{"id":82,"date":"2014-01-08T09:31:58","date_gmt":"2014-01-08T16:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/yvyt\/?p=82"},"modified":"2014-01-08T09:31:58","modified_gmt":"2014-01-08T16:31:58","slug":"a-note-on-romanticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/yvyt\/2014\/01\/08\/a-note-on-romanticism\/","title":{"rendered":"A Note on Romanticism"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think English Romanticism has to be my favourite period of English Literature. Though Wordsworth and Coleridge have written wonderful works of literature I have to admit, they aren’t my favourites. It would have to be Thomas Grey, John Keats, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. I know I should be writing my blog post about Lyrical Ballads<\/em>, but I think I’ll apply what I learned from lecture to some of my other favourite Romantic poetry. More specifically, I want to write about Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I<\/b><\/p>\n

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,\r\nThou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead\r\nAre driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,\r\n\r\nYellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,\r\nPestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,\r\nWho chariotest to their dark wintry bed\r\n\r\nThe wing\u00e8d seeds, where they lie cold and low,\r\nEach like a corpse within its grave,until\r\nThine azure sister of the Spring shall blow\r\n\r\nHer clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill\r\n(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)\r\nWith living hues and odours plain and hill:\r\n\r\nWild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;\r\nDestroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!<\/pre>\n

\nII<\/b><\/p>\n
Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,\r\nLoose clouds like Earth's decaying leaves are shed,\r\nShook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,\r\n\r\nAngels of rain and lightning: there are spread\r\nOn the blue surface of thine airy surge,\r\nLike the bright hair uplifted from the head\r\n\r\nOf some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge\r\nOf the horizon to the zenith's height,\r\nThe locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge\r\n\r\nOf the dying year, to which this closing night\r\nWill be the dome of a vast sepulchre\r\nVaulted with all thy congregated might\r\n\r\nOf vapours, from whose solid atmosphere\r\nBlack rain, and fire, and hail will burst: O hear!<\/pre>\n

\nIII<\/b><\/p>\n
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams\r\nThe blue Mediterranean, where he lay,\r\nLulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,\r\n\r\nBeside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,\r\nAnd saw in sleep old palaces and towers\r\nQuivering within the wave's intenser day,\r\n\r\nAll overgrown with azure moss and flowers\r\nSo sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou\r\nFor whose path the Atlantic's level powers\r\n\r\nCleave themselves into chasms, while far below\r\nThe sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear\r\nThe sapless foliage of the ocean, know\r\n\r\nThy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,\r\nAnd tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!<\/pre>\n

\nIV<\/b><\/p>\n
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;\r\nIf I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;\r\nA wave to pant beneath thy power, and share\r\n\r\nThe impulse of thy strength, only less free\r\nThan thou, O Uncontrollable! If even\r\nI were as in my boyhood, and could be\r\n\r\nThe comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,\r\nAs then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed\r\nScarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven\r\n\r\nAs thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.\r\nOh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!\r\nI fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!\r\n\r\nA heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed\r\nOne too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.<\/pre>\n

\nV<\/b><\/p>\n
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:\r\nWhat if my leaves are falling like its own!\r\nThe tumult of thy mighty harmonies\r\n\r\nWill take from both a deep, autumnal tone,\r\nSweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,\r\nMy spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!\r\n\r\nDrive my dead thoughts over the universe\r\nLike withered leaves to quicken a new birth!\r\nAnd, by the incantation of this verse,\r\n\r\nScatter, as from an unextinguished hearth\r\nAshes and sparks, my words among mankind!\r\nBe through my lips to unawakened Earth\r\n\r\nThe trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,\r\nIf Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?<\/pre>\n<\/blockquote>\n
There are a few reasons why I love this poem and it aligns well with what was mentioned in lecture today. One of the things mentioned was innovation against form of poetry. Not necessarily against old traditional form, (in fact, this poem by Shelly is composed of five sonnets), but as was mentioned, innovations of those forms. So as I said, this poem is composed of five sonnets, but the rhyming pattern isn’t one that follows the traditional English Sonnet (or known as the Shakespearian sonnet – because there are a few sonnet ‘types’), rather than A-B-A-B, C-D-C-D, E-F-E-F, G-G the pattern goes A-B-A-, B-C-B, C-D-C, D-E-D (also known as Terza Rima). I admire the choice in in rhythm patter because it mimics the motion of the wind (a-ha, it’s an Ode to the West Wind), but more specifically, how helicopter seeds move in the wind (I don’t know the actual name for them, so I’ll just call them helicopter seeds).<\/p>\n
The idea of seeds as well is something that I like to mention. The idea that the wind might blow seeds to any direction it chooses, and that our lives, and fate is something that we cannot necessarily control (but the thing about fate is that I’m not too sure if I believe in it, but Shelly’s idea here is still very lovely I think). In this poem, the livelihood of the seed is up to the wind. If the seed is blown to fair conditions, it grows. If not, it dies.<\/p>\n
I think there is a lot more to say about this poem than what I have so far, but for now it will suffice. However, if anyone here wants to add on to my blog post, please feel free!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I think English Romanticism has to be my favourite period of English Literature. Though Wordsworth and Coleridge have written wonderful works of literature I have to admit, they aren’t my favourites. It would have to be Thomas Grey, John Keats, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. I know I should be writing my blog post about Lyrical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21083,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/yvyt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/yvyt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/yvyt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/yvyt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21083"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/yvyt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/yvyt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/yvyt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions\/86"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/yvyt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/yvyt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/yvyt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}