“Among the characteristic attitudes of Romanticism were the following: a deepened appreciation of the beauties of nature; a general exaltation of emotion over reason and of the senses over intellect; a turning in upon the self and a heightened examination of human personality and its moods and mental potentialities; a preoccupation with the genius, the hero, and the exceptional figure in general, and a focus on his passions and inner struggles; a new view of the artist as a supremely individual creator, whose creative spirit is more important than strict adherence to formal rules and traditional procedures; an emphasis upon imagination as a gateway to transcendent experience and spiritual truth; an obsessive interest in folk culture, national and ethnic cultural origins, and the medieval era; and a predilection for the exotic, the remote, the mysterious, the weird, the occult, the monstrous, the diseased, and even the satanic.” (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
Exercise Questions:
1. Describe Romantic literature.
2. Explain why Poe's “Sonnet – To Science” is a good example of a poem that reflects Romantic ideas?
Sonnet – To Science3. What Romantic themes are present in Poe's "The Raven"?
Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise?
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
I have never heard of that sonnet before. I think one important romantic aspect of the poem is the constant references to nature.
ReplyDeleteYes, and specifically the reference to the mythological in nature. Diana is the goddess of the hunt and is associated with the woods/forests. The Hamadryad are wood/tree spirits, Naiad is a river/water spirit, and Elfin refers to other fairy folk often associated with nature. The mythological represents the imagination, and it also personifies nature. On the other hand, the Romantics felt that science demystify nature and reduce the imagination.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that the poet should complain that science stifles creativity, by actually writing a poem and therefore being creative. The poem is also addressed to "Science" (apostrophe), which seems to further contradict his lament that science is not inspirational.