10. The concept of Romanticism in j. Keats’s poetry

He was, first and foremost, a romantic dreamer. Everything seems beautiful under his pen, even the rockiest and most sorrowful subjects. Love and death became one desire for Keats, especially towards the end of his 25 years on earth.

In a letter to his lover Fanny Brawne, Keats writes, "I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your Loveliness and the hour of my death ... I hate the world: it batters too much the wings of my self-will, and would I could take a sweet poison from your lips to send me out of it." (1818)

Comparing his poems and letters, it is a surprise that Keats was not happy in this world. Many of his poems deal with sorrow, but even these are brightened by his natural references to earth, nature, wildlife, love, and beauty.

There are many aspects of sheer Romanticism in Keats' work. He only wrote for 5 years, but in those 5 years he (posthumously) became one of the world's greatest writers. What does his work show to be Romantic style?

Keats' incorporated nature into his poems. He does not generally write about nature, but he uses it as a device to make his poetry romantic and gentle. Nature v. Culture is the number one rule of Romanticism.

Keats was very poor. His poetry received harsh reviews while he was alive. He spent much of his time hiking, walking, and moving through nature. He was, indeed, and outsider: a very important element in Romanticism.

Despite his depression, Keats wrote endlessly on love and beauty. These two themes overwhelm his work. They are mixed with his feelings of depression, but they have become what Keats is most remembered for. It is not that Keats was superficial: he sought out beauty, but not the beauty of gold and diamonds. For him, love and nature were beautiful. The stars were beautiful. Death was sublime. Fanny Brawne, above all, was beautiful.

Keats was heavily influenced by ancient mythology; texts by Homer, Dante, Virgil, Shakespeare, etc.; fellow Romantic poets Shelley and Byron; Latin; and classical poetic form. He wrote many "epic story poems" such as HYPERION and ENDYMION. These are all habits of the Romantics.

Keats had a deep love for Shakespeare. Every year, he celebrated Shakespeare's birthday, and he would request that his friends send him letters that day with quotes from the Bard in them. He longed to be a playwright on the level of Shakespeare; this was, in fact, his great ambition. He began to write plays, but they remained unfinished: he died in 1821 at age 25.

Death, sorrow, love, and nature are signature traits of the Romantics. Appeciaton for earlier writers, mythology, and Latin are comon themes in Romanticsim. Keats followed all of these "rules" and epitomizes Romanticism at its best.

11. The historical novel of w. Scott.

12. The phenomenon of the 19 century Realism.

The 19th century was characterized by sharp contradictions. In many ways it was an age of progress: railways and ships were built, great scientific discoveries were made, education became more widespread; but al the same time it was an age of profound social unrest, because there was too much poverty, too much injustice. The growth of scientific inventions mechanized industry and increased wealth, but this progress only enriched the few at the expense of the many. Dirty factories, long hours of work, child labour, exploitation, low wages, slums and frequent unemployment -these were the conditions of life for the workers in the growing industries of England, which became the richest country in the world towards the middle of the 19th century.

By the thirties of the 19th century English capitalism had entered a new stage of development. England had become a classical capitalist country, a country of industrial capitalism. The Industrial Revolution gathered force as the 19th century progressed, and profound changes in hand-looms gave way, within a hundred years, to factory towns, railroads, and steamships. The population of Manchester, Birmingham and other industrial centres was growing rapidly as the number of factory workers increased, while the number of poor farmers decreased and many rural districts were depopulated. The basic social classes in England were no longer the peasants and the landlords but the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

Having won the victory over aristocracy, the bourgeoisie betrayed the interests of the working class. The workers fought for their rights. Their political demands were expressed in the People's Charier in 1833. The Chartis Movement was a revolutionary movement of the English workers, which lasted till 1848.

The Chartists introduced their own literature, which was the first attempt to create a literature of the working class. The Chartist writers tried their hand at different genres. They wrote articles, short stories, songs, epigrams, poems. Their leading genre was poetry.

The ideas of the Chartism attracted the attention of many progressive-minded people of that time. A lot of prominent writers became aware of the social injustices around them and tried to depict them in their works. Thus this period was mirrored in literature by the appearance of a new trend, the Critical Realism. The greatest novelists of the age are Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell.

These writers used the novel as a means to protest against the evils in contemporary social and economic life and to picture the world in a realistic way. Their greatness also lies in their profound humanism. Their sympathy lies with the ordinary people. They believed in the good qualities of the human heart.