Reader's Log 5A

PRE-ROMANTICISM.

The editors of our text assign 1785 as the end of the Neoclassical Era and the beginning of the Romantic. Remember, however, that literary periods always overlap. Romantic traits appear in nascent form long before 1785, and Neoclassical traits linger long after. A trend toward sentimentalism, which emphasized the virtues of pity and sympathy for the misfortunes of others, may be seen as early as the first decade of the 18^th century, pointing toward the Romantic emphasis upon feeling and its disregard for critical reason. The doctrine of the sublime, a recognition of the sometimes terrifying, sometimes inspiring grandeur of nature, especially as seen in the wild and rugged Alps, had found its way into literature by 1725. It would be an easy transition from that doctrine to the worship of nature characteristic of Romanticism. By the mid-18^th century, an interest in medieval history and architecture had precipitated a Gothic revival in architecture and fiction. When it had first been applied to medieval culture by writers from the late Renaissance, the word Gothic--deriving from one of the barbaric tribes that had overwhelmed Rome in the 5^th century--was highly pejorative, indicative of the contempt which the Renaissance mentality felt for the Middle Ages. Typically, writers of the Neoclassical Age shared that contempt. But by 1750, mansions were being built to resemble medieval castles and ruined monasteries, and in 1768, the most famous creator of such a mansion, Horace Walpole, published The Castle of Otranto, a horror novel set in a medieval castle, establishing a genre called the Gothic novel, which would flourish in the Romantic Era. This genre has evolved into the highly popular modern horror novel. Furthermore, a brooding fascination with death appeared in the mid-18th century, resulting in a minor genre called "graveyard poetry," not a far cry from the fascination with the macabre and occult of some of the Romantics poets. Finally, it should be noted that the emergence of a highly competent landscape painting in England in the late 18^th century helped sensitize the English middle and upper classes to the values of nature.

Fanny Burney (1752-1840), pp. 1301-1311.

In this Reader’s Log we will first look at an essentially Neoclassical writer, Fanny Burney, who will remind us that Neoclassical traits were abundant throughout the period of transition and would indeed be evident during the height of the Romantic Era itself. As you notice, her long life bridges three eras, since she survived until well into the Victorian Age. She is noted for several very credible novels that anticipate Jane Austen’s novels of manners and for her candid personal journal. Read the editors’ introduction, p. 1301.

READER’S LOG: The Journal and Letters, Down with Her, Burney, pp. 1303-1304. This passage recounts a lively conversation with Samuel Johnson in the home of Hester Thrale, the Mrs. T of the dialogue. What can you infer about Samuel Johnson from the final paragraph of this letter?

READER’S LOG: The Journal and Letters, Encountering the King, pp. 1304-1306. The king alluded to here is George III, considered insane and in kept in virtual isolation by his physicians. What remarkable gesture of affection did the king, whom she has unsuccessfully tried to avoid, demonstrated toward her?

READER’S LOG: The Journal and Letters, A Mastectomy, pp. 1306-1311. As your editors’ introduction told you, Burney, having made a second marriage with a Frenchman, lived in France for over a decade, unable to return to her native England because of the Napoleonic wars. While there, she underwent a seven hour mastectomy without the benefit of anesthesia. As you may know, persons suffering less trauma than this often die of shock. (This will give you some idea of the amputations that were common after battles in the centuries before anesthesia was discovered.) Summarize in a sentence or two what is told you in the paragraph at the bottom of p. 1310 and top of p. 1311.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771), pp. 1282-1287.

READER’S LOG: Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, pp. 1283-1287. Read the editors’ introduction, p. 1282. You may also wish to browse in the poem Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat. As your editors tell you, Gray participated in an early switch from the heroic verse of standard Neoclassical poetry to a more relaxed, sppech-like style that anticipated the poetic revolution of the Romantics. Gray’s fame rests chiefly on one poem, the elegy you are asked to read here. Note in the editors’ introduction that even Samuel Johnson found it a masterpiece. The setting of the poem is a graveyard, for in England it was the custom to bury the dead in the sacred ground immediately surrounding a church. Like other practitioners of graveyard poetry, Gray describes his somber emotions upon loitering here among the graves of country folk of no fame or note whatsoever. In the four stanzas which Johnson particularly praises, lines 77-92, Gray explains why the observer feels deep emotion here despite the social insignificance of the dead. Summarize this reason in a sentence or two of your own.

William Collins (1721-1759), pp. 1287-1289.

READER’S LOG: Ode to Evening, pp. 1288-1289. Read the editors’ introduction on p. 1287. Note that Collins too participated in the mid-18th century movement "to create a new poetry, more lyrical and fanciful than that of Alexander Pope’s generation." Fifty years after he had written it, the assigned poem found favor with the Romantic poets for its lyrical evocation of nature. As you see, the poem departs from heroic verse in both meter and absence of rhyme. The editors’ note # 1, p. 1288, tells us that Collins took its pattern from Milton. Quote a number of lines from this poem that strike you as being particularly vivid in their description of nature or a rural landscape.

William Cowper (1731-1800), pp. 1289-1291.

READER’S LOG: The Castaway, pp. 1289-1291. Read the editors’ introduction on p. 1289, where you will learn that Cowper suffered from periodic insanity and a profound melancholy deriving from his conviction that he was destined for the torments of hell in the Afterlife. Cowper was well known as a poet in his own time and much admired by the Romantics. In the assigned poem, Cowper recounts an incident he had read about in which a sailor was washed overboard during a storm so fierce that his comrades could not turn the ship about to rescue him. A strong swimmer, he fell gradually behind his frantically watching comrades, both he and they knowing full well what fate awaited him. From the final two stanzas, summarize the application Cowper makes of this incident to his own life.

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), pp. 1403-1425.

Keep in mind that you are asked to post a comment about Wollstonecraft on the Discussion Forum.

Editors’ Introduction, pp. 1405-1406. Read this introduction with care. Note that Wollstonecraft made her own livelihood as a teacher, governess, and hack writer, a very difficult thing for a woman to do in our period of study. She came to maturity in a time of revolution and social disorder. England lost thirteen of its American colonies to a revolution that began in 1776 and watched uneasily as, just a few miles across the Channel, the French began their revolution in 1789. Many intellectuals in England and other European countries cheered these revolutions on because they appeared to establish political liberty and social equality. This seemed of particular importance in France, where the privileged aristocratic class and the established Catholic clergy had long suppressed a struggling middle class and a groveling French peasantry. Predictably, the wealthy and privileged of England reacted against the principles of the French Revolution. This reaction found its best expression in a book by a leading English politician, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). It was Wollstonecraft’s reply to Burke’s book that made her famous, a book entitled The Rights of Men (1791), an expression of liberal political and social ideals. This work was followed quickly by a book protesting the suppression of women at all levels of English society, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). This book did not make much headway in its own time, nor was Wollstonecraft to have much influence as a feminist for reasons that become evident as you read on from the middle of p. 1404. Only in the 20^th century was she to be recognized as the first great voice in the feminist cause.

READER’S LOG. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, "Introduction," pp. 1405-1409. In the opening paragraph, pp. 1405-1406, Wollstonecraft predicts the large point of her book, to demonstrate the lack of education for women. Quote a sentence that strikes you as summarizing this point well.

READER’S LOG. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, "Introduction," p. 1407. From the last full paragraph at the bottom of this page, summarize both the currently defined feminine graces that Wollstonecraft is against and the admirable objective that she wants women to take up.

READER’S LOG. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, "Chap. 2. The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character Discussed," pp. 1409-1424. In this long chapter Wollstonecraft argues against prominent current theories of education for women, particularly those propounded by Jean Jacques Rousseau of France and John Gregory, a popular Scottish author. Notice that, as used here, the term character means the typical personality of an entire gender. From the opening paragraph or two on p. 1409, summarize Wollstonecraft’s attitude toward the assumption that men and women should aim at acquiring different kinds of virtue, thus forming different kinds of characters.

READER’S LOG. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, "Chap. 2. The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character Discussed," pp. 1414-1415. On these pages Wollstonecraft forthrightly takes on Rousseau, who was one of the leading luminaries of the Enlightenment in France, equaled in fame throughout Europe only by Voltaire. Rousseau’s ideas on education were highly influential, as was his famous formulation of the "noble savage," a term implying that primitive culture had an instinctive virtue whereas civilized culture, corrupted by city life, was vice ridden and depraved. Although Rousseau lived during the French equivalent of the Neoclassical age, he is seen as a founding father of Romanticism. It is notable, then, that Wollstonecraft refutes Rousseau’s ideas on the education of women with a spirit approaching contempt. From pp. 1414-1415, quote a sentence or two that strike you as summarizing her position well.

Anna Letitia Barbauld (1743-1825), pp. 1336-1344.

Read the editors’ introduction, p. 1336. Dividing her time between writing and teaching at a school she and her minister husband operated, Barbauld became famous as a poet and as a writer of children’s books. You will see both Neoclassical and Romantic traits in her poetry. You will also see a pleasing reference to domestic life, a subject in which women, barred from many other interests and activities, excelled.

READER’S LOG. A Summer Evening’s Meditation, pp. 1136-1339. This poem, written in 1773–well within the Neoclassical period–demonstrates both Romantic and Neoclassical traits. Its skillful employment of unrhymed iambic pentameter, or blank verse, as it is called, anticipates the practice of the major Romantic poets. Its reference to the moon as the Roman goddess Diana in line 7 is Neoclassical. The poet describes a beautiful outdoor scene as night approaches. Concentrating upon the sky, filling with stars, she fancies herself launched into a journey into the sky. From lines 70-89, state in your own words where her journey takes her.

READER’S LOG. A Summer Evening’s Meditation, lines 97-122. From these lines, state in your own words what has been the purpose of her imaginary journey and tell whether her quest has been successful.

READER’S LOG. To a Little Invisible Being Who Is Expected Soon to Become Visible, pp. 1340-1341. Quote a line or two showing the poet’s affectionate longing for the birth of her unborn child.

READER’S LOG. Washing Day, pp. 1341-1343. This autobiographical poem begins in the vein of the mock epic, which you will remember is a Neoclassical genre. However, the blank verse in which it is written and its very domestic theme show it to belong to a later age than the Neoclassical. From lines 58-67, summarize in your own words the usual relationship between Barbauld as a little child and the house maids who on this washday are too busy to pay attention to her. Remember that women washed clothes by muscle power in this day. 

Robert Burns (1759-1796), pp. 1388-1402.

READER’S LOG. Read the editors’ introduction, pp. 1388-1390. In the opening paragraph your editors tell you that Burns conveniently fit a rather wishful Romantic expectation regarding the source of poetic inspiration. Quote the first two sentences of the paragraph which tell you what that expectation was.

READER’S LOG. Holy Willie’s Prayer, pp. 1390-1393. This poem, like the others included in your text, is written in Scots, a dialect of English spoken in the lowlands of Scotland. Poetry written in the vernacular, as the language of common folk is called, struck readers of Burns’ time, especially Scottish readers, as highly fascinating and helped secure his fame. Modern students, however, are likely to experience some difficulty in reading this vernacular. You will find some words glossed for you by your editors. With others, try pronouncing them aloud and you may be able to guess their counterpart in standard English. The situation behind the present poem is explained for you in the editors’ note # 2, p. 1392. Burns here imagines Willie’s prayer following the dismissal of his charges against the morals of Burns’ friend. Willie approaches his severe Presbyterian God with confidence that Willie’s enemies will be duly punished while Willie himself will prosper. This he expects despite his confession of a couple of sins in the final three stanzas of p. 1391. In your own words, what are these sins?

READER’S LOG. To a Mouse, pp. 1393-1394. Summarize the poet’s attitude toward the mouse whose nest he has destroyed.

READER’S LOG. To a Louse, pp. 1394-1395. In the last three stanzas of this poem, you discover that the lady’s on whose bonnet the poet has seen the louse takes pride in her beauty. Put into your own words the application the poet makes of all this in the final stanza.

READER’S LOG. Robert Bruce’s March to Bannockburn, pp. 1400-1401. Harking back to a victory of the Scots over the English in the late Middle Ages, this poem embodies the Scots’ pride in their own country and a dislike for the English which persists even today, even though Scotland peacefully entered a political union with England in the early 18^th century. Quote one of a number of lines which exalt Scottish liberty.

READER’S LOG. A Red, Red Rose, pp. 1401-1402. It is good to remember that many of Burn’s poems were set to music, as was this one. You will find sentiments in this love song that are still current in a vast multitude of love songs in modern America. Quote a line or two expressing the poet’s love.

READER’S LOG. Song: For a’ that and a’ that, p. 1402. This song sets forth the virtues of true manhood. Summarize one of these virtues in your own words.