Water, water everywhere....

Coleridge's long narrative poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" appeared in the "Lyrical Ballads" he compiled collaboratively with Wordsworth. Putting the poem next to Swift's "A Modest Proposal", it is easy to see the radical differences between the Restoration and Romantic literary periods. Coleridge uses the "naive" narrative style of the mediaeval ballad, a central story of sin and redemption common to much folklore (remember "Everyman"), and supernatural elements like those found in many legends (remember "Beowulf"). He creates a hypnotic effect by using ballad prosody- short lines of alternate tetrameter and triameter, and emphatic repetitions of nouns, verbs and phrases, meaning that the reader as mesmerised as the Wedding Guest was.

Look at the effect of these verses:

"The land of ice, and of fearful sounds where no living thing was to be seen.

And through the drifts the snowy clifts

Did send a dismal sheen :

Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken--

The ice was all between.

The ice was here, the ice was there,

The ice was all around :

It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,

Like noises in a swound !"

And....

"And I had done an hellish thing,

And it would work 'em woe :

For all averred, I had killed the bird

That made the breeze to blow.

Ah wretch ! said they, the bird to slay,

That made the breeze to blow !
But when the fog cleared off, they justify the same, and thus make themselves accomplices in the crime.
Nor dim nor red, like God's own head,

The glorious Sun uprist :

Then all averred, I had killed the bird

That brought the fog and mist.

'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,

That bring the fog and mist."

Then the famous lines...

"Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion ;

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean
And the Albatross begins to be avenged.
Water, water, every where,

And all the boards did shrink ;

Water, water, every where,

Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot : O Christ !

That ever this should be !

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs

Upon the slimy sea.

About, about, in reel and rout

The death-fires danced at night ;

The water, like a witch's oils,

Burnt green, and blue and white."

The poem, like a mediaeval ballad, finishes with an explicit moral:

"And to teach, by his own example, love and reverence to all things that God made and loveth.
Farewell, farewell ! but this I tell

To thee, thou Wedding-Guest !

He prayeth well, who loveth well

Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best, who loveth best

All things both great and small ;

For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all."

Just as Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" has inspired many artists and musicians over the centuries, Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" has been a similar source of inspiration.

There is even a statue in a port town in Somerset thought to be have inspired Coleridge to write the poem:

"Ah ! well a-day ! what evil looks

Had I from old and young !

Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung."

As you've probably guessed, this is one of my favourite pieces of English Literature!!!

Romantic Orientalism-Coleridge's "Kubla Khan"

Another Romantic theme was Orientalism. With the expansion of trade with the East, tales of exotic places very different to England stimulated the imaginations of the Romantic poets. Here's the first verse of Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan". Notice the rich, exotic description (helped along with a little opium, no doubt).

“Kubla Khan. Or, A Vision in a Dream, a Fragment” (S.T. Coleridge)
(the first verse)

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree :

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round :

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

For the full poem:
(http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/stc/Coleridge/poems/Kubla_Khan.html)

Shelley and "England in 1819"

Another common topic for the Romantic poets was the French Revolution. Percy Shelley wrote this sonnet in protest of King George after the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester, 1819 (didn't I say Manchester had so much to answer for?!)

ENGLAND IN 1819

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,--
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn, mud from a muddy spring,--
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,--
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,--
An army which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield,--
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless, a book sealed,--
A Senate--Time's worst statute unrepealed,--
Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst to illumine our tempestuous day.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England_in_1819

Wordsworth and Romantic Landscapes

Remember how the different Romantic poets had different preferences for topic? Well, the next few entries are to share some examples of these. Let's start with Wordsworth and his daffodils.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils,

Beside the lake, beneath the trees

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: -

A poet could not but be gay

In such a jocund company:

I gazed -and gazed -but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills

And dances with the daffodils.

Shakespeare's globe

We might have "finished" Shakespeare, but the beauty of the blog is that we can share information whenever we find it. Click the link to read an article about the possible discovery of Shakespeare's first theatre in London:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7931823.stm

I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts...

Jonathan Swift-political journalist, academic, clergyman, misanthropist. Perhaps being involved with human beings from so many different aspects made him so cynical about his own kind. This cynicism reached a summit with his final essay "A Modest Proposal" (1729), after which he chose to write only poetry.
We must remember while reading this essay that Swift was NOT being serious in suggesting that the Irish sell their children for food to the rich. He was trying to attract the attention of an indifferent audience, before asserting angrily what he thought were realistic solutions (page 5 of your copies, beginning "Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients"). Swift's satire is very different from that of Dryden in "MacFlecknoe". He is angry rather than mocking; and he is calling out for an urgent solution to a problem of humanity rather than making fun of a rival poet.
However, similar to Dryden's "MacFlecknoe", the satire in "A Modest Proposal" is created by means of a contrast between form and content. While Dryden used the form of heroic poetry to diminish Thomas Shadwell, Swift uses the form of the essay - rational argumentation - to present content that is completely irrational and unacceptable to any human being, regardless of their race, culture or religion. Swift's language is clear and logical, the content is horrific and shocks the readers until the part where he introduces his rational solutions satirically by commenting "let no man talk to me of these and the like expedients, till he hath at least some glimpse of hope, that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them into practice". Again we see Swift's mistrust of the good intentions of mankind.