Romanticism, its peculiarities. Two generations of English Romanticists. The poetry of G. Byron.

                              LITERATURE OF THE EARLY 19th CENTURY ROMANTICISM

The Romantic period lasted about thirty years, from the last decade of the 18^th century to the 1830s.
Romanticism in literature was a reaction of different strata of society to the French Revolution and to the Enlightenment associated with it. The people were disappointed with the outcome of the Revolution. The common people did not obtain the liberty, fraternity and equality they had hoped for; the bourgeoisie found that the reality was not what the Enlighteners had promised it to be, although the Revolution had paved the way for capitalist development. Quite naturally, the reactionary feudal class was discontented, because the Revolution had made it much weaker.

The progressive minds of Europe expressed this general discontent, because the influence of the French Revolution was felt all over the world. The new trend in literature (Romanticism) reflected it. The Revolution brought new problems for progressive-minded writers, who were faced with the necessity of finding an answer to such questions as their attitude to the feudal state, to the revolution, to the national liberation movements, to the relations between the individual and society, to the common people, to historical development. The Romantic period in England had its peculiarities.

During the second half of the 18^th century economic and social changes took place in the country. England went through the so-called Industrial Revolution that gave birth to a new class, that of the proletariat. The Industrial Revolution began with the invention of a weaving-machine which could do the work of seventeen people. The weavers that were left without work thought that the machines were to blame for their misery. They began to destroy these machines, or frames as they were called. This frame-breaking movement was called the Luddite movement, because the name of the first man to break a frame was Ned Ludd. The further introduction of machinery in different branches of manufacture left far more people jobless.

It was during those years that the "Correspondence Societies'" were founded in England. Organized in different localities, they united tradesmen of different professions and interests. As a rule, the societies were headed by well-known progressives, who struggled for revolutionary changes and improvements in the social order. The reactionary ruling class of England was, however, decisively against any progressive thought influenced by the French Revolution; as a result the last decade of the 18^th century was subjected to a rule that became known as the "white terror". Progressive-minded people were persecuted and forced into exile as was Thomas Paine (1737—1809), the author of the Rights of Man, who had to flee to France.

The Industrial Revolution in England, as well as the French Revolution, had a great influence on the cultural life of the country. In addition to the problems that their European contemporaries were facing, the English writers of the period had to find answers that arose in their own country, such as the growth of industry, the rise of the working class movement and the disappearance of the peasantry.

Some of these writers were definitely revolutionary: they opposed the existing order, called upon the people to struggle for a better future, shared the people's desire for liberty and objected to colonial oppression. Furthermore, they supported the national liberation wars on the continent against feudal reaction. Such writers were George Gordon Byron (1788—1824) and Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792—1822).

Others, though they had welcomed the French Revolution andits slogan of liberty, fraternity and equality, later abandoned revolutionary ideas. They turned to nature and to the simple problems of life. They tried to avoid the contradictions that were becoming so great in all the spheres of social life with the development of capitalism. They looked back to patriarchal England and refused to accept the progress of industry; they even called on the Government to forbid the building of new factories which, they considered, were the cause of the workers' sufferings. Among these writers were the poets William Wordsworth (1770—1850), Samuel T. Coleridge (1772—1834) and Robert Southey (1774—1843), who formed the "Lake School", so called because they all lived for a time in the beautiful Lake District in the north-west of England. They dedicated much of what they wrote to Nature, especially Wordsworth. They showed the life of the common people in the English countryside that was overlooked by their younger revolutionary contemporaries. The "Lake" poets resorted to popular forms of verse that were known and could be understood by all.

One of the first works, published by W. Wordsworth and S. Coleridge in 1798, was a collection of poems under the title of Lyrical Ballads. In the foreword W. Wordsworth wrote that these ballads were written for everybody, in a language that everybody could understand. A. S. Pushkin, who appreciated Wordsworth's poetry, considered this very important. He wrote that the creations of the English poet were full of deep feeling. These feelings, he said, were expressed in the language of the honest common man. The romanticists paid a good deal of attention to the spiritual life of man. This was reflected in an abundance of lyrical verse. The so-called exotic theme came into being, and great attention was devoted to Nature and its elements. Description became very rich in form and many-sided in content. The writers used such means as symbolism, fantasy, grotesque, etc.; legends, tales, songs and ballads also became part of their creative world. A typical romantic hero was, as a rule, a lonely individual, given to meditations and seeking for freedom. The romanticists were talented poets and their contribution to English literature was very important.

                                                                                GEORGE GORDON BYRON (1788—1824)

 One of the great poets of England was the romantic revolutionary George Gordon Byron. He was born on January 22, 1788 in London, in a poor, but old aristocratic family. The boy spent his childhood in Scotland, with his mother. At the age of ten he returned to England, as heir to the title of Lord and the family castle of Newstead Abbey. It was situated near Nottingham, close to the famous Sherwood Forest. He went to school to Harrow, then to Cambridge University. When he was twenty-one he became a member of the House of Lords. In 1809 he travelled abroad, visiting Portugal, Spain, Albania, Greece and Turkey. He returned home in 1811.In 1812 Byron delivered several speeches in the House of Lords. His first speech was in defence of the Luddites. Later he spoke in defence of the oppressed Irish people. In his speeches he championed the people's cause, and that made the reactionaries hate him. When, after an unhappy marriage in 1815 he and his wife parted, his enemies in high places seized this opportunity and began to persecute him. The great poet was accused of immorality and had to leave his native country. In May 1816 Byron went to Switzerland where he made friends with the poet Percy B. Shelley, his great contemporary. Their friendship was based on the similarity of their political convictions. Both of them hated oppression and stood for the liberty of nations. At the end of 1816 Byron continued his travels and went to Italy, where he lived till 1823. There he became actively engaged in the Carbonari movement against Austrian rule, for the liberation of Italy. The defeat of the Carbonari uprising (1821) was a heavyblow to the great freedom fighter. In the summer of 1823 he went off to Greece to fight for its liberation from Turkish oppression. There, on April 19, 1824 Byron died of a fever. The Greeks, who considered the poet a national hero, buried his heart in their country and declared national mourning for him. His body was brought to England where it was buried near Newstead Abbey. In 1969 the authorities finally allowed his remains to be buried in the Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.

Byron's creative work is usually divided into four periods.

1. The London Period (1812—1816). At the beginning of this period the first two cantos (songs) of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage were published. During the years of the London period Byron wrote his famous lyrics Hebrew Melodies, his "oriental" poems (The Corsair, The Bride of Abydos, Lara, and others). He also began to write his political satires, the most outstanding of which is the Ode to the Framers of the Frame Bill.

2. The Swiss Period (May-October 1816). During these months Byron wrote the third canto of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, The Prisoner of Chilian, his philosophic drama Manfred.

3. The Italian Period (1816—1823) is the most important and mature in his creative work. He wrote the last, fourth canto, of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Cain, Beppo. Besides many other works he wrote Don Juan. This is considered to be his most important creation. It is a novel in verse, that was to contain 24 cantos, but death stopped his work and only 16 and half cantos were written. In them he gave a great satirical panorama of the European social life of his time. He came very close to a realistic approach here, and enriched the language of poetry with the everyday language, spoken by the people.

4. The Greek Period (1823—1824). During the short months in Greece Byron wrote little: some lyrical poems, among them On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year, and his Cephalonian Journal in prose. THE CORSAIR

The romanticists set many of their works in oriental surroundings. Byron was no exception. His hero in these poems is usually a sombre, solitary, tragic figure. These traits and his individualistic rebellion against his surroundings make him a romantic figure, the so-called "byronic" hero, who stands alone against the world. Among the outstanding figures of Byron's "oriental" poems Conrad, the Corsair, is probably known best (not only through the poem, but also through the ballet composed on this subject by Adan). The Corsair was published in 1814, and it was a great success. The poem is composed of three cantos and is written in the measure of the heroic couplet.' The story is about a proud lonely man, maltreated by society. He left it and became a Corsair, the leader of a small group of pirates with whom he lived on an island. He and his men were always ready to fight the rich. His followers, however, never asked him who he had been in the past. A heroic couplet is a stanza of two rhyming lines, having five iambuses in each line and expressing a complete idea.

Conrad was a man of intellect and great passions. He revolted against those who had offended him and became a pirate. Proud and fearless, the Corsair cared for nobody, with the exception of his bride Medora, whom he loved passionately. After each of his battles he came back to her. Once, however, Medora waited for him in vain. He had been taken prisoner by Seyd Pacha. Conrad's men had been defeated. Later he managed to escape with the help of the Pacha's beautiful slave Gulnare. But when he returned home, he found Medora dead.

Conrad's grief at the loss of the only being he loved was so great, that life lost its meaning. He disappeared and his men were unable to find him. They buried Medora and mourned for Conrad, for they all loved him. The Corsair's romantic character is shown in an oriental setting which Byron knew very well. The descriptions of the battles, the oriental weapons, clothes, ornaments and customs are perfect. They are accompanied by beautiful descriptions of Nature, in which the sea has great significance. The author's attitude to the world is reflected in Conrad's actions. Byron stood out against feudal reaction, against all reactionary forms of bourgeois rule, against his own ruling class, in fearless, solitary rebellion. The language of the poem is laconic.The heroic couplet helped Byron to develop the concise style for which he was famous.

POLITICAL POETRY

The "Luddite" theme is quite important in Byron's poetical work. It is with this theme that he began his defence of the oppressed, his biting satirical poetry directed against the ruling classes. He first approached the "Luddite" theme in his speech in the House of Lords in 1812. He stood out against the ruling class of his country defending the men who broke weaving machines. Parliament passed a death sentence upon them. Byron's famous speech in defence of the weavers became a speech of accusation against the ruling classes. Four days after his speech in Parliament an anonymous Ode appeared in a morning newspaper. The title (Ode) was very ironic, because an ode is supposed to be a dignified poem, or a song, recited on formal occasions. Byron's Ode to the Framers of the Frame Bill was a combination of biting satire, revolutionary romanticism and democratic thought. In the Ode the anonymous poet showed how to deal with the rebellious weavers, who came to their masters to ask for help. He suggested that the best thing to do was to hang them. This would save both the money and the meat they asked for. The poet stressed that men are cheaper than machinery; and if they were hanged around Sherwood Forest for breaking the machinery, it would improve the scenery.

Those who had heard Byron in Parliament had no difficulty in recognizing the author of the Ode, for in the verse Byron repeated most of the thoughts and accusations expressed in his speech. In 1816, in Italy, when he heard of the disturbances caused by the Luddites he wrote his famous Song for the Luddites, in which he called upon the people to revolt against their tyrants. It is considered to be one of the first revolutionary songs in English classical poetry.