->
Name:-Bhumi N. Vajni
->M.A.:-English
->Sem-1
->Roll
No.:- 06
->Paper-2,
"The Neo classical Literature"
->Sub:-Write
about major Neo classical "Poets" of the age:
->Submitted to:-Heenamem
->Year:-2012-2013
->Department
of English
*
History of Neo-Classical Age:-
1. The Age
of Neo-Classical in English Literature.
2. Neo-Classical
can be divided into three parts.
3. Characteristic
of the Neo-Classical Age.
4. Poetry.
5. Court
Poets.
6. Satiric
Poets.
7. Some
poets of Neo-classical Age,
-Mathew Prior
-Alexander Pope
-James Thomson
-Edward Young
-William Collins
-Thomas Gray
-Robert Burns
-John Dryden
-William Cowper
-William Blake
·
The Age of Neo-Classism in English literature:-
In
English literature the period from the latter half of the 17th century
to the end of the 18th century is called the period of Neo-classical.
The writer of Elizabethan Age had no respect for the rules, they gave free play
to their imagination and depicted what pleased them. In the writers of the
genius it was all right, but in the less gifted it degenerated into dicence. A
natural reaction against this tendency is seen in the metaphysical poets. They
were against Elizabethan writers, and developed their own system of writing
poetry. Their method of verification was also not easy and graceful, it was
difficult and complicated. Reading poetry became a job and not an
entertainment. Both these type of poets, the Elizabethan and the metaphysical,
helped in the evolution of Neo-Classism sin England.
Politically
the most important factor responsible for this change was the influence of
France an English manner and life. King Charls -2 was restored to monarchy in
England in May, 1660. He had lived in exile in France for a long time, and
there for, when he come to England, brought with him a love of French manners,
ways, elegance and artistic taste. France, during the latter half of the 17th
century, under King Louis xiv, was a model of manners, morals, elegance,
and literary taste for Europe. Louis xiv took a keen interest in literature and
under his powerful influence neo-classism steadily grew and developed in France
Boileav Rapine and Bossy formulated their theory of poetry based on the
authority of Aristotle. If appealed to the English writers also, partly because
of the excesses of both the Elizabethan and metaphysical poets.
The English
Neo-classical movement was started and derived from France models. It was
originated much earlier. It was English literature from the restoration period
is that from 1660 until the end of the 18th century.
· Neo-Classical can be
divided into three parts:-
1) The Restoration Age:-[1660-1700]
-
Milton,
Bunyan and Dryden were the dominant figures.
2) The Augustan Age:-[1700-1750]
-
Smollett,
Pope, Defoe, Richardson, Fielding were the dominant figures.
3) The Age of Johnson:-[1750-1798]
-Dr. Samuel Johnson was the dominant figure of this age.
Neo-classical represented a reaction
against the optimisian of Renaissance. They believed that man himself was the
most appropriate subject of art. Restoration Age’s literature replaced the
Renaissance literature. The imagination invention, religion, politics, economy,
philosophies were some of the subject man was at the center.
· Characteristics of the
Neo-Classical Age:-
1) Literature of this age is concerned
with ‘Nature’ i.e...-human nature.
2) There was the supremacy of reason.
3) This age is also called classical Age
as the writes of this were greatly influenced by the classical writes and thus
they imitated then in their work.
4) This age rejected fancy and desired
tube guided by reason.
5) This age wished to understand and not
imagine.
6) Society of this age demanded
instruction and information.
7) This age helped to establish some
practical rules of conduct.
8) This age had a great influence of
French writers.
9) The work of Dryden, pope, Swift,
Addission and John Gay as well as many of their contemporaries, exhibit
qualities of order, clarity, and stylistic decorum that were formulated in the
major critical documents of the Age.
10)
‘Nature’
of Augustan however, was not the wild, spiritual nature the romantics poets
would later idealize, but nature as derived from classical theory a rational
and comprehensible moral order in the universe, demonstrating God’s
providential design.
11)
Many
of the important genres of this period were adaptations of classical forms:
mock epic, translation, and imitation.
· POETRY:-
The Poetry is dominated by
Neo-classical traits.
The lyrical Spirit, whatever there is
of it is makes by Caroline charm and skill. It is however often artificial in
thought and deficient in originality, except for Dryden, only court poets more
much consideration. The ode is a favourite form and again Dryden is preeminent.
The most spectacular type in the development of the heroic couplet.
· Court Poets:-
John Wilmot, second earl of
Rochester, 1647-1680 poet courtier, libertine, wit-In many of his writing
obscenity substitutes for its wit and foulness for licentiousness.
Love and life represents perhaps his
supreme lyricism; satire against mankind his superior satirical talent and can
centered cleverness. Rochester is the only serious court poet, but has left
love lyrics of grace and songs of distinctions.
· Charles Sackville:-
[1638-1706]
Poet and courtier to Dryden dedicated
his of drama tickpoesis. He wrote epigrams modern satires and such prettily-turned
herself a beauty.
“During sparkling wit and eyes” is a
satire a Katherine sadly, mistress of James-2, most famous is the ballad of
eleven stanzas called song written as sea which grosses declared as in augur
ting.
John Sheffield third earl of Margrave
and after words first Duke of Buckingham and Norman by 1648-1721 poet statesman
of the court wits Sheffield was the most respectable, his essay on satire
published anonymously.
When worth Dillon, poet first critic
to praise Milton’s paradise lost, translated Horace Arc poetical (1680) into
blank verse. “Poetic diction” destined for fuller development. He was quite
free of the low code of morals of his contemporaries.
· Satiric Poets:-
è John Oldham - [1653-1683]
John Oldham old written to whose memory
Dryden wrote a noble ode and satirist designated by scoot as “the English
Juvenal”.
è Samuel Butler :-[1612-1680]
Samuel Butler, satiric
poet, son of a Worcestershire farmer, educated at the king’s school Worcester
gentleman servant to Elizabethan, countess of Kent at Wrest Park (1919). Money
obtained by marriage to Mrs. Herbert soon lost secretary, during lifetime to
several country squires including sir Samuel lake, a rigid Presbyterian who may
have been the probably the butt in “a duke of bucks” in characters. Although
granted an annual pension of one hundred pounds (1678), yet in said to have
died in obscure penury and to have been buried at the expense of William
Langueville.
· Hudibras:-
He wrote unfinished mock
epic poem of more than ten thousand lines, popular because topical, satirizes
the roundheads by exploiting the “humors’” of the long faced Hudibars
accompanied by his squire Ralpho. Not the same adventures involved in a lose
plot hard to follow through the complex dialog and unrecognized allusion’s but
the anti puritan picture of the poem are important withering surface
portraiture broadly comic current mock-solemn parade of erudition.
· Some Poets of Neo-Classical
Age:-
è Mathew Prior:- [1664-1721]
-
He
wrote his first book (made debug) “Panther” in collaboration with Charles
Montague.
-
He
used his verse to comment on the event politics.
-
In
“Alma” or the “progress of the mind” he denounces worldly vanities even verging
on the grotesque.
-
His
verse de society shows a light touch and a pleasing turn of expression.
-
His
poem ‘Henry’ and ‘Emma’ serves as a text for a study of the blunders of
Neo-classical.
è Alexander Pope:- [1688-1744]
-
He
wrote one of the famous satirical Epic-poem. He was a famous Essayist, critical
and also a poet.
-
His
work like ‘The Rape of the lock’, verses to the memory of an unfortunate Lady
(1717) and dunciad are (1728) noteworthy.
-
His
essays are also written in verse form and are as beautiful as his poems. His first
book can be considered as a longer philosophical poem.
-
An
essay on criticism is a kind of rhyming verse known as heroic couplets. It
first appeared in 1711, yet written in 1709.
-
The
‘Rope of the hock’ is a beautiful heroic narrative poem. It was first published
in two cantos and later another three cantos added to the previous ones.
-
The
last canto was available only in 1717 with the addition of the moral speech of
Charisa.
-
This
poem satirizes a minor actual incident pope satirizes the beauty conscious and
hypocrite contemporary society of his country. Belinda the heroine is shown
elegant. She is a beauty that is fragile. She loses a lock a hair which touches
her deeply.
-
His
another poem Eloisa to Abelard is inspired by the 12th century’s
illicit love and secret marriage.
-
Pannell,
Tickell and Philips can be considered minor poets with one or two noteworthy
verses.
-
Pope’s
Essay is regarded, in poets as true genius is but rare, True Taste as seldom is
the critic’s share.
· James Thomason:-[1700-1748]
-
James
Thomson was born in 1770, at Edam in Roxburghshire, and went at the age of
fifteen to Edinburgh University, with the idea of becoming a minister like his
father.. The eighteenth century is an age of grate prose, and until its close,
of second-rate poetry. Finally led to the splendid outburst of Romantic poetry
in the dawn of the new century.
-
As
a writer he signalized the departure from the town to the country, chose the
senseriasm stanza and blank verse as his medium, and eschewed the stopped
couplet that was ubiquitous in the realm of poetry at the time.
-
He
wrote some noticeable work of arts “winter”, “spring”, “summer”, and “autumn” (The
seasons) and in “The castle of the Indolence.” His long poem a “Liberty”.
-
“The
season” is a particular poetry of the nature.
-
“Castle
of Indolence” is a half humorous description of the retreat at Richmond where
he lived with some of his friends in an indolence to lovely and close to him.
-
Liberty
is a very good example of Blank-verse. This poem expresses Thomson attitude as
a patriotic Whig.
· Edward Young:-
He wrote a
beautiful collection of poems called “Nine Thoughts” – the complaint or,
Night-Thoughts on life, Death and Immortality.
This poem is published in nine parts
between 1742 and 1745. The poem is written in blank verse describing the poets
musing on death over a series of nine ‘nights’ in which he ponders the loss of
his wife and friends and laments human frailties.
è The nine poems are,
1) Life, Death and Immortality
2) Time, Death and friendship
3) Narcissa
4) The Christian Triumph
5) The Relapse
6) The Infidel Reclaimed
7) The Nature, Proof and Importance of
the world Answers
8) The Consolation
· William Collins:-
-
He
possessed a significant place as poet of his time.
-
His
memorable poetries are
1) Ode on Passions
2) Popular superstitions of the
Highlands of Scotland
3) Ode to Evening
-
Collins
‘Ode on Passions; is a wonderful example of allegorical form of poetry. Even
‘Ode to evening’ is his masterpiece that creates an amazing and unbelievable
picture of the evening.
· Thomas Gray:- [1716-1771]
-
The
author of the famous “Elegy” is the most scholarly and well balanced of all the
early romantic poets. He died in his rooms at Pembroke collage in 1771, and was
buried in the little churchyard of the stoke pages.
-
Gray’s
“Letter”, published in 1775 “Journal”- model of natural description.
-
Thomas
poems divide themselves naturally into three periods.
-
Gray’s
emancipation from the classic rules which had so long governed English
literature.
-
The
best are his “Hymn to Adversity” and the odes “To Spring” and “on a distant
prospect of Eton collage”.
-
The
“Elegy written in a country churchyard” (1750 published in 1751), the most
perfect poem of the age, belongs to this period.
-
Two
other well known poems of this second period are-
1) “The Pindaric Odes”(1757)
2) “The Progress of Poesy” and
3) “The Bard”.
-
Norse
poems “The Fatal sister” and “The Descent of Odin” (1761).
-
He
was a scholar, familiar with all the intellectual interests of his age.
-
Gray’s
work has much of the precision and polish of the classical school, but he
shares also the reawakened interest in nature, in common man, and in mediaeval
culture.
-
His
work is generally romantic and both in style and in spirit.
· Robert Burns :- [1759-1796]
-
Robert
Burns was born in a clay cottage at allowed, Scotland, in the bleak winter of
1759.His father was an excellent type of scotch peasant of those days a poor,
honest, god-fearing man. Burns ’s life is a
-
“A life
of fragments”
As Carlyle called it; and the different fragments are as
unlike as the noble.
-
“cotter’s
Saturday night”
And the rant and riot of
-
“The
Jolly Beggars”.
-
Burns
lived his sad, toilsome, erring life in the open air with the sum and the rain,
and his songs touch all the world. The latter’s poetry, so far as it has a
philosophy, rests upon two principles which the classic school never
understood, that common people are at heart romantic and lovers of the ideal,
and that simple human emotions furnish the elements of true poetry.
-
Burns
poetic creed may be summed up in one of his own stanza.
-
“Give
me a spark o’ nature‘s fire, That’s a’ the learning I desire; Then, though I
trudge thru ‘dub an’ mire At plough or cart, My muse, though homely in attire,
may touch the heart.”
-
The publication of the
Kilmarnock burns, with the title.
“Poems chiefly in the Scottish
dialect” (1786)
Marks an epoch in the history of English literature such poems as,
“The Mountain Daisy”
“Man was made to Mourn”
“The Twa Dogs”
“Address to the Deil”
“Halloween”
Suggest
that the whole spirit of the romantic-revival is embodied in this obscure
plowman.
-
Love, human, pathos, the response to nature, all the poetic
qualities that touch. The human hearts are here.
-
Among his poems of Nature,
“To a Mouse”
“To a Mountain Daisy “
Are
unquestionably the best.
The majority of his poems like,
“Winter”
“Ye banks and braeso’ bonie
doon”
-
Of his poems of emotion there
is an immense number. Burns without finding this natural juxtaposition of smiles and tears.
-
Burns’ longer poems the two best worth reading are,
“The
Cotter’s Saturday night”
“Tam o’
shanter” -noble poverty
-
Burns known wherever the
English language is spoken
and honored wherever Scotchmen gather
together. He died miserably in 1796, when only thirty-seven years old.
·
John Dryden :- [1631-1700]
-
“Every
age has a kind a universal Genius and perhaps in no poet are his own world more
truly verified than are these of John Dryden. “
-
He
was born in 1631, in the little village of Aldwinkle in Noprthamptonshire; John
was the same of its rector. His works are, “Absalom and Achitophel ” “Ode to
st. Cecilia’s Day “ “
Alexander’s Feast “ (1647) “
Annus Mirabills (1667) “
-
Annus
mirabilis was his first poem.
He also wrote the critical essay on Dramatic poesy. It’s a
prose work.
“The Hind and the Panther, a Defense of the Roman Church “.
(1687) which if it accorded the poet same fane. It is certain he received no
pecuniary gain from its publication.
·
William Cowper :- [1731-1800]
-
He
was particularly and sensitive child, he was the constant companion of a tender
and indulgent mother; and after her death in 1737, it was a heart broken little
boy of six years old who arrived at Dr. Pitman’s boarding.
-
In
1773 a second period of darkness clouded his life fear three years, but again
he recovered and began to make poetry the business of his life.
-
In
1782 he published a volume of poems, and the delightful ballad “John Gilpin”.
-
“The
task”, published in 1785 from this time Cowper takes his place our finest
English poets.
-
“My
Mother’s Picture” is a tender poem which cannot be even Goldsmith in his verse
can quite equal.
-
Cowper’s
first volume of poems, containing
“The Progress of Error”
“Truth”
“Table Talk”
-
Those
poems are dreary on the whole, but pure human.
-
“The
Task”- written in blank verse, and published in 1785, is coopers’ longest poem.
-
Cowper’s
most laborious work,” The translation of homer” in blank verse, was publishing
in 1791.
-
Some
of his other works are,
“On The Receipt of My Mother’s Picture”
“The Winter
Walk at Noon”
“Report of an Adjudged Case”
“Gipsies”
“Sketches of autumn”
·
William Blanks :- (1757-1827)
-
His work is quite significant poetry cannot be forgotten.
-
His poetical sketch is the first
collection of poetry and prose which was written between 1769 and 1777.
-
The poetical sketches
consist of 19
lyrical poems in all. The Nineteen Poems together is called.
“Miscellaneous
Poems”
-
His song of Innocence and of experience is an illustrated collection of poems. This poem was
originally a complete work first printed
in 1789 It is
conceptual collection of 19 poems interwoven in a same work
of art.
-
Blake’s “The French Revolution (1791) has a great significance. In
this poem Blake describes the problems of the French
monarchy:
-
He also wrote a poem called “milten”.
-
This poem is
written in
1804 and 1810. Its hero is milten the concept if this
poem is much impressive and innovative. Milton returns from Heaven and unites with black to
explore the relationship between living writers and their predecessors, and to
under go a
mystical journey to correct his own
spiritual errors.
The
Neo-classical Age was the richest period of the poetry and prose. Three whole ages the restoration
Age, The Augustan Age and The age of Johnson. This age reacted against Renaissance
literature.
