Ancient civilizations in general have been provoking curiosity in the modern world for hundreds of years. In the 1890’s excavations were made on the islands of the Cyclades on which hundreds of tombs were recovered. From these tombs scholars were able to identify a new era called the “Cycladic” civilization which could be dated alongside the Egyptian chronology (Pedley 20). One ancient Cycladic piece I found to be quite interesting is a marble statue of a harp player that is located in the Getty Villa museum in Malibu, California. It was found during an excavation on the island of Keros in the 19th century. The purposes and domestic uses, if any, of the Harp player along with similar Cycladic figurines referred to as “idol dolls” remain a mystery. Many theories have been established since their discoveries, however, I believe that, like most Cycladic art and pottery, the Getty Harp Player had both practical and religious purposes during its owner’s life and death.…
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, one of the most outstanding figures of Romanticism, was born into a religious family. His father was the vicar of Ottery St Mary, a small village in Devon, and through him Coleridge became familiar with the principles of Christianity. Although a number of critics have tried to prove the contrary, references to Christianity can be found in Coleridge’s most famous poetic creation: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.…
According to Mr. Young, “Romanticism was a nineteenth-century literary and artistic movement that placed a premium on imagination, intuition, emotion, nature, and individuality.” These principles are reflected in many Romantic authors including Irving, Poe, Dickinson, and others. The compendium of poems with Romantic origins differ incredibly, but the dominant themes of imagination, intuition, nature, and individualism unify Romantic poetry.…
The romantic period in literature started in roughly the 1790s and ended around the 1830s. This was a period when people’s imagination and love for nature flourished, prospered and then sky-rocketed. When comparing the two poems The Ropewalk and Because I Could Not Stop for Death for theme and tenets of romanticism, it is evident that both poets’ exemplify the power of imagination and the weight of nature through poetic devices. While one poet expresses the individual-self the other contradicts with a more social mindset. These comparisons help reveal that the poets’ purposes are to notice the influence of imagination and to also relish nature.…
Romanticisms actually began in the mid- 18th century and reached its peak in the 19th century. Romantic literature in the 19th century withholds the ideals of the time period, emotion, nature etc. The actual definition of romanticism is a movement of literature and the fine arts. Romanticism is used in many ways. Coleridge took use in romanticism by adding emphasis in his imagination of his poems and by stepping out of the box by exposing miscellaneous pictures such as those found in “Rime”. He idealized the emptiness of the city, including many feelings and expanding the joy of nature in his own way. This is a form of romanticism.…
Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Eolian Harp” and “Kubla Khan” proved intricate pieces of artwork, each meticulously written to submerge their reader into striking new worlds. These are home to mystical beings, such as a “demon-lover” (Kubla Khan, 16) and“Elfins” from “Fairy-Land” (The Eolian Harp, 22-23), as well as complex visions of nature. Although uniquely presented in each, they deal with similar themes of creation and creativity. However, neither reaches a consistent conclusion to the other. While there is a considerable resemblance in the manner both poems are staged, the underlying message appears notably different, allowing the reader an opportunity to explore their meanings.…
one of Cole 's most famous series of allegorical works. Based on the same landscape located somewhere at the end of a river valley in the Untied States (Course), Cole adds his imagination and thoughts to a city evolving "from a near state of nature to consummation of empire, and then decline and desolation" (Course). Cole can be said to be a representative of Romantic artist because his emphasis on natural beauty, and because he imbues his…
He exaggerates his confinement using Had dimmed my eyes to blindness! which relates to darkness and the world shutting him out. The first scene in Coleridges imaginative journey is the roaring dell. Visual senses enhance the description of the scene only speckled by the mid-day sun. The dell is a reflection of his current mood, unhealthy and isolated. Unsunnd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves neer tremble still draws the reader further into his journey. The yellow leaves suggests the plant is struggling to survive and possibly dying from the lack of…
. Romantic poetics. Blake: "Annotations to Sir Joshua Reynolds". William Wordsworth: Preface to Lyrical Ballads. Coleridge: Biographia Literaria (Chap. 13). .…
Herman Harold Potok was born in the Bronx on the 17th of February in the year of 1929 (McCauley, 1E). It was later on in his life when he started using his Hebrew name, Chaim (McCauley, 1E). As a teenager, Chaim was drawn to the Conservative branch of Judaism, which caused problems in his family because both of his parents raised the family in Orthodox tradition (McCauley, 1E). All these problems in his life eventually inspired him to write one of his greatest books of all time, My Name is Asher Lev, in 1972 (McCauley, 1E). According to Chaim Potok, arts were seen as a distraction to the true purpose of Orthodox Jews. Their main purpose is to study the Torad and Talmud (McCauley, 1E). He went on to some religious and secular schools (Kremer, 202). He earned his B.A. summa cum laude in English literature from Yeshiva University in 1950 (Kremer, 202). He then went on to study at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America where he earned his M.H.L. degree, rabbinic ordination, the Homiletics Prize, the Hebrew Literature Prize, and the Bible prize in 1954 (Allen). And lastly in 1965, he received his Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania (Allen).…
The writing style of the poem was influenced by Romanticism because the narrator expressly conveys his passionate…
Romanticism centers around emotion and free expression. According to the preface of William Woodsworth’s Lyrical Ballads, poetry should be “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” The best way to express this emotion was to develop content through imagination, and not to be dominated by what would be considered rational.…
Samuel Coleridge’s “Dejection: an Ode,” is a poem describing a man’s torment as he attempts to overcome his dispirited state as a result of the loss of a romantic relationship. The poem highlights the importance of creativity within humanity through the persona’s struggle to maintain joyous after the loss of such ability, presenting the fact that without creativity, we would become susceptible to the negative aspects of the world. Beginning the poem using pathetic fallacy, Coleridge relates the persona’s reality to the growing storm, which through describing the “dull pain” received from his loss, highlights the duality present within our emotions, and hence the idea that we have the ability to experience both love as much as we do despair. The poet again reinforces our vulnerability to reality by using a metaphor to describe how it “coils around my mind,” presenting the fact that without hope and optimism, reality can hinder our creativity. Describing that he was born with a “shaping spirit of imagination,” the persona alludes to the idea that humanity maintains the ability to bring about their own happiness, which as a whole, demonstrates to the audience that life can only ever be worth living when we have found our own contentment and joy, as encountered only through our imaginative pursuits. As the poem concludes, the importance of maintaining happiness is reiterated as the persona wishes his lover…
Dickinson's poems share a theme of the romanticization versus the reality of nature although they contrast in their differing overall messages. She represents in her poetry what humans romantically sense as nature and the natural world while allowing her readers to ponder upon the sensibility found in the analyzing of the works.…
One element in Romantic literature that is very prevalent is images of nature and the speaker embracing it. William Wordsworth's "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey" is a poem about a man who comes back to natural setting and realizes its profound beauty and him praising its great effect on him. This is one poem that contains enormous amounts of images of nature. Throughout every stanza the speaker describes the woods, hill, meadows and streams. In the poem the speaker also speaks of his love for nature in lines 103-105 stating, "Therefore am I still/A lover of the meadows and the woods/And Mountains." Wordsworth further embraces nature near the conclusion of the poem where he in line 153 calls himself, "A worshipper of Nature." The poem closes with the speaker reflecting and acknowledging the greatness of nature's effect on him using both natural images while embracing it, "Nor wilt thou then forget/That after many wanderings, many years/Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, /And this green pastoral landscape, were to me/More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!"…