Context: Literary Flashcards
what was Kants Critique of pure reason?
A Text written by Immanuel Kant in 1781 which was a undamental source of philosphical inspiratin for the romantics
What is argued in Kants ‘Critique of pure reason?’
- all knowledge derives from experience, yet it is dependent on a priori or ‘transcendental’ structures in the mind (e.g.concepts of time and space)
- notions such as God, freedom and eternity are similarly part of this transcendental realm, unknowable (because they cannot be experienced directly) but nevertheless necessary for humans to make sense of reality
significance of the imagination on the romantics
The romantics favoured Kant’s philosophy as it gave an active and creative role to the mind in the formulation of human knowledge. He also placed alot of value of the artisic immagination to understand experience
According to Kant’s what is the role of the ‘aesthetic imagination’
It is free of the laws which given the understanding and works through symbols (a concept that pervade in Keats’ Odes)
Enlightenment impact on Romanticism
-Romanticism both built upon and reacted against the Enlightenment as they could see its limitations
Key features of Romanticism:
- The struggle for self-realisation of the artistic ‘genius’ was central
- The power of creative imagination was given priority over the power of reason
- The poet was perceived as a seer or prophet. His/her genius (guiding spirit) enabled him/her to enter into the realities of existence. This higher ‘truth’ was closed to those who relied on reason and on surface observation.
Primary text of English Romantic poetry
Lyrical Ballads (1798) by Wordsworth and Coleridge- this is oercied as being a break from the Age of Reason
romantics view on science/ industrialisation
they believed that reason and the impersonal principles of science alienated man from his feelings. Consequently, they valued the emotions as a means of reconnecting human beings with their inner lives.
Wordsworth in the preface to Lyrical Ballads
a man speaking to men; a man…endowed with a more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul … a man … who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him.
Keats on Wordsworth
1) he was influenced by Wordsworth’s use of the natural world as the reflection of a state of mind
2) He shared with Wordsworth a delight in the purely musical effects of poetry and a belief that poetry should be ‘great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one’s soul’
3) didnt like the first volume of lyrical ballads which contained incidents and situations from real life using the real language of men as he seldom referred to these poems unless to satirise or deplore them
Leigh Hunts Influence on Keats
- influneced positively by his politicla writing and anti authoritarian tone
- Negatively affected keats’ poetic ditcion due to his use of adjectives in y or ying (knify/ arrowy), adverbs in ly (lightsomely)nand unaurthorised comparatives (finelier)
Influence of Benjamin Bailey on Keats
-they read and discussed wordsworth, Hazlitt, Milton and Dante together
Keats letter to Bailey on beauty/ art
I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart’s affections and the truth of Imagination – What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth – whether it existed before or not – for I have the same Idea of all our Passions as of Love: they are all in their sublime, creative of essential Beauty.
Keats letter to his brothers on art
The excellence of every Art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate, from their being in close relationship with Beauty & Truth – Examine King Lear & you will find this exemplified throughout
Shelly and Keats
- introduced in 1816 by Leigh Hunt
- Keats always slightly in awe of Shellywho was older, came from an aristocratic family and had a social confidence and elegance that Keats could never aspire to
- Shelley was a strong supporter of Keats work and would fiercely attack/ contradict his critics
