ROMANTICISM The Second Generation Poets: Byron Shelley Keats

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ROMANTICISM The Second Generation
PoetsByronShelleyKeats
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• Wordsworth and Coleridge blazed the way for the
  second generation Romantic poets
• Lord Byron
• Percy Bysshe Shelley
• John Keats

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• Coming of age during the Napoleonic Era, these
  younger poets rebelled even more strongly against
  British conservatism.

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• All three died abroad after tragically short
  lives, and their viewpoints were those of
  disillusioned outsiders.

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George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824)

• Member of the House of Lords, Byron was handsome,
  egotistical, and aloof, the darling of elegant
  society.

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Mad, bad, and dangerous to know.Lady Caroline
Lamb

• Shocked by his radical politics and scandalous
  love affairs, Byron was shunned by London society
  and, so he left Britain in 1816, never to return.

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The Irresistible Bad Boy The Byronic Hero
Devastatingly Attractive yet Fatally Flawed
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• 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.
• Thomas Macaulay

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

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

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Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

• Byrons friend, also an aristocrat and political
  radical, more radical than Byron
• Shelley urged Englands lower classes to rebel.

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Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

• Shunned for his radical ideas, Shelley left
  England for good in 1818.

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Shelley died in a boating accident just after his
30th birthday. Foul play has always been
suspected.
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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.

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• John Keats wrote Here lies one whose name was
  writ in water.

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She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron

• This sonnet vividly describes a womans beauty,
  capturing its essential power and linking it to
  universal images.

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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.

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Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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Political Commentary

• Offers opinions on political issues, building
  arguments on evidence and assumptions

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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.

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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.

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Ode

• A lyric poem characterized by heightened emotion,
  that pays respect to a person or thing, usually
  directly addressed by the speaker

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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.

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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.

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Confederate Memorial Carving at Stone Mountain
Park
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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.

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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
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Thou still unravished bride of quietness Thou
foster child of silence and slow time...
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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.

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• 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.

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http//www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id
14854
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• Reread stanza.
• Paraphrase it.
• Describe the speakers mood.
• Read paraphrases.

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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?

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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?