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George Gordon Byron, the great romantic poet, has often been called a poet of “world sorrow”. In almost all his poetry there is a current of gloom and pessimism. The reason for this gloom and sorrow may be found in the social and political events of his day which influenced him so deeply.
During his childhood the First Revolution took place in France. At the same time the Industrial Revolution developed in England and the invention of new machines, which supplanted workers brought misery to thousands of laborers. Wars, political oppression of common people, all these facts observed by the poet gave rise to his discontent with the social and political life of his time and that’s why his poetry was full of gloom and sorrow. But Byron was not inclined to accept the then existing conditions passively. He raised his voice to condemn them, and to call men to active struggle against the social evils of his time. That’s why he may be rightly called a revolutionary romanticist. Byron’s heroes, like the poet himself, are strong individuals who are disillusioned in life and fight single-handed against the injustice and cruelty of society.
The poet was born on January 22, 1788 in an ancient aristocratic family in London. His father, an army captain, died when the boy was three years old. The boy spent his childhood in Aberdeen, Scotland, together with his mother. His mother, Catherine Gordon, was a Scottish lady of honorable birth and respectable fortune. Byron was lame and felt distressed about it all his life, yet, thanks to his strong will and regular training, he became an excellent rider, a champion swimmer and a boxer and took part in athletic activities. When George lived in Aberdeen he attended grammar school. In 1798 George’s granduncle died and the boy inherited the title of lord and the Byron’s family estate, Newstead Abbey. It was situated near Nottingham, close to the famous Sherwood Forest. Together with his mother the boy moved to Newstead Abbey from where he was sent to Harrow School. At seventeen he entered Cambridge University. He was very handsome. He has a beautiful manly profile. His contemporary young men tried to imitate his clothes, his manners and even his limping gait. He seemed proud, tragic and melancholic. But he could also be very cheerful and witty.
Byron’s literary career began while he was at Cambridge. His first volume of verse entitled Hours of Idleness (1807) contained number of lyrics dealing with love, regret and parting. There were also some fragments of translation from Latin and Greek poets. His poems were severely criticized by the Edinburgh Review, the leading literary magazine of that time. The poet answered with a biting satire in verse, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809), in which he attacked the reactionary critics and the three Lake School Poets, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey.
After graduating from Cambridge University in 1809 Byron started on a tour through Portugal, Spain, Greece, Turkey and Albania. He returned home in 1811. By right of birth he was a member of the House of Lords. On February 27, 1812 Byron made his first speech in the House of Lords. He spoke passionately in defense of the Luddites. He blamed the government for the unbearable conditions of workers’ life. In his parliament speech Byron showed himself a staunch champion of the people’s cause, and that made the reactionary circles hate him.
In 1812 the first two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage were published. They were received by his contemporaries with a burst of enthusiasm. He became one of the most popular men in London, He himself remarked, “I awoke one morning and found myself famous”.
Between 1813 and 1816 Byron composed his Oriental Tales. The most famous of tales are The Giaour, The Corsair and Lara, all of which embody the poet’s romantic individualism. The hero is a rebel against society, a man of strong will and passion. Proud and independent, he rises against tyranny and injustice to gain his personal freedom and happiness.
In this period Byron began to write his political satires, the most outstanding of which is the Ode to Framers of the Frame Bill.
In 1815 Byron married Miss Isabella Milbanke, a religious woman, cold and pedantic. It was an unhappy match for the poet.
Though Byron was fond of their only child Augusta Ada, he and his wife parted. The scandal surrounding the divorce was great. Byron’s enemies found their opportunity and used it against him. They began to persecute him. The great poet was accused of immorality and had to leave his native country.
In May 1816 Byron went to Switzerland where he made the acquaintance of Percy Bysshe Shelley and the two poets became close friends.
While in Switzerland Byron wrote Canto the Third of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1816), The Prisoner of Chillon (1816), a lyrical drama Manfred (1817) and a number of lyrical poems. The Prisoner of Chillon describes the tragic fate of the Swiss humanist Francois Bonivard who spent a number of years of his life in prison with his brothers.
Chillon is a castle on the shore of Lake Geneva, Switzerland. The story told by Byron had real historical foundation. Bonivard was an active fighter for the liberation of his native city of Geneva from the control of Charles III, Duke of Savoy. Bonnivard was a republican, and the Duke of Savoy imprisoned him in the Castle of Chillon where he was kept from 1530 to 1536 without trial. In 1536 the citizens of Bern, Switzerland, captures the Castle of Chillon and released Bonnivard.
In 1816 Byron wrote his Song for the Luddites where he again raised his voice in defense of the oppressed workers, encouraging them to fight for the better conditions of life.
In 1817 Byron went to Italy, where he lived till 1823. At this time political conditions in Italy were such as to rouse his indignation. He wished to see the country one and undivided. Acting on this idea, the poet joined the secret organization of the Carbonari which was engaged in the struggle against the Austrian oppressors.
The Italian period (1817-1823), influenced by revolutionary ideas, is considered the summit of Byron’s poetical career. Such works as Beppo (1818), and his greatest work Don Juan (1819-1824) are the most realistic works written by the poet. It is a novel in verse, that was to contain 24 cantos, but death stopped his work and only 16 and a half cantos were written. Though the action in Don Juan takes place at the close of the 18th century, it is easy enough to understand that the author depicts the 19th century Europe and gives a broad panorama of contemporary life.
Other works of this period are: Canto the Fourth of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1817), The Prophecy of Dante (1821), where speaking in the person of the great Italian poet Dante, Byron calls upon Italians to fight for their independence; the tragedy Cain (1821).
Once Byron wrote:
The defeat of the Carbonari uprising (1823) was a great blow to Byron. The Greek war against Turkey attracted his attention. He went to Greece to take part in the struggle for national independence. His restless life ended there. Soon after his arrival he was seized with fever and died on April 18, 1824. He was thirty-six years old.
The poet’s heart was buried in Greece, his body was taken to England and buried near Newstead. The government did not allow him to be buried in Westmister Abbey.
Only in 1969 the authorities finally allowed his remains to be buried in the Poets’ Coner in Westminster Abbey.
His death was mourned by the progressive people throughout Europe. Pushkin called Byron a poet of freedom. Goethe spoke of him in his Faust, Belinsky called him “a giant of poetry”.
| 5.6. Byron's political poetry |
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The “luddite” theme is quite important in Byron’s poetical work. In his speech on the framework bill (1812) in the House of Lords Lord Byron opposed the government’s policy and defended the Luddites. He said, “You call these men a mob (a crowd), desperate, dangerous and ignorant’... Are we aware of our obligations to a mob? It is the mob that labour in your fields and serve in your houses, - that man your navy, and recruit your army, - that have enabled you defy all the world, you can also defy you when neglect and calamity have driven them to despair! You may call the people a mob, but do not forget that a mob too often speaks the sentiments of the people”.
Four days after his speech in Parliament anonymous Ode appeared in a morning newspaper. The title (Ode) was very ironic, because an ode is supposed to be a poem, or a song, recited on formal occasions. Byron’s Ode to the Framers of the Frame Bill was a combination of biting satire, revolutionary romanticism and democratic thought.
In the Ode the anonymous poet gave a remedy against the rebellious weavers, who came to their master to ask for help. He suggested the best thing to do was to hang them.
The poet stressed that men are cheaper than machinery; and if they were hanged around Sherwood Forest for breaking the machinery, it would improve the scenery.
Those who had heard Byron in Parliament had no difficulty in recognizing the author of the Ode, for in the verse Byron repeated most of the thoughts expressed in his speech.
In 1816 Byron wrote his famous Song for the Luddites in which he called upon the people to revolt against their tyrants. It is considered one of the first revolutionary songs in English classical poetry.
| 5.7. Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) |
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Percy Bysshe Shelley was the most revolutionary romanticist in English literature.
Like Byron, he came of an aristocratic family and like Byron he broke with his class at an early age.
He was born at Field Place, Sussex. His father was a baronet. Shelley was educated at Eton public school and Oxford University. There he wrote a pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism for which he was expelled from the University. His father forbade him to come home. Shelley had an independent spirit, and he broke with his family and his class forever. He traveled from one town to another, took an active part in the Irish liberation movement and at last left England for Italy in 1818. There he wrote his best poetry. Shelley’s life was mainly spent in Italy and Switzerland, but he kept up ties with England.
In 1822 the poet was drowned. When his body was washed ashore he was cremated by Byron and his other friends. His remains were buried in Rome. The inscription on his tomb reads:
Like Byron, Shelley was devoted to the ideas of liberty, equality and fraternity. He believed in the future of mankind. He never lost faith in the power of love and good will. He thought that if men were granted freedom and learned to love one another they could live together happy. This hope fills his first poems Queen Mab (1813), The Revolt of Islam (1818) and his later poetic drama Prometheus Unbound.
The plot of the poem Queen Mab is symbolic. Queen Mab, a fairy, shows the past, present and future of mankind to a beautiful girl. Queen Mab shows the ideal society of the future where men are equal, free and wise.
The Revolt of Islam is a romantic and abstract poem, but it is a revolutionary one. Shelley protested against the tyranny of religion and of the government, gave pictures of the revolutionary movement for freedom and foretold a happier future for the whole of mankind.
In Prometheus Unbound Shelley gives the Greek myth his own interpretation. He sings of the struggle against tyranny. The sharp conflict between Prometheus and Jupiter (the chief of the Roman gods) is in the center of the drama. Prometheus is bound to a rock by Jupiter for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to mankind. The huge spirit Demogorgon, representing the Creative Power, defeats Jupiter and casts him down. Prometheus is set free and reunited with his wife Asia (Nature). The fact that Jupiter is dethroned symbolizes change and revolution. Now the mind of man can look forward to a future which is “good, joyous, beautiful and free”.
When Shelley got news that the workers of Manchester had been attacked by government troops, his indignation was aroused, and he immediately wrote the poems The Masque of Anarchy and Song to the Men of England. In the first part of the poem The Masque of Anarchy the procession of horrible masks may be regarded as an allegorical picture of the then rulers of England. In the second part the poet sings the men of England their strength and future victory. He calls on them to rise against their human leeches.
| Walter Scott (1771-1832) |
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Walter Scott, the father of the English historical novel, was born in the family of a lawyer. His mother was the daughter of a famous Edinburgh physician and professor. She was a woman of education and stirred her son’s imagination by her stories of the past as a world of living heroes.
As Walter was a lame and sickly child he spent much of his boyhood on his grandfather’s farm near the beautiful river Tweed. He was in friendly relations with plain people and gained first-hand knowledge of the old Scottish traditions, legends and folk ballads.
At the age of eight Walter entered the Edinburgh High School. Later Walter Scott studied law at the University. Though he was employed in his father’s profession he was more interested in literature than in law.
As a boy and man he was fond of spending time in the country in the Highlands and along the Border. He collected and studied native ballads, legends, folk-songs and poems.
Walter Scott’s literary career began in 1796 when he published translations of German ballads.
In 1802 he prepared a collection of ballads under the title of The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.
In 1804 Walter Scott gave up the law entirely for literature.
His literary work began with the publication of The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), a poem which made him the most popular poet of the day. A series of poems followed which included Marmion (1808) and The Lady of the Lake (1810). These poems brought fame to the author. They tell us about the brave Scottish people, their past and the beauty of their homeland.
Soon, however, Scott realized that he was not a poetic genius, and he turned to writing in prose.
Scott’s first historical novel Waverley published in 1814 was a great success and he continued his work in this new field. Novel after novel came from his pen. His novels appeared anonymously. Nobody knew he was a writer. From 1814 to 1830 he wrote 29 novels, many of which are about Scotland and the struggle of this country for independence. Such novels as Waverley, Guy Mannering (1815), The Antiquary (1816), The Black Dwarf (1816), Old Mortality, Rob Roy (1818), The Heart of Midlothian (1818) describe Scotland of the 18th century.
The Bride of Lammermoor (1819) and The Legend of Montrose (1819) have the 17th century background.
Ivanhoe (1820), The Abbot and Kenilworth (1821) describe the times of Mary Stuart and Queen Elizabeth.
Quentin Durward (1823) refers to the reign of Louis XI in France.
It was only in 1827 that Walter Scott declared openly the authorship of his novels. He worked hard. The writer turned out, on an average, a novel and a half a year. His mind was so crowded with stories, characters and incidents that invention of the stories came without apparent effort.
Misfortune struck the great novelist in 1825-1826: the publishing firm, where he had been partner went bankrupt. Walter Scott had to pay a large sum of money. This affected his health and he died on September 21, 1832 at his estate in Abbotsford.
Walter Scott was buried at Dryburgh Abbey.
Walter Scott was the creator of the historical novel in English literature. He realized that it was the ordinary people who were the makers of history and the past was not cut off from the present but influenced it. This romantic love of the past made him create rich historical canvases with landscape and nature descriptions, as well as picturesque details of past ages. His descriptions of the life, customs and habits of the people are realistic. We can agree with Belinsky that the reader of Scott’s novels becomes, in a way, a contemporary of the epoch and a citizen of the country in which the events of the novel take place.
Wlater Scott was the first to depict personalities typical of the period and the country described. His characters are vivid and expressive.
This makes Walter Scott one of the greatest masters of world literature. His influence can be seen in the historical novels of almost every nation.
| 5.10. Jane Austen (1775-1817) |
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Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, in the Hampshire village of Steventon, where her father, the Reverend George Austen, was rector. She was the second daughter and seventh child in the family of eight: six boys and two girls. Her closest companion was her elder sister.
Her formal education began in about 1782, when the sisters were sent to be taught by Mrs Cawley at Oxford; and, in 1784, they moved to the Abbey School, Reading, where they remained until 1787. After that their education continued at home. This was no deprivation, as the household at the rectory was unusually gifted. Her father encouraged the love of learning in his children. Her mother was a woman of wit. Reading and writing were enjoyed as family activities. Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding were favourite novelists. The great family amusement was acting.
Austen’s earliest known writings date from 1787, and between then and 1795 she wrote a large body of material that was collected in three manuscript notebooks: Volume the First, Volume the Second and Volume the Third. In all, these contain 21 items: plays, verses, short novels, and other prose.
In 1793-1794 Jane Austen wrote a short novel-in-letters Lady Susan. Jane was a girl of seventeen. Some of the letters tell of her enjoyment of local parties and dances in Hampshire, of visits to London, Bath, Southhampton, Kent and to seaside resorts in Devon and Dorset.
Sense and Sensibility was begun about 1795 as a novel-in-letters called Elinor and Marianne after its heroines. She contrasted two sister: Elinor who is rational and self-controlled, and Marianne who is more emotional. Between October 1796 and August 1797 she completed the first version of Pride and Prejudice. Northanger Abbey was written in about 1798-1799.
In 1811 she began her novel Mansfield Park. Between January 1814 and March 1815 she wrote Emma.
In these novels she showed that it was important to know oneself in order to make the right choice in love and marriage. Although her endings are generally happy, her novels make readers feel that they have been made to think about themselves and their lives.
Jane Austen’s novels are deeply concerned with love and marriage. The novels provide indisputable evidence that the author understood the experience of love and of love disappointed. This observation relates most obviously to her last novel, Persuasion (1815-1816). The years after 1811 seem to have been the most rewarding of her life. She had the satisfaction of seeing her work in print and well reviewed and of knowing that the novels were widely read. The reviewers praised the novels for their moral entertainment, admired the character drawing, and welcomed the homely realism. Although Jane Austen preserved her anonymity and avoided literary circles, she knew about the reception of her novels.
For the last 18 months of her life, she was busy writing. In 1817 she began her last work Sandition, but it was put aside on March 18. Her health had been in decline since early 1816. In April she made her will. On the morning of July 18 she died. She was buried in Winchester Cathedral.
Her authorship was announced to the world at large by her brother Henry, paying tribute to his sister’s qualities of mind and character.
Jane Austen is different from other writers of her time, because her main interest is in the moral, social and psychological behavior of her characters. She writes mainly about young heroines as they grow up and search for personal happiness. She does not write about social and political issues, but her observations of people apply to human nature in general.
Modern critics are fascinated by the structure and organization of the novels, by the realistic description of unremarkable people in the unremarkable situations of everyday life.
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ДОМАШНЕЕ ЗАДАНИЕ:
Questions on the topic 5 “Romanticism in English Literature"
1. What is Luddite movement?
2. What were the premises of occurrence of romanticism?
3. What is Lake School Poets?
4. What can you say about creative work of William Wordsworth?
5. What was the reason of gloom and sorrow in the poetry of George Byron?
6. Describe the main directions of Byron’s creative work.
7. What is significant about Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage?
8. Describe the story of Don Juan.
9. What was the main purpose of Byron’s political poetry?
10. What philosophical ideas were there in Percy Bysshe Shelley’s works?
11. In what genres did Walter Scott work? Describe his work in his favourite genre.
12. What is the central conflict of Ivanhoe?
13. What differs Jane Austen from other writers of her time?
Подготовьте доклад по одной из следующих тем:
1. Romanticism in English Poetry (The Lakists, P.B. Shelley, G.G. Byron, J. Keats).
2. G.G. Byron. Literary Work. Political Poetry.
3. Romanticism in Prose. W. Scott.
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