2. Development of the novel
By the end of the 18th century the novel became the most popular form of fiction.
The new interest in the individual regarding the conflict between his personal desires
and ambitions and the requirement of society led to:
● Deeper psychological insight
● Inner maturity in characters
● Character’s self-realisation
● Dialogues served to bring characters to life
● Relationship between classes was more detailed
.
3. Romantic fiction: types of novel
Novel of manner
Most remarkable
author: Jane Austen
(Pride and Prejudice)
Historical novel
Most remarkable
author: Sir Walter Scott
(Waverly and Ivanhoe)
American prose
Most remarkable
author: Edgar Allan Poe
01 02 03
4. Dealt with how middle classes behaved in everyday life situations and described codes
of conduct.
Jane Austen was the most remarkable author on the field: her novels were based on the
premise of an existing vital relationship between character, social behaviour and manner.
★ Set in: countryside, not towns. Meetings took places during visits, balls and teas.
★ Influence of money and property on the way people treated each others
★ Main themes: marriage; complication of friendship and love
★ Third person narrator
★ Dialogues brings irony
★ Passion and emotions are expressed indirectly
Novel of manner
5. Literary genre that reflects the romantic interest in the past, particularly the historical
period of the Middle Ages.
Sir Walter Scott -scottish- was the founder: his main achievement was to get people to
realise that history was NOT just a list of political and religious events, but a product of
human decisions.
★ New concept of history based on the lives of common people and not noble
★ Mingled historical truth and fiction
★ Setted in historical contexts that pointed out the political and cultural conflicts
★ Scott used Scottish dialect for celebrating the glorious past of Scotland
He influenced Manzoni ( The Betrothed) that conversely, used a language aviable to all the
country to create a national cosciousness.
Historical novel
6. American prose
After the American Independence it increased the need for an American culture
and literature that could reflect American identity.
The diversity of languages of emigrants led to the publication of “American
Dictionary of the English Language” in 1828, which determined the primacy of
English.
Short story became a distinctive form, suitable for wide circulation.
7. William Blake
★ Born in London in 1757 into a family of humble origins.
★ He was trained as an engraver, he practiced until he died.
★ Was deeply aware of the great political and social issues of his
age
★ A political freethinker, he supported the French Revolution and
remained a radical throughout his life ( supported abolition of
slavery and egalitarian principles).
★ Had a strong sense of religion
★ Most important influence in his life was the BIBLE
★ Died in London in 1827
8. Blake as a poet
★ An individual poet, both in terms of his personal vision and technique.
★ Explored the timeless struggle between the role of law and reason and the powers of love and
imagination.
★ Used symbols as part of a deliberate attempt to avoid any kind of realism
○ It is the real world that prevents man from perceiving the greater reality that lies behind him.
★ Blake believed in the reality of spiritual world but thought christianity was responsible for the
fragmentation of consciousness and the dualism characterising man’s life (VISION MADE UP OF
COMPLEMENTARY OPPOSITES)
★ He considered IMAGINATION as the means through which man can know the world, he didn’t
believed in man’s rationality (rationalistic and materialist philosophy = great heretics)
★ Faith and intuition→ only source of true knowledge
★ Denied the truth of sensory experience
★ Internal mind builds the external world the man sees.
9. Songs of innocence and songs of experience
★ Written in the pastoral mode with simple imagery
★ Deals with childhood as the symbol of innocence
★ Narrator → shepherd who receives inspiration from a child in a cloud to pipe
his songs celebrating the divine in all creation
★ Simple and musical
★ More complex and pessimistic
★ Narrator → bard who questions the themes of the previous collection
★ Deal with adulthood
10. Theme: the causes of man’s lack of freedom, oppression
of urban life
Key images: mind-forg’d manacles
Three victims: chimney-sweeper, soldier, prostitute
Devices:
★ Repetitions
★ Metaphors
★ Hyperbole
London
11. Theme: innocence and the creation
Key images: the lamb, the child, the christ
Devices:
★ Repeated questions
★ Answers
★ Idyllic setting
★ Image of God
The Lamb
12. Theme: power of creation
Key images: the tiger as seen Blake’s poetic
imagination→ fearful symmetry; burning bright… fire of
thine eyes
Devices:
★ Repeated questions (rhetorical)
★ Hammering rhythm
★ Idyllic setting
★ Creator presented as a blacksmith
Reference to myth: Icarus and Prometheus
The Tyger
13. William Wordsworth
★ Born in Cumberland (Cumbria) in 1770
★ He graduated from st John’s college, Cambridge.
★ French Revolution filled him with enthusiasm for democratic ideal, but after
the brutal developments of the Revolution and the declaration of war
between France and England he had a nervous breakdown and moved with
his sister to Dorset
★ In 1795 he met Samuel Taylor Coleridge and with him he wrote the Lyrical
ballads which came as a huge development for English Romantic poetry
★ Married a childhood friend (Mary Hutchinson) and they had five children
★ Died in 1850.
14. The manifesto of English romanticism
For Wordsworth poetry was a solitary act originating in the ordinary.
LYRICAL BALLADS → written with Coleridge. It dealt with:
★ Man
★ Nature
★ Everyday things
Wordsworth explained that the subject matter should deal with everyday
situations or incidents WITH ordinary people.
Language: simple → reason lies in humble rural life.
Poet → a man among men.
15. ★ Complex interaction between
man and nature
★ Emotions and sensations that
arise from this contact
★ Man and nature inseparable
(man exists not outside the
nature world)
★ Nature is a source of pleasure
and joy
★ Nature also a world of sense
perceptions (eye and ear), they
develops during childhood as a
result of the pleasure and pain
caused by our physical
experiences
★ Memory is a major force in the
process of growth of the poet’s
mind and moral character.
Man and nature Senses and memory
16. Wordsworth’s style
★ Great sensibility that allows him to see into the heart
of things
★ Power of Imaginations → communicate his knowledge
★ Almost always used blank verse
His task:
★ Drawing attention to the ordinary things of life
★ To the humblest people
