Paper No - 5 Romantic Literatuer
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Name – Megha B Trivedi
Course – M.A. English
Sem – 2
Beatch – 2016 – 2018
Roll No – 18
Enrolment No – 2069108420170030
Submitted to – Smt. S. B. Gardi Dept.
Of English MKBU
Topic -
Women novelist in Romantic Age. 1) Jane
Austen 2) Mary shelley 3) Emily
Bronte
*About the Romantic age ( 1798 – 1832)
Introduction : -
It is generally believed that the
English Romantic movement began in 1798, with the publication of The Lyrical
Ballads. However, it is a mistake to assign any definite date to it. It was not
a sudden outburst but the result of long and gradual growth and development .
The poets of the romantic school like Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats and
others were not the first Elizabethan literature is essentially romantic in
spirit. It was also full of wonder ,mystery,
love of adventure, curiosity , restlessness which we associate with the poets
of the early 19th century.
How the word romantic came to be applied
to this period is something of a puzzle. Originally the word was applied to the
Latin or Roman dialects used in the Roman provinces , especially France, and to
the stories written in these dialects. Romantic is a derivative of romant,
which was borrowed from the French romaunt in the sixteenth century. At first
it meant only “ like the old romances” but gradually it began to carry a
certain taint. Romantic according to L.P. Smith in his words and Idioms
connoted “ false and fictitious beings and feelings, without real existence in
fact or in human nature”; it also suggested old castles, mountains and forests,
pastoral a “ love for wild nature, for mountains and moors”. The word passed
from England to France and Germany late in the seventeenth century and became a
critical term for certain poets. In Germany especially the word was used in strong
opposition to the term classical.
The Romantic movement was a strong
reaction against the neo- classical rules and custom. A basic impulse of the
romantics was to escape from 18th century. Classical made use of
several meters such as Spenserian stanza and the closed couplet, the romantics
made the couplet loose and flowing. They also wrote lyrics, odes, sonnets,
elegy etc.
*Factors for the Rise of Romanticism
1. Discovery of Shakespeare
2. Revival of Folk Tradition
3. Oriental Tales
4. Translations of William Jones
5. French Revolution
6. Transitional poetry
7. Gothic Romances
8. Lyrical Ballads
9. Rousseau
*Difference between classicism and
Romanticism
Ø Formalism
Liberalism
Ø Age of reason Age of
imagination
Ø Greek/Roman classical influence Medieval/oriental influence
Ø Court life
Country life
Ø Human Nature Nature /
Pastoral
Ø Upheld tradition/ classic Individual inspiration
*Definition of the
term ‘ Romanticism’
The term ‘
Romanticism’ is a kind of the expression in terms of art imaginative feeling.
1) Victor Hugo says
– “ Romanticism is the opposite, not of classicism but of realism in literature.”
2) Rousseau says
– “ Romanticism means the return to nature”.
3) George says –
“ Romanticism emphasizes on emotion rather than reason, the heart opposed to
head.”
4) Walter says –
“ Romanticism means the renaissance of wonder”
*Influence of French Revolution :-
French
revolution began in 1789 and lasted until 1799. There are many social and
political reasons behind it. Financial crises, economic disparity of French
revolution , it’s revolt against feudal dynasty. This revolution brings liberty,
equality and fraternity and greatly inspired people all over Europe. The poets
are highly influenced by French revolution. Poets of the Romantic age was also
influenced by the philosophy and political theories described in the book ‘
Political justice’ by William Godwin. Some magazines are much popular on those
days like The Edinburgh Review, The Quarterly Review, Blackwood’s Magazine, The
London Magazine.
*The chief characteristics
1.
All Romantic literature is subjective
2.
Spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings
3.
Pessimism in tone
4.
Unique language
5.
Age of Enlightment
6.
Zest for the beauties
*
Romantic Poet
v William wordsworth
v S.T. Coleridge
v Walter Scott
v Lord Byron
v P.B. Shelley
v John Keats
v Robert Southy
*Prose writers/ essayists
v Charles Lamb
v William Hazlitt
v Thomas De quincey
v Walter Savage Landor
*Novelists
v Jane Austen
v Mary Shelley
v Emily Bronte
v Emily Dickinsn
*Qualities of Romanticism
§ Love of Nature
§ Idealization of Rural Living
§ Faith in common people
§ Emphasis on Freedom and Individualism
§ Spontaneity, intuition, feeling,
imagination, wonder
§ Passionate individual religiosity
§ Life after death; Organic view of the
world
*Images of women in Romantic period : -
In the Romantic period women were taught
how to dance, paint and also active participants in the music. Music was
considered an appropriate female activity. Middle and upper- class women were
considered as “ angels of the house”. In the 18th century women were
typical. But women were not introduced to philosophy, history, politics ,economics
etc. The main curriculum of women’s education centered on helping women attract
husbands, and taught them how to dress and behave rather than how to think.
Women were encouraged to pay more attention to their bodies rather than their
minds.
In the Romantic age gender issue
also there, like women obey their husband, women property became man property
after marriage, so men is dominant and the patriarchy we find that. Women as
secondary citizens in affairs of home,
work, church and government. Maria Wollstonecraft played vital role in it. She
was a prominent woman of the Romantic era.
*Women as Novelists :-
It was during this period that women
assumed, for the first time an important place in our literature. Probably the
chief reason for this interesting phenomenon lies in the fact that women was
for the first time given some slight chance to educates , of entering into the
intellectual life of the race; and as is always the case when women is given
anything like a fair opportunity. She responded magnificently. A secondary
reason may be found in the nature of the age itself, which was intensely
emotional. The French Revolution stirred all Europe to its depths and during
the following half century every great movement in literature, as in politics
and religion, was characterized by strong emotion; which is all the more
noticeable by contrast with the cold formal striric spirit of the early
eighteenth century. As woman is naturally more emotional than man, it may well
be that the spirit of this emotional age attracted her, and gave her the
opportunity to express herself in literature.
As all strong emotion tend to
extremes the age produced a new type of novel which seems rather hysterical
now, but which in its own day delighted multitudes of readers whose nerves were
somewhat excited. Mrs. Anne Radcliffe was one of the most successful writers of
this school of exaggerated Romance. Several other writers whose works, in the
early part of the nineteenth century raised women to the high place in
literature which she has ever since maintained.
Jane Austen was born on December 16,
1775 at Steventon Rectory in Hampshire, England. Jane Austen was the youngest
of George and Cassandra’s eight children. She had six brothers and one sister.
Austen and her sister both went boarding school, and after some time retuned
and continue their study at home. Then Austen wrote poems, stories and comic
piece. Austen became adept at parodying the sentimental and Gothic style of
eighteenth century novels. During this time Austen also began to sketch out
ideas for the novel that would later become sense and sensibility. In between
Austan did some once with Lefroy . Then she wrote her second novel first
impression which would later become pride and prejudice. Then she developed
Northanger Abbey, a satire of the Gothic literary genre. In Bath Jane marrying Bigg - Wither. In 1805 George Austen died and
Jane her mother and her sister had to move with her brother Francis, because of
their unstable financial position. At Chawton her four novels were published
anonymously. In 1817 Austen suffered for illness and died.
*Austen’s Novel – Features
-
Severely unromantic plots, domestic realism
-
Middle – class characters, pictures of everyday existence
-
Smooth , unobtrusive style; avoidance of anything unusual, startling,
loud or garish
-
Gentle pricking of irony
- Life
governed by decorum, with moments of fierce passion
-
Minute Characterization – convincingly alive ordinary people, not types
( 1 ) Sense and Sensibility
Elinor and Marianne is the first
name of the novel, latter on this novel known as “ Sense and Sensibility”.
Elinor stands for sense and Marianne stands for sensibility. The story is about
the three sisters that how they lived in financial problems without their
father.
( 2 ) Emma
Emma was first published by John
Murray in December of 1815. It was the last of Austen’s novel to be published
before her death. Emma is about youthful hubris and the perils of misconstrued
romance.
( 3 ) Mansfield Park
It is considered the author’s most
ambitious novel . Mansfield park is far more mature, darker novel. Fanny Price
is the central character. Fanny brought up with her rich cousins at Mansfield
park. It is the most profound work.
( 4 ) Pride and Prejudice
Pride and prejudice , Jane
Austen’s witty comedy of manners one of the most popular novel of all time that
features splendidly civilized sparing between the proud Mr. Darcy and the
prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet as they play out their spirited courtship in a
series of eighteenth century drawing room intrigues.
And many other works also.
Mary Shelley
Mary
Wollstonecraft Shelley ( 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851 ) was an
English novelist , short story writer , dramatist, essayist, biographer and
travel writer. She was best known for her Gothic novel. After Wollstonecraft’s death less than a month after
her daughter Marry was born, Mary was raised by Godwin. When Mary was four her
father married a neighbor. In 1814 Mary began a romance with one of her
father’s political followers, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Both married also. Mary was
pregnant with Shelley’s child, but their prematurely born daughter died. Mary’s
son name is Percy Florence Shelley. She died at the age of 53 because of brain tumor.
Mary Shelley remained a political radical throughout her life. Shelley’s works
often argue that cooperation and sympathy, particularly as practiced by women
in the family, were the ways to reform civil society.
Gothic Fiction
Gothic Fiction which is largely known
by the subgenre of Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature and film
that combines fiction and horror , death and at time romance. Its origin is
attributed to English author Horace Walpole, with his novel The Castle of
Otranto, 1764 “ A Gothic Story” . The effect of Gothic fiction feeds on a
pleasing sort of terror, an extension of Romantic literary pleasures that were
relatively new at the time of Walpole’s novel. It originated in England in the
second half of the 18th century and had much success in the 19th
as witnessed by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the works of Edgar Allan poe .
The English Gothic novel also led to new novel
types such as the German Schauerroman and the French Georgia.
Frankenstein is a science fiction and
Gothic novel also. The full title of the novel is Frankenstein : Or the modern
Prometheus. In this novel Victor
Frankenstein is the protagonist and he is very well educated and as part of experiment
he tray to make one human with the help of different parts of dead human’s
body. He used electricity and fire but
when this man awake at that time victor try to be master because he made him
and then this man behaviors and look like monster so people afraid . But after some time monster learned so many
humanly things and language also. And he
killed victor’s brother and Henry at the time of first night of victor marriage
monster killed his wife Elizabeth Lavenza . Because at some
level monster also loved victor’s wife. So tragic end we find
here. Many themes like dangerous knowledge , sublime nature , monstrosity all
are applicable.
( 2 ) The Last Man
( 3 ) Valperga
( 4 ) Lodore
( 5 ) The mortal immortal
And many others.
Emily Bronte
The Bronte sisters Charlotte, Emily and
Anne ( Currer, Ellis, Acton Bell ). Emily
Jane Bronte ( 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848 ) was an English novelist and
poet . Her famous novel is Wuthering Heights. This novel known as classic work
in English literature. Emily was born in the village of Thornton , Northan
England. She was the younger sister of Charltte Bronte and the fifth of sixth
children. All her sisters and brother
educated at home by their father. They started write fictional stories. At seventeen Emily attended the Roe Head
Girls school .Emily became a teacher at Law Hill school in Halifax.
In her writing Bronte wrote on the
revenge, religion, class and prejudice. She used narrative styles that were
contrary to literary trends of the time. Emily Bronte utilized Romanticism and
the relatively new Gothic genre in her narratives and poetry.
( 1) Wuthering Heights ( 1847 )
Heathcliff and Catherine are two
major characters. It is very spirit of
the wild, desolate moors. And the chief charecters conceived in gigantic
proportions, and the series of climaxes, sustained intensity of the novel
carried to unbelievable peaks of passion, and the stark and unflinching realism
also are there.
Many others works also.
*Conclusion
So, in this Romantic age various
type of literature produced and many well known poets wrote many things. As
well as novelist and prose writer also and we find that how women writers also
contribute well and wrote classic works in the English literature.
Reference
1. History of English Literature by W.J. Long
4. Study Material
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