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William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, & Percy Shelley
For William Blake, religion is but a medium used by self-interested groups and individuals who want to gain power and influence over society. His criticism of religion, particularly inappropriate use of religion by people, is expressed in the poem "Jerusalem." In this poem, Blake expresses his skepticism about religion's purpose for the society, particularly his countrymen: "And did those feet in ancient time / Walk upon England's mountain green?... And was Jerusalem builded here / Among these dark Satanic mills?" Disillusioned by the constant conflicts and disorder in society caused and premeditated by religious leaders, Blake questions whether religion has become constructive, or destructive, in English society.
William Wordsworth offers in his poems veneration for Nature, as expressed in his Romanticist style of writing poetry. An example of Wordsworth's poem that evokes and expresses his affinity with nature is evident in "The World is too much with us." In this poem, Wordsworth criticizes human society for abusing Nature's resources, and replacing it with nothing but abuse and neglect. However, he provides ample warning to his readers, where Nature will exact its 'revenge' on humanity: "Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers... A sordid boon!... Have sight of Proteus rising from the...
Apart from evoking his love for Nature as the topic of his poems, he also centers his poems on the theme of the imagination. When speaking of the "imagination," Coleridge talks about the senses that humans use to experience Nature, and use these 'natural experiences' to create from one's imagination works of literature that can be felt and sensed by the senses of the reader/audience as well. This theme of the imagination is illustrated in "Frost at Midnight," wherein Coleridge animates and personifies elements of Nature, where a "secret ministry" is formed at midnight, Nature waking up just as human society is sleeping. Coleridge uses imagination in making these natural elements as lively as possible, as evoked in the following lines in the poem: "... its motion in the hush of nature / Gives it dim sympathies with me who live, / Making it a companionable form..."
Percy Shelley, in his essay entitled, "The Necessity of Atheism," discusses how "[t]ruth has always been found to promote the best interests of mankind." In stating this, Shelley meant to illustrate how human actions and behavior, such as the concept of 'goodness' or good acts and deeds, is determined not by faith or any ideology, but by an individual's inherent subsistence to reason -- that is, what is…
Flaubert / Dostoevsky Examples of Naturalism and Symbolism in Madame Bovary In Flaubert's novel Madame Bovary, the narratorial voice carefully avoids direct comment upon the story. Flaubert maintains a tension between Naturalism and Symbolism by leaving it up to the reader to determine if certain episodes are intended to be read symbolically. Flaubert's contemporary readers, however, found the book scandalous -- in some sense, Flaubert's determination to present certain aspects of reality
The rococo was aimed towards the French court and nobles. The main message was not a religious one, but aimed the upper classes and focused on their lives, houses and celebrations. In France this style gave way to the austere neoclassic style at the end of the xviii century and disappeared with the French revolution in 1978, suddenly and completely. Neoclassicism appeared as a return to the classical ideology in
Symbolism first developed in poetry, where it spawned free verse. Forefathers included the poets Baudelaire, Verlaine, and Rimbaud; practitioners included Laforgue, Moreas, and Regnier. The Swiss artist Arnold Becklin is perhaps the most well-known Symbolist painter; his pictures are like allegories without keys, drenched in melancholy and mystery. Other artists working in this vein include Odilon Redon and Gustave Moreau. The Surrealists drew heavily on the Symbolists later on. Catalan
Vedder's "Memory" -- Remembering the last gasps of surrealistic romanticism in painting, before Hogue and Steichen's intrusions of surrealist realism The painting entitled "Memory" by the American artist Elihu Vedder exhibits a dreamlike horizon and vista of an unidentifiable, yet distinctly foreign land in sunbathed romantic colors. Over Vedder's illustrated ocean the viewer can see face hanging, as if the individual's image were suspended in the overhanging clouds. It is a
(Eliot, 1971). The Subjective over the Objective Modernism was a reaction against Realism and its focus on objective depiction of life as it was actually lived. Modernist writers derived little artistic pleasure from describing the concrete details of the material world and the various human doings in it. They derived only a little more pleasure from describing the thoughts of those humans inhabiting the material world. Their greatest pleasure, however, was
He sees a dejected "sad animal" in the mirror, beset with minor tragedies that ruin everything. He examines his face thoroughly, sees flaws and makes half-hearted, destructive attempts to rectify them, only to make things worse. He is annoyed by others and by himself. This could be the story of his life, and it is. Nabokov has managed to summarize a good portion of this character's self-image into a