Structure and Style in the Greater Romantic Lyric
In his article "Structure and Style in the Greater Romantic Lyric," M. H. Abrams works to define what constitutes the greater Romantic lyric by turning to the philosophic undertones pervading the lyrical writings of William Wordsworth and more so of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Abrams's first task is to define what is meant by the term "greater Romantic lyric," a form which the critic states in no unbiased way "includes some of the greatest Romantic achievements in any form" (201). This longer Romantic poetic form is typified by "a determinate speaker in a particularized, and usually a localized, outdoor setting" who carries on "a sustained colloquy, sometimes with himself or with the outer scene" (201). The structure of the greater Romantic lyric is as follows: the poem begins with the poet describing the immediate natural surroundings, which aspect triggers "memory, thought, anticipation, and feeling" and leads to a meditation whereby the observer "achieves an insight, faces up to a tragic loss, comes to a moral decision, or resolves an emotional problem" (201). This cycle of completion is often marked by the poem returning back upon itself, a culmination back to the beginning.
The key ingredient in this structure is that it is centered on the role of the human, for even though Romantic poetry is abundantly rich with descriptions of the natural world, Romantics are "humanists above all," describing the outer physical world only as it relates to man's self-reflective condition (202). This accounts for Wordsworth's fear that an all-consuming observation of the material world would "tyrannize over the mind and imagination" (202). But to fully explicate his definition of the greater Romantic lyric, Abrams turns not to Wordsworth but to Coleridge as the main focal point, for Coleridge is its chief author and innovator, having brought forth the Romantic lyric in "The Eolian Harp" in 1796, a full two years before Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey" (204).
That Coleridge gives the appellation "conversation poems" to his own lyric poems (which also include "The Nightingale" and "This Lime-tree Bower") reflects for us the Romantics' focus on the primacy of the human dimension in the natural world. They are "conversational" in the sense that the poems involve a "dramatic mode of address to an unanswering listener" (206). These poems, then, follow the aforementioned formula of the speaker viewing a natural scene, reflecting meditatively on the scene and how it relates to the self, and reaching "the free movement of thought from the present scene to recollection in tranquility, to prayer-like prediction, and back to the scene" (206).
Because of the above, it is helpful to have some understanding of his theory. In Death in the afternoon, Hemingway (1932,191) points out that no matter how good a phrase or a simile a writer may have, he is spoiling his work out of egotism if he puts it in where it is not absolutely necessary. The form of a work, according to Hemingway, should be created out of experience, and no intruding elements should be allowed to falsify that form and betray that experience. As a result, all that can be dispensed with should be pruned off: convention, embellishment, rhetoric. It is this tendency of writing that has brought Hemingway admiration as well as criticism, but it is clear that the author knew what he was doing when he himself commented on his aim:
Furthermore, Wordsworth’s assertion of feelings as the effects of an action or a situation, which means that actions should influence the emotions of the character and not the other way around, is dissimilar to The Raven’s character’s feeling of desperation in which he succumbed to his distress. However, the lesson derived from the bizarre workings of the human mind in preferring more devotion to the pain for the sake of “preserving the memory,” as “The Raven” illustrates, exposes to us how a particular person behaves towards grief. The statement thus proves in relation to Coleridge’s statement of the readers’ elicitation of the poem is more significant than the poem itself (in reference to his emphasis on the importance of the “Return”). Another variation between Wordsworth and Coleridge is that the former claims that the writer must bring the language near to the language of men, whilst the latter believes that the language of poetry should beautiful and elevated. “The Raven” in this case
Both, the poem “Reluctance” by Robert Frost and “Time Does Not Bring Relief” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, revolved around the theme of lost love. Each poet used a similar array of poetic devices to express this theme. Visual imagery was one of the illustrative poetic devices used in the compositions. Another poetic device incorporated by both poets in order to convey the mood of the poems was personification. And by the same token, metaphors were also used to help express the gist of both poems. Ergo, similar poetic devices were used in both poems to communicate the theme of grieving the loss of a loved one.
Imagery symbolically guides the process of self-emancipation for Nora, the protagonist of A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen. Objects like the macaroons, the lamp, the Christmas tree, and costumes represent the movement towards freedom of a woman who was a victim of society. Ibsen painted Nora as a youthful and lovely creature who was brought through life treated as a plaything by both her father and then her husband, Torvald. She must break society's unwritten laws. Although the consequences of her actions are initially minor, they start her along the path towards crisis when she realizes her position and the injustice of it. Through Ibsen's use of symbolism, objects in the play echo her process of anguish to liberation.
Romantics often emphasized the beauty, strangeness, and mystery of nature. Romantic writers expressed their intuition of nature that came from within. The key to this inner world was the imagination of the writer; this frequently reflected their expressions of their inner essence and their attitude towards various aspects of nature. It was these attitudes that marked each writer of the Romantic period as a unique being. These attitudes are greatly reflected in the poem “When I Heard the Learned Astronomer” by Walt Whitman.
Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” is a controversial play focusing on the marriage of Nora and Torvald Helmer. The play is filled with symbols that represent abstract ideas and concepts. These symbols effectively illustrate the inner conflicts that are going on between the characters. Henrik Ibsen’s use of symbolism such as the Christmas tree, the locked mailbox, the Tarantella, Dr. Rank’s calling cards, and the letters allows him to give a powerful portrayal to symbolize aspects of characters and their relationship to each other.
Kiberd, Declan, Inventing Ireland: the Literature of the Modern Nation, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1996.
Hemingway’s writing style is not the most complicated one in contrast to other authors of his time. He uses plain grammar and easily accessible vocabulary in his short stories; capturing more audience, especially an audience with less reading experience. “‘If you’d gone on that way we wouldn’t be here now,’ Bill said” (174). His characters speak very plain day to day language which many readers wouldn’t have a problem reading. “They spent the night of the day they were married in a Bostan Hotel” (8). Even in his third person omniscient point of view he uses a basic vocabulary which is common to the reader.
While Coleridge describes the process of creating Romantic poetry and encourages poets to use the combination of nature and imagination in this process, Keats is more focused on reality and is well aware of the limitations of the Grecian urn. With the poets’ admiration of nature present in both poems …… to be completed.
William Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” is an ideal example of romantic poetry. As the web page “Wordsworth Tintern Abbey” notes, this recollection was added to the end of his book Lyrical Ballads, as a spontaneous poem that formed upon revisiting Wye Valley with his sister (Wordsworth Tintern Abbey). His writing style incorporated all of the romantic perceptions, such as nature, the ordinary, the individual, the imagination, and distance, which he used to his most creative extent to create distinctive recollections of nature and emotion, centered on striking descriptions of his individual reactions to these every day, ordinary things. Tintern Abbey is just an old ruin (William). However, throughout Wordsworth’s poetry, Tintern Abbey becomes something slightly more than a ruin.
The Romantic Period is known as a transformative era that brought forth fresh perspectives and unique ways of thinking, flourishing through the 1800s. As a reaction to the Age of Enlightenment that hailed scientific reason and logic in Europe, Romanticism instead celebrated man’s ability to feel and express various emotions, praising aesthetics over rationality. In the preface of The Penguin Book of Romantic Poetry, this period’s focus is defined as the “valuing of emotion, of imagination, a belief in human potential taken beyond its ordinary limits” (xxiii). The artists of this period often explored their imaginations, depicting new ways of perceiving the world around them through their various forms of art. Romantic poets were famous for sharing common themes throughout their poetry. Many of these poems drew parallels regarding extensive outdoor landscapes and the individuals that inhabited these settings. The Romantic poets used vivid imagery and imagination to describe certain elements of nature and the impact these elements had on the human mind.
The words become a symbol of a slow moving river and as the reader travels along the river, they are also traveling through each stanza. This creates a scene where the viewer can turn words into symbols while in reality they are just reading text. Coleridge is also able to illustrate a suspension of the mind through imagery; done so by producing images that are unfixed to the reader.... ... middle of paper ...
A Doll House was a play written well ahead of its time. This play was written in a time when it was considered an outrage for a woman such as Nora not only to display a mind of her own, but also to leave her husband in order to obtain her freedom. This play relates to the Art Nouveau and Edwardian period because just as the furniture and clothing were considered decorative pieces, so were women. Women were expected only to tend to the husband's and children's needs. Women were not supposed to do anything without first consulting the husband and certainly never do anything without his prior knowledge and approval. Women were expected to be at home and always looking presentable for their husbands.
... it for the fear of negative emotions related to loss if our investment of money or time wasn’t “worth it.” The Choice Supportive Bias theory explains how we create false realizations about our purchases, consequently tricking our brain into viewing our purchases as the best on the market. Star Wars is a multibillion dollar franchise that has had a major impact on our different aspects of culture in today’s society. One of those aspects is fanboys. With such an overwhelming amount of Star Wars fans it is undeniable that Star Wars has had a huge impact on the way we identify ourselves with other like-minded individuals who make up memberships of our fanboy community. Finally, Star Wars is only one example of how fanboy culture has been influenced by a popular film. And for all of us who tend to identify with Star Wars fan culture, J.J. Abrams better not screw it up!
Hirsch, E. D. Jr. Wordsworth and Schelling a Typical Study of Romanticism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960.