NEO-CLASSISM AND ROMANTICISM IN POETRY

 Neo-classical (18^th century) v/s Romantic Revival Movement (19^th century)

With the publication of Wordsworth’s lyrical ballads in 1798, the Romantic Revival Movement was ushered in England. This movement was opposed to the neo-classical movement of the eighteenth century.

 

NEO-CLASSISM

The neo-classical poets were traditionalistic. The past for them was important. The rules and regulations were essential. The presentation of material was important in a prescribed form. These poets were trying to imitate the classical poets of the past. They were very suspicious of imagination. This was the literature of coffee houses, drawing rooms, city. It was the urban emphasis of man in society. The stress was on decorum, form and neatness. Emphasis was placed on reason and the heroic couplet was emphasized. The heroic couplet was a verse form consisting of rhyming lines in iambic pentameter. This can be summed in the words of Alexander Pope:

True wit is nature to

Advantage dress’d

What oft was thought but

N’er so well expressed.

 

ROMANTICISM

It was a deliberate and a sweeping revolt against the literary principles of the eighteenth century, also called the Augustan Age – the Age of Reason. Just as the poets Pope and John Dryden of Neo Classical tradition had rejected the romantic tradition of the Elizabethans, the age of Shakespeare as crude and irregular and had adopted classical or more correctly Neo Classical principles of French literature in their writings, so now Wordsworth and Coleridge in their turn rejected the Neo classical principles in favor of the romantic.

These poets were therefore reverting back to the Elizabethian age or the first Romantic Age in English Literature. Therefore, this was not something new in literature and was called Romantic Revival Period.

There were few differences between sixteenth century and nineteenth century romanticism.

In the Elizabethan age, most of the Elizabethans except Shakespeare appeared to have been unable even to assign been unable even to assign flowers to their proper seasons whereas poets and writers in the nineteenth century looked upon nature from the point of view unknown to the Elizabethans. The sixteenth century was the age of drama and an age of action. A life where they had to investigate and explore, Romanticism in the nineteenth century on the other hand was an age of the novel. It was an age given to introspection keenly alive to their own literary traditions and history.

With Romanticism, poet’s emphasis was on imagination, they were less bound by rules. They believed that they were not answerable to anyone but themselves. They believed in using a variety of verse forms.

Emphasis was on individual creativeness, heightened imagination, feelings, sensibilities, subjectivity and a spirit of freedom with regard to form content.

Neo classical poets were conscious of decorum. Therefore, language of poetry had to be elevated. These poets lived in their ivory towers. They firmly believed poetry was not for the masses.

In opposition to this, romantic poets believed that everyday language could be used in poetry. A poet they believed was a man among men. The language of poetry need not be different from language of prose.

In the eighteenth century imagination was not an important feature in Neo Classical theory of poetry. For Dryden and Pope, imagination had little importance. They approved of fantasy, controlled by ‘reason’ or ‘judgment’. For them, what mattered most in poetry was its truth to emotions or sentiments. They wished to speak in general terms for common experience of man. They did not express their views. For them the poet was more an interpreter than a creator. They were not interested in mysteries of life.

Rene Descartes, the philosopher influenced the eighteenth century writers to a great extent. He was a rationalist who thought that the world was a machine controlled by God.

The Romantic attitude is expressed in the following lines, ‘we are moving from mechanistic attitude towards nature, to an organic one’.

The Romantic Poets believed that imagination, the higher faculty of need does not allow them to be content to look at things only at the surface level, but encourage them to delve deeper onto the surface. They also laid emphasis on the mysterious, spiritual and the occult.

These poets believed in taking the reader away to distant lands; lands of enchantment, witches, magic, weird things and things which are not normal.

The Romantic Poet is not mundane. He feels that there are extra sensory parts which takes us to other worlds which we cannot experience with the ordinary eye.

The Romantics had a specific attitude to nature. They believed man had to control it to form it. They did not think of nature as a tool of man. They thought nature had an autonomous existence. It was in a position to bring about different responses from different people.

They loved the wild beauty i.e., forests, mountains, untamed by man. They rarely spoke of nature objectively.

These poets believed that sensibility intervenes to turn objective nature into subjective feelings.

Nature becomes organic part of that person’s life and existence.

In the eighteenth century, nature is static where as in the nineteenth century nature is constantly evolving. Nature chastens man. It makes him aware of the sufferings in the real world. Nature is no longer looked at from the outside. Linked up with all this is that the diction and syntax of poetry is strongly influenced by the ideals of spontaneity and naturalism for the romantics.

Wordsworth’s definition of a poet is ‘a man speaking to men’. The poet stresses on spontaneous overflow of feelings. As a speaker the poet liked to ignore the appearance of pre-deliberated artists. The earlier classical concept of a poet was a contrast. The poet being a maker had to constantly work on different tools and had to constantly perfect his art. The stress here was on craftsmanship.

The Romantics portray nature with a subjective feeling. For them nature is animated. It is here we see different forms of living things having a life of their own. They looked upon nature as a process. Nature is inexhaustible which has wonder and surprise in it. Nature is a beautiful awesome phenomenon. Wordsworth refers to nature as ‘the anchor of my purest thought’.

The attitude of the Romantics is that man is seen as being essentially good but is corrupted by civilization. The stress is on mans return to nature. They were Pantheistic in their attitude and have a high regard for nature and the natural environment and saw the hands of the Creator guiding the universe. They go beyond the world of the flesh and emphasize the sublime.

Wordsworth’s ambition was to make the ordinary beautiful, where as Coleridge was to make the extraordinary natural. Wordsworth wants to show the beautiful in ordinary life. He tried to give a new meaning to common things, to reveal the awe in ordinary life. Coleridge wants to make the extraordinary, supernatural, remote and unusual normal. One aspect of Romanticism which centers around the world of dreams and marvels is seen in Coleridge’s poetry. He conjures a world of phantasonal (fantasy) scenery, linked up with supernatural happenings. In Kubla Khan one dominant element is the element of mystery and wonder. These are also seen in the ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ and ‘Christabel’.

HOW TO STUDY A SHAKESPEARE PLAY

You will find that the language is not only old fashioned but also complex and dense.

Structure – Every play can be said to fall into three stages, generally referred to as exposition, complication and resolution.

The play begins with the exposition stage, where we are introduced to the characters and the situation, they find themselves in. At the outset the characters might not seem to have any particular problems but there would not be much to interest us if we were simply confronted with characters who were living happily, continued to live happily and lived happily ever after. Very soon, often in the first scene, a problem develops: something happens which looks as if it is going to disrupt the character’s lives. One way of putting this is to say that a kind of order prevails at the beginning of the play but that very soon this ordered life is thrown into disarray. The central and longest stage of a play is the complication stage.

Shakespeare takes a situation where things are relatively peaceful at the outset, but then shows how the actions of people disrupt that established social order.

Comedy can present an irrational quality in people that undermines any possibility of a rational order in society.

In all plays, however, what happens is that the behavior of the characters creates confusion and social disarray.

Third stage of the play – the resolution stage. In a tragedy, the social order is so thoroughly destroyed that civilized behavior yields to violence, and the play ends with the death of the principal characters. The situation is thus in a way resolved, but what we are principally left with is an impression of the precariousness of the whole idea of social order.

In all plays we see some threat to or disruption of the established order.

The story of a Shakespearean Play – You know that at the outset you will be introduced to various characters and that soon a problem will begin to define itself. Some act, or series of acts will take place that alters the way of life that has existed. During the course of the play, things will become more and more chaotic, so that by the central point of the play life will have become completely topsy turvy. At the end, however, things will sort themselves out in some way: order might be reestablished, or there might be a feeling of temporary peace and taking stock of what has happened, but it could be that the drain of events leads to the death of one or more of the characters.

Every play is built upon a tension between an idea of order and the reality of disorder in society.

 

What should I be trying to do in a critical response?

Look for the broad pattern of the play. Look for the action or actions that trigger off the complications of the play: almost invariably one of the characters acts in a headstrong, or foolish, or ill conceived, or possibly evil way. The act creates discord and disarray. Order yields to disorder. People are at odds with each other, and in which conflicts and disagreements or confusion and misunderstandings dominate. Have some ideas about the particular characteristics of the kind of play you are studying.

The real task of criticism is to capture the distinctive qualities of the play you are studying.

Start looking in more detail at the plot: Remember that you are not only interested in what happens but also in the significance of what happens. General framework helps you to see the overall pattern of the story and can be used as a key to help you interpret any part of the story. If you attempt to discuss too many scenes you are likely to lapse into merely summarizing the action without commenting on its significance.

Concentrate on a few scenes: Look for evidence that the characters feel there is something wrong with the disorderly state of affairs: implicit in every scene will be the idea that life should be more orderly, rational, even though it is in the nature of people to disrupt harmony.

Be aware of the kind of things you can focus on. The six areas of interest in a play are – plot, character, thought, diction, music and spectacle.

You need a way of focusing and disciplining your impression and again the large ideas we have been working with provide a way of organizing your response.

It can be shown how the main characters are caught between opposite impulses, how they are attracted by an idea of orderly and reasonable behavior yet often find themselves acting illogically and irrationally.

The broad pattern of the plot reproduces itself in the experiences and personalities of the major characters, so that there is a constant tension both in the play as a whole and in the central characters between orderly and disorderly behavior. The minor characters play an important dramatic function, as they often serve to comment on or draw attention to eth gap between how things ought to be in an orderly world and the disorderly state of affairs that prevails in the play.

Tension is also reflected int eh language of the play, where images of order are constantly set against images of disorder and in the thought of a play which we more commonly refer to as a play’s theme.

What, if anything, is Shakespeare trying to say in his plays?

Shakespeare returns again and again to passions that disrupt social order. He writes with the intention of warning people against acting in an antisocial or unruly way. Shakespeare is exploring the reality of human experience, the way in which people do act. He is making us aware of how society is complex because people are complex; of how individual instincts, and passions disturb any ideal of a harmonious society. He writes to explore both the good and the bad qualities in human nature. At the end of a play we come away with an increased awareness of the problems and choices and difficulties that humanity has to face up to.

What distinguishes Shakespeare from other dramatists?

The characters are constantly raising all the larger questions implicit in the play about the whole relationship between a harmonious vision of life and the messy reality of experience. Every Shakespeare play seems to raise fundamental questions about the whole nature and meaning of life.

 Why does Shakespeare write in verse?

Poetry is highly ordered language. When Shakespeare writes in verse, his lines are usually in blank verse – i.e., unrhymed lines, each line containing 10 syllables. In an ordered verse form a character will be talking about the disorder of experience. In Shakespeare’s verse there is a constant tension between the desire for neatness, symmetry and order and the awareness that life itself always burgeons out of control. Presumably at such moments we are closer to the mundane reality of life where order and disorder jostle together.

Do I need to know about Shakespeare’s life and times?

Renaissance period – a shift from an essentially religious world view to an essentially secular world view. People came to feel that they were living in a less familiar somewhat more disturbing world. The medieval period offered people a secure image of a divine order in the universe: there were problems, of course, but the world seemed well ordered. His characters are self-centered and ambitious. The play reveals a sense of a new spirit of individualism which is in conflict with the traditional religious order. Individuals are increasingly presuming to take the initiative in a world where it is used to the be case that everyone knew their place and trusted in God.

Studying a tragedy: Shakespeare’s four major tragedies – Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth.

In tragedy, the dramatist gives full and serious consideration to the disruptive effects of people’s behavior. The consequences are so serios that the order presented leads to the death of the main character at the end of the play. Any play that ends with the death of the main character is a tragedy; the pattern is always the same: the society presented in the play has shifted so far from any orderly standard of behavior that it collapses into violence and the main character is the principal victim of this violence.

In History plays, when things begin to go wrong, it is because people are weak, or fallible, or ambitious, or resent authority.

In tragedies, the passion that disrupt life are far more extreme: there is a focusing on the evil in human beings, an evil that results not just in the death of the tragic hero but also in the deaths of the innocent and good who seem to be singled out for destruction for no other reason than that they are innocent. The tragedies, force us to ask how such qualities as goodness, love, justice and loyalty can survive in the world given people’s capacity for evil and destruction.

If we assume that at the beginning of a tragedy life is much as it always has been, some action then takes place that disturbs the status quo. The moment the façade of order is shattered, we begin to see the cruel, vicious and murderous side of people, to see the self-seeking, hatred and violence.

(Taken from the note edited by John Peck and Martin Coyle)

Read about how to answer Essay Questions on Shakespeare's Plays by clicking the link: https://sstuffsimplified.blogspot.com/2021/05/how-to-answer-questions-on-shakespeares.html

 

HOW TO ANSWER QUESTIONS ON SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS - ESSAY QUESTIONS

Examination papers on Shakespeare usually feature three kinds of questions. The first kind commonly referred to as a context question consists of a short extract from a play, usually a single speech, followed by a number of specific questions about this passage. The second kind of question presents a longer extract from a play, perhaps about 50 lines and asks you to write an essay in which you discuss this passage and relate it to the play as a whole. It is these two kinds of questions that are considered popular. The third is the traditional essay question, where you are asked to discuss a statement about a play or asked to look at a particular aspect of a play.

Whatever kind of question is set, however, its purpose is not only to test your understanding of a play and your response to it, but also to test your ability to express your response and understanding. You should always try to remember that the way in which you present your response – which covers both the overall organization of your answer and the quality of your writing – is every bit as important and the quality of your ideas. You have to see what the question is about and then write clearly and sensibly. Proper use of paragraphs and writing in grammatical sentences.

Things to bear in mind:

-         Your essay is likely to prove most effective if it has a simple overall structure, looking at a different aspect of the play in each paragraph.

-         Use the opening paragraph to set you your controlling ideas.

-         In each subsequent paragraph, focus on specific details, but interpret them in the light of your controlling ideas.

-         Don’t try to discuss too much. It is better to do justice to a couple of details in a paragraph, showing how they illustrate and bring to life the wide concerns of the play, than to list a host of details which you don’t bother to justify or to explain.

-         Remember that each paragraph is a step in an argument. As you examine each detail, you are adding to the general sense of the play that is conveyed in your essay and also adding to the sense of how the play dramatizes its issues.

The question: The basic rule of all good essay writing is answering the question set. The question will direct you towards a significant and interesting part or aspect of the play.

Understanding the question: Essay writing becomes a lot easier if you know what sort of questions are usually set. The most common kinds of essay questions on Shakespeare either about a play’s characters or about a play’s themes or technique. In every case you will be asked to analyze and discuss a specific topic or question or statement. You are being asked to present an argument.

In question about characters – you have to move beyond an analysis of the personalities of the characters to a sense of how they are being used by the dramatist and how they illuminate what the play is about and how it works. You have to focus on the characters themselves, but your answer must be informed by a sense of the broader issues inherent int eh play. You are interested in the characters because of the way in which they reflect, reveal and embody the broader concerns of the play.

Questions about themes – always ask or discuss a particular topic or in a play. Although you are asked to focus on a specific topic, your answer must be informed by a sense of the broader issues in the play. Thematic questions often consist of a statement about the play followed by the word ‘discuss’. The statement will often point to a tension in the play, but, if it does not, then you must stop and think and remind yourself that plays always deal with conflicts and problems and that any theme specified will reflect the broader conflict found in the play in some way. Concentrate on the specified topic, showing how and where in specific incidents the theme is evident. Comment on the significance of the details you look at saying how they bring this tension to life.

Questions about technique – focus on the imagery in a play and whether the play is a tragedy or not.

What the examiners want to see – a clear well set out answer which refers to the test a lot. He/she wants to see an essay with a strong, clear central argument closely illustrated. They are interested in how effectively you organize and present and argue the case you are offering.

See the problem involved int eh question.

First paragraph – In the opening paragraph identify the problem, focus on the issue at the heart of the question.

Second paragraph – write about a particular scene or speech in the play. If it is a question about character, it obviously has to be a scene which features that character. Refer to the incident, or quote part of a speech, and then begin to discuss and analyze what you can see happening in this section of the play.

Concentrate on one or two details and really work on these instead of trying to cover everything.

End paragraph with very definite conclusion

If there is more to the issue than you have discussed, you made add more paragraphs.

In the concluding paragraph discuss all the aspects together.

Key points:

The main rule of essay writing is to keep the overall structure of your essay simple.

Remember that you are always examining a problem, and your answer must therefore develop an argument.

The first paragraph should define the problem you are going to examine.

Subsequent paragraphs need to look closely at the evidence of the text, establishing an answer from specific incidents and details in the play.

An essay needs to develop an argument and each paragraph should be thought of as a step in an argument, advancing the case beyond the point reached at the end of the previous paragraph.

Each step in the argument must develop from the actual evidence of the text.