Restoration and the 18th Century English Literature

Please watch the video before you come to class!

Dear Students

Dear Students,

I don't just want you to print out your class material , but also ask you to look up unknown words and figure out "figure of speech" such as metaphor, personification, simile and alliteration.

Another important point are the allusions in the poems! Please find out the allusions mentioned in the poems!

best
g.h.

On First Looking into Chapman's HomerRelated Poem Content BY JOHN KEATS

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

BY JOHN KEATS

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, 

   And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; 

   Round many western islands have I been 

Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. 

Oft of one wide expanse had I been told 

   That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne; 

   Yet did I never breathe its pure serene 

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: 

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 

   When a new planet swims into his ken; 

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes 

   He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men 

Look'd at each other with a wild surmise— 

   Silent, upon a peak in Darien. 

George Lord Byron: When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home

When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home,
Let him combat for that of his neighbours;
Let him think of the glories of Greece and of Rome,
And get knock'd on the head for his labours.

To do good to mankind is the chivalrous plan,
And, is always as nobly requited; 
Then battle for freedom wherever you can,
And, if not shot or hang'd, you'll get knighted. 

Kubla Khan - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Kubla Khan

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BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment. 

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 

A stately pleasure-dome decree: 

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran 

Through caverns measureless to man 

   Down to a sunless sea. 

So twice five miles of fertile ground 

With walls and towers were girdled round; 

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, 

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; 

And here were forests ancient as the hills, 

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. 

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted 

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! 

A savage place! as holy and enchanted 

As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted 

By woman wailing for her demon-lover! 

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, 

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, 

A mighty fountain momently was forced: 

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst 

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, 

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail: 

And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever 

It flung up momently the sacred river. 

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion 

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, 

Then reached the caverns measureless to man, 

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean; 

And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far 

Ancestral voices prophesying war! 

   The shadow of the dome of pleasure 

   Floated midway on the waves; 

   Where was heard the mingled measure 

   From the fountain and the caves. 

It was a miracle of rare device, 

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! 

   A damsel with a dulcimer 

   In a vision once I saw: 

   It was an Abyssinian maid 

   And on her dulcimer she played, 

   Singing of Mount Abora. 

   Could I revive within me 

   Her symphony and song, 

   To such a deep delight ’twould win me, 

That with music loud and long, 

I would build that dome in air, 

That sunny dome! those caves of ice! 

And all who heard should see them there, 

And all should cry, Beware! Beware! 

His flashing eyes, his floating hair! 

Weave a circle round him thrice, 

And close your eyes with holy dread 

For he on honey-dew hath fed, 

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!:) its time for the ROMANTIC PERIOD

Dear Students,

Although the Romantic Period is quite complex and the beginning and ending may cause discussions among scholars, it is one of the most beautiful movements. You have to know that the "Romantics" did not identify themselves as such, but were called "Romantics" by Victorian critics.

Indeed there are many examples for the "Romantics" (such as Die Leiden des Jungen Werther, by Goethe, which is my favourite:)) but we are going to focus on the six big English Romantic poets such as Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats.

Hope you are as excited as I am. Please watch the video before coming to class!

ROMANTIC PERIOD, please print this out for our class on 7.11.2016

Introduction to the Songs of Innocence

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BY WILLIAM BLAKE

Piping down the valleys wild 

Piping songs of pleasant glee 

On a cloud I saw a child. 

And he laughing said to me. 

Pipe a song about a Lamb; 

So I piped with merry chear, 

Piper pipe that song again— 

So I piped, he wept to hear. 

Drop thy pipe thy happy pipe 

Sing thy songs of happy chear, 

So I sung the same again 

While he wept with joy to hear 

Piper sit thee down and write 

In a book that all may read— 

So he vanish'd from my sight. 

And I pluck'd a hollow reed. 

And I made a rural pen, 

And I stain'd the water clear, 

And I wrote my happy songs 

Every child may joy to hear

Introduction to the Songs of Experience

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BY WILLIAM BLAKE

Hear the voice of the Bard! 

Who Present, Past, & Future sees 

Whose ears have heard, 

The Holy Word, 

That walk'd among the ancient trees. 

Calling the lapsed Soul 

And weeping in the evening dew: 

That might controll, 

The starry pole; 

And fallen fallen light renew! 

O Earth O Earth return! 

Arise from out the dewy grass; 

Night is worn, 

And the morn 

Rises from the slumberous mass. 

Turn away no more: 

Why wilt thou turn away 

The starry floor 

The watry shore 

Is giv'n thee till the break of day.