The Romantic Poets: Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats

Professor Anne Hall; adhall [at] english [dot] upenn [dot] edu

This course will endeavor to engage with major poets of the Romantic period, who thought they were creating a revolution in poetry. We will concentrate on the new language for poetry, the emphasis on the image and on organic form, and the reclamation of spiritual experiences in a secular context. While spending most of our time looking at poems, we will also stop on prose statements that are regarded as central expressions of the romantic understanding of literature. On the first day of class, we will spend some time on scansion; it is the instructor’s belief that attention to scansion will significantly enrich one’s experience of a poem.

Meeting days: January 16 and 30, February 13 and 27, March 13 and 27, April 10, and May 1. Please note: On March 13, the instructor will not be present. Instead, during that meeting, Elizabeth Fuller from the Rosenbach will show the class materials in the collection at the Rosenbach that are pertinent to our discussion, especially the wonderful illustrations that accompany the poems of William Blake.  

Text: The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume D, ed. Stillinger and Lynch “The Romantic Period” (New York: Norton).

January 16 – Introduction to the course. Please bring your book to class.

- Definition of Romanticism: “Romantic” in a restricted sense is “applicable to the literature of one epoch, beginning in the late years of the eighteenth century and not yet finished, and … referring to a high valuation placed during this period on the image making powers of the mind at the expense of its rational powers, and to the substitution of organicist for mechanistic modes of thinking about art.” Frank Kermode in The Romantic Image.

What the romantics thought they were reacting against – Lockean politics, science.

- early “romantics” in the 18th century: Thomas Gray, “Elegy in a Country Churchyard”

- Robert Burns, “Green Grow the Rashes,” 131-32; “To a Mouse,” 135-36;

“Auld Lang Syne,” 137-38; “A Red, Rose,” 145-46.

- William Blake and the prophetic voice

- Scansion (with a poem by W. B. Yeats for examples)

- Article by G. G. Hough on eighteenth-century romanticism in English Romantic Poets (sent by email)

January 30 - Blake. It might be worth noting that Jim Morrison’s rock group “The Doors” took their name from a line from a poem in Blake.

Bible: readings from the prophets

Blake-

- “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” – 111-120.

- “All Religions are One,” “There is No Natural Religion,” (a), “There is No Natural Religion” (b) – 79-81.

- “Songs of Innocence and Experience,” 81-97.

And also, if you have time:

- “The Book of Thel” - 98-102.

- “ The Visions of the Daughters of Albion,” 103-109.

- Article by Alfred Kazin on William Blake (to be sent by email)

February 13 – Wordsworth, the poet for people who love the natural world. (When I was young I thought Wordsworth was addled, silly, and just plain boring. Now he is one of my favorite poets. )

Preface” to the Lyrical Ballads,” 263-274. In class, we will stop on the important sections. If you get bogged down, skip this reading and concentrate on the poems.

Poems: “We are Seven,” 248; “Lines written in early spring,” 250; “Expostulation and Reply, ”250; “The Tables Turned,” 251; “Lines written above Tintern Abbey,” 258; The “Lucy Poems,” 274-279; “Michael,” 292-301.

Article by Joseph Warren Beach in The Concept of Nature in Nineteenth-Century English Poetry (to be sent by email).

February 27 –Wordsworth (cont.)

“I wandered lonely as a cloud,” 305.

“My Heart Leaps Up,” 306.

“Resolution and independence,” 302.

“Ode: Intimations of Immortality,” 308.

“Solitary Reaper,” 314.

Sonnets: “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, “ 317; “It is a beauteous evening,” 317; “The world is too much with us,” 319.

And also, if you have time:

“Ode to Duty,” 312.

“Nutting,” 279-280

“The Ruined Cottage,” 280-291.

March 13 – presentation by Elizabeth Fuller of materials from the Rosenbach collection

March 27 – Wordsworth -

“Prelude”: Book 1: 324 – 338; Book 2: 338-48.

Book 5: “Dream of the Arab,” 357-361, “Crossing the Simplon Pass,” 362-64

Book 14: “The Vision on Mount Snowdon,” 385-87.

And also:

Selections on pp. 359-67 and 374-78.

S.T. Coleridge: From Biographia Literaria, 474-488.

Coleridge, “Christabel,” 449-464.

Article by Frank Kermode, to be sent by email.

April 10 –

Coleridge: “Frost at Midnight,” 464-66; “Dejection: An Ode,” 466-69; “This Lime Tree Bower, My Prison,” 428-30; “To William Wordsworth,” 371-73; “Kubla Kahn,” 446-48.

William Hazlitt, “My First Acquaintance with Poets,” 541-54.

Charles Lamb, “Christ’s Hospital Five-and-Thirty Years Ago,” 496-505.

Thomas DeQuincey, from “Confessions of an English Opium Eater,” 556-69.

Perhaps start:

Poems of Keats: “Sonnet to Sleep,” 900-901; “Ode: To a Nightingale,” 903-905.

And also: Coleridge: “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” 430-446

Article by I. A. Richards, to be sent by email.

May 1-

Keats: “The Eve of St. Agnes,” 888-98.

“Ode on a Grecian Urn,” 905-906.

“Ode on Melancholy,” 907-908.

Keats’s letters, 942-54.