5. Romanticism, its peculiarities. The poetry of g.G.Byron, p.B.Shelly, j.Keats

George Gordon Byron, Percy Byshe Shelley , John Keats were the representatives of the highest level of the Age of Romanticism and all the three were greatly influenced by the Lakists. They were young revolutionary rebels, talented and fascinating.

George Gordon Byron (1788-1824) was born in London. When Byron was ten, his great uncle died, and the boy inherited the title of Lord Byron and the family castle of Newstead Abbey. Was educated at Cambridge - became a member of the House of Lords. Literature: a fighter for people’s rights ; love for freedom, hatred of oppression, admiration of nature, in lyricism personages):

1. The London period “Childe Harold's Pilgrimage” (parts 1, 2 ) (1812); "The Corsair" (1814) ; “Lara” (1814); “The Giaour”; “Oriental Poems”2. The Swiss; "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage” (part 3) "Manfred" (a philosophic drama); “The Prisoner of Chillon”3. The Italian “Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" (part 4); "Don Juan" (1818-1823); "Cain" (1821); “The Vision of Judgment" (1821);4. The Greek Several lyrical poems.

Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792, into a wealthy Sussex family. Entered Eton. In 1816, traveled to Switzerland to meet Lord Byron and became close friends. Shelley wrote most of his finest lyric poetry, including the immortal "Ode to the West Wind" and "To a Skylark." --in 1822, Shelley drowned while sailing in a storm off the Italian coast. He was not yet thirty years old. Literature: poetry - beauty, the passions, nature, political liberty, creativity, and the sanctity of the imagination: essay “A Defense of Poetry”( the center of his aesthetic philosophy)- drama “The Cenci”1819, lyrical drama “Prometheus Unbound” 1819

John Keats (1795-1821)Born to a lower-middle-class family in London -when he was still young, he lost both his parents. His mother succumbed to tuberculosis, the disease that eventually killed Keats himself- he went to medical school. By 20 he abandoned his medical training to devote himself wholly to poetry. Died in Italy.

Literature: the ideas and themes evident in Keats's great odes are the beauty of nature, the relation between imagination and creativity, the response of the passions to beauty and suffering, and the transience of human life in time) - sonnets “Sonnet to Chatterton”1815, “Sonnet written in the cottage where burns was Born”1818, “On the Grasshopper and the Cricket”1816, “Sonnet to the Nile”1818, odes “Ode to a Nightingale”1819, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”1820 - poems “Modern Love”1818, “To Autumn”1820, “Endymion”1817, “Isabella, or the Pot of Basil”1818

6. Critical realism in e lit. The Bronte sisters, Ch.Dickens, w.M. Thackeray

Reign of the Queen Victoria. The 1830s which followed the industrial revolution saw the sharpening of сlass contradictions. One of its signs was the Chartist movement which followed the Parliamentary reform of 1832(slavery). An age of progress and an age of doubt. The new class of bourgeoisie was divided into 3 categories: upper, middle and lower. There was too much poverty, too much injustice and too little certainty about faith and morals. A new approach to literature was needed which would reflect the problems of that time. Thus a new trend was born in English as well as in the Continental literature - Critical or Social realism, dealing with the needs of society. Realists stressed the link between man and the social environment in which the personage grew and functioned. So from the materialistic point of view man is predetermined by the conditions of his life. Portrayed day-today realities and personages of the realistic works were social types, not psychological as in the Romantic Lit.

Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855), Emily Bronte (1818-1848), Anne Bronte (1820-1849)

They began to write poetry and novels when they were very young. They died before their best- known books became the famous works of E. literature. ”Wuthering Heights” (1847) the only novel by Emily Bronte. “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte. These both novels have realistic and romantic elements (Social obstacles / poetry, nature, mysticism)

Contributions:1) A fragmented structure 2) A method of multi-narration&its effects 3) The flashback technique 4) Unparalleled emotional intensity 5) Freedom from social conventions

Charles Dickens (1811-1863) Was born in Landsport, in a middle-class family -> London. At 10 went to work for a factory. Later he went to school, which he attended for only 3 years- at the age of 15 he started his work in a layer’s office, 18 he became a reporter in Parliament.

Literature: Dickens considered to be a brilliant satirist, he wrote in defense of poor and low class; democratic character, devoted his efforts to striking at some obvious social evil. Dickens’s criticism is sharp and precise. A novel “Oliver Twist” it is about the life of the very bottom of society.- novels “Martin Chuzzlewit”, “Dealing with the firm of Dombey and Son…” Criticism of America based on his own experience.

Features of his language: pathos and sentimentality - humorous portrait and caricature - the main character is “a small man” -writer’s belief in victory of virtue -the very precise technique of description.

W.M. Thackeray. The works of Thackeray&Dickens complement each other in presenting the life of the period, but Th. directed his satire against the representatives of the upper classes of society whom he knew better. His most outstanding works are: The Book of Snobs (1846-47), Vanity Fair(1847-48). The Book of Snobs-he presents here a gallery of men&women of the ruling classes of England. He writes about the evils of the bourgeoisie;the English military men of high rank who place themselves above the rank. All they are snobs. The book is a real encyclopedia of the life of the ruling classes in England. Vanity Fair. A Novel without a Hero. Vanity has become the desire for society's approval and rewards.