Elizabeth Barrett-Browning’s sonnet sequence Sonnets from the Portugeuse, explores the experence of idealised love in the patriarchal confines of the Victorian era, juxtaposed against F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, which comments on the unatanability of idealised love due to the corruption of the American dream. Through an exploration of love, both composers subvert societies preconcieved attitutdes to love through the reccurring motif of ‘Plato’s ladder of love’. Barrett-Browning’s poems highlight the realities of a spiritual, connected love, contrasting to Fitzgeralds commentary on the illusionary goals of ‘true’ platonic love in the post WWI hedonistic, materialistic society. Barrett-Browning conveys the Romantic ideals of platonic love, against the prudish rationalism of the Victorian era. The Petrarchan sonnet form has an inbuilt dialectic structure, enabling her to have a progressive narrative, which follows the path of the Platonic system.
In Wild Oats It explains that a person, over the course of time, comes to realise that his greatest desires of love, are unattainable, and second best things will have to suffice. The central purpose of this poem is to show that love is one of these great desires and despite flashes of promise it contains scarcely anything that is more than fragmentary. Larkin reveals this through tone and diction. Both poets seem to focus a lot on the physical side of love where lust and desire are involved however Abse makes it sound more sensual and even spiritual when he speaks of Eros in his poem. Larkin portrays this sense of objectification in his poem with regards to woman as he describes a woman as a ‘bosomy English rose’ and then follows on to call her ‘beautiful’ throughout the poem portraying the sexual lust involved with love.
This dichotomous experience is evidently illustrated in the work of John Keats, particularly in his poems Ode to a Nightingale, in which Keats grapples with the transcendent beauty of the nightingale’s song versus the bleak reality, and La Belle Dame sans Merci where the allure of imagination is set against its depleting quality. Although not of Romantic context, the novel Possession by A.S. Byatt explores the quest for artistic liberty whilst dealing with the qualms of contemporary life. Eugene Delacroix’s painting Liberty Leading the People depicts the upsurge of idealistic passion in the French Revolution, while expressing also the reality of revolution. In his poem Ode to a Nightingale, Keats is both enchanted inspired by the ethereal beauty of the nightingale song. For the Romantics nature was ‘a stimulus for the poet engage in the most characteristic of human activity, that of thinking’.
TO LOVE OR NOT TO LOVE? “The most interesting aspects of texts written in different times is seeing the difference in what people value.” Possibly one of the best known piece of American prose fiction of its time, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, develops an ironic but ultimately pessimistic point of view on the materialistic and superficial society presented in the 1920s which prevented the ideas of pure love. The form of a prose fiction does not have a structure which makes the novel unique. Sonnets from the Portuguese, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, presents a more idealistic and optimistic view about love and hope. She portrays her personal voice through the use of sonnets, specifically Petrarchan.
Romanticists had some connection with Utopian social thinkers who believed in an ideal ‘fair’ society. Romanticism was partially a reaction to the previous ‘Augustan’ period (St Augustine was one of the stricter Church Fathers and this period of formality in the arts was named after him), the French Revolution, the US revolution and the rise of industry and science and produced the ‘free thinker’ that we meet when we read romantic poetry, both in the poem itself and in the form of the poet. The emphasis on Romanticism was on strong emotion as a source of aesthetic experience, not just as an emotional one. Romanticism elevated nature, custom, ritual and
Journey ix. Frontier x. Initiation III. Gothic Romanticism i. second hand retelling ii. setting: gloomy / castle iii. mysterious crime or forbidden love iv.
Therefore, the Gothic cannot exist or be valued without the sublime and contextual fears as they are universally understood conditions. It is the universal fears, the use of the sublime and the lessons within this literature that allow us to value the Gothic genre. Parallel texts such as; ‘Dracula’, ‘The Strange
The first and most abundant of these devices used by Poe is personification. The fourth line of the poem reads “Radiant palace- reared its head”. In this part of the poem, the author is clearly hinting at the poems greater meaning. Although it is the palace that is given the human trait of having a head, the true meaning here is rather that the palace is a head. Harold Bloom, professor of humanities at Yale graduate school, said “rearing its head… is an elaborate conceit for the human mind, the place where consciousness dwells”.
Instead of using synonyms for the amount of times she put love into the sonnet, with the repetitiveness it is clear the kind of message she was trying to put across. Although this can be seen as a story, it is in fact an in the moment writing also known as lyrical poetry. It is a story of ones love for
The context influences the ideas that are portrayed within a text. John Keats’ context is evident within his 1819 poems ‘Bright Star’ and ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ in their examination of the desire for immortality and the power of love. These concepts reflect the Romantic Movement which emerged in the late 18th century and early 19th century and focused on the belief that nature, independence and love are of great importance in life. The Romantics opposed the focus on rationality and reason of the Neo-classicists and their belief that emotional restraint was necessary and science offered answers to the dilemmas facing humanity. Keats’ poems clearly show the importance he places on idealism, immortality, the power of imagination and love in human experience and existence.