The second generation PDF

Title The second generation
Course Lingua e letteratura inglese
Institution Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
Pages 11
File Size 235.9 KB
File Type PDF
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The second generation...


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The second generation : Byron , Shelley and Keats. The second generation was also called " regency " First and second generation. That of the Lake poets who are W. and Coleridge who were born or had lived for a time in the Lake Region, in the North West of England. They talked about nature in all its forms and in the way it was conceived by poets in opposition to the city. These poets were united by a new aesthetic theory: they put nature at the center and distorted the metric forms or poetry in everything. The second generation are Shelley ; Keats and Byron and were united by a reflection on the political aspects: the value of poetry and art in society. They had been disappointed by the turn that historical events had taken in the years in which they lived. They had been affected by the change. from revolutionary ideals and were linked to individualism. In those years there was a period of regency from the dynastic point of view. There were the Hanovers in power. Percy Shelley (1792 -1822), husband of Mary Shelley, was born in Sussex into a family of noble landowners and began his studies in Eton but was soon expelled from college for publishing a pamphlet exalting atheism that represented a challenge to the Oxford authorities and this happened in 1811 (The necessity of atheism where he said there was no evidence of the existence of God .. > ). Although within his works the theme of the rejection of religion and the existence of a religious entity is very recurrent, in the works of its maturity one can observe a search for the source of the mysterious Force immanent to the wild nature and poetic inspiration. He falls in love with Mary Shelley , whose father was William Godwin and the romantic author greatly appreciated his philosophical ideas. He abandons his wife who then commits suicide and runs away with Mary Shelley to Switzerland. Here he writes the revolt of Islam (1818) while Mary Shelley Frankenstein. After his wife's suicide, Percy marries Mary Shelley. Banished by good English society, the Shelleys moved to Italy (Venice, Rome, Pisa) where Percy published his best known works: such as I Cenci (1819) and two lyrical dramas namely Prometeus unbound and Hellas (1822). Among other important works we have Queen Mab, a Defence of Poetry. He was a friend of Byron in his voluntary exile and shared with him a lack of interest in public acclaim, a clear dislike for the British political and literary system. Shelley's Thought He believed in the potential of the future and not in the defeats of the past. It overcomes the general disillusionment due to the shipwreck of the ideals of the French Revolution. Despite declaring his open atheism and materialism, Shelley was pantheist and Epicurean. He dreamed of a pagan Eden where there is no sin but only joy and pleasure, according to his thought God is all nature and the world itself. During his life he posed the problem of talking to ordinary people and talking about the things that were happening in England and pushed people to react . ( remember The song Men of England in which he addresses the English precisely to incite them to react . Shelley is fully convinced of the value of poetry and how much poetry can affect reality) However, his life was very short and he died in an accident at sea in Italy (1822). Shelley has always been a revolutionary, always taking morals into account and trying to provoke. He was radical and also believed in scientific experimentalism

Main works The Mask of Anarchy : (1819) is a quatrain poem with a direct style and is inspired by Shelley's disgust against the Peterloo massacre (in 1819 in Manchaester, st. Peter's Field, a demonstration of workers demanding parliamentary reforms including the introduction of universal suffrage were attacked by a fellow waterloo veteran causing numerous casualties). It was a blunt expression of protest against the repressive forces of England. Queen Mab : A philosofical poem (1813) transforms the midwife of the drama of Romeo and Juliet, bearer of dreams, into the midwife of a wider revolutionary dream and into the one who teaches the principles of

historical change. In the notes originally affixed to Queen Mab, Shelley describes the many faces of tyranny that threatens the fairytale vision of a future regeneration of humanity. The Revolt of Islam: The poem describes the heroic struggle of a brother and sister, who are initially also lovers, against the various forms of oppression of the Ottoman Empire, but this struggle is doomed to failure because they are defeated and killed. It is not only a condemnation of Eastern despotism but represents the defeat of the libertarian aspirations of the Revolution French The lyrical dramas: Prometeus Unbound and Hellas: the use of a mythological system to dramatize the revolutionary process influences the structure of the two lyrical dramas that are a reworking and development of the Aeschylean models. Both works carry on a discourse on what it means to be free Hellas is inspired by the rebellion of the Greeks against the Ottoman domination and the triumph of the Greek national cause is prophesied but the ending does not consist of a triumphal chorus because the possibility of the return of hatred and death and a cyclical succession of bloody revolutions is foreseen. Prometheus unbound celebrates a more confident attitude in the revolution. This work is inspired by the model of Milton's Satan (Shelley saw this character as Blake...


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