indeed divine,” and the

significant role that poets play, concluding with his famous last line: “Poets are the unacknowledged

legislators of the world.”

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Other

Most used Romanticism Questions:

-Provide a definition term of Romanticism.

-When did the Romantic period start and conclude in England?

-Provide William Wordsworth definition of the poet in his “Preface to Lyrical Ballads”

-Characteristic features of English Romantic Poetry in England.

-Why do the lovers separate in “When we two parted” ?

-What kind of a poem is “Upon Westminster Bridge” ?

-What does the West Wind represent in “Ode To The West Wind” ?

-The main characters in “Ivanhoe”. Which characters make the love triangle?

-What kind of a novel is “Frankenstein”?

-Which Jane Austen character do you like best? Why?

-Is the French revolution significant for the English Romantic age ? Why?

-What does the phrase “an overflow of powerful feelings recollected in tranquility” refer to?

-What kind of a poem is Byron’s “Childe Harold” ?

-Who was the youngest of English Romantic poets ? How old was he when he died?

-What is “A poison Tree” poem about?

-What is the main rhetorical figure in “A red red rose”? Illustrate it.

-What is the major message of “The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner” ?

-Name three major sonnets written by Romantic Poets.

33

Fiction Movies

Jane Austen:

- Pride and Prejudice: http://megashare.info/watch-pride-and-prejudice-online-TVRVM

- Sense And Sensibility: http://www.firedrive.com/file/D51B0E468BE5D07D

- Emma http://megashare.info/watch-emma-online-TlRBNE53PT0

Mary Shelley:

- Frankestein: http://viooz.co/movies/4137-frankenstein-1994.html

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GOOD LUCK

Shqiprim Cani

ShCani 2014