CONTEXT ROMANTICISM Dates From 1798 (Publication of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge) to 1832 (death of Walter Scott/Enactment

by Parliament of the First Reform Bill) Importance The Romantic period was an era in which a literary revolution took place alongside social and economical revolutions. It is also known as the Age of Revolutions. It is a crucial time in history. It embodies many of the conflicts at the heart of the modern world: Political freedom/repression, Individual and collective responsability Masculine/feminine roles There are often contrasts between radicalism/tradition, change and stability, the old and the new and these were just as vital as the traditional themes of innocence/experience, youth/age, country/city, man/nature. Economical and social changes 1. The nation was transformed from an agricultural country into an industrial one 2. Economic ideology: free market: Adam Smith Wealth of Nations (1776) 3. A shift in the balance of power took place. Power and wealth were gradually transformed from the landholding aristocracy to the large-scale employers of modern industrial communities. An old population of rural farm labourers became a new class of urban industrial labourers. 4. The industrial Revolution created social change and unrest. The landscape of the country was altered: in the countryside the open fields and communally worked farms were enclosed. 5. The country was divided into those who owned property or land -who were rich-and those who did not. Political changes The Industrial Revolution paralleled revolutions in the political order. In fact, Britain was at war during most of the Romantic period, with a resultant political instability.

6. The American Declaration of independence struck an early blow for the principle of democratic freedom and self-government, (1776) 7. The French Revolution, with its slogans of Equality, Liberty and Fraternity influenced the intellectual climate in Britain. The storming of the Bastille in 1789 acted as a symbol which attracted the strong support of liberal opinion. But the French Revolution had a mixed and changing reception. Early enthusiasm among British writers and intellectuals was modified by the Terror, when thousands of people were killed. 8. Some influential intellectuals were: Tom Paine, a hero of the American Revolution and radical author of Rights of Man (1791) in which he called for greater democracy in Britain, was welcome in France, but he was later put in prison and near the guillotine because his opposition to the death of Louis XVI. Later in the 1790's, more measured ideas are contained in the writings of William Godwin (the father of Mary Shelley), an important influence on the poets Wordsworth and Shelley. Also important is Mary Wollstonecrafts Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792), an adaptation of French revolutionary theory to the universal needs of women. While women are encouraged to ornament their persons at the expense of their minds, while indolence renders them helpless and lascivious (for what other name can be given to the common intercourse between the sexes?) they will be, generally speaking, only objects of desire (Mary Wollestonecraft, 1798) 9. However, as the French Revolution developed, support for it in Britain declined. There was violence, extremism, and much bloodshed as section of the old aristocracy were massacred, as the members of the new French Republic fought among themselves and with other countries, and as Napoleon Bonaparte became emperor (1804), aiming to conquest all of Europe (including Spain!), and then dictator in France.

10. In 1793 England joined The Wars of Coalition against France, which was aiming forsupremacy throughout Europe, and after many years finally defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo (1815) 11. The victory was followed by years of social unrest at home. These culminated in the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, in which government troops charged a large group of workers who were meeting in Manchester to demand social and political reform (the word Peterloo) ironically recalls the battle of Waterloo. This event had an influence on Shelleys poetry: it inspired his poems England in 1819 and Ode to the West Wind. 12. Under the economic philosophy of the laissez-faire, the wealth of the country grew, but it was concentrated in the hands of the new manufacturing and merchant classes. This new middle class wanted to see its increased economic power reflected in greater political power. A general alliance arose between working-class reformers, liberal (called Whig) politicians and this new middle class, resulting in pressure on the Tory government for political reform. After many struggles the first Reform Act was passed by Parliament in 1832. The bill extended voting rights to a more representative proportion of the country. Literary History The publication of the Lyrical Ballads in 1798 is seen as a landmark. The volume contains some of the best known romantic poems. The second edition in 1800 contained a preface in which Wordsworth discusses the theories of poetry which were to be so influential on many of his and Coleridges contemporaries. The Preface represents a poetic manifesto which is very much in the spirit of the age. The movement towards greater democracy in political and social affairs is paralleled by poetry which sought to overturn the existing regime and establish a new, more democratic poetic order. To do this, the writers used

the real language of men (Preface to Lyrical Ballads) and even, in the case of Byron and Shelley, got involved in political activities themselves. Contrast between Romantic Age and the Augustan Age (previous literary movement) CLASSICAL/AUGUSTAN (early and mid 18th c) ROMANTIC Importance of reason and order reason, intellect and the head Poetry is objective (poetry in early 18th c. was not regarded as an expression of individual personal feelings) Poetry as an expression of feelings, intuition and the heart. Poetry looks outward to society Poets looks inward to their own soul and to the life of the imagination Poetry concentrates on what can be logically measured and rationally understood Romantic poets are attracted to the irrational, mystical and supernatural worlds Augustan poetry supports the social order It defends freedom of nature and individual human experience. Nature is of course a reaction to the forces of industrialization. They defend the dignity of man at a time when the machine is beginning to control his life A poetry which is critical of society and its injustices It is a formal and ordered way of writing characterised by the heroic couplet in poetry It tries to capture individual experience in forms and language which are close to everyday speech. No set forms. Romanticism was not a sudden, radical transformation, but grew out of Augustans. Furthermore, English Romanticism is less philosophically radical than the European.

The Chimney sweeper (Innocence), William Blake In general the poem talks about small children being use as chimney sweepers and the experiences that some of them suffer. The first stanza relates to the previous story of a child that is now working as a chimney sweeper. His mother died and his father sold him when he was very young. In this stanza we realize that the young boy comes from a poor background and that he was sold to save money. We can guess that he was sold because of line three could scarcely cry weep! weep! weep!. The second stanza introduces another character, Tom Dacre, who is a younger boy and is working also as a chimney sweeper. This boy cries when they save his hair and the narrator tries to console him by explaining why they have got his hair (so it doesnt catch on fire). Stanza three still focuses on Tom Dacre. In lines 8-9 the little boy has a dream where he sees other children that work with him stack up in dark and black chimney. In stanza four the dream continues and there is a change of the topic. Another figure appears an angel that is like a savour that sets the children free of their heavy work. He dreams of Paradise were all is good, there is no evil and they do not have to work. On stanza five the angel tells Rom that if he is good he can come to heaven but for that he is going not have to keep on cleaning chimneys (basically hes got to keep on being exploited).The last stanza we are back to reality, routinely day of work. The child is happy even if he is still forced to keep on working. The poem is criticising the use of small children to clean chimneys. Most of these kids were treated in dreadful conditions; many times they got injured by getting stack up the chimneys. It also has a religious connotation. Religion is not seen as salvation. The angel gives an empty promise to Tom Dacre. He ends up living in ignorance and bless because he knows that if is good he will go to Paradise. Blake represents childrens innocence (dream). He also uses the figure of a children to show his dissatisfaction with society. Oppression is represented with urban landscapes. He uses nature to symbolize paradise, so

we have a contrast between nice and worse. He imitates childs vocabulary, the language he uses is easy to understand, limited. In 1788, the number of working hours were restricted for kids. VOICE: the poet uses a fictional voice. He presents himself as a boy as the main character, who works as a chimney sweeper. He uses this voice as a critic to the society of the moment. METRE: they are quatrains that rhyme a-a-b-b It contains feminine or halfrhyme. He sometimes uses anapaestic rhythm. IMAGERY: semantic fields: religion: God, angel, joy; chimney: soot, dark, brushes, sweep; feelings: happy, joy, fear, warm. Metaphor: line 12: coffins of black: vehicle- coffins of black, tenor- chimney, ground- dark and narrow places, also unpleasant places. Line 16: wash in a river and shine in the sun: vehicle- wash in a river an shine in the sun, tenor- baptized and purified, ground- they are clean from shoot. Lisping: line 3: weep! Weep! Weep! : Blake alters the word to make it similat to what a child would say. Weep would mean sweep Hyperbaton: line 1: the author changes the order of the words in the sentence to make relevant in this case that his mother is death. Enjambment: we find several enjambments in lines 2, 6, 7 and 9 : when the line continues in the next one, there is not a pause between them. Alliteration: In line 4 with the sound s (so, sweep, soot, sleep) to symbolize the sound that you make when you are sweeping. In this poem there seems to be movement. Tom Dacre goes from being miserable to a happy little boy but there is not really a change because he is still working in bad conditions. It is like a veil on his eyes that makes him believes that everything is better now and he works because of a price in the end. The figure of innocence is very important in this poem. The chimney sweeper (experience) William Blake

It is a dark and pessimistic poem. We have two people in it, one of them a child (chimney sweeper) and the other an older man (an adult narrator). The chimney sweeper in this poem does not free himself from his misery. The first stanza: The two first lines describe and image of a child crying in the snow and the narrator asks him where his parents are. The boy answer that they have gone to church, to pray. We have a contrast between black (the kid) and white (the snow). The second stanza: In the second stanza we go from a happy mood to a sad one. Because he was happy his parents ended up (cover him in clothes) of death. With this a mean making him a chimney sweeper. The third stanza: The child has been hurt by his parents, his feelings, but he does not want to show them (happy and dancing and singing). The poem is criticising the Anglican Church and the behaviour of the parent to their children. Criticising the church he is also criticising the king who is the head of the Church of England. They become rich thanks to our misery. STRUCTURE: Two couplets and two quatrains. There is half masculine rhyme. AA,BB in the couplets. CD CD EF EF in the quatrains. There is iambic pentameter. VOICE: the voice would be William Blake who witnesses a poor child crying and decides to ask what happens to him. IMAGERY: semantic field: pessimism: woe, dark, death, black, misery, injury Institutions: God, priest, king Contrast: in line 1, the child is represented as an animal, dressed in black surrounded by the purity and whiteness of the snow. Another contrast (lines 9, 10) the parents believe that even if they have hurt him he is still fine but really the kid is hurt. There is another contrast between the wealth of the king and the church compared to the rest of society. Ellipsis: in line 6 (I), in line 11 (they). William Blake, London The speaker wanders through the streets of London and comments on his observations. He sees despair in the faces of the people he meets and hears

fear and repression in their voices. The woeful cry of the chimney-sweeper stands as a chastisement to the Church, and the blood of a soldier stains the outer walls of the monarchs residence. The nighttime holds nothing more promising: the cursing of prostitutes corrupts the newborn infant and sullies the Marriage hearse. . Repetition is the most striking formal feature of the poem, and it serves to emphasize the prevalence of the horrors the speaker describes. Commentary The opening image of wandering, the focus on sound, and the images of stains in this poems first lines recall the Introduction to Songs of Innocence, but with a twist; we are now quite far from the piping, pastoral bard of the earlier poem: we are in the city. The poems title denotes a specific geographic space, not the archetypal locales in which many of the other Songs are set. Everything in this urban spaceeven the natural River Thamessubmits to being charterd, a term which combines mapping and legalism. Blakes repetition of this word (which he then tops with two repetitions of mark in the next two lines) reinforces the sense of stricture the speaker feels upon entering the city. It is as if language itself, the poets medium, experiences a hemming-in, a restriction of resources. Blakes repetition, thudding and oppressive, reflects the suffocating atmosphere of the city. But words also undergo transformation within this repetition: thus mark, between the third and fourth lines, changes from a verb to a pair of nounsfrom an act of observation which leaves some room for imaginative elaboration, to an indelible imprint, branding the peoples bodies regardless of the speakers actions. Ironically, the speakers meeting with these marks represents the experience closest to a human encounter that the poem will offer the speaker. All the speakers subjectsmen, infants, chimney-sweeper, soldier, harlotare known only through the traces they leave behind: the ubiquitous cries, the blood on the palace walls. Signs of human suffering abound, but a complete human

formthe human form that Blake has used repeatedly in the Songs to personify and render natural phenomenais lacking. In the third stanza the cry of the chimney-sweep and the sigh of the soldier metamorphose (almost mystically) into soot on church walls and blood on palace wallsbut we never see the chimney-sweep or the soldier themselves. Likewise, institutions of powerthe clergy, the governmentare rendered by synecdoche, by mention of the places in which they reside. Indeed, it is crucial to Blakes commentary that neither the citys victims nor their oppressors ever appear in body: Blake does not simply blame a set of institutions or a system of enslavement for the citys woes; rather, the victims help to make their own mind-forgd manacles, more powerful than material chains could ever be. The poem climaxes at the moment when the cycle of misery recommences, in the form of a new human being starting life: a baby is born into poverty, to a cursing, prostitute mother. Sexual and marital unionthe place of possible regeneration and rebirthare tainted by the blight of venereal disease. Thus Blakes final image is the Marriage hearse, a vehicle in which love and desire combine with death and destruction. VOICE: the own speaker is the person who tells the story METRE: The poem has four quatrains, with alternate lines rhyming. It has iambic pentameter. There is more masculine than feminine rhyme. There is ab-a-b, c-d-c-d-, e-f-e-f g-h-g-h.

We are seven, William Wordswoth was written in 1798, when Wordsworth was only 18 years old. Wordsworth has noted that he wrote the last line of this poem first, and that his good friend Samuel Coleridge wrote the first few stanzas. The poem is an interesting conversation between a man and a young girl. It is especially intriguing because the conversation could have been less than five

lines, and yet it is 69 lines long. The reason for this is that the man cannot accept that the young girl still feels she is one of seven siblings even after two of her siblings have died, and even though she now lives at home alone with her mother. The speaker begins the poem with the question of what a child should know of death. Near the beginning it seems as if the little girl understands very little. She seems almost to be in denial about the deaths of her siblings, especially because she continues to spend time with them and sing to them. By the end of the poem, however, the reader is left with the feeling that perhaps the little girl understands more about life and death than the man to whom she is speaking. She refuses to become incapacitated by grief, or to cast the deceased out of her life. Instead she accepts that things change, and continues living as happily as she can. VOICE: the voice is the old man, who tells the story. He met a young girl and started to talk to her. METRE: The poem is composed of sixteen four-line stanzas, and ends with one five-line stanza. A-b-a-b rhyming pattern. It also contains Masculine rhyme predominates than feminine rhyme. IMAGERY: enjambments: Lines 7, 15,23, 67. The sentence continues in the next line of the text. Semantic field: family: sisters, brother, child, mother; parts of the body; limb, head, eyes, hair; religion: God, heaven, pray; places: Cornway, churchyard, Cottage, sea; nature: grass, sunset, sea, tree, woodland. cross rhyme.

Bright Star, Would I were Steadfast As Thou Art, John Keats The poem expresses the poets desire to be like a star because its the only way that he can remain with his love. He talks shows us what type of love he

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feels for her, he is madly, crazy in love with her, at the hight of his love for her. Another possible interpretation is that the poet is trying to freeze the sweet moment he is living by her side by wishing to die at the moment when he is experimenting this ecstasy of love. This presents a paradox of having love and immortality, an impossible combination for human beings. It symbolizes pure and true love that will always survive (gallant idea) We have also got a couple of religious connotations (line 4-6). In the first one, the author compares the star with an eremite because the Eremite have a life of celibaty and seclusion. In the second one the author talks about ablution, a religious cleaning, as in saying that the star is pure. STRUCTURE: This is a Shakespearean sonnet, 3 quatrains and a couplet. The first quatrain talks about the characteristics of the star. It watches us up from above, watching over earth. The second quatrain mentions what the star can see from the sky (water, sea, shores, mountains, moors). The third quatrain centers more in the feelings and emotions of the speaker, he wants to be with his beloved one for ever and ever (for all eternity) The last couplet works as a clousure, a conclusion of the whole poem. VOICE: the speaker in this poem is the actual poet, John Keats. He is expressing the unconditional love he professed to Fanny Brawne, his fianc. Its an autobiographical poem. IMAGERY: Semantic fields: Nature is the main semantic field in this poem (star, night, water, shore, earth, mountain, moors, snow) This semantic field can be slip up in different groups according to specific lexic. Sky: star and night. Sea: water and shore. Land (works like an opposite to sea) earth, mountain, moors and snow. These last three semantic fields could also be rounded up in a single semantic field, universe. Another semantic field would be religion: (priestlike, eremite, eternal, pure, ablution). Lovers vocabulary (soft, tender, sweet, feel). Star: (splendor, eternal, sleepless, patient) Simile: (line 1) he envies the star for being immortal, he wants to be like it in this sense. (line 3-4) he compares the bright stars situation with that of a

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religious eremite, who lives in seclusion, and has a lot of patience to observe the world that surround him, carefully. Personification: of the star line 3 (eternal lids) Oxymoron: line 12, awake for ever in a sweet unrest. A statement in which two parts seem contradictory. He wants to take care of his beloved although this task would be sour because he want be able to be with her. Keats knows the impossibility oh his desire to live in an unchanging state (to be together for ever without the passing of time) Metaphor: line 3, the speakers names the the Eremite (vehicle) referring to the star (tenor). Both share the quality of being patient, never asleep (ground). This metaphor is emphasizing the loneliness of the star. Line 7, the mask is the snow of the mountains. The mask is the covering of snow on the ground. This snow has pleasing connotations, being new and soft. Pun: line 13, the word still is used as an adj and an adverb. Imagery: visual images during the whole poem of the landscape, the mountains, the moors Change: the poem suffers a turn when describing the star. At first it observes nature and the landscape from the sky. But then it goes from merely describing (superficial) to showing us the true feelings that take over him when he thinks of his loved one (deeper and more profound meaning). He wishes to feel her forever, to have her with him, listening to her sweet, tender awakenings. He doesnt want to die, in order to be with her for as long as he can and to take care of her. Importance of the end couplet: it gives the conclusion for his torment. He is forced to choose and hed choose to stay with her and die rather than being steadfast and immortal, as a star in the sky. In the last stanza the repetition of the sound f and h can be interpreted as a sigh, a final good bye because he knows that hes going to die leaving his beloved one alone. The real fact is that

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in 1818 Keats was aware that he was dying due to tuberculosis. He was afraid of leaving his fianc Fanny Brawne. Consequently, he wants to be a star in order to protect her despite his imminent death, he wants to be with her forever (forces an unreal idea to stay with her) The sonnet devotes most of its lines to syntactically negative clauses. There is no movement in the poem. I Wonder Lonely Like A Cloud, William Wordsworth William Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud is a lyric poem focusing on the poet's response to the beauty of nature. (A lyric poem presents the deep feelings and emotions of the poet rather than telling a story or presenting a witty observation.) CONTEXT: The poem recaptures a moment on April 15, 1802, when Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, were walking near a lake at Grasmere, Cumbria County, England, and came upon a shore lined with daffodils. Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, moved to a cottage at Grasmere in 1799. After Wordsworth married in 1802, his wife resided there also. The family continued to live there until 1813. The Lake District was the haunt of not only Wordsworth but also poets Robert Southey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Thomas De Quincey. Dorothy, who kept a diary, described what she and her brother saw on that April day in 1802. SUMMARY: Stanza 1 While wandering like a cloud, the speaker happens upon daffodils fluttering in a breeze on the shore of a lake, beneath trees. Daffodils are plants in the lily family with yellow flowers and a crown shaped like a trumpet. Stanza 2 the daffodils stretch all along the shore. Because there are so many of them, they remind the speaker of the Milky Way, the galaxy that scientists say contains about one trillion stars, including the sun. The speaker humanizes the daffodils when he says they are engaging in a dance. Stanza 3 In their gleeful fluttering and dancing, the daffodils outdo the rippling waves of

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the lake. But the poet does not at this moment fully appreciate the happy sight before him. Stanza 4 Not until the poet later muses about what he saw does he fully appreciate the cheerful sight of the dancing daffodils. VOICE: The author, William Coleridge. METRE: .......The lines in the poem are in iambic tetrameter, as demonstrated in the third stanza: ..........1..............2..................3...................4 The WAVES.|.be SIDE.|.them SPARK.|.ling COULD.|.not JOC.|.und DANCED;.|.but WAVES.|.in BUT.|.be COM.|.pa THEY GLEE: GAY NY: ......1................2..................3................4 Out-DID.|.the A In PO.|.et SUCH.|.a ....1.............2.............3.............4 ......1.............2...........3............4 .......1................2..................3.................4 . . .

The poem contains four stanzas of six lines each. In each stanza, the first line rhymes with the third and the second with the fourth. The stanza then ends with a rhyming couplet. Wordsworth unifies the content of the poem by focusing the first three stanzas on the experience at the lake and the last stanza ..... IMAGERY: Semantic fields: nature: sky: cloud, milky way, stars; earth: on the memory of that experience.

vales, hills, daffodils, trees water: lake, waves. Verbs of movement: wander, float, flutter, dance, toss. Happiness: gay, jocund, bliss, pleasure Alliteration: (line lonely as a 1). cloud (line 1).

Simile: Comparison (using as) of the speaker's solitariness to that of a cloud

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Personification: Comparison of the cloud to a lonely human. (line 1) Alliteration: consonant (lines Alliteration: Alliteration: 4, 6). Metaphor: comparison of daffodils (vehicle) with an army (tenor). The ground is that both (daffodils and army) are many and move all together. Enjambment: In lines 1, 7, 9, 14, 17, 19, 21. it uses the enjambment to reflect the movement of the daffodils. This poem does have movement. The flowers move by the wind and also the speaker attitude towards reflections also changes. He learns to appreciate nature and that makes him happy. TEACHERS INTERPRETARION: the content of the poem is a description of a field. Daffodils are compared to a crowd.The poem could be interpreted as nostalgia for better past. The rhyme of the ancient mariner. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The rime of the ancient mariner is a narrative poem in the form of a medieval ballad. The poem was full of archaisms and in the 1815 was modernized and the glossary was included. Summary Three young men are walking together to a wedding, when one of them is detained by a grizzled old sailor. The young Wedding-Guest angrily demands golden Beside the high o'er vales and sound.) 3-4). Daffodils Lake, (line beneath the 4). trees, Hills (line 2). Alliteration: When all at once (line 3). (Note that the w and o have the same Personification/Metaphor: Comparison of daffodils to a crowd of people

Personification/Metaphor: Comparison of daffodils to dancing humans (lines

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that the Mariner let go of him, and the Mariner obeys. But the young man is transfixed by the ancient Mariners glittering eye and can do nothing but sit on a stone and listen to his strange tale. The Mariner says that he sailed on a ship out of his native harborbelow the kirk, below the hill, / Below the lighthouse topand into a sunny and cheerful sea. Hearing bassoon music drifting from the direction of the wedding, the Wedding-Guest imagines that the bride has entered the hall, but he is still helpless to tear himself from the Mariners story. The Mariner recalls that the voyage quickly darkened, as a giant storm rose up in the sea and chased the ship southward. Quickly, the ship came to a frigid land of mist and snow, where ice, mast-high, came floating by; the ship was hemmed inside this maze of ice. But then the sailors encountered an Albatross, a great sea bird. As it flew around the ship, the ice cracked and split, and a wind from the south propelled the ship out of the frigid regions, into a foggy stretch of water. The Albatross followed behind it, a symbol of good luck to the sailors. A pained look crosses the Mariners face, and the Wedding-Guest asks him, Why lookst thou so? The Mariner confesses that he shot and killed the Albatross with his crossbow. At first, the other sailors were furious with the Mariner for having killed the bird that made the breezes blow. But when the fog lifted soon afterward, the sailors decided that the bird had actually brought not the breezes but the fog; they now congratulated the Mariner on his deed. The wind pushed the ship into a silent sea where the sailors were quickly stranded; the winds died down, and the ship was As idle as a painted ship / Upon a painted ocean. The ocean thickened, and the men had no water to drink; as if the sea were rotting, slimy creatures crawled out of it and walked across the surface. At night, the water burned green, blue, and white with death fire. Some of the sailors dreamed that a spirit, nine fathoms deep, followed them beneath the ship from the land of mist and snow. The sailors blamed the Mariner for their plight and hung the corpse of the Albatross around his neck like a cross. A weary time passed; the sailors became so parched, their mouths so dry, that they were unable to speak. But one day, gazing westward, the Mariner saw a

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tiny speck on the horizon. It resolved into a ship, moving toward them. Too dry-mouthed to speak out and inform the other sailors, the Mariner bit down on his arm; sucking the blood, he was able to moisten his tongue enough to cry out, A sail! a sail! The sailors smiled, believing they were saved. But as the ship neared, they saw that it was a ghostly, skeletal hull of a ship and that its crew included two figures: Death and the Night-mare Life-in-Death, who takes the form of a pale woman with golden locks and red lips, and thicks mans blood with cold. Death and Life-in-Death began to throw dice, and the woman won, whereupon she whistled three times, causing the sun to sink to the horizon, the stars to instantly emerge. As the moon rose, chased by a single star, the sailors dropped dead one by oneall except the Mariner, whom each sailor cursed with his eye before dying. The souls of the dead men leapt from their bodies and rushed by the Mariner. The Wedding-Guest declares that he fears the Mariner, with his glittering eye and his skinny hand. The Mariner reassures the Wedding-Guest that there is no need for dread; he was not among the men who died, and he is a living man, not a ghost. Alone on the ship, surrounded by two hundred corpses, the Mariner was surrounded by the slimy sea and the slimy creatures that crawled across its surface. He tried to pray but was deterred by a wicked whisper that made his heart as dry as dust. He closed his eyes, unable to bear the sight of the dead men, each of who glared at him with the malice of their final curse. For seven days and seven nights the Mariner endured the sight, and yet he was unable to die. At last the moon rose, casting the great shadow of the ship across the waters; where the ships shadow touched the waters, they burned red. The great water snakes moved through the silvery moonlight, glittering; blue, green, and black, the snakes coiled and swam and became beautiful in the Mariners eyes. He blessed the beautiful creatures in his heart; at that moment, he found himself able to pray, and the corpse of the Albatross fell from his neck, sinking like lead into the sea. The Mariner continues telling his story to the Wedding-Guest. Free of the curse of the Albatross, the Mariner was able to sleep, and as he did so, the rains

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came, drenching him. The moon broke through the clouds, and a host of spirits entered the dead mens bodies, which began to move about and perform their old sailors tasks. The ship was propelled forward as the Mariner joined in the work. The Wedding-Guest declares again that he is afraid of the Mariner, but the Mariner tells him that the mens bodies were inhabited by blessed spirits, not cursed souls. At dawn, the bodies clustered around the mast, and sweet sounds rose up from their mouthsthe sounds of the spirits leaving their bodies. The spirits flew around the ship, singing. The ship continued to surge forward until noon, driven by the spirit from the land of mist and snow, nine fathoms deep in the sea. At noon, however, the ship stopped, then began to move backward and forward as if it were trapped in a tug of war. Finally, it broke free, and the Mariner fell to the deck with the jolt of sudden acceleration. He heard two disembodied voices in the air; one asked if he was the man who had killed the Albatross, and the other declared softly that he had done penance for his crime and would do more penance before all was rectified. In dialogue, the two voices discussed the situation. The moon overpowered the sea, they said, and enabled the ship to move; an angelic power moved the ship northward at an astonishingly rapid pace. When the Mariner awoke from his trance, he saw the dead men standing together, looking at him. But a breeze rose up and propelled the ship back to its native country, back to the Mariners home; he recognized the kirk, the hill, and the lighthouse. As they neared the bay, seraphsfigures made of pure lightstepped out of the corpses of the sailors, which fell to the deck. Each seraph waved at the Mariner, who was powerfully moved. Soon, he heard the sound of oars; the Pilot, the Pilots son, and the holy Hermit were rowing out toward him. The Mariner hoped that the Hermit could shrive (absolve) him of his sin, washing the blood of the Albatross off his soul. The Hermit, a holy man who lived in the woods and loved to talk to mariners from strange lands, had encouraged the Pilot and his son not to be afraid and to row out to the ship. But as they reached the Mariners ship, it sank in a

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sudden whirlpool, leaving the Mariner afloat and the Pilots rowboat spinning in the wake. The Mariner was loaded aboard the Pilots ship, and the Pilots boy, mad with terror, laughed hysterically and declared that the devil knows how to row. On land, the Mariner begged the Hermit to shrive him, and the Hermit bade the Mariner tell his tale. Once it was told, the Mariner was free from the agony of his guilt. However, the guilt returned over time and persisted until the Mariner traveled to a new place and told his tale again. The moment he comes upon the man to whom he is destined to tell his tale, he knows it, and he has no choice but to relate the story then and there to his appointed audience; the Wedding-Guest is one such person.

The church doors burst open, and the wedding party streams outside. The Mariner declares to the Wedding-Guest that he who loves all Gods creatures leads a happier, better life; he then takes his leave. The Wedding-Guest walks away from the party, stunned, and awakes the next morning a sadder and a wiser man.
There are three plots that the rhyme of the ancient mariner is referred to: the quest, voyage and return and tragedy.It tells a story. Figurative language: use of symbolism. Lack of water means the dryness of the spirit. Becalmed sea means the aimless soul who has sinned and wait for redemption. The figure of the ancient mariner is related to other characters who committed a great sin and were condemned to wander around the world: Cain, the wandering Jew The poem is about two voyages: one literal and one symbolic (a journey to the inner self) VOICE: The ancient mariner tells his story to one of the wedding guest because the action takes place during a wedding. There is a contrast between the wedding (the real life) and the poem (the supernatural).

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METRE: they are quatrains and there is an alternation of lines with three and four stressed (iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter): In syntactical structure it uses a lot of repetitions and parallelism. The rhyme is A B C B which makes the poem easier to remember (dogge Besides end rhyme, Coleridge also frequently uses internal rhyme. Following are examples. The guests are met, the feast is set (line 7) The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast (line 49) And through the drifts the snowy clifts (line 54) The ice did split with a thunder-fit (line 69) In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud (line 75) The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew (line 103) red). The poem has been interpreted as the suffering of a person. IMAGERY: Enjambment .......Coleridge occasionally uses enjambment, the practice of carrying the sense of one line of verse over to the next line without a pause. Here are examples: And now the storm-blast came, and he

Was tyrannous and strong (lines 41-42) We could not speak, no more than if

We had been choked with soot. (lines 137-138)

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Instead

of

the

cross,

the

Albatross

About my neck was hung. (lines 141-142) 'There passed a weary time. Each throat

Was parch'd, and glazed each eye. (lines 143-144) Figures . The poem is rich in figures of speech. Here are examples: Alliteration By thy long grey beard and glittering eye (line 3) He holds him with his skinny hand (line 9) The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast, of Speech

For he heard the loud bassoon. (lines 31-32) The merry minstrelsy (line 36) The furrow followed free (line 104) Anaphora The ice was here, the ice was there, The ice was all around. (line 59-60) With throats unslaked, with black lips baked (line 157) Without a breeze, without a tide (line 169) Her Her lips locks were red, were her yellow looks as were free, gold:

Her skin was as white as leprosy (lines 190-192) They groan'd, they stirr'd, they all uprose,

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Irony Water, And Water, Nor Metaphor Each And turned cursed his me face with with his a eye. ghastly (lines pang, 215-216) any all water, the water, drop to boards every drink. (lines every did where, shrink where, 119-122) ;

Water is everywhere, but there is none to drink.

Comparison of the appearance of the eye to a curse They Was a coil'd flash and of swam; golden and fire. every (lines track 281-282)

Comparison of the wake left by the sea snakes to fire Onomatopoeia It crack'd and growl'd, and roar'd and howl'd (line 61) Personification The Out And Went Simile [E]very Like the whizz soul, of it my passed crossbow! me (lines by, 223-224) Sun of he down came the shone into up sea bright, the upon came and sea. on (lines the he the left, ! right 25-28)

Comparison of the sun to a person

Comparison of the passing of a soul to the sound of a shot arrow [T]he Lay like sky a and load the on sea, my and weary the eye sea and (lines the sky

251-252)

Comparison of the sky and sea to a weight on the eye

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Her Like

beams April

bemocked hoar-frost

the spread

sultry (lines

main, 268-269)

Comparison of reflected sunbeams to frost The Red bride as hath a paced rose is into she the hall,................. (lines 33-34)

Comparison of the bride to a rose The Burnt water, green, and like blue a and witch's white. (lines oils, 129-130)

Comparison of water to witch's oils Day We As Upon after stuck, idle a day, nor as painted a ocean. day breath after nor painted (lines day, motion; ship 115-118)

Comparison of the motionless ship and ocean to paintings Synecdoche The western wave was all a-flame (line 171) Wave refers to the ocean. Lord Byron, Don Juan Don Jua n was Byrons last work. It is a long poem left unfinished at the poets death. It includes sixteen complete cantos, each of them containing over a hundred stanzas. Its publication caused great scandal in England because it was considered immoral. The story deals with the adventures of Juan, a young Spaniard brought up by a rigid mother to become a man of strict morals. Instead he turns to a life of sexual adventure and travel. The figure of Juan and his mother are partly based on autobiographical experience. The figure of Don Juan is originated in a Spanish play by Tirso de Molina. This character was represented as a libertine, a kind of devil, which in the end is

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punished by his crimes. Byrons Don Juan its different in this aspect. He is the one being seduced, not the one who seduces. He is also passive. In this case, the narrator is the one who has an evil and diabolical tone. Byron uses a narrator to express his own ideas on a wide range of subjects. VOICE: in the dedication, the speaker is Byron who criticizes Robert Southy (first romantic generation) who no longer believes in the true romantic spirit. He has become comfortable man, poet laureate. Then in the cantos, we only know that the speaker is a man. The protagonist is the first Byronic Hero. METRE: There are eight line stanzas with six lines rhyming and a final couplet. It possesses full rhyme (feminine). The first six lines are used to explain something and the last two are used to make fun of what has just being said. Don Juan ends his lines with (pattern for the hole poem) IMAGERY: / X , which is very difficult. Byron uses it to create a special effect on the rhyme. Its iambic pentameter. A-b-a-b-a-b-c-c

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