This blog task is a part of assignment of paper 102:
Liturature of the Neo-Classical period.
■Personal information:
Name: Shatakshi Sarvaiya
Batch: M.A Sem 1 (2024-26)
Enrollment number: 5108240030
E-mail Address: shatakshisarvaiya9@gmail.com
Roll number: 28
■Assignment Details:
Topic: The Transitional poet
paper & Subject code: paper 102: Liturature of
The Neo-classical period
Submitted to: SMT. Department of English, Bhavnagar
Date of Submission: 20 November,2024
■Table of Contens:
✴ Introduction
✴ Features of transitional poetry
✴ The Transitional poets ( Gray, Burns, and Blake)
✴ Romantic qualities of transitional poets
✴ Characters of Transitional poet
■ What is meaning 0f Transitional poet:
Transitional poets marked the end of classicism. They are regarded as the precursors of early 19 th century romanticism. Their poems showed a transition from town poetry to country-life poetry, a transition from artificial, intellectual poetry to the simple and original poetry of common man.
■ Introduction:
The eighteenth century is usually known as the century of "prose and reason," the age in which neoclassicism reigned supreme and in which all romantic tendencies lay dormant, if not extinct. But that is a verdict too sweeping to be true.
In this century-especially the later part of it-we can see numerous cracks in the classical edifice through which seems to be peeping the multicoloured light of romanticism. In the later years of this century a large number of new influences were at work on English sensibility and temper. The change signalized a change in the ethos of poetry and, in fact, literature as a whole. The younger poets started breaking away from the "school" of Dryden and Pope, even though some poets, like Churchill and Dr. Johnson, still elected to remain in the old groove. There were very few poets, indeed, who set themselves completely free from the old traditional influences. Most of them are, as it were, like Mr. Facing both ways, looking simultaneously at the neoclassical past and the romantic future. They seem to be
Plac 'd on this isthmus of a middle state.
In the selection of subjects for poetic treatment, in the choice of verse patterns, and in the manner of treatment we meet with perceptible changes from the conventions of the Popean school. Those eighteenth century poets who show some elements associated with romanticism, while not altogether ignoring the old conventions, are called transitional poets or the precursors of the Romantic Revival.
■ Features of Transitional Poetry:
- The poets returned to the real nature and not to
bookish nature of artificial pastoral.
- A fresh interest in the position of man, in the world
of nature was aroused .
- The age of transition is an age of innovation and
varied experiment.
- The poets of this time believed in the individual poetic
inspiration.
- passion, emotion and the imagination were valued by-
them
- They show a new appreciation of the world of
nature.
-They don't limit their attentions to urban life and
manners.
- They place more importance on the individual
than on society.
- Their poetry become much more subjective.
- There was strong reaction against the heroic
couplet as the only eligible verse unit.
- They show a much greater interest in the middle ages
which pope and Dryden had neglected.
■ Gray, Burns, and Blake (The transitional poet)
It was the mid-eighteenth century and poets were tiring of the neoclassical ideals of reason and wit. The Neoclassic poets, such as Alexander Pope, "prized order, clarity, economic wording, logic, refinement, and decorum. Theirs was an age of rationalism, wit, and satire." (Guth 1836) This contrasts greatly with the ideal of Romanticism, which was "an artistic revolt against the conventions of the fashionable formal, civilised, and refined Neoclassicism of the eighteenth century." (Guth 1840) Poets like William, "dropped conventional poetic diction and forms in favour of freer forms and bolder language. They preached a return to nature, elevated sincere feeling over dry intellect, and often shared in the revolutionary fervour of the late eighteenth century." (Guth 589) Poets wanted to express emotion again. They wanted to leave the city far behind and travel back to the simple countryside where rustic, humble men and women resided and became their subjects. These poets, William Blake, Thomas Gray, and Robert Burns, caught in the middle of neoclassic writing and the Romantic Age, are fittingly known as the Transitional poets.
Thomas Gray transitioned these phases nicely; he kept "what he believed was good in the old, neoclassic tradition" ("Adventures" 442) but adventured forth into "unfamiliar areas in poetry." In particular, Gray brought back to life the use of the first-person singular, for example "One morn I missed him on the customed hill…" ("Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard", p. 433, line 109) which had been "considered a barbarism by eighteenth century norm." (431) Thomas Gray’s poem Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is a wonderful example of natural settings in transitional poetry. It "reflects on the lives of common, unknown, rustic men and women, in terms of both what their lives were and what they might have been". ("English" 268) Gray is unafraid to see the poor, and emotionally illustrates how death affects their life: "For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, / Or busy housewife ply her evening care: / No children run to lisp their sire’s return…."
However, humble settings were also readily used by Robert Burns, a Scottish poet "frequently counted wholly as a romantic poet" ("English" 281), but who’s work often makes him a more transitional as it incorporates both neoclassical and romantic verse ideals. To a Mouse, also takes place in the country, and this time the humble subject is not a man, but a lowly mouse. Using such terms as "beastie" and "Mousie" results in an affectionate tone, as the human species is emotionally weighed up against "Mousie’s" life. A common ground is found when the poet notes that "the best laid scheme o’ mice an’ men/ Gang aft agley, / An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain". This public display of emotion, such as the affection and concern for the mouse, as well as a depressing revelation that life can go wrong for all, would have been surprising to pre-romanticism readers. One of Burns most significant influences though, was his use of Scottish dialect to write his poems; it was "a great departure from the elegant and artificial diction of eighteenth-century poetry." ("Adventures" 441) His use of dialect gave the reader a sense of connection to the common man and the humble subjects of this poetry. It created a rawer, more real mood that would have been lost in the ornamental heroic couplets used by the Neoclassic writers.
William Blake is, however, arguably the most important transitional poet. As a poet he did away with the common standards of "rationality and restraint" (Guth 589), instead favouring to write using "bold, unusual symbols to elaborate the divine energies at work in the universe" in poems such as The Tyger. This poem makes use of an awe-inspiring mood, coupled with deeply universal concerns and experiences. In this case, the tiger is a symbol of the evil in mankind, and the heavy knowledge of experience that is brought with adulthood. His poems also made great use of repetition and parallelism, sometimes to gain the effect of a nursery rhyme, simple soft and sweet, as read in The Lamb: "Little Lamb God bless thee, / Little Lamb God bless thee." However, the same device also emphasises the rhetorical nature of his famous question "Tyger…what immortal hand or eye, / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?" which makes up both the first and last stanza of The Tyger.
The transitional poets were no longer afraid to feel and were brave men who put their hearts on paper for all to see. They expressed a simple affection for uncomplicated country life, and used such settings to make profound comments on mankind in general, death, and religion. These poets idealised the humble man, the country setting, and universal truths. It is fitting to call Gray, Burns and Blake adventurers, whose guides to new lands were their pens. They dared change through the use of unconventional devices, such as dialect, the invocation of emotions, and the egotistic use of the first person singular. These changes in verse, and the subsequent popularity, and admiration received from the public, for Gray and Burns (Blake was not appreciated until the next century) and their transitional poetry marked the beginning of the end of Neoclassicism. Now, these three poets having forged the way, it was time for the Romantics to follow.
✴James Thomson (1700-48):
He is a typical transitional poet, though he chronologically belongs to the first half of the eighteenth century. Though he was contemporaneous with Pope yet he broke away from the traditions of his school to explore "fresh woods and pastures new." He bade goodbye to the heroic couplet and expressed himself in other verse-Tieasures—blank verse and the Spenserian stanza. He would have acknowledged Spenser and Milton as his guides rather thanDryden and Pope. His Seasons (1726-30) is important for accurate and sympathetic descriptions of natural scenes. It is entirely different from such poems as Pope's Windsor Forest on account of the poet's firsthand knowledge of what he is describing and his intimate rapport with it. The poem is in blank verse written obviously after the manner of Milton', but sometimes it seems to be over-strained, "always labouring uphill," in the words of Hazlitt. Thomson's Liberty is a very long poem. In it Liberty herself is made to narrate her chequeredcareer through the ages in Greece, Rome, and England. The theme is dull and abstract, the narration uninteresting, and the blank verse ponderous. His Castle of Indolence (1748) is in Spenserian stanzas, and it captures much of the luxuriant, imaginative colour of theElizabethan poet. As a critic puts it, for languid suggestiveness, in dulcet and harmonious versification, and "for subtly woven vowel music it need not shirk comparison with the best of Spenser himself." Thomson looks forward to the romantics in his interest in nature, in treating of new subjects, his strong imagination, and his giving up of the heroic couplet. But he is capable of some very egregious examples of poetic diction. Even Dr. Johnson was constrained to observe: "His diction is in the highest degree florid and luxuriant. It is too exuberant and sometimes may be charged with filling the ear more than the mind.
■ Sum up The Romantic Qualitie poetry of the Transitional Poets
- These poets believe in what Victor Hugo describes as "liberalism in literature". Not much worried about rules and conventions, they believe in individual poetic inspiration
- Their poetry is not altogether intellectual in content and treatment. Passion, emotion, and the imagination are valued by them above the cold light of intellectuality. They naturally return to the lyric
- They have, to quote Hudson, "a love of the wild, fantastic, abnormal, and supernatural."
- They show a new appreciation of the world of Nature which the neoclassical poetry had mostly neglected. Their poetry is no longer "drawing-room poetry." They do not limit their attention to urban life and manners only, as Pope almost always did.
- They place more importance on the individual than on society. In them, therefore, is to be seen at work a stronger democratic spirit, a greater concern for the oppressed and the poor, and a greater emphasis on individualism in poetry, in society, everywhere. Their poetry becomes much more subjective.
- They show a much greater interest in the Middle Ages which Dryden and Pope had neglected on account on their alleged barbarousness. Dryden and Pope admired the Renaissancermuch more and had many a spiritual link with.
- Lastly, there is a strong reaction against the heroic couplet as the only eligible verse unit. They make experiments with new measures and stanzaic forms. It is said that every hero ends as a bore. The same was the case with the heroic couplet.
While exhibiting all these above-listed tendencies in their poetic works, the transitional poets are not, however, altogether free from Popean influences. That is exactly why they are not full-fledged romantics but only "transitional" poets. Nevertheless, their work proves: "The eighteenth century was an age of reason but the channels of Romanticism were never dry."
Let us now consider the work of the most important of the transitional poets of the eighteenth century.
■ Expressive Figures: Portraits of poets like Blake or Cowper can convey their unique personalities and the emotional intensity of their work.
■ Characters of Transitional poetry:
Transitional poetry, also known as the precursors of the Romantic Revival, emerged in the late 18th century as a bridge between the Neoclassical and Romantic periods.
1. Emotional Depth and Subjectivity:
- Unlike the Neoclassical focus on reason and objectivity, transitional poets delved into personal emotions, feelings, and introspection.
- Poetry, therefore, has six characteristics, namely a stanza form, rhyme, rhythm, poetic music, insight and emotion. The last three characteristics are most important, without which it is merely verse. Some poems may not even have the first three characteristics of verse, but they always have poetic music, insight and emotion. An example is the following extract from a modern poem, Mending Walls, by Robert Frost, which is written in free verse, whereby the poet has suspended the regular metre of the poem.
▣ Conclution:
Introduction in Transitional poetry Sumpth of the Transitional poetry
and the features in bookish nature to talk about if nature of transitional poetry
in innovation of the transition about talk about inspiration and this thing
three poets Gray, burns, and Blake to in detail to say three author to talking about
Transitional poet and than last are Character of transitional poet in six Character name of stanza and talking about poem in Elements .
In a Nutshall
▣ My Reference Source are:
“Gray, Burns, and Blake: The Transitional Poets.” Angelfire, https://www.angelfire.com/nm/nighttime/poetry/transitional.html. Accessed 18 November 2024.
Pathak, Niyati, and Syed Amanuddin. “The Transitional Poets.” English Literature, 6 September 2017, https://literarism.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-transitional-poets.html. Accessed 18 November 2024.
lesson-row pdf, unacdamic uacdn.
“Characteristics of Poetry.” Shaolin Wahnam Institute, https://shaolin.org/general-2/unfinished-manuscripts/literature/literature06.html. Accessed 18 November 2024.
Thank you.....
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