Shelley, Byron, Keats: Romantics

Lord Byron• 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         

• 5 Which heaven to gaudy day denies. 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;  

• 10 Where thoughts serenely sweet express How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow,  

• 15 But tell of days in goodness spent, A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent!

“She Walks in Beauty”

• 1814 by Lord Byron• Lyric Poem• Describes a beautiful woman• Told in 3rd person, but it is assumed that Byron

himself is the narrator• Inspired by a photo of a cousin (by marriage)

named Anne Wilmont who he saw in a mourning gown (pictured above)

“She Walks in Beauty”• Poem gives us one of the most well known metaphors (comparison) in

all of poetry: A beautiful woman is compared with “the night.” • Poem also uses the technique of enjambment (second line follows from

first with no punctuation and clarifies the first line): • “She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies” (Byron 1-2).• Byron uses the contrast of light (light face (skin), white of her eyes) and

dark (night, dark hair, dark irises) in the poem. • He is attracted to this combination [“all that’s best of dark and bright”

(3)] that she possesses, of light and dark qualities, and said that if she had just a bit more darkness or light, then she’d be “"half impair’d“ (6). * He goes on to describe her character and show how her outward beauty matches her inner character: “pure,” “eloquent,” “innocent.”

• However, she also contains that dark edge; she is worldly and “real.” • The poem provides a balance of the praise of both physical and

intellectual beauty and is clearly “romantic”.

“When We Two Parted”• WHEN we two parted In silence and tears, Half broken-

hearted To sever for years, Pale grew thy cheek and cold,         5 Colder thy kiss; Truly that hour foretold Sorrow to this. The dew of the morning Sunk chill on my brow—  10 It felt like the warning Of what I feel now. Thy vows are all broken, And light is thy fame: I hear thy name spoken,  15 And share in its shame. They name thee before me, A knell to mine ear; A shudder comes o'er me— Why wert thou so dear?  20 They know not I knew thee, Who knew thee too well: Long, long shall I rue thee, Too deeply to tell. In secret we met—  25 In silence I grieve, That thy heart could forget, Thy spirit deceive. If I should meet thee After long years,  30 How should I greet thee? With silence and tears.

“When We Two Parted”• This is another LYRIC poem. These are written

in the present tense and present the emotions or feelings of the poet.

• The poem is about grief surrounding the ending of a relationship: The two parted “in silence and tears / Half broken-hearted” (Byron 1-2).

• The tone is dark and bleak. • It is indicated that this may have been an illicit

affair: “Thy vows are all broken” (13) and “In secret we met” (25).

“When We Two Parted”• Later, Byron revealed a final stanza to the poem in a letter

he wrote to a cousin: Then --- fare thee well --- Fanny --- Now doubly undone --- To prove false unto many --- As faithless to One --- Thou art past all recalling Even would I recall --- For the woman once falling Forever must fall. –

• It is believed that the poem is about Lady Frances Webster Wellington, who was married, and at the time linked to the Duke of Wellington.

“When We Two Parted”

• The poem is the epitome of that great Romantic notion “the pain of love.”

• It is easily relatable today for anyone who has lost a love for any reason– an affair, a break-up, death, etc.

• Byron had many lovers, and thus had a great insight into these matters. He was able to capture these themes remarkably well in his poetry.

“Epitaph to a Dog”• Near this Spot

are deposited the Remains of onewho possessed Beauty without Vanity,Strength without Insolence,Courage without Ferosity,and all the virtues of Man without his Vices.

This praise, which would be unmeaning Flatteryif inscribed over human Ashes,is but a just tribute to the Memory ofBOATSWAIN, a DOG,who was born in Newfoundland May 1803and died at Newstead Nov. 18, 1808.

• … the poem continues

“Epitaph to a Dog”• 1808• Written by Bryon about his Newfoundland dog,

Botswain, who died of rabies.• Byron, an animal lover, is said to have nursed his beloved pet withoutfear of becoming ill.• This poem appears on Botswain’s tomb at

Newstead Abbey, Byron’s estate. The dog’s monument is larger than even Bryon’s.

• Bryon’s friend wrote the opening lines, and Byron finished it.

Keats: “When I Have Fears”• WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen

has glean’d my teeming brain, Before high piled books, in charact’ry, Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain; When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,        5 Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour! That I shall never look upon thee more,        10 Never have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

“When I Have Fears”• Shakespearean type Sonnet• Written in 1818 and enclosed as part of a letter

to his best friend, John Hamilton Reynolds.• A true “Romantic,” Keats’ poem is driven by

emotion & recognition of his own mortality.• The poem is an examination of Keats’ psyche:

He is longing for success (both in his career and in his love life).

• Sadly, the poem reveals that the poet knows he will die before he accomplishes either.

“When I Have Fears”

• Summary: Keats experiences feelings of fear that 1. he may die before he has written the volumes of poetry that he is convinced he is capable of writing, 2. he may never write a long metrical romance, fragments of which float through his mind, and 3. he may never again see a certain woman and so never experience passionate love.

• He then feels that he is alone in the world and that love and fame are worthless.

“When I Have Fears”• The language of the poem is a bit archaic, even for Keats’

time. He borrows words from Shakespeares’ era: “charact'ry and garners”

• The poem is a personal confession about the poet’s fear of an early death.

• Both of his parents & his brother died young, and this accounts for Keats’ crippling fear of death. He knows that dying young will annihilate any chance he has at being successful in his writing and in his personal life.

• Of course, Keats did go on to meet his great love, Fanny Brawne, but their relationship was short-lived due to his illness and subsequent death in his mid-20’s. And, his poetry did make him one of the greatest writers of the Romantic era, but he didn’t live to see that either.

“Bright Star”•

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art-- Not in lone splendour hung aloft the nightAnd watching, with eternal lids apart,Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,The moving waters at their priestlike taskOf pure ablution round earth's human shores,Or gazing on the new soft-fallen maskOf snow upon the mountains and the moors--No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,And so live ever--or else swoon to death.

• John Keats

“Bright Star”

• The drafting date of “Bright Star” is contended; some say it was written in 1818, before Keats met Fanny Brawne (and that he may have revised it for her after they met); others believe that it was written later, in 1819, briefly after their engagement.

• Some believe the last draft of the poem to be the last thing Keats wrote before his death.

“Bright Star”• In the poem, Keats is speaking to a star.• Presumably the North Star, or Polaris, the only star

that doesn’t move. This is significant because the North Star is symbolic of a “guide,” as the star is typically used as a point of navigation.

• Like the star that never moves, he too never wants to move from his “pillow” (his girlfriend’s breast). And if he can’t spend all of eternity there, then he’d rather die. Being without her is a “fate worse than death,” so to speak.

• Keats’ themes, as well as his imagery of nature, are typical Romantic elements.

Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind”• I

O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou         5 Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill  10(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odours plain and hill; Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, O hear!

• ---Continued

“Ode to the West Wind”• ODE

1.a lyric poem typically of elaborate or irregular metrical form and expressive of exalted or enthusiastic emotion.

• 2.(originally) a poem intended to be sung.• Written in 1819 in Italy.• Dispute about its interpretation. Either: • 1. Speaker laments his inability to help people in England (maybe because

Shelley was in Italy at the time) but also offers hope that his words will be inspirational. Through the poem, he spreads the ideas of change and reform.

• 2. Some believe the poem is about the loss of his son William in 1819. • 3. Others believe that the poem is about the role of the poet as the voice of

change and revolution & that it was written with the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 in mind (this was a political demonstration that ended when calvary charged the crowd, killing 11? 15? and wounding hundreds).

• Many of his poems from this period (“Mask of Anarchy,” “Prometheus Unbound,” “England in 1819”) take up these same themes: change, revolution, and the role of the poet.

•

“Ode to the West Wind”• In “Defence of Poetry,” Shelley said: "Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; 

the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.“

• In the poem, Shelley asks the wind to scatter his words, to be a “trumpet of prophecy”. He wants the wind to “quicken spring”– to bring about the birth of new ideas (change).

• Like the wind, the poet can be a bringer of change; he can act as an agent of political and moral change.

• However, like the wind, poets can be both “destroyers and preservers” and must take their influence seriously.

“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 tempestous day.

• Percy Bysshe Shelley

“England in 1819”• Written in 1819• It is a sonnet• Summary: “The king is dying, old, blind, insane, and 

despised. His sons are objects of public scorn. His ministers run the country for their own selfish interests. The people are hungry and oppressed. The army is used to destroy liberty and to collect booty. The law is manipulated to protect the rich and enchain the poor. Religion is in a state of apathy. Parliament denies Roman Catholics their civil rights. But out of this unhappy state of affairs may come a revolution that will right all wrongs.”

• This poem is one of Shelley’s bold political statements.

“England in 1819”• The King is George III• George was insane, blind, deaf, and old. When he died, his

son (George IV) took over, and he wasn’t much better.• George IV was shrouded in public scandal. His cabinet were

arch-conservatives, scorned by English liberals like Shelley and Byron.

• Shelley blames them for the unemployment, hunger, and general unrest that was largely due to the Napoleonic wars. Due to the civil unrest, public gatherings were limited, and Shelley was concerned that a revolution would ensue.

• Shelley also makes reference to the Peterloo Massacre (“"a people starved and stabbed in the untilled field“). In fact, the poem is said to be in reaction to that event.

“England in 1819”• The army, "which liberticide and prey / Makes as a two-edged

sword to all who wield“: reference to the use of troops by the government to handle disturbances and repress liberty.

• "Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay“: refers to laws that vested interests caused to be passed and which led to bloodshed.

• "Religion Christless, Godless" refers to the Anglican Church• "Time's worst statute" refers to the restrictions under which

English Roman Catholics were forced to live. They were not allowed to vote or sit in Parliament, preside over law courts, or enter the universities, until 1829.

“England in 1819”• The poem is a clear attack of the elite, oppressive ruling

class. They preside over a people who are hungry, oppressed, and hopeless. The army is corrupt, the laws are harsh and of little help to the people, and religion is corrupt as well– morality has been sucked from the church. In addition, the government is outdated and out of touch. Catholics, a minority, have no civil rights.

• Although dark in tone, the poem ends with a tinge of optimism: a "glorious Phantom" may spring forth from this decay and "illumine our tempestuous day". This alludes to the possibility of obtaining liberty through revolution.

Next Time…• On Wednesday, we will screen part of the film Haunted 

Summer. Made in 1988, and hard to find, the film’s tag line reads: “In 1815, authors Lord Byron, Mary Shelley and Percy Shelley get together for some philosophical discussions, but the situation soon deteriorates into mind games, drugs and sex.”

• Based on the infamous Summer of 1816 when Mary Shelley wrote "Frankenstein", it chronicles the mind games and manipulations that were the hallmarks of the intense and neurotic relationships that existed among Byron, Shelley, Mary, and her step-sister Claire Godwin. 

For Friday:• Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman

• Poems: • Whitman (In Book): “Song of Myself,” “O

Captain, My Captain,” “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” and “When Lilacs Last in Dooryard Bloom”

• Emerson: Essay, “Nature”• Thoreau: “Walden”