Unit 5-Romanticism

Course Title: Poetry
Course Code & NO.: LANE 447
Course Credit Hrs.: 3 weekly
Level: 7th Level Students

Romanticism
Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan”
Lord Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty”
Shelly’s “To a Skylark”
Keats’ “Ode to Autumn”
Instructor: Dr. Noora Al-Malki
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This Presentation
• Discusses the emergence of Romanticism as a
significant literary movement.
• Presents a survey of the poetry written by
some of the major Romantic poets of the 19th
C.
• Focuses on the presentation of themes
related to the expression of heightened
emotions and the portrayal of natural
elements.
Dr. Noora Al-Malki 2012
2
eaglenoora@yahoo.com

Romanticism
(1770s- 1870)
(1998-1832)
Romanticism has very little to do with things popularly thought of
as "romantic," although love may occasionally be the subject of
Romantic art. Rather, it is an international artistic and
philosophical movement that redefined the fundamental ways in
which people in Western cultures thought about themselves and
about their world.
The early Romantic period thus coincides with what is often called
the "age of revolutions"--including, of course, the American (1776)
and the French (1789) revolutions--an age of upheavals in
political, economic, and social traditions, the age which witnessed
the initial transformations of the Industrial Revolution.

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Romanticism
Major Elements

•Emotion vs. Reason
•Nature (leads to truth)
•Imagination
•Symbolism & Myth
•Individualism: The Romantic Hero (genius)
•the Exotic

Adapted from
Guide to the Study of Literature: A Companion Text for Core Studies 6, Landmarks of Literature, ©English Department,
.Brooklyn College

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English Romanticism

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English Romanticism

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Coleridge

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Coleridge
Kubla khan

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Coleridge
Kubla khan
First stanza

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 here 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.

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Coleridge
Second stanza Kubla khan
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
,And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
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Coleridge
Kubla khan
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

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Coleridge
Kubla khan

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

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Coleridge
Kubla khan

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

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Coleridge
Kubla khan

,And all who heard should see them there
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

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Coleridge
Kubla khan
• The poem evokes romanticized Oriental landscapes (13th C China)
• the setting contains contrasted images of wild nature and man-made dome.
• It is a verse representation of Coleridge's theories of the imagination
•“Kubla Khan” as a poem that relates the account of its own creation, thus
stressing its tendency to foreground itself as a work of Romantic art.

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Coleridge
Kubla khan
-What predominant images we find in “Kubla Khan”? Comment on a few of
them.

- Coleridge depicted nature in a peculiar way in “Kubla Khan”. Discuss with
sufficient illustration from the poem.

-Critics point out that “Kubla Khan”, although a fragment, is a masterpiece
representation of the elements of Romantic poetry. Justify this statement
with adequate illustration from the poem

-The symbolic dimension of “Kubla Khan” has been discussed by many
critics. Present a symbolic reading of the poem.

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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: Lord Byron
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies. She Walks in Beauty
Hebrew Melodies
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face; "mad, bad, and dangerous to know.“
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. •a lady in mourning wearing a black dress
•Meeting of opposites
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, •Not an expression of love
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 with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

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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: Lord Byron
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies. She Walks in Beauty
Hebrew Melodies
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face; "mad, bad, and dangerous to know.“
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. •a lady in mourning wearing a black dress
•Meeting of opposites
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, •Not an expression of love
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 with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

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Unit 5-Romanticism

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