Weeks 7 - 9
1. How is the Romantic notion of the Sublime reflected in the ideological, conceptual and linguistic construction of the texts under consideration in this Romanticism reader? Discuss one or two examples...
1. How is the Romantic notion of the Sublime reflected in the ideological, conceptual and linguistic construction of the texts under consideration in this Romanticism reader? Discuss one or two examples...
2. Go online and see if you can find out anything about what really happened at the Villa Diodati that fateful summer in 1816...
3. How many fictional accounts (film and other narrative media) can you find about that? Provide some useful links, including Youtube clips (hint: for a start try Ken Russel Gothic on Youtube).
4. Discuss the links between the Villa Diodati "brat-pack" and the birth of Gothic as a modern genre with reference to specific texts by the authors who gathered there and subsequent texts (e.g. The Vampire >> Dracula, etc).
3. How many fictional accounts (film and other narrative media) can you find about that? Provide some useful links, including Youtube clips (hint: for a start try Ken Russel Gothic on Youtube).
4. Discuss the links between the Villa Diodati "brat-pack" and the birth of Gothic as a modern genre with reference to specific texts by the authors who gathered there and subsequent texts (e.g. The Vampire >> Dracula, etc).
Q#4 (PART1):
ReplyDeleteGothic literature can be defined as writing that is characterized by the elements of fear, horror, the supernatural and darkness and an overall atmosphere of exoticism, mystery and dread as well as by characters such as vampires, demons, heroes, heroines and villains (Wisegeek.org). Despite the English author Horace Walpole’s novel ‘The Castle of Otranto’, regarded as the first Gothic novel, was first published in 1764, there are some typical Gothic texts in the Critical Reader, including ‘Manfred: A dramatic poem’, ‘Ozymandias’, ‘Ode to the West Wind’ and ‘Frankenstein’. This response will look at a connection between these texts provided in Critical Reader and the birth of Gothic as a modern genre.
Kennedy (n.d.) pointed out that normally, a Gothic story has a central point that a large, ancient and mysterious house or location conceals a terrible secret. Take Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as an example, the mysterious location is set in continental Europe, specifically Switzerland and Germany where many readers probably had not been. Although there is no terrible secret in the location where the main character Victor Frankenstein works, the average reader may not familiar with laboratories and scientific experiments. Therefore, the unknown location and experiments seemed to add an element of mystery and gloom. (Cliffsnotes.com). Also, the house or the location serves as a frightening and threatening character (Kennedy, n.d.). In Percy Bysshe Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’, for instance, ‘a traveller from an antique land’ recalled the ‘giant’ Ozymandias:
‘Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert… Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, …’ (Hutchinson, 1947).
As can be seen in the extract above, ‘vast’, ‘trunkless’ and ‘a shattered visage’ indicate the Ozymandias probably is a frightening and threatening ‘monster’ or ‘giant’. Another example can be seen in Mary’s introduction of ‘Frankenstein’, when she could not fall asleep, she saw ‘the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion.’ (Shelley, 1985;1818). After that, she thought ‘if I could only contrive one which would frighten my reader as I myself had been frightened that night!’ (Shelley, 1985;1818). In other words, the monster created by the main character Victor Frankenstein was the one Mary had been frightened in her dream and thus it seems a frightening character.
Q#4 (PART2):
DeleteIt may also be worth noting that in order to attract more readers, Gothic writers have also used supernatural and mysterious elements (Wisegeek.org). For example, in Lord Byron’s ‘Manfred: A dramatic poem’, when ‘a star is seen at the darker end of the gallery: it is stationary; and a voice is heard singing.’ (More, 1905;1817), seven spirits can be considered as a type of supernatural because the voice of spirits seems mysterious. At the same time, in Percy Bysshe Shelley’s ‘Ode to the West Wind’ (More, 1905;1817), the West wind could also be regarded as the supernatural due to fact that he always talked to west wind and asked the wind to listen to him, however, the wind has not appeared or replied anything. Furthermore, in ‘Frankenstein’, Mary Shelley uses mysterious circumstances to have Victor Frankenstein create the monster and she adds the supernatural elements of raising the dead and scientific research into the story as most of her readers have unknown about the field of science (Cliffsnotes.com).
By way of summary, from the ideas and examples above, it can be seen that Gothic novels usually take place in gloomy places like old buildings that serve as a frightening and threatening character as well as focus on the mysterious and supernatural. Also, it may also be interesting to note that the Villa Diodati “brat-pack” (such as Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley and so on) and the Gothic are closely related.
Reference:
Cliffsnotes.com (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/frankenstein/critical-essays/frankenstein-as-a-gothic-novel
Hutchinson, T. (1947). The complete poetic works of Shelley, pp550, 577-579.
Kennedy, P. (n.d.). Gothic Literature. Retrieved from http://literatureintranslation.about.com/od/definitions/g/Gothic-Literature.htm
More, P.E. ed. (1905;1817). The poetical Works of Byron, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Shelley, M. (1985;1818). Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus, London: Penguin, pp.24-26, 69-79 & 145-157.
Wisegeek.org (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.wisegeek.org/what-characterizes-gothic-fiction.htm
A good all round answer, Rachel. Oxymandias is perhaps not the best example of a gothic text since the 'monster' you identify is actually the statue of a king long dead - but his arrogance lives on. the poem is really about the short-lived nature of power.
DeleteQUESTION 2
ReplyDeleteAn unseasonably cold and wet summer forces the Shelleys, Lord Byron and his doctor, Polidori, and Claire Clermont to stay indoors in the Villa Diodati in Switzerland. They amuse themselves discussing and creating "ghost stories." A sort of creative spirit blossoms among them, and from that time we get such seminal works as Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' and one of the first modern vampire novels in Polidori's 'The Vampyre'.
So what was the seed that germinated all this horror fruit? Obviously the dark and stormy days and nights are considered a large influence, but a small amount of internet research reveals a more complicated picture.
For starters, that cosy little group was called the "League of Incest" by some, perhaps because of rumours surrounding Lord Byron and an affair with his half-sister, and the fact that Mary and Claire were also half-sisters. Byron was in a relationship with Claire at the time, though it didn't last long, and his sexuality has been described as bisexual and even paedophilic. Percy Shelley seems to have been a kind of early adherent to "free love", and there were rumours he also had something going with Claire at one point or another.
On top of all that, both Shelley and Byron had a fascination with incest and other taboos, as the following excerpt from William Dean Brewer's book 'The Shelley-Byron Conversation'(1994) illustrates:
Byron's daring presentation of the incest motif in 'Manfred' won Shelley's admiration - in a congratulatory letter, Shelley praised Byron for his "freedom from common rules"... (p. 66, para. 2)
Additionally, Milton himself is alleged to have once stayed at the Villa Diodati, and apparently 'Frankenstein' contains some tinges of 'Paradise Lost' ("Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley, Lord Byron - Frankenstein, Milton & the Computer", 2016). There have been connections drawn between Milton’s Satan and Dr. Frankenstein, ie. both “played God”, and between the monster and Adam.
I’m sure there is a lot more to complete this very weird picture, but I think it’s clear that it was more than just the foreboding atmosphere of that summer which gave rise to these icons of literature. The open-minded nature of the group, and their willingness to delve into the taboo and disturbing, coupled with influences from other literary greats (including among themselves; Mary Shelley herself seems to have been influenced greatly by listening to her husband and Lord Byron’s conversations) and perhaps the feeling that they were somewhat considered “monsters” by general society were, it can be surmised, huge driving forces behind the creative outpouring which continues to influence popular culture today.
References:
Brewer, W. (1994). The Shelley-Byron conversation. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley, Lord Byron - Frankenstein, Milton & the Computer. (2016). Todayinliterature.com. Retrieved 16 May 2016, from http://www.todayinliterature.com/stories.asp?Event_Date=6/19/1816
Hi Adrian,
DeleteNice all round answers!
I'm really interested in your answer that something happened at the Villa Diodati.
At the same time, I totally agree with you that 'perhaps the feeling that they were somewhat considered “monsters” by general society were, it can be surmised, huge driving forces behind the creative outpouring which continues to influence popular culture today'. As a creative literature, from my own point of view, some uncommon plots or storylines of the 'monster' could be more popular in the present. There are a large number of stories associated with 'monster' nowadays, such as Zombies, Vampires, Werewolves and so on.
Sorry if there are some weird formatting errors going on, I wrote this in Word and I don't think it's transferred well.
ReplyDeleteWonderfully thoughtful post, Adrian.You have captured the atmosphere and characters really well.These people were outsiders and knew it. By the way, Blake was another adherent to the free love philosophy, but I don't know what Mrs Blake thought of that!
ReplyDeleteThe notion of the sublime deals with that which entices our emotions where the reader has both a psychological and physiological reaction to it. According to Pateman (2004), “the sublime deals with forms of expression which have the power to entrance us, to transport us with wonder, as opposed to merely persuading or pleasing us” (p. 192).
ReplyDeleteAccording to Burke the ruling principle of the sublime is terror (Pateman, 2004). Blake’s poem ‘The Little Boy Lost’ invokes fear in the reader in an ideological sense. The fear is caused by the idea of the spirit being left without guidance in the vastness of the material world. This fear is invoked by vastness, obscurity, by what is powerful and by what is infinite. In Kant’s account of Burke’s notion, the sense of a boundless force provokes an initial terror in the subject which causes an astonishment that suspends all motions causing a physiological reaction and although painful, such terror also invokes tranquility and delight (Ryan, 2001). To a child that has been sold the idea of a conventional god, would be terrified of walking through the social and material construction of the world without its existence. However, to the adult that reads the poem the idea of social freedom that comes from the non-existence of the conventional god and social construction of the church offers delight and tranquility.
For Blake, the account of the sublime lies in the mystical power of god rather than the conventional church. The notion of the sublime as found in Blake’s poems is in correlation with Kant’s ideas. For Kant (1952) “the sublime is not to be looked for in the things of nature, but only in our own ideas” (p.130). The sublime in Blake’s poems is portrayed through Blake’s idea of the the mystic as opposed to the the structured society. In Blake’s poem ‘The Little Boy Found’ which is a continuation of ‘The Little Boy Lost’ the spirit is rescued from the material world, by the guidance of god, back to the realms of imagination thus being saved. The poems ‘The little boy lost’ and ‘The little boy found’ highlights the paradox of the soul through the innocence of childhood and the depredations of experience.
As we tread through the material world (our place of fear) we should look beyond what is infront of us to our own imagination for reasoning. When the mind is unable to decipher an image the faculty of reason takes over from the sensuous in thinking of the totality of the object in its bifurcation of the experience of pain for the imagination and the pleasure for the faculty of thought (Vine, 2002). In this notion of the sublime the rational experience exceeds the sensuous imagination of the object.
The sublime deals with pleasure that arises from displeasure. Burke’s notion of the sublime deals with an object that incites terror, whereas Kant’s account of the sublime would have the object be terrifying without the beholder actually being afraid of it (Vine, 2002).
Thus the sublime deals with what invokes both a psychological and physiological reaction through its enticement of the soul. From a conceptual level the sublime deals with imagination and reason, pain and pleasure. However, its ideologies are rooted in the existence of a higher mystical power that entices the spirit when an 'object' is beyond the faculties of the sensuous and reason.
References:
Kant, I (1790) The Critique of Judgement trans. J C Meredith. Oxford: Clarendon Press
Pateman, T. (2004, 1991) ‘The Sublime’ in Key Concepts: A Guide to Aesthetics, Criticism and the Arts in Education. London: Falmer Press.
Ryan, V. L. (2001). The physiological sublime: Burke’s critique of reason. Journal of the History of Ideas, 62(2), 265-279. Doi:10.1353/jhi.2001.0018
Vine, S. (2002). Blake’s material sublime. Studies in Romanticism, 14(2), 237-257. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25601558
"However, to the adult that reads the poem the idea of social freedom that comes from the non-existence of the conventional god and social construction of the church offers delight and tranquility." I found this statement very interesting and insightful, it does seem that the older one gets, the doubt and hesitance towards the 'higher being' is possible to increase to a higher level in the sense that the harsh predicaments of reality trigger our doubts. But when you're young and naive, relying on the church and social construct is what keeps form and order.
DeleteGreat analysis!
Question 1)
ReplyDeleteAs opposed to the Enlightenment's approach of rational thinking, Romantics often seek the sublime. Applying this ideology to texts in the Romanticism era can help give readers a deeper insight into this theory.
In William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience(1794), there are two pairing poems that juxtapose with one another. In 'The Little Boy lost,' the audience is automatically made to feel suspense and fear for the little boy seeing as his naive and idyllic mind wonders into the dark searching for his euphoria, or in this case for his 'Father', which Sir Geoffrey Keynes believes it to be a metaphor/ concept for the conventional 'God' (1977). Edmund Burke(1756) states that,"The passion caused by the great and sublime in nature . . . is Astonishment; and astonishment is that state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror," thus saying that the reader can be taken aback and fearful for the little boy as he embarks into the unknown as he goes into the 'mire' of the material world and this portrays the idea of the sublime since Burke associates it with the fear of death, dismemberment, terror, and darkness.
In terms of the second poem The Little Boy found, Immanuel Kant states that "the storm or the building is not the real object of the sublime at all. Instead, what is properly sublime are ideas of reason: namely, the ideas of absolute totality or absolute freedom. " (iep.utm.eu), thus saying that the boy being found is the result of what he experienced in The Little Boy lost, which was him trying to find his way through the forest. Had he not sought to be found nor have a moral understanding that his conventional God would lead him out of the forest to his mother, then the sublime would not have been achieved in the sense that Kant's theory of reason is all about recognizing their own faculty of reason.
Since the sublime is ineffable, the best expression is often art( i.e written art, music etc.) hence why Blake uses multiple visuals in his collection of poems to put a better understanding into that the sublime. In the Little Boy lost, "the text is surrounded by angelic figures and stars, perhaps representing salvation by the life of the imagination if we can see it." (Keynes,1977) thus saying that the terror that is created by the little boy in the dark is diminished since the angels surrounding the text give solace to the reader and thus further elaborates on the sublime since the terror created has resulted in something pleasurable.
This further carries on with its pairing poem the Little Boy found where "Both the child and his mother are sanctified by possessing halos; this can only mean that man has been restored to the life of the imagination and thereby saved,"(Keynes,1977) so the profound fear and terror of the little boy crying alone would spark a subconscious adrenaline within the reader which exercises the idea of the sublime in the sense that the readers adrenaline of fear for the boy is what sparks that delightful terror because the feeling is profound, genuine and exerts that irresistible force (Pateman, 2004).
The notion of the sublime can be sort into a myriad of theories due to it's broad, subjective and complex definition in terms of how to achieve it.
References
Blake, W. & Keynes, G. (1977). Songs of innocence and of experience. New York: Orion Press.
Burke, E. (1757). A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful. Dublin.
Kant, Immanuel: Aesthetics | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2016). Iep.utm.edu. Retrieved 6 June 2016, from http://www.iep.utm.edu/kantaest/#SH2c
Pateman, T. (2004). ‘The Sublime’ in Key Concepts: A Guide to Aesthetics, Criticism and the Arts in Education (pp. 192,193). London: Falmer Press.