By Jeba Shanthini
P
Register No: 1901712006015
Paper: Romantic
Age CA-III Assignment
‘Every
time you enter a library you might say to yourself, ‘The world is quiet here’,
as a sort of pledge proclaiming reading to be the greater good’.
-
from The slippery Slope by Lemony
Snicket
It is known that
a person who keeps himself/herself occupied with books will never lose their
peace of mind. Remembering this very own statement a plan to visit the library
was scheduled on 7th of February 2020.
On that pleasant
day along with a few classmates of mine, I boarded a bus to the Anna centenary
library around 10.00 am and decided to spend the whole day there by reading
books and referring them to take notes for our internal assessment test.
Exploring the
library is not only a pleasant experience but also a beautiful experience for
us.
The Anna
Centenary Library is quite famous for its vast collection of books and also for
its infrastructure. Therefore I have written down my experiences and my views
about this visit to the library in this assignment.
MY IMPRESSIONS ON
THE LIBRARY
As I had said earlier, the library is famous for its infrastructure and its collection of books. A
wave of eagerness, hence, flowed into my mind even as I stepped into the
library. The eight-floor building was so huge and impressive and the
environment was green, calm and serene. The inside of the building was well maintained
and spacious. There was a board in the entrance which displayed the details of
each floors which is helpful in identifying our needs of visiting specific
sections.
There is also a
separate space for visitors who wish to bring in their own books to read and
spend their time there, which is to be much appreciated.
There is also a
cafeteria in the ground floor of the library which is much needed for the
visitors to take a break over there after spending their time reading. All
these facilities in the library impressed me so much that the eagerness in me
grew more and more, to visit the library often.
SECTIONS AND
FLOORS I LOVED VISITING
There is a total
of eight floors in the library and each floor has a separate section for
specific subjects and every book is precious ranging from children’s books to
literature, languages, psychology, science, photography and the list goes on.
Since I’m
familiar with Tamil and English, I thought of accessing books in those
languages in particular. As a literature
student, I’ve always loved reading works of literature, especially novels.
The literature
section is in the third and fourth floor of the library and there are thousands
and more books ranging from fiction to non-fiction, novels, plays, autobiographies
and so on. I also had this eagerness to go visit the children’s section in the
first floor and revive my childhood memories.
BOOKS I LOVED ACCESSING / READING
“Fiction reveals
truths that reality obscures”
-Ralph Waldo
Emerson
Choosing
literature helped me understood the importance of reading which is a great
habit one needs to develop in life.
There is no
better companion than a good book. Reading helps in self-improvement,
communication skills and also increases our knowledge. The books which I love
to access or read is fiction. Reading a work of fiction helps me reduce stress
and also boosts my imagination and creativity sometimes.
The Anna
centenary library has a vast collection of fiction in the literature section. Fiction
written by famous writers from the early age till the modern age is available
in the library which impressed me so much that I would sit there in the library
for a whole day with my favourite book and enjoy my reading. Also I love to
access books on the Tamil language, Photography.
FEATURES OF
ROMANTIC AGE
‘Romanticism is
precisely situated neither in choice of subject, nor exact truth, but in the
way of feeling’.
- Charles
Baudelaire
Romanticism is a
literary movement which developed as a reaction to many social influences such
as the unrest of the French revolution, the excess of industrial revolution and
the widespread poverty and oppression of workers. The Romantic age holds a very
significant place in the English literature. Romanticism is a doctrine which
hold that art and literature should be free from classical and neo-classical
rules and constraints.
The nature of
Romanticism may be approached from the starting point of the primary importance
of the free expression of the feelings of the artist. To express the feelings,
it was considered that the content of the art had to come from the imagination
of the artist. Therefore the author’s imagination and conception of life became
important in Romanticism. Also the concept of the genius or the artist who was
able to produce his own original work through this process of creation from
nothingness is the key to Romanticism and to be derivative was the worst sin. This
idea is often called “Romantic originality”.
Romanticism also
celebrates free spirit, and ideals like beauty and love. It directs the poet’s
sensibility towards the natural landscape. Also, imagination, freedom and
emotion were considered to be the main focus of Romanticism.
The literature of
romanticism includes subjectivity and an emphasis on individualism,
spontaneity, freedom from rules and constraints, love of worship of nature etc.
Nature was a
predominant theme in the Romantic literature. In Romanticism nature became the
centre or the focus. It was considered to be the supreme and also as a
substitute for God. Scholars believed that it is only through nature man can
embrace salvation since spirituality was missing at the early age before
Romanticism. The external landscape mattered to the romanticists. Therefore the
subject matter is nature and it became the focal point at that era.
The Romanticists
also were interested in the medieval past, the supernatural, the mystical, the
‘gothic’ and the exotic. They were attracted to rebellion revolution especially
concerned with human rights, individualism and freedom from oppression.
The Romanticists
used common man’s language. The subjects of Romantic poetry were often ordinary
people. For example ‘The
idiotic boy’.
The Romanticists
borrowed from the folklore and popular local art. During the early period,
literature and art were considered to belong to the high class educated people
and the lower class were only meant to watch or read them. The language was
also highly lyrical in those works. The Romanticists therefore got influenced
by the folklore that was created by ordinary people. As the Romantics showed
interest in these things they developed a sense of Nationalism thereby
reflecting it in their works.
As the Romantic
period emphasized on human emotions, the position of the artist also gained
superiority. In the earlier time, the artist was seen as a person who imitated
the external world. However in the Romantic era the artist was seen as a
creator. It was also the first time that the poems written in first person
narrative was accepted as the poetic persona became one with the voice of the
poet.
The characters in
most of the stories or poems of the Romantic era experience a deep sense of
emotion and passionate love. The love of the characters is wistful and enormous.
For example the love of Heathcliff from Wuthering
Heights can be taken into consideration.
The Romantic
poetry also features realism in which the realism was not only in the manner of
the presentation but also in the subject of their writing. It also features
suspension of disbelief, imagery, pantheism etc. Some of the Romantic poems are
also autobiographical in nature. They portray their own self and are
individualistic and subjective.
FIVE MAIN WRITERS
OR POETS OF THE ROMANTIC AGE
Some of the
famous poets of the romantic age are William Blake (1757-1827), Robert Burns
(1759-1796), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), Lord Byron (1788-1824), Percy
Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) and John Keats (1795-1821).
1. JOHN KEATS (31
October 1795 – 23 February 1821)
John Keats was an
English Romantic poet. He was one of the main figures of the second generation
of Romantic poets along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, despite his
works having been in publications for only four years before his death at the
age of 25 in the year 1821.
Although his
poems were generally not well received by the critics during his lifetime, his
reputation grew after his death and by the end of the 19th century he had
become one of the most beloved of all English poets. He had a significant
influence on a diverse range of poets and writers. The poetry of Keats is characterised
by sensual imagery, mostly notable in the series of odes. This is typical of
romantic poets, as they aimed to accentuate extreme emotion through the
emphasis of natural imagery. Today his poems and letters are some of the most
popular and most analysed in English literature. Some of the most acclaimed
works of Keats are “I Stood Tip-toe Upon a Little Hill”, “Sleep and Poetry” and
the famous sonnet “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”.
2. WILLIAM
WORDSWORTH (1770-1850)
William
Wordsworth was born in the Lake District of northern England, the second of
five children of a modestly prosperous estate manager. He lost his mother at
the age of 7 and his father when he was 13, upon which the orphan boys were
sent off by guardian uncles to a grammar school at Hawkshead, a village in the
heart of the Lake District.
At Hawkshead,
Wordsworth received an excellent education in the classics, in literature, and in
maths, but the chief advantage to him there was the chance to indulge in the
boyhood pleasures of living and playing in the outdoors.
The natural
scenery of the English lakes could terrify as well as nurture, as Wordsworth would
later testify in the line ‘I grew up fostered alike by beauty and by fear’, but
its generally benign aspect gave the growing boy the confidence he articulated
in one of his first important poems, ‘Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern
Abbey…’, namely, ‘that Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.
After Hawkshead,
Wordsworth studied at St. John’s College in Cambridge and before his final
semester he set out on a walking tour of Europe, an experience that influenced
both his poetry and his political sensibilities.
While touring
Europe, Wordsworth came into contact with the French Revolution. This
experience and also a subsequent period living in France, brought about
Wordsworth’s interest and sympathy for the life, troubles, and speech of the ‘common
man’. This issue proved to be the utmost importance to his work. Equally
important in the poetic life of Wordsworth was his 1795 meeting with the poet
Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
It was with
Coleridge that Wordsworth published the famous Lyrical Ballads in 1798.
Wordsworth’s most famous work, The
Prelude is considered by many to be the crowning achievement of English
romanticism. Devastated by the death of his daughter Dora in 1847 Wordsworth
seemingly lost his will to compose poems. He died at Royal Mount on April 23,
1850, leaving his wife Mary to publish The Prelude three months later.
3. WILLIAM BLAKE
(1757 - 1827)
William Blake was
born in London on November 28, 1757, to James, a hosier, and Catherine Blake.
Two of his six siblings died in infancy. From early childhood, Blake spoke of
having visions, at four he saw God “put his head to the window”; around age
nine, while walking through the countryside he saw a tree filled with angels.
Although his
parents tried to discourage him from lying, they did observe that he was
different from others and did not force him to attend school. He learned to
read and write at home. At twelve, Blake began writing poetry. In 1782 he
married an illiterate woman named Catherine Boucher.
He taught her to
read and to write, and also instructed her in craftsmanship. Later, she helped
him print the illuminated poetry for which he is remembered today. The couple
had no children. Blake’s first work, Poetical
Sketches (1783), is a collection of apprentice verse, mostly imitating
classical models.
The poems protest
against war, tyranny and King George ill treatment of the American colonies. He
published his most popular collection, Songs
of Innocence (1789) and Songs of
Experience (1794). Blake believed that his poetry could be read and
understood by common people, but he was determined not to sacrifice his vision
in order to become popular.
Blake’s final years,
spent in great poverty, were cheered by the friendship of a group of young
artists called ‘The Ancients’. In 1818 he met John Linnell, a young artist who
helped him to create a new interest in his work. It was Linnell who in 1825,
commissioned him to design illustrations for Dante’s Divine Comedy, the cycle
of drawings that Blake worked on until his death in 1827.
4. LORD BYRON
George Gordon
Byron was born on 22nd of January in 1788. He is well known as Lord Byron or
the 6th Baron Byron. He was an intelligent child of John Byron, a British army
officer while his mother, Catherine Gordon, was a ruined Scots Heiress.
Byron led a
traumatic childhood partly because of the fierce temper and insensitivity of
his mother and also because of his clubbed right foot. His father left him in
1791, while his mother left in 1811. Lord Byron is considered one of the most
controversial yet leading figures of the Romantic Movement in Europe. He
started writing at an early age but did not publish his works.
His specific ideas
about life and nature benefitted the world of literature. Marked by Hudibrastic
verse, blank verse, allusive imagery, heroic couplets, and complex structures,
his diverse literary pieces won global acclaim. He successfully used blank
verse and satire in his pieces to explore the ideas of love and nature.
The recurring
theme in most of his works are nature, folly of love, realism in literature,
liberty and the power of art. Some of his popular poems are “She Walks in
Beauty” “Darkness” and “There Be None of Beauty’s Daughter.” Lord Byron died of
illness on 19th of April in 1824 in Greece. His body was sent to England but
the clergy refused to give him space at Westminster Abbey. Therefore his
remains were buried near Newstead in a family vault.
5. PERCY BYSSHE
SHELLEY (1792 – 1822)
Percy Bysshe
Shelley was born August 4, 1792, at Field Place near Horsham, Sussex, England.
The eldest son of Timothy and Elizabeth Shelley, with one brother and four
sisters, he stood in line to inherit not only his grandfather’s considerable
estate but also a seat in parliament. He attended Eton college for six years
and then went to Oxford University. He began writing poetry while at Eton but
his first publication was a Gothic novel, Zastrozzi (1810). In 1812 with Byron
and Leigh Hunt, Shelley started a left-wing journal called The Liberal. However
shortly after setting up the journal his life was tragically cut short when he
was caught up in a sudden storm on the Italian coast. He died from drowning on
8th July 1822.
WORKS CITED
1. English Literature Nineteenth Century by
Ryan West Beau Patterson
2. A Companion to Romanticism
– edited by Duncan Wu
3. Romanticism: An Oxford Guide by Roe
4. Romantic Poets and the Culture of Posterity
by Andrew Bennet
