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ROMANTICISM The Second Generation Poets: ... Was the knight deluded by his beloved, ... Shelley died in a boating accident just before his 30th birthday. – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: ROMANTICISM The Second Generation Poets: Byron Shelley Keats


1
ROMANTICISM The Second Generation
PoetsByronShelleyKeats
2
  • This second generation of romantics rebelled even
    more strongly against British conservatism, and
    as cultural figures, Byron, Shelley, Keats
    became like punk rock stars in England.

3
  • Live fast, die young.
  • This would be an apt motto for Byron, Shelley,
    Keats since all three died tragically in their
    youth.

4
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
  • Member of the House of Lords, Byron was handsome,
    egotistical, and aloof, the darling of elegant
    society.

5
  • Byron was considered highly attractive and
    affable
  • Shelley said of him scarcely have I seen such a
    beautiful countenance.
  • Yet, Byron was hindered by being born with a
    clubbed foot, something for which he would be
    highly self-conscious determined to overcome

6
Byron lived a flamboyant life he was
fashionable, prone to debauchery, and given to
affairs of the heart. He ran around with married
women, married and divorced a cousin, had a
romance (and child) with his half sister, and
engaged in homosexual experiences. Although,
Byron never considered himself to be defined by a
sexuality.
7
Mad, bad, and dangerous to know.Lady Caroline
Lamb
  • Shocked by his radical politics and scandalous
    love affairs, Byron was shunned by London
    society, so he left Britain in 1816, never to
    return.

8
The Irresistible Bad Boy The Byronic Hero
Devastatingly Attractive yet Fatally Flawed
9
  • A man proud, moody, cynical, with defiance on his
    brow, and misery in his heart, a scorner of his
    kind, implacable in revenge, yet capable of deep
    and strong affection.
  • In short, a Byronic Hero is the bad boy that
    womens mothers warn them about.

10
Action not Words
  • Byrons friendship with Shelley led him to come
    to find words (i.e. poetry) were insufficient in
    bringing change about
  • Hence, Byron started to become involved in
    causes. Specifically, he addressed the struggle
    in Greece against the Ottomans.

11
  • Lord Byron died of a fever at age 36 while
    fighting for Greek independence.

12
  • To this day, Byron is revered in Greece as a
    national hero.

13
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
  • Byrons friend, also an aristocrat and political
    radical, more radical than Byron.
  • Shelley urged Englands lower classes to rebel.
  • Shelley was expelled from Oxford for writing an
    essay called The Necessity of Atheism
  • He was said to have a calm demeanor but his
    motives were always questioned

14
Shelley remarked that despite his good
intentions, his world seemed to continually fall
into chaos and troublewhich likely led his first
marriage collapsing. Shelley had numerous
affairs on Harriet, including running away with
Mary. In the end, am ashamed and broken Harriet
committed suicide. Shelleys second marriage to
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin(author of
Frankenstein) would last until the poets death
in 1822.
15
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
  • Byron was so fond of Shelley, he said he was the
    best and least selfish manI never knew one who
    wasnt a beast in comparison.
  • Shunned for his radical ideas, Shelley left
    England for good in 1818

16
Shelley died in a boating accident just before
his 30th birthday. Foul play has always been
suspected. In his coat pockets were two books
the Bible and book of Keats poems.
17
John Keats (1795-1821)
  • A master of lyrical poetry
  • Born outside of upper-class society
  • Contracted tuberculosis and, hoping to recuperate
    in a warmer climate, moved to Italy where he died
    shortly after.

18
Keats never married and of the Big 3 Second Gen
Romantics, he died the youngest. He knew he was
ill and knew, too, that he would succumb and die
from the consumption. Therefore, Keats verse
has an intensity and drive that perhaps had not
been seen in poetry prior to him. In fact, his
entire body of work was composed in about one
year.
19
  • John Keats wrote Here lies one whose name was
    writ in water.

20
She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron
  • This sonnet vividly describes a womans beauty,
    capturing its essential power and linking it to
    universal images.

21
Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley
  • This poem provides an ironic comment on human
    pride and ambition. A traveler describes the
    ruins of an ancient statue of a ruler. On its
    base is an arrogant inscription however, what is
    left of the statue stands in an empty desert, for
    the works of Ozymandias have crumbled under the
    onslaught of time and nature.

22
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
23
Political Commentary
  • Poetry became also specifically political and
    socially critical.
  • Offered opinions on political issues, built
    arguments on evidence and assumptions

24
The Reaction to Societys Ills (Byron and Shelley)
  • Lord Byrons speech to the House of Lords (1817)
    was in defense of workers who had sabotaged
    factory equipment that had put them out of work.
  • Shelleys A Song Men of England (1820) is an
    angry response to news of the growing economic
    suffering and political oppression of the working
    classes in England.

25
Beauty is truth, truth beautyJohn Keats
  • Keats found in beauty the highest value our
    imperfect world could offer, and he put its
    pursuit at the center of his poetry.
  • He explored the beauty he found in the most
    ordinary circumstances.

26
Ode
  • A lyric poem characterized by heightened emotion,
    that pays respect to a person or thing, usually
    directly addressed by the speaker
  • While other poets described objects, Keats
    PRESENTED them

27
Keatss Use of the Ode
  • Keats created his own form of the ode, using
    10-line stanzas of iambic pentameter, beginning
    with a heroic quatrain (4 lines rhymed abab)
    followed by a sestet.

28
When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be by
John Keats
  • The speaker expresses fears that he will not live
    to fulfill his potential. Keats died less than
    three years after he wrote it.

29
Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats
  • Keats comes to an understanding about the nature
    of truth and beauty as he gazes at an ancient
    Greek urn. The scenes, frozen in time, eternally
    beautiful and unchanging, symbolize that the
    urns beauty embodies the eternity of truth.

30
Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats
Who addressed What it cant do/be What it can do/be
Stanza II
Stanza III
Stanza IV
31
Thou still unravished bride of quietness Thou
foster child of silence and slow time...
32
Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats
  • Keatss poem is not about or on the nightingale,
    but to the bird. The speaker passes beyond the
    limit of ordinary experience and becomes too
    happy in the experience conveyed in the birds
    song.

33
  • The poem consists of a series of propositions,
    each containing its own rejection as to how the
    speaker might imitate the ease of the song.
    Each time, the speaker is drawn back to his sole
    self, to a preference for poetry as a
    celebration of human life as a process of soul
    making.

34
http//www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id
14854
35
La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats
  • An unidentified passerby asks the knight what is
    wrong. The knight answers that he has been in
    love with and abandoned by a beautiful lady. But
    what does it mean? What is the meaning of the
    knights experience? Was the knight deluded by
    his beloved, or did he delude himself?

36
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37
  1. What is the most important word in the
    descriptions of the woman, and why?
  2. Who are the two speakers?
  3. How do the poems images help you visualize the
    knight and the time of year?
  4. Interpret the dream in stanza 10.
  5. What does the knight realize has happened when he
    awakes?
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