Ispitna pitanja

Književnost britanskog romantizma

1. Connection between Songs of Experience and Songs of Innocence.

- Songs of Innocence and Experience is a collection of illustrated poems by William Blake

- They are supposed to show “the two contrary states of human soul.”
- They were meant for music, but we haven’t found any notes.
- They were written on plates, all plates were unique (made in graving technique)

- They COMPLEMENT ONE ANOTHER (like Yin and Yang)

 Songs of Experience represent BAD THINGS that are missing in the Church interpretation
(Blake minds this because he thinks that both good and bad were created by God and both are
necessary, you should experience both – dark and light, life and death.)
- We should have good and bad experiences in life, but we should avoid USELESS EXPERIENCES
that taught us nothing – experiences make us MATURE
 Songs of Innocence talk exactly about that, we should bring back the lost state that was once in
us but enrich it with experience – experiences make us stronger.

- The facts mentioned can be corroborated by a famous poem “The Tyger and the Lamb”.
- Both, the Tyger and the Lamb are creations of only 1 creator  God  no matter that they are
opposite:
- The sound in the songs is different
- The Lamb has simpler language, much softer and innocent, it is a symbol of Jesus Christ and an
innocent animal, more affirmative.
- The language in The Tyger is not as simple, words are darker, harsh sound, questions that do not
get answers, more complex just as experience. Rhythm: iamb in 7 syllables.

- It is about having both, not only choosing one (we need both good and bad in life)
- The image of a Tyger looks like a Lamb (Yin and Yang), there is always some good in evil and
some evil in good (every tyger is a lamb and every lamb is also a tyger)  EVIL IS NOT SO EVIL
AFTER ALL FOR BLAKE
- LAMB IS NOT ENOUGH, YOU ALSO NEED A TYGER
- The point is to enrich innocence with fruit of experience
- In order to be holy, it has to be whole.

2. What did Keats mean by negative capability?

- Negative capability is first mentioned by John Keats in a private letter. It is tactic poets use in
pursuing a vision even if it leads to confusion or uncertainty rather than a firm declaration.
- It can also be explained as stop rationalizing and lose oneself in a sense of beauty
- There is also one more way of explaining it, it can be explained as not having one's own identity in
order to become any identity  Keats based on empathy, can create compelling and authentic
characters, situations and the world, his inspiration is Shakespeare.

3. Rhymes in Don Juan.

- Written in ottava rima (eighth rhyme); each stanza is composed of eight iambic pentameters with the
couplet rhyme scheme of AB AB AB CC. The ottava rima uses the final rhyming couplet as a line of
humour, from a lofty style of writing to a vulgar style of writing.

4. How is the classical myth used in P.B. Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound compared to Mary
Shelley

- P.B. Shelley already in the Prologue compares Prometheus with Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost
who he calls “the Hero of Paradise Lost” – he calls him the noblest of men.
- The message of Prometheus Unbound is love and forgiveness, or to be more precise, Jesus Christ’s
message that love and forgiveness, rather than worldly powers—are the true strengths of humanity.
- Prometheus represented as a hero

- Mary Shelley portrays her Prometheus as what he is, i.e. as we understand the myth today, as a
person who wanted to place himself above God and stole fire.
- Like Prometheus' sacred fire, Victor Frankenstein's science gives humans what once had belonged
only to the gods: immortality. Like the eagle tearing out Prometheus' liver  Victor's loved ones are
torn from him. Victor's monster also resembles the modern Prometheus in that he signifies liberation
from a creator.
5. How did Wordsworth and Coleridge split poetic interests in Lyrical ballads?

- Coleridge wrote 4 poems in Lyrical ballads, and a 5th was added to the 1800 edition.

Both Coleridge and Wordsworth find nature fascinating and important, but their views on nature
differ in certain aspects.
The different childhood of these two poets underlies this attitude.

COLERIDGE  associates the experiences in nature as something special, as the ideal in the real,
as part of imagination.
- God is beyond understanding
Poem “The rime of the ancient Mariner”  man against nature, crime against nature
COLERIDGE:
 Supernatural and unnatural
 Mysterious
 Mystical
 Horror
 Theorist
 Division into imagination and fancy

WORDSWORTH  thinks of nature as an essential part of human life, especially in childhood.

Nature carries for him everything that is positive, ideal.
 Nature is guiding and teaching the man
 The lyrical subject in most of his poems is himself, poem is also often A MEMORY
 Nature and divine are mirror pictures of one another
- God is in everything (pantheism)
Poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”  daffodils that give him joy when he is lonely and bored
- ESCAPISM - his escape from commercial city life, modern mechanized world. He felt sorry about
the state of modern life, which he completely rejected. Wordsworth wanted to escape from such
materialistic world.

The different childhood of these two poets underlies this attitude.

WORDSWORTH:
 Prefers language of common, ordinary life is the best subject of poetry
 “Lower topics”
 Appreciates spontaneity
 Outpouring of strong feelings

6. PREFACE OF LYRICAL BALLADS – It is an essay composed by William Blake, added to

second edition of Lyrical ballads (published in 1801, also called “1800 edition”). It is called de
manifesto of the Romantic movement

Four guidelines of de manifesto include:

 Language of common is best suited for poetry

 Ordinary life is the best subject for poetry
 Expression of feeling is more important than action or plot
 Poetry is SPONTANEOUS OVERFLOW OF EMOTION