Keats,Byron and Shelley

 Johan Keats as a Romantic poet.

John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculosis at the age of 25. They were indifferently received in his lifetime, but his fame grew rapidly after his death.[1] By the end of the century, he was placed in the canon of English literature, strongly influencing many writers of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; the Encyclopædia Britannica of 1888 called one ode "one of the final masterpieces".

✴️Percy Bysshe Shelley.

born Aug. 4, 1792, Field Place, near Horsham, Sussex, Eng.—died July 8, 1822, at sea off Livorno, Tuscany [Italy]) was an English Romantic poet whose passionate search for personal love and social justice was gradually channeled from overt actions into poems that rank with the greatest in the English language.

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Percy Bysshe Shelley

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Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, oil painting by Amelia Curran, 1819; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (born Aug. 4, 1792, Field Place, near Horsham, Sussex, Eng.—died July 8, 1822, at sea off Livorno, Tuscany [Italy]) was an English Romantic poet whose passionate search for personal love and social justice was gradually channeled from overt actions into poems that rank with the greatest in the English language.

Quick Facts

Born: Aug. 4, 1792, Field Place, near Horsham, Sussex, Eng.

Died: July 8, 1822, at sea off Livorno, Tuscany [Italy] (aged 29)

Notable Works: “A Defence of Poetry” “A Philosophical View of Reform” “Adonais” “Alastor; or The Spirit of Solitude” “Epipsychidion” “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” “Letter to Maria Gisborne” “Mont Blanc” “Ode to the West Wind” “Oedipus Tyrannus; or, Swellfoot the Tyrant” “Ozymandias” “Peter Bell the Third” “Prometheus Unbound” “Queen Mab” “Rosalind and Helen” “The Cenci” “The Cloud” “The Masque of Anarchy” “The Necessity of Atheism” “The Revolt of Islam” “The Witch of Atlas” “To a Sky-Lark”

Movement / Style: Romanticism

Notable Family Members: spouse Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Shelley was the heir to rich estates acquired by his grandfather, Bysshe (pronounced “Bish”) Shelley. Timothy Shelley, the poet’s father, was a weak, conventional man who was caught between an overbearing father and a rebellious son. The young Shelley was educated at Syon House Academy (1802–04) and then at Eton (1804–10), where he resisted physical and mental bullying by indulging in imaginative escapism and literary pranks. Between the spring of 1810 and that of 1811, he published two Gothic novels and two volumes of juvenile verse. In the fall of 1810 Shelley entered University College, Oxford, where he enlisted his fellow student Thomas Jefferson Hogg as a disciple. But in March 1811, University College expelled both Shelley and Hogg for refusing to admit Shelley’s authorship of The Necessity of Atheism. Hogg submitted to his family, but Shelley refused to

 Late in August 1811, Shelley eloped with Harriet Westbrook, the younger daughter of a London tavern owner; by marrying her, he betrayed the acquisitive plans of his grandfather and father, who tried to starve him into submission but only drove the strong-willed youth to rebel against the established order. Early in 1812, Shelley, Harriet, and her older sister Eliza Westbrook went to Dublin, where Shelley circulated pamphlets advocating political rights for Roman Catholics, autonomy for Ireland, and freethinking ideals. The couple traveled to Lynmouth, Devon, where Shelley issued more political pamphlets, and then to North Wales, where they spent almost six months in 1812–13.

✴️Lord Byron and Victorianism.

Victorianism, in general, existed in the court of George III, which was notorious among the freer spirits of the late eighteenth century for its oppressive virtue and sheer dullness. Thus, Lord Byron was involved in political struggle and considered one of the revolutionists of his time. His revolutionary fervor discomfited a national spirit dominated by middle-class insistence upon cautious, slow reform if reform was conceded to be necessary at all (Benton and DiYanni 445).

His preoccupation with political ideas and his extravagant rhetoric did not appeal to the literary taste which had turned in the direction of Wordsworth and, among the percipient, toward Alfred Tennyson after his Poems of 1842. Byron’s personality and career were alien to a moral climate in which rectitude, chastity, and seriousness had replaced sexual attitudes (Stabler 84). In spirit Passed before Me, Byron writes.

Byron’s attacks on the political establishment in Don Juan, A Vision of Judgement, and elsewhere, available only in underground editions because of government prosecutions, were veritable Holy Writ among the discontented workers, and their sentiments helped inflame popular radicalism between the 1820s and the I840’s (Stabler 66). In early Victorian society at large, romantic emotionalism manifested itself in numerous ways—in the rhetoric of politicians in Parliament and of Nonconformist preachers and hymn writers; in the oratory of radical agitators; in some painters’ obsession with apocalyptic subjects; in the sentimentality which governed domestic relations, the conduct of courtship, the veneration of the fireside; in the unapologetic tears shed by stalwart men (Stabler 64).

✴️ Romantic generation .

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Introduction

Lord Byron belongs to a romantic movement that emerged as a reaction against scientific discoveries. The romantic poets challenged rationality as the intellectual outlook of the Age of Reason. In the early Victorian period, rationalism acquired new values and practical influence, under the auspices of Byron (Abrams 33). Lord Byron, regarded today as well as in his own time as the greatest Victorian poet, was an enlightened rationalist.

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In such respects, the Victorian mind had its roots deep in eighteenth-century, not romantic, soil. In that same soil had also been fed the familiar cluster of restrictive social values and practices attributed to the Victorians—unfairly, insofar as it is assumed that they originated them.

Lord Byron and Victorianism

Victorianism, in general, existed in the court of George III, which was notorious among the freer spirits of the late eighteenth century for its oppressive virtue and sheer dullness. Thus, Lord Byron was involved in political struggle and considered one of the revolutionists of his time. His revolutionary fervor discomfited a national spirit dominated by middle-class insistence upon cautious, slow reform if reform was conceded to be necessary at all (Benton and DiYanni 445).

His preoccupation with political ideas and his extravagant rhetoric did not appeal to the literary taste which had turned in the direction of Wordsworth and, among the percipient, toward Alfred Tennyson after his Poems of 1842. Byron’s personality and career were alien to a moral climate in which rectitude, chastity, and seriousness had replaced sexual attitudes (Stabler 84). In spirit Passed before Me, Byron writes:

A spirit passed before me: I beheld

The face of immortality unveiled –

Deep sleep came down on every eye save mine –

1 hour!

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And there it stood, -all formless -but divine (Byron 43).

Byron’s attacks on the political establishment in Don Juan, A Vision of Judgement, and elsewhere, available only in underground editions because of government prosecutions, were veritable Holy Writ among the discontented workers, and their sentiments helped inflame popular radicalism between the 1820s and the I840’s (Stabler 66). In early Victorian society at large, romantic emotionalism manifested itself in numerous ways—in the rhetoric of politicians in Parliament and of Nonconformist preachers and hymn writers; in the oratory of radical agitators; in some painters’ obsession with apocalyptic subjects; in the sentimentality which governed domestic relations, the conduct of courtship, the veneration of the fireside; in the unapologetic tears shed by stalwart men (Stabler 64).

Romantic generation

The younger romantic generation, Byron, whose celebrity during his lifetime had outshone that of all the others put together, remained in the public eye for a decade after his death in 1824 because of his surviving friends’ acrimonious squabbling over issues connected with the writing of his biography (Stabler 39). The popularity of his poems was assisted for some years by the heroic circumstances of his death. Byron died of malaria in Greece while preparing to assist in the Greek war of independence against the Turks. There were several reasons for the Byronic decline in the Victorian period. There was one group, however, to whom Byron remained an idol. These were the radical workingmen, whose enthusiasm was ideological rather than aesthetic in origin (Mcgann and Soderholm 51).

Byron marked a new era in poetry characterized by deep feelings and emotions, love relations, and great passion. The free venting of the feelings became so desirable a habit of life that people deliberately sought stimuli in the arts, including poetry and fiction, and attached incommensurate importance to ordinary occurrences for the sake of additional opportunities to rejoice or grieve. In solitude, Byron writes:

And roam alone the world’s tired denizen,

With none who bless us, none whom we can bless;

Minions of splendor shrinking from distress! 

The trappings of woe with which the Victorians surrounded the death of a dear one rank high among the peculiar wonders of popular culture. It was at least partially responsible for the decline in subjectivity that characterized Victorian poetic theory and practice. Whatever else was required of Byronic poetry, it had to be faithful to familiar human experience (Mcgann and Soderholm 65). In Byron, this was a basic principle: tired stereotypes and conventions and speak the language of fresh, everyday observation and experience, which is the indispensable bond of communication between poet and audience.

This is the idea in Byron’s poems, especially Hours Of Idleness, The Corsair, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Every major poet repeatedly drew his subjects from faraway times and places, most notably but by no means exclusively the age of classical antiquity and the Middle Ages. But, to a greater extent than the romantics, Byron tended to choose his historical and exotic themes with an eye to their present-day relevance .

✴️ Summary.

In sum, as a romantic poet, Byron’s unrestrained expression of the self and passion in literature, although popular taste remained responsive to it. One reason was that with the romantics, critics felt, subjectivism had been carried to an “unhealthy” extreme and a reaction was bound to set in. Another reason was the growing influence of the scientific-rationalistic spirit, which devalued the importance of individual perceptions.

✴️What is a Byronic Hero?

The definition of a Byronic hero is a protagonist who wishes to do good, though he may feel conflicted in how to accomplish this goal. He may not want to undertake the quest that he has been given. The Byronic hero derives its name from Lord Byron, a Romantic poet who used such characters in his work. Lord Byron himself was something of a Byronic hero and matched many of the traits of his characters. As a Romantic, he focused on emotion and its consequences, making his characters complex. Some critics note that he created these characters with contrasting features in order to show a more psychologically realistic hero instead of the romanticized characters of older works. Lord Byron's first Byronic hero was the narrator of the autobiographical poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage". The narrator, the titular Childe Harold, is a world-weary protagonist who often gives in to melancholy while continuing on his quest.

✴️Byronic hero Example.

19th-Century Literary Byronic Heroes

Sherlock Holmes: The quintessential detective in English literature, Sherlock Holmes is a Byronic hero due to his great intelligence, self-destructive drug use, and arrogance. He often treats his partner, Doctor Watson, as little more than someone to talk to during a case.

Edmund Dantes: The protagonist of The Count of Monte Cristo is an intelligent man who is framed as a spy and escapes prison to avenge himself. After reinventing himself as the Count of Monte Cristo, Edmund uses various skills he learned in prison to bring down the people who framed him. His single-minded dedication to vengeance means there is no course of action he will not consider. 

✴️Johan Keats Theory of Negative capability in writing.

The nineteenth-century English poet John Keats introduced the term “negative capability” (following a heated disquisition with English politician Charles Wentworth Dilke) into the literary world’s vernacular as a means to create acceptance in regards to the unknown. Famously, one of the letters of John Keats makes mention of negative capability to his brothers George and Tom Keats, arguing against the pursuit of logic and reason in favor of a sense of beauty and wonder.

✴️what is Keats Theory of Nagative capability.

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John Keats’ Theory of Negative Capability in Writing

Written by MasterClass

Last updated: Sep 9, 2021 • 3 min read

The nineteenth-century English poet John Keats introduced the term “negative capability” (following a heated disquisition with English politician Charles Wentworth Dilke) into the literary world’s vernacular as a means to create acceptance in regards to the unknown. Famously, one of the letters of John Keats makes mention of negative capability to his brothers George and Tom Keats, arguing against the pursuit of logic and reason in favor of a sense of beauty and wonder.

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What Is Keats’ Theory of Negative Capability?

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What Is Keats’ Theory of Negative Capability?

The concept of negative capability pertains to the ability to live within the penetralium of mystery or deal with unanswered questions. Not every event—especially in fiction—needs to (or will) have a direct, satisfying explanation. Negative capability embraces this half-knowledge, creating a willful suspension of disbelief in service of the openness and curiosity geared toward a greater, more imaginative story. Exploring the temporary beauty of a passing moment is more important than figuring out why or how that moment exists.

✴️ Shelley's revolutionary poetry.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets—and arguably the greatest. The critic Harold Bloom described him as “a superb craftsman, a lyric poet without rival, and surely one of the most advanced sceptical intellects ever to write a poem”. But he was much more than that: he was also a passionate revolutionary.

Shelley’s short life spanned a crucial period in history. He was born at the height of the French Revolution. Like many of his generation, Shelley was inspired by the revolution and the ideas of the Enlightenment. He was an avowed atheist as well as a republican and democrat. Unlike most of his peers, Shelley remained true to these beliefs.

This was also a time of social crisis and extreme repression in England. Shelley’s life coincides fairly closely with the period covered in historian E.P. Thompson’s book The Making of the English Working Class. The industrial revolution had transformed society. Yet capitalism had brought nothing but increasing misery to workers, first driving them off the land to work in factories under horrific conditions, then depriving them of their livelihood by replacing them with machines. A vicious Tory government conducted a reign of terror against workers and the poor, savagely repressing moves for parliamentary reform, outlawing trade unions and smashing the Luddite revolts.

Shelley hated all forms of oppression and championed the cause of workers, women and the Irish. This earned him the undying hatred of the ruling class. One reviewer of the time summed up why: “Mr Shelley would … would abolish the rights of property … he would overthrow the constitution … he would pull down our churches, level our Establishment, and burn our bibles”. When he died in a boating accident, one British newspaper gloated:

So it’s not surprising that much of Shelley’s writing was deemed “seditious” and duly suppressed. His political essay, “A Philosophical View of Reform”—which argued that insurrection was justified as a response to tyranny—was not published until 1920. Many of his poems remained unpublished during his lifetime, or only saw light of day in underground editions. But radical publishers such as Richard Carlile kept his work alive, despite persecution and imprisonment. Though spurned by establishment critics who condemned his political, social and religious views, Shelley’s poetry gained a wide audience in radical circles and influenced poets sympathetic to the workers’ movement, such as William Morris.

Shelley’s personal life was marred by family crises, financial difficulties and ill health. He was constantly vilified for his atheism, political views and defiance of social conventions, his work was subject to censorship, and at times he faced imprisonment for his political agitation. In 1818, Shelley and his second wife, Mary (author of Frankenstein), left England—partly for health reasons, but also to escape its “tyranny civil and religious”. They lived in Italy until Shelley’s untimely death four years later. Yet in the space of little more than a decade, he had produced an enormous body of work, a legacy that continues to inspire today.

Karl Marx was a huge admirer. “He declared that those who loved and understood [Shelley and his friend and fellow-poet Byron] must consider it fortunate that Byron died at the age of 36, for had he lived out his full span he would undoubtedly have become a reactionary bourgeois, while regretting on the other hand that Shelley died at the age of 29, for Shelley was a thorough revolutionary and would have remained in the van of socialism throughout his life”, his biographer Franz Mehring wrote.

Many of Shelley’s poems were very long, and we can only provide some samples here. But hopefully the following notes and excerpts will whet the appetite and inspire readers to seek them out.