Keats, Shelley and Byron Romantic Poetry Keats, Shelley and Byron

The Big Six William Blake (1757-1827) Willliam Wordsworth(1770-1850) Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) John Keats (1795-1821) Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) Lord Byron (1788-1824) Jane Austen 1775-1817

Romantic Age First Generation: The emphasis on Nature and correspondence between Nature and human nature (e.g. US – Whitman, Dickinson) Feeling (“spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling”) Imagination (e.g. “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”) & Vision Common people (“Infant Joy” “Infant Sorrow”) Individualism & Quest

Romantic Age 2nd Generation: The emphasis on Feeling Art & Imagination (e.g. “Ode on a Grecian Urn”) & Vision Individualism & Quest for the remote (myth) Breaking down more boundaries (e.g. the sensual, the moral); against authority (“Ozymandias”)

John Keats October 31, 1795-February 23, 1821; died at the age of 25 of tuberculosis . Originally a surgeon and changed his mind in 1813-1814. "Here lies one whose name was writ in water."

Ode on a Grecian Urn Using apostrophe to speak to the Urn in order to enter its realm (the realm of art and permanence); The process: question empathy  confirmation  differentiation between the human and the artistic.

Percy Bysshe Shelley eloped with the 16-year old Harriet Westbrook; disinherited because of this marriage. In 1814, Shelley traveled abroad with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, the daughter of the philosopher and anarchist William Godwin (1756-1836). Harriet committed suicide, and then Shelley married Mary. Shelley was Drowned in 1822.

Ozymandias The use of frames: the traveler’s story Contradictions used to present the ironies of human ambition: shatter visage frown and sneer; Passion on “these lifeless things” survives “the hand” and “the heart” (whose heart?) “colossal” wreck –boundless sand.

Lord Byron See the video Born with a clubfoot Child Harold – the disparity between Romantic ideals and reality Involved in affairs with a married woman and his half sister. portrait of Lord Byron in Albanian dress by Thomas Phillips, c1835 (source)

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY How is “she” described? With what images (of contradictions)? What does beauty means? And “walk”? How do the sound effects help convey the meanings of the poem?

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies;        And all that's best of dark and bright        Meet in her aspect and her eyes;        Thus mellow'd to that tender light        Which heaven to gaudy day denies.  

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY One shade the more, one ray the less,        Had half impair'd the nameless grace,        Which waves in every raven tress,        Or softly lightens o'er her face;        Where thoughts serenely sweet express,        How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.    

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,        So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,        The smiles that win, the tints that glow,        But tell of days in goodness spent,        A mind at peace at all below,        A heart whose love is innocent ! 

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY she – sheds ‘tender’ light (combines darkness and light//aspect and eyes//appearance, heart and thought.) -- grace in motion on her dress and her face, and expressive of her pure mind and thought. -- cheeks and smile glow to reveal her goodness, mind and heart. rhythm: iambs with one trochee Sounds: [m] [s] [o] [e]