Post on 12-Apr-2017
transcript
PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT
1850/end 1800s 1890/beginning ’900
DOMINANT POSITIVISTATTITUDE:
Prevalent scientific approach to all
sectors of society-DICKENS’ “FACTS”..’
ANTI (POSITIVIST)ANTI-RATIONALIST:
SCIENTIFIC DOGMATISM
IS QUESTIONED – IRRATIONALIST VIEWS
ECONOMY
1848/1873 1873/1895
Great increase of the upper middle class – power/influence
and the professionals
MORAL AND SOCIAL DEPRESSION
CRISIS IN THE TEXTURE OF INDUSTRIAL
SOCIETY
Attitude towards the increasing masses of labouring poor
Faith – in leadership of the masses- Intellectuals describe and sustain- focus on the stories of "ordinary people“ - excellent example-role/success of the novel, - meets considerable success thanks to the spread of literacy;- underpinned by the “GREAT ORATORIES” of writers the political and social movements
(the case of Zola and Dreyfus affair);- writers spread and support movement for women's emancipation (rights)
Attitude towards the increasing masses of labouring poor
• rejection of change and defense of aristocratic discriminatory positions;• poet denounces the alienating quality of
contemporary society, • looking for a deeper relationship between the
individual and nature (symbolism Baudelaire)
Attitude towards the increasing masses of labouring poor
THUS
• the intellectual stands out from the crowd • becomes a "celebrant of beauty" - the esthete or the dandy
(Wilde);• intellectuals role of "inspired leadership of the masses" • the figure of the poet-prophet (in Italy D'Annunzio);• The intellectual rejects the MIDDLE CLASS CONVENTIONS, • search of transgressive experiences: i.e. Byron the “Poètes Maudites" a/moral ([Dorian] Verlaine and Rimbaud)
THOUGHT AND THE WORD
DOMINANT TENDENCIES
Second half 1800’s
Prevalently narrative form – emotive/descriptive recounting
of reality from observation to the focus on behavior –
Character - behaviour patterns determined by social, historical, environmental
and “affective” settingGeorge Eliot, George Gissing,
Elisabeth Gaskell,
Poetic focus express symbolic meanings from reality
As manifestation of the universal andinfinite.
sensitivity of the poet and irrational “creative – inspired” intuition
Intellectuals are the “chosen” – Universal Interpreters of “THE TRUTH”
Anti – positivist attitudeFrance : Baudelaire –
ENGLAND: Thomas Hardy, Mathew Arnold, W.H. Auden
NATURALISM – {Italian VERISMO-Realismo}
SYMBOLISM
Symbolism • express individual emotional experience
through subtle and suggestive use of highly symbolized language suggested a “newness” expressed in various styles
• bridge between Romanticism and Modernism/Surrealism/Imagism
Inspired NEW forms of expression : Art for Art’s Sake the Dandy
Decadent Poets• Transcendentalism
Symbolism • Not primarily interested in ideas of the mind,• Sought the expression of the whole
personality – a. in mingling the perceptions of one sense
(sight, touch or smell) with those of anotherb.a theory of the perception/understanding of
reality through all the senses and its communication in an art “medium” which should mingle the perceptions of sight, sound, taste, perfume and dream.
The Albatross(allegory of the poet’s condition)
The Albatross, Charles Baudelaire
Often, to amuse themselves the men of the crew Capture an albatross, immense bird of the seas-
Who follow, sluggish companions of their voyage, The ship gliding on the bitter gulfs.
Hardly have they placed him on the planks, Than these kings of the azure, totter clumsily and graceless,
pitifully, the great wings in white, Like oars, drag at the sides.
This winged traveler, how awkward, how weak he is! He, lately so regal, how clumsy he seems and uncomely!
Someone vexes his beak with a short pipe, Another imitates, limping, the ill thing that flew! So too the poet resembles the prince of the clouds
Who is friendly to the tempest and laughs at the bowman; Banished to ground in the midst of hooting,
His wings, those of a giant, hinder him as he staggers on the boards.
THOUGHT before the fact
Coleridge – (Poe) Byron - Keats
DOMINANT ESCAPISTATTITUDE
ANTI DOGMATISM SOCIETY – ABSOLUTES
ARE QUESTIONED – IRRATIONALIST VIEWS
THOUGHT before the fact
BYRON http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/romantics/poems2.shtml
KEATShttp://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/romantics/poems3.shtml