David Duff
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199572748
- eISBN:
- 9780191721960
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199572748.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
Traditional accounts of Romanticism posit a shift in the hierarchy of genres involving a downgrading of didactic poetry and a revaluation of lyric. The chapter challenges this view, tracing the ...
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Traditional accounts of Romanticism posit a shift in the hierarchy of genres involving a downgrading of didactic poetry and a revaluation of lyric. The chapter challenges this view, tracing the origins of the anti-didactic principle in eighteenth-century aesthetics and the concept of ‘pure poetry’, while also showing how Romantic writers make stronger claims than ever for the moral and political utility of literature, and for the role of the author as teacher, legislator, prophet, or healer. Despite its polemics against the ‘French school’ of Dryden and Pope, the Romantic period witnessed its own fashion for ‘moralizing in verse’, and didactic genres such as the georgic and the philosophical poem enjoyed a paradoxical revival. When Romantic writers denounced didactic writing they were not just quarrelling with neoclassicism but responding to tendencies within their own literary culture. Again, there are significant parallels with Germany, where notions of disinterestedness and aesthetic autonomy are complicated by new ideas about ‘aesthetic education’.Less
Traditional accounts of Romanticism posit a shift in the hierarchy of genres involving a downgrading of didactic poetry and a revaluation of lyric. The chapter challenges this view, tracing the origins of the anti-didactic principle in eighteenth-century aesthetics and the concept of ‘pure poetry’, while also showing how Romantic writers make stronger claims than ever for the moral and political utility of literature, and for the role of the author as teacher, legislator, prophet, or healer. Despite its polemics against the ‘French school’ of Dryden and Pope, the Romantic period witnessed its own fashion for ‘moralizing in verse’, and didactic genres such as the georgic and the philosophical poem enjoyed a paradoxical revival. When Romantic writers denounced didactic writing they were not just quarrelling with neoclassicism but responding to tendencies within their own literary culture. Again, there are significant parallels with Germany, where notions of disinterestedness and aesthetic autonomy are complicated by new ideas about ‘aesthetic education’.
J. Godwin
- Published in print:
- 1987
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780856683084
- eISBN:
- 9781800343115
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9780856683084.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Book IV of Lucretius' great philosophical poem deals mainly with the psychology of sensation and thought. The heart of this book is a new text, incorporating the latest scholarship on the text of ...
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Book IV of Lucretius' great philosophical poem deals mainly with the psychology of sensation and thought. The heart of this book is a new text, incorporating the latest scholarship on the text of Lucretius, with a clear prose facing translation. The commentary concentrates on the thought of the text (relating it to other philosophers beside Epicurus) and the poetry of the Latin, placing the text in relation to Roman literature in general, and attempting to demonstrate the poetic genius of Lucretius. The introduction deals with the didactic tradition in ancient literature and Lucretius' place in it, the structure of De Rerum Natura, the salient features of the philosophy of Epicurus and the transmission of the text.Less
Book IV of Lucretius' great philosophical poem deals mainly with the psychology of sensation and thought. The heart of this book is a new text, incorporating the latest scholarship on the text of Lucretius, with a clear prose facing translation. The commentary concentrates on the thought of the text (relating it to other philosophers beside Epicurus) and the poetry of the Latin, placing the text in relation to Roman literature in general, and attempting to demonstrate the poetic genius of Lucretius. The introduction deals with the didactic tradition in ancient literature and Lucretius' place in it, the structure of De Rerum Natura, the salient features of the philosophy of Epicurus and the transmission of the text.
Paul H. Fry
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300126488
- eISBN:
- 9780300145410
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300126488.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This chapter takes a look at William Wordsworth's “The Poem to Coleridge” or its better-known title The Prelude. The Prelude is supposedly the culmination of Wordsworth's communication and ...
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This chapter takes a look at William Wordsworth's “The Poem to Coleridge” or its better-known title The Prelude. The Prelude is supposedly the culmination of Wordsworth's communication and relationship with Samuel Coleridge. It would be the great philosophical poem that Coleridge wanted him to write, the grand versification of ideas that Coleridge believed he shared in common with Wordsworth. Such a grand task, however, proves to be difficult for Wordsworth as he professes to be lacking in enough maturity to truly understand what it is that Coleridge wants him to say. Hence the title is fitting in a sense as it implies a promise of whatever long poem it may be. This chapter then explores the events, thoughts, and influences that would help Wordsworth in the creation of The Prelude, and studies the implications of the poem itself.Less
This chapter takes a look at William Wordsworth's “The Poem to Coleridge” or its better-known title The Prelude. The Prelude is supposedly the culmination of Wordsworth's communication and relationship with Samuel Coleridge. It would be the great philosophical poem that Coleridge wanted him to write, the grand versification of ideas that Coleridge believed he shared in common with Wordsworth. Such a grand task, however, proves to be difficult for Wordsworth as he professes to be lacking in enough maturity to truly understand what it is that Coleridge wants him to say. Hence the title is fitting in a sense as it implies a promise of whatever long poem it may be. This chapter then explores the events, thoughts, and influences that would help Wordsworth in the creation of The Prelude, and studies the implications of the poem itself.
