LITERATURA SEGUNDO PARCIAL

Restoration Drama
-Audienceupper class
-2 licensed Theatres: Theatre Royal /Lincolns Fields Theatre
-Women could perform now
-Adapted versions of Shakespeares plays
-2 kinds of drama:

Comedy: of manners, of action, of character and chatter.

-George Etherege: The comical revenge/She would if she could/
The man of mode. He satirizes the false fashions and selfish
behaviours of the time in plots which become very complex but
remain very funny on stage.
-William Wycherley: The country wife. The main character, Horner,
pretends that hes not able to have sex to attract more women,
and the plot explores sexual behaviour between men and women.
-William Congreve: The way of the world. He represents London
society of the time in all its limited interests. The main feminine
character has mind on her own. The view of marriage is opposed to
the usual romantic, and stresses womens independence.
- Aphra Behn: The rover, The forced marriage
-Susannah Centlivre: The cruel gift. one of her themes was the
result of arranged and unsuitable marriages and the false values
involved.
Tragedy:
-Dryden and his rival Shadwell write new versions of the plays of
Shakespeare. The new middle class audience could not accept
much of violence and tragic endingsnew taste.
-Heroic drama:
Thomas Otway: Venice preserved
Dryden: All for love (in blank verse), version of Shakespeare
Antony and Cleopatra.
John Gay: The beggars opera (play with music, it satirizes
politician and false values of society)

Siglo XVIII
Augustan or Classic Age:
The revolution of 1688 end of Stuarts, William of Orange comes to throne
Englishmen occupied in political discussions, trying to improve their
government. In this time, the newspaper is born as a propagandistic
medium to get votes.
1st half of the centuryrapid social development, which polished mens
words and manners
-Government divided (Whigs and Tories), also the Church (Catholics,
Anglicans). Everyone worried about politics and religion, but being
tolerant upon their opponents (as they shared the same general human
characteristics spread of education and the growth of the national spirit)
2nd half of the centurypolitical and social development
-Cynical and corrupt practices of Walpole (premier of the 1 st Tory Cabinet) is
replaced by Pitt.
-Schools are created, clubs and coffeehouses increase
-books and magazines multiplied until the press was the greatest visible
power. Great dailies begin their career of public education (The Chronicle,
Post and Times)
Literary Characteristics
-Triumph of English prose, specially in pamphlets, magazines and
newspapers.(as poetry was inadequate for spreading social and politic
conditions. Used for essays, but prosaic poetry)
-Real literature of the period is the prose. Poetry> artificial. It only serves
us as a study of life.
-Prevalence of realistic writings with polish and refined expressions (as in
the previous period), in addition to the satire (almost every writer of the 1 st
half used by Whigs and Tories, excepting pope)
-Satire: Literary work which searches out the faults of men/institutions to
ridicule them (destructive criticism). The greatest satires (Pope, Addison and
Swift) are not placed with English greatest literature, which is constructive in
spirit.
Term Classic:
-Writers of highest ranking in any nation. First applied to the works of great
Greek and Roman writers (Illiad, Aeneid)
-Period when an unusual number of great writers produce books (augustus
in Rome/Dante in Italy/Queen Anne in England)
-Entirely different meaning in this period. No longer exaggerations and
patriotism of the preceding agessearching the rules in the classics of Horace
and Aristotle. Writers lost individuality and became formal and artificial. Look at life

critically, emphasize intellect rather than inspiration. The form rather than the
content. Pseudo-classicism.

WRITERS
Alexander Pope: He was for a generation the poet of a nation (satiric and
didactic verse). His influence dominated the poetry of his age, he was a model for
many writers. Only important writer of that age who gave his whole life to letters
(otherspolitics and religion, or dependent of patrons and pensions). Little school
education, searched himself among English books classics. Dryden as only master.
-Essay on criticismsums up the art of poetry as taught 1st by Horace and then by
the 18thC. classicists. Though written in heroic couplets, not a poem, but a
storehouse of critical maxims.
-Rape of the Lock masterpiece of its kind, nearer to being a creation.
-Essay on man best known and most quoted. Not poetry except in form. Purpose
vindicate the ways of God to man.
-Dunciad (Iliad of the dunces)began as a controversy concerning Shakespeare, but
turned out to be a coarse and revengeful satire upon the literary men of the age.
Jonathan Swift: From his life we can see the kind of literature he will produceall
together are a monstrous satire on humanity.
-Battle of the Books: an attack on pedantry in literary world of the time. Written in
the form of a parable.
-Bittershack Almanac contains predictions for the year 1708, as determined by
the stars. As he didnt sign his works Isaac Bittershack
-Modest proposal One of his pamphlets. Poor English farmers should raise children
as dainties, to be eaten like pigs.
-Gullivers travelsin this work the satire grows unbearable. Written as an outlet for
the authors own bitterness against fate and human society. Still read with pleasure
for the interesting adventures of the hero. Pretended 4 voyages of Samuel Gulliver,
and his adventures in 4 astonishing countries

Lilliput: Little inhabitants, representing the littleness of humanity. Simple and

convincing style.
Brobdingnag: giants, representing the meanness of humanity.
Laputa: satire upon scientists and philosophers. Flying island up in the air.
Logical conclusion. Land of the Houyhnhnms, intelligent horses which rule
there. Interest Yahoos(frightful race in the appearance of men and living in
unspeakable degradation)

He is the most original writer of his time, and one of the masters of English prose
(for his directness, vigour and simplicity). Even in his most grotesque creations, the
reader never loses the sense of reality, of being present as an eyewitness of these
events. Defoe has the same power, but it seems easier in Robinson Crusoe (hero
and adventures both natural).
Too satiric and destructive, emphasizing the faults and failings of humanity.
Samuel Johnson: He founds, with Joshua Reynolds the Literary Club, a London
dining club, in his period of famous conversations (his idea of conversation was
overcome the adversary at any cost). 2 things worth to be remembered

-The English Dictionary 1st ambitious attempt as an English Lexicon. Even though
his derivations are often faulty and humour in definitions.
-Lives of the poets. Both are valuable not as literature, but as a study of literature.

Revival of Romantic Poetry

While classicism, a new romantic movement made its appearance. Thomsons The
Season1st noteworthy poem, and it increased till the age of Wordsworth and
Scott, when the romanticism dominated literature more than classicism had done.
Expression of lif as seen by imagination, rather than by prosaic common sense.
-marked by strong reaction and protest against the bondage of rule and custom.
-return to nature and plain humanity for its material
-brought again the dream of a golden age in which the stern realities of life were
forgotten.
-marked by intense human sympathy and understanding of the human heart.
-expression of individual genius rather than of established rulesvaried
-Followed a guide, although it had its own genius (return to Elizabethan models)
WRITERS:
Thomas Gray: Elegy written in a country Churchyard most perfect poem of the
age.
Oliver Goldsmith (member of the literary club):
-The deserted village: most familiar poem. Though written in mechanical style, full
of human sympathy and voices-revolt of individual man against institutions.
Fault monotony of its couplets, which could be broken with some of the folk songs
and ballads.
-The Vicar of Wakefield Goldsmith only novel, and 1st romantic novel ever.
Frequent brutalities and indecencies. He refined the novel and elevated it, making it
worthy of the old Anglosaxon ideals
William Cowper:
-Tirocinium, or a review of schools-> shows how school experiences had affected his
mind and health.
-The Castaway: his last poem, cry of despair in which he describes himself in the
sight of friends unable to help.
-The Task: written in blank verse, is Cowpers longest poem. Used to the natural
poetry of Wordsworth and Tennyson, hard to us to appreciate the originality. Much of
it is conventional, but after reading the rimmed essays and artificial couplets
Robert Burns:

Gray, Goldsmith and Cowper dawn of another day / Burns and Blake sunrise.
Blake, only understood by half. His words flow as natural as music doe, and he live
in spiritual city, writing for those who could understand him. Burns speaks straight
from the heart to the primitive emotions of the race. Sad life in open air and his
songs all over the world.
Splendid lyric genius, produced many songs: bonnie doon, my love is like a red,
red rose "Highland Mary" and the soul stirring Scots wha hae (known wherever
English is spoken), composed while galloping over the moor in a storm.
William Blake:
Most independent and original writer of XVIIIth Century.
-earliest works (almost a kid): seems to go back to Elizabethan songwriters for
models.
-Greater part of life no inspiration needed. Followed no mans lead, only his soul.
-The poetical sketches: collection of Blakes earliest poetry much of it written in
boyhood. It contains much incoherent work, but also vert original lines.
-Songs of Innocence/Songs of Experience: 2 different views of the human soul.
Apparently worthless, but it is all pay dirt (shows gleams of golden grains and,
unexpectedly, we find a nugget)
MINOR WRITERS
James Macpherson: unusual figure who catered to the new romantic interest in
the old epic themes. He won fame for a series of literary forgeries.
-Fragments of Ancient poetry, collected in the Highlands.
-Fingal: epic translated from Gaelic
-Temora: another epic in the same strain. In Fingal and Temora, he gives an air of
grandeur to his heroes. He refused to show the original fragments when Irish
historians found incoherenciesaccused of forgery.
Thomas Chatterton: One of the saddest and most interesting figures of the revival
period. When the Ossian forgeries appeared, he started to produce documents,
apparently very old, containing medieval poems, legends around 2 characters:
Thomas Rowley (poet and priest) and William Canynge child of 11. He reproduced
them with Caxtons style. The Rowley Papers (as they were called, increased
(apparently from old church archives, but all his imagination) AElla, Ballad of the
Chorite. In all his work it is very difficult to realize its a boy, he killed himself at
17.

THE FIRST ENGLISH NOVELISTS

-Most important literary phenomenon (as its the most modern, read and
influential).Worked out on English soil.
-Meaning: work of fiction in which the imagination and the intellect combine to
express life in the form of a story and the imagination is always controlled by the
intellect. Individual life is represented with its struggles, temptations, triumphs and
failures. It shows the motives and influences which govern human life, and the
effects of personal choice upon character and destiny.
-Precursors:

-The Greek romances (collection of tales 2nd/6th C.)

-Spanish and Italian pastoral romances (14th and 15th C), inspires by the Eclogues
by Virgil
-Romances of chivalry
In the Elizabethan age novel grows + definite. Sidneys Arcadia, a romance of
chivalry whose pastoral setting is true to nature, not taxed by the appearance of
magic and miracles, and characters seem real men and women. Even nearer is
Lodges Rosalynde, modelled in Italian novella (short story)
In the Puritan Age even nearer, specially in the work of Bunyan (Characters are
men an women)
Until the publication of Richardsons Pamela in 1740, no true novel had appeared in
any literature. Lliterature spread as new readers (spread of education and
newspapers and magazines), apart from the interest of middle class individuals in
real life.
Gothic novelsmysteries and terrors in gloomy lanscapesrebellion against the
increasing commercialism and rationalism opened up to later fiction in the dark,
irrational side of human nature.
Epistolary novel letters
Sentimentalism: literal movement in the middle of 18th century concentrated on the
distressed of the poor people and demonstrates that effusive emotion was evidence
of kindness and goodness. Laurence Stern with A Sentimental Journey to France and
Italy/ Oliver Goldsmith with The Vicar of Wakefield.
WRITERS
Daniel Defoe (Pioneer, but classified among the early novelists):
-First novels took the form of autobiographies. His techniche in most of his novels is
to use a first person narrator.
-Often given the credit for the discovery of the modern novel, but open question.
Even a casual reading of Robinson Crusoe adventure story rather than study of
human character, though he prob. Intended it to be. Other books from him are a mix
of fact, fiction and credulity defy classification, And other so-called novels are little
better than picaresque stories.
-Robinson Crusoe: one of the few books which has held popularity undiminished for
nearly 2 centuries. Story based upon experiences of Alexander Selkirk/Selcraig, who
had been marooned in the island of Juan Fernndez and lived there alone for 5
years. Intense reality (succession of thoughts, feelings and incidents/record of what
the reader would do and feel if he were alone in such place). Naturalness (study of
the human will). The hero represents the human society doing the things now done
by various people.
-Moll Flanders: woman who has been a prostitute, thief but when he tells the story
she has reformed and changed her life moral point about ways of novel. Its the
first example of picaresque novel, narrated from a female perspective
Samuel Richardson:
-Writer of the 1st modern novel
-proposal of writing a series of familiar letters as models to unusual writers.

-Story of a girls inner life, rather than the story of human life on a dessert island.
-Pamela/Virtue rewarded (result of the letters): telling the trials, tribulations and
happy marriage of a sweet maiden in 4 volumes. 1st modern novel.
-Clarissa/The history of a young lady: most human of his heroines. Real woman 8
volumes. Another better sentimental novel.
-Sir Charles Grandison: another series of letters, attempting to tell the story of a
man and an aristocrat. Novel in 7 volumes, whose hero intended to be a model of
aristocratic manners and virtues for middle class people.
Teaching how to write teaching how to live.
Henry Fielding:
Judged by his ability alone, greatest of novel writers and one of the most artistic
writers.
-1st novel: Joseph Andrews It began as a burlesque of dales sentimentality and
conventional virtues of his heroine. Hero brother of Pamela, exposed to same
temptations but who was turned out of doors by his mistress. There the burlesque
ends adventures of Joseph and his companion. He is direct, vigorous, hilarious and
coarse to the point of vulgarity. Full of animal spirits and tells the story of a
vagabond life, only because it interests him
-Jonathan Wilde: story of a rogue which suggests Defoes narrative.
-The History of Tom Jones, a foundling best work, written in ironical tone, episodic
plot following the example of Cervantes Don Quixote.
-Amelia: story of a good with in contrast with an unworthy husband. Vigorous but
coarse figures, his weakness was his lack of taste.
-Journal of a voyage to Lisbon
Tobias Smollett
-apparently tried to carry Fieldings works, but lacked his genius, humour and
kindness. He crowded his pages with brutality, often mistaken for realism. In his
novelsevils of the navy and medical profession
-Roderick Random: adventures related by the hero
-Peregrine Pickle: the worst of his experiences at sea
-Humphrey Clinker: mild adventures of a Welsh family in a journey through England
and Scotland.
Coarse adventures, characteristic of picaresque novels. Imitates Every man in his
humor (Jonson)
Lawrence Sterne
-Reverse of Smollett (whims and vagaries and sentimental tears, which frequently
only disguise a sneer at human grief and pity)
-Tristan Shandy
-A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy combination of fiction, sketches
of travel, and essays on old subjects with brilliant style.

These two novels begin with no real idea of how it was going to turn out. 9 volumes
recording experiences of eccentric Shandy Family. Never finished. Brilliant style.

SIGLO XIX
The Age of Romanticism
The 1st decades of 19th centurytriumph of romanticism in literature and
democracy in government (relationship between them). This is the age of
revolution, after the French revolution (1789), the American Commonwealth
and the free democracy in England, result of ideas spread by literature.
Liberty was an ideal, put in books and pamphlets, all proclaiming the dignity
of common lifecry against every form of class or caste oppression. In this
way, the dream was written to proclaim it and spread it, and then it was part
of mens effort to make it reality.
Historical summary
-Begins in the half of the reign of George III and ends with the ascension of
Victoria in 1837.
-French Revolution: storm centre. Uprising voices which proclaimed the
natural rights of man and the abolition of class distinction liberty equality
and fraternity (match words of rev.)
-Economic conditions: England become the workshop of the world. Wealth
unequally distributed, the skilled labourers even had no job. Two books show
these conditions: Adam Smiths Wealth of Nations and Thomas Paines
Rights of Man. Not literature, but great infl.

-Reforms: England passed from the affairs of France to remedy her own
economic conditions. The continental war come to an end with Napoleons
overthrow in Waterloo, and England turned to the work of reforms at home:
Destruction of African slave trade, mitigation of unjust laws, prevention of
kids labour
Literature Characteristics:
-Romantic Enthusiasm: literature at first reflected the political turmoil of the
age, and when it was over, literature developed a new spirit, which followed
Austen, Wordsworth and Byron patriotic enthusiasm that suggested the
Elizabethan age. In addition to that, Coleridge and Southey formed a
scheme of a Pantisocracy, an ideal commonwealth with the principles of
Mores Utopia.
Essence of the romanticism: literature should reflect spontaneous and
unaffected in nature and man, already noted in the work of Elizabethan
dramatists.
-Age of poetry: the glory of the age is the poetry of Scott, Wordsworth,
Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, More and Southey.
-Women as novelists: woman assumed, for the first time, an important place
in our literature (as she was given education and because of the nature of
the age, intensely emotional). In an extreme point, a new type of novel was
born hysterical, which delighted readers with excited nerves. Some
remarkable authors are Bogey, with supernatural terror and Anne Radcliffe,
with novels with haunted castles, bandits
In contrast with this kind of novel, we have Jane Austen with charming
descriptions of everyday life and Maria Edgeworth with pictures of Irish life.

POETS OF ROMANTICISM. In 1797, romanticism assumed definite form.

Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey were known as Lake Poets(because they
lived and knew each other in the district of the great lakes in Northwestern
England)William Wordsworth: There is often disappointment when one
reads him at first, due to 2 characteristics: simplicity (he set himself to the
task of freeing poetry from all its conceits, speak language of truth and
portray man as he is) and himself (he is not always melodious, he is seldom
graceful and only occasionally inspired, but then few poets can compare to
him).
-Poems of Nature (the greatest ones): shorter poems with noble lines that
live forever in our minds

Sensitive: in The prelude, he compares himself to an Aeolian harp which

answers with harmony to every touch of the wind
Truthful representations: he gives things as they are and is content by let
them speak their own message.

Beauty in the common word: not only sight, but insight (he also penetrates
to the heart of things and always finds some exquisite meaning not written
in surface).
Life of nature is what is represented, everywhere recognized.
-Poems of Human Life:

In childhood, man is sensitive as a wind harp to all natural influences. He is

an epitome of the gladness and beauty of the world(a child comes straight
from creator of nature)
Natural instincts and pleasures of childhood are true standards of a mans
happiness in his life. Artificial pleasures tiresome. The Rainbow Ode to
duty.
The truth of humanity: common life which labours and loves the general
heritage of smiles and tears. Its the only subject of permanent literary
interest.
Mystic element: his belief that in every natural object there is a reflection of
the living god, visible in Intimations of immortality.
-The Recluse: longer poems, containing much that is prosy and
uninteresting. The greater part of his work, including the Prelude and the
Excursion, was intended to be in a single great poem the recluse, which
should treat of nature, man and society. Not completed as he intended to
include most of his shorter poems in the 3rd part. The best of this work is the
Lyrical ballad and in the sonnets, odes and lyrics.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
In ode to dejection, we can see an impression of his sad and tragic life, in
contrast with the peaceful Wordsworth.
He and Southey wrote the fall of Robespierre, a poem full of the new
revolutionary spirit.
He associated with Wordsworth in order to make the lyric ballads.
Works: poetic (early period), critical (middle period) and philosophical (later
period). His
Early poems have influence of Gray and Blake, specially of Blake, but
instead of having a dreamer, we have a scholar too. His latter poems show
his imagination bridled by thought and study, but still very freely
(appreciated in Kubla Khan or The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, where
theres no critic)
-Kubla Khan: fragment painting an oriental dream picture. It came wholly to
him when he had fallen asleep over Purchas. He was interrupted after 54
lines written, and he never finished the poem.
-Christabel: also a fragment, which seems to have been planned as the story
of a pure young girl who falls under the spell of a sorcerer, in the shape of
the woman Geraldine. Full of strange melody, and containing many
passages of exquisite poetry, but trembling with a strange, unknown horror
suggesting the terrors of hysterical novels.

-The rime of the ancient Mariner: chief contribution to the lyrical ballads
(Wordsworth), and one of the worlds masterpieces. Introduces the reader
to a supernatural realm, but it manages to create a sense of absolute reality
concerning the manifest absurdities. All the mechanisms of the poem
(meter, rime and melody)perfect, and some of the descriptions of the sea
never equalled. Suggestions rather than descriptions.
-Shorter poems: Ode to France, Youth and Age, Dejection, Love poems and
the glorious Hymn before sunrise in the vale of Chamouni.
-Prose: from a literary point of view not important. Biographia literatia or
sketches of my literary life and opinions (explanation and criticism of
Wordsworths theory of poetry), his lectures on Shakespeare (remarkable for
their attempt of sweep away the arbitrary rules which had stood in the way
of literary criticism of Shakespeare) and his aids to reflection most
interesting. In his philosophical work, he introduced the idealistic philosophy
of Germany into England.
Walter Scott: Hes not only a tales teller, but an important force in our
literature, for being an epitome of the romantic poetry and the success of
the first novelist. He made romantic poetry popular for the 1 st time with his
Lady of the Lake and his Marmion.
His poems are chiefly read for their story, and his novels are attractive for
their vigor, freshness, rapid action and breezy atmosphere.
His literary work begins with the translation from the German of Brgers
Lenore and of Goethes Gtz von Berlichingen, and his 1 st original work is
The lay of the last minstrel, which was an immediate success.
Works:
-The critic gladly passes over, leaving each reader his opinion. From a
literary point of view, faulty enough, but they were intended to give
delight(and didnt fail).
-Poetry: not artistic, and it lack the deeply imaginative and suggestive
qualities which make a poem the noblest work of humanity. Story interest.
Marmion and The lady of the lake are an excellent beginning for readers,
hold the attention and lead to an interest in other and better poems. His
poetry is marked by vigor and youthful abandon. The interest lies in the
vivid pictures, the heroic characters and rapid action.
-Novels: he wrote too rapidly and too much. No inclination for details of life
and history, finely drawn characters. He sketches a character roughly,
plunges him into the midst of some incident and the action carries to the
end.
Things he accomplished: creating the historical novel, 1 st novelist to make
an essential element in the action, 1st novelist to recreate the past (history
not a record of dry facts, living men played their parts), hes always sane,
manly, inspiring.
George Gordon (Lord Byron)

-2 Sides: good (excellent sincerity and strength) and bad (charlatanry, big
bow-wowishness)
He was a disappointed and embittered man, not only in his personal life,
also in his expectations of a general transformation of human society. He is
the most expressive writer of his age, in voicing the discontent of a
multitude of Europeans at the failure of the FR.
-Hours of Idleness: first work very little poetry in the volume, but a
revelation of the man himself is remarkable. He declares that poetry is to
him an idle experiment. He ridicules literature, and says the poet is a mere
babbler. Even in his greatest passages, his work is frequently marred by a
wretched pun or cheap buffoonery which ruins our first impression of his
poetry.
-Longer poems: Manfred and Cain (curious and perhaps unconscious parody
of Faust/Paradise Lost)best known dramatic works.
His best known and most readable works are Mazeppa, the prisoner of
Chillon and Childe Harolds PilgrimageThe first two cantos of Childe Harold
are more read than any other work of him, because of his melodious verse
and the descriptions of places. The two last cantos, after his exile from
England show more sincerity and better expressions of his genius.
He pretended to know the secret side of Europe and give us a variety of
living men, but all his characters are tiresome repetitions of himself (vain,
disappointed, cynical). He is uncapable of portraying a true woman.
Percy Shelley:
In Ode to the West Wind, we have a suggestion of his own spirit, reflected
in all his poetry. Spirit of nature, which appeals to us in the wind and clouds,
sunset and sunrise. At times: true poet, work unrivalled/joins with Byron in
voicing a vain rebellion against society.
Poetry(like life): 2 moods violent reformer(seeking to overthrow our
present institutions. Longer poems) and wonderer following a vague vision,
forever sad and unsatisfied(wonderful lyrics, Allastor and Adonais)
-Allastor: here we see him wandering through the vast silences of nature in
search of a dream maiden who satisfies his love of beauty. Written when he
had realized the world was too strong for him. Poets confession of failure
and undying hope in some better thing to come.
-Prometheus Unbound: Lyrical drama, the best of his revolutionary
enthusiasm, and most characteristic. Here he is prophet of science and
revolution, seeing help and hope beyond his suffering. He will be read for his
enthusiasm and imagery.
-Revolutionary works:
Queen Mab, The revolt of Islam regarded to be
judged in the same way as Prometheus.
-Epipshchidion: rhapsody celebrating Platonic love.

-Adonais: best known of his longer poems. Song of grief over the death of
the poet Keats. He still preserves a sense of reality and calls in many
shadowy allegorical figures. Succession of dream figures.
-John Keats: last and most perfect of the Romanticists. He wrote what was
in his heart and reflected some splendour as he saws it or dreamed it to be.
He thought poetry existed for its own sake, and suffers loss by being
devoted to philosophy, politics or anything. Most promising figure of the
earliest 19th century (he died at 25).
Works: There was never a poet more devoted to his ideal, entirely
independent of success or failure. In all his works we have the impression of
intense loyalty to his art and a profound dissatisfaction. He set himself the
task of reflecting in Modern English the spirit of old greeks, seen in
Endymionstory of a young shepherd beloved by a moon goddess. The
poem gives splendid promise, but as a whole it is rather chaotic (he knew
it talks about it as an unsuccessful attempt to suggest the beauty of Greek
mythology)
Lamia and other poems: 3rd volume. The one the reader should read first. 2
subjects, greek mythology and medieval romance. Hypherion is a
magnificent fragment.
Thomas de Quincy:
In him, the romantic element is even more strongly developed than in Lamb,
noy only in his critical work, also in his erratic and imaginative life. As a
man, he is the most uncanny and incomprehensible. His essaysbrilliant
style, whether they have the two essential qualities of sympathy or humour
or not.
Works: 2 classes numerous critical articles/autobiographical sketches.
Works collected little before his death chaotic.
-Critical essays: the most illuminating work is Literary reminiscences,
brilliant appreciations of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lamb
On the knocking at the gate in Macbeth shows the mans genius
.Grotesque humour.
-autobiographical sketches: confessions of an English opium eaterrecord of
opium dreams. Glimpses of his own life and wanderings.
Style: revelation of the beauty of the English language. Influenced writers of
the Victorian age.
2faults: diffuseness and triviality
SECONDARY WRITERS OF ROMANTICISM
All these writers made great changes in our literature in half a century,
marked by the Romantic Movement and the French revolution. Such a
revolution was essentially poetic, and it produced a large number of minor
writers, who followed more or less the example of its leaders. Among the
novelists all women (Jane Austen, Frances Burney,Maria Edgeworth)

Jane Austen: Young woman who seems to be a novelist of yesterday rather

than the contemporary of Wordsworth and Coleridge. She refined and
simplified English, making it a true reflection of English life. She appears to
have begun writing with the idea of presenting the life of English country
society exactly as it was, but saving the humour. Narrow field of work. Her
works have an exquisite perfection lacking in most fiction writers.
Pride and prejudice, sense and sensibility, Emma, Mansfield park.
VICTORIAN AGE
Term Victorian refers to things and events during the reign of Queen Victoria
(1837-1901). Connotations of repressed and old fashioned basis, but not
reflect the nature of this age, a second English Renaissance. This is a period
of great expansion of wealth, power and culture (age of religious doubt,
innovations in politics-feminism, democracy, unionism-) Literature combine
romantic emphasis upon self, emotion and imagination with neoclassical
ones upon the public role of art and corollary responsibility of the artist.
Victorian age not one single lasted so long that it comprises several
periods. Avobe all, age of paradox and power.
In this period, transfer of large masses of population from the countryside to
town and basic social classes from small farmers to urban proletariats and
lower/middle class of industrial employers.
-early period-->time of troubles (1830/48)
-mid period: economic prosperity and religious controversy (1848/70)
-late period: decay of Victorian values (1870/1901)
-Nineties
Literature:
The Victorian novel: it addressed every topic, reflected every ideal of an age
of an age of unprecedently rapid change. The novel belongs to women in
this period (as they were the major consumers of fiction and producers)