Unit Seven  Romanticism and Robert Burns

Warming-up 常识预习
1. How much do you know about Romanticism? What are the major characteristics of Romanticism?
2. Do you know of any famous Romantic poets? Do you like reading love poems?
3. Who is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide?
4. Are you familiar with this sentence "My love's like a red red rose"? How do you like it?
5. John Steinbeck took the title of his 1937 novel Of Mice and Men from a line contained in the second-to-last stanza of “To a Mouse”. Have you ever seen the movie based on this novel before?
6.  Have you heard of these two people, Wordsworth and Coleridge?
 
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Romanticism and Robert Burns
Romanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution. In part, it was a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature, and was embodied in the visual arts, music, and literature. The movement validated strong emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as trepidation, horror and terror and awe—especially that which is experienced in confronting the sublimity of untamed nature and its picturesque qualities, both new aesthetic categories. It elevated folk art and ancient custom to something noble, and argued for a “natural” epistemology of human activities as conditioned by nature in the form of language and customary usage.
Romanticism reached beyond the rational and Classicist ideal models to elevate a revived medievalism and elements of art and narrative perceived to be authentically medieval, in an attempt to escape the confines of population growth, urban sprawl, and industrialism, and it also attempted to embrace the exotic, unfamiliar, and distant in modes more authentic than chinoiserie, harnessing the power of the imagination to envision and to escape.
The modern sense of a romantic character may be expressed in Byronic ideals of a gifted, perhaps misunderstood loner, creatively following the dictates of his inspiration rather than the mores of contemporary society.
Although the movement is rooted in the German Sturm und Drang movement, which prized intuition and emotion over Enlightenment rationalism, the ideologies and events of the French Revolution laid the background from which Romanticism and the Counter-Enlightenment emerged. The confines of the Industrial Revolution also had their influence on Romanticism, which was in part an escape from modern realities; indeed, in the second half of the 19th century, Realism was offered as a polarized opposite to Romanticism. Romanticism elevated the achievements of what it perceived as heroic individualists and artists, which would elevate society. It also legitimized the individual imagination as a critical authority which permitted freedom from classical notions of form in art. There was a strong recourse to historical and natural inevitability, a zeitgeist, in the representation of its ideas.
In visual art and literature, Romanticism found recurrent themes in the evocation or criticism of the past, the cult of “sensibility” with its emphasis on women and children, the heroic isolation of the artist or narrator, and respect for a new, wilder, untrammeled and “pure” nature. Furthermore, several romantic authors based their writings on the supernatural/occult and human psychology. Romanticism also helped in the emergence of new ideas and in the process led to the emergence of positive voices that were beneficial for the marginalized sections of the society.
Robert Burns (1759 –1796) (also known as Rabbie Burns, Scotland's favorite son, the Ploughman Poet, the Bard of Ayrshire and in Scotland as simply The Bard) is regarded as a pioneer of the Romantic movement. He was a Scottish poet and a lyricist, who is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who have written in the Scots language, although much of his writing is also in English and a light Scots dialect, accessible to an audience beyond Scotland. He also wrote in standard English, and in these pieces, his political or civil commentary is often at its most blunt. After his death Burns became a great source of inspiration to the founders of both liberalism and socialism. A cultural icon in Scotland and among the Scottish Diaspora around the world, celebration of his life and work became almost a national charismatic cult during the 19th and 20th centuries, and his influence has long been strong on Scottish literature. In 2009 he was voted by the Scottish public as being the Greatest Scot, through a vote run by Scottish television channel STV.
As well as making original compositions, Burns also collected folk songs from across Scotland, often revising or adapting them. His poem (and song) Auld Lang Syne is often sung at Hogmanay (the last day of the year), and Scots Wha Hae served for a long time as an unofficial national anthem of the country. Other poems and songs of Burns that remain well-known across the world today, include A Red, Red Rose, A Man's A Man for A' That, To a Louse, To a Mouse, The Battle of Sherramuir, Tam o' Shanter and Ae Fond Kiss.
With romanticism a cult of all things Scottish – clans, tartans, bagpipes etc. – started, the kilt became Scotland’s national costume, there was a rush to discover old tartans – or to invent new ones. This movement found great inspiration in the poetry of Robert Burns, which reflected old Scottish folklore and was written in the language of country people, though Burns was fully capable of writing literary English. He became the national poet of the Scots, and is celebrated every year on the 25th January.
A Red, Red Rose
O, my luve’s like a red, red rose,
  That’s newly sprung in June:
O, my luve’s like the melodie
  That’s sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
  So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
  Till a’ the seas gang dry.
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
  And the rocks melt wi’ the sun:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
  While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare thee well, my only luvel
  And fare thee well a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
  Though it were ten thousand mile.

There were rumors that the Scottish Parliament had only agreed to the Union because of heavy English bribes.
Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation
Fareweel to a’ our Scottish fame,
  Fareweel our ancient glory!
Fareweel av’n to the Scottish name,
  Sae famed in martial story!
Now Sark rins o’er the Solway sands,
  An’ Tweed rins to the ocean,
To mark where england’s province stands –
  Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
What force or guile could not subdue
  Thro’ many warlike ages
Is wrought now by a coward few
  For hireling traitor’s wages.
The English steel we could disdain,
  Secure in valour’s station;
But English gold has been our bane –
  Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
O. would, or I had seen the day
  That Treason thus could sell us,
My auld grey head had lien in clay
  Wi’ Bruce and loyal Wallace!
But pith and power, till my last hour
  I’ll mak this declaration: -
“We’re bought and sold for English god”-
  Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

For many Scots the only possibility for survival was emigration. Thousands of Scotland’s people settled in England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
Auld Lang Syne
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
  And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
  And auld lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dear,
  For auld lang syne,
  We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet
  For auld lang syne!
And surely you’ll be your pint-stoup,
  And surely I’ll be mine;
And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet
  For auld lang syne!
We twa hae run about the braes,
  And pu’d the gowans fine;
But we’ve wandered mony a weary fit
  Sin auld lang syne.
We twa hae paidl’d in the burn,
  Frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
  Sin auld lang syne!
And there’s hand, my trusty fiere,
  And gie’s a hand o’thine;
And we’ll tak a right guid-willie waught For auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my dear,
  For auld lang syne,
We’ll tak a cup o’kindness yet
  For auld lang syne!

Robert Burns influenced William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Percy Bysshe Shelley greatly. His direct literary influences in the use of Scots in poetry were Allan Ramsay (1686-1758) and Robert Fergusson. The Edinburgh literati worked to sentimentalise Burns during his life and after his death, dismissing his education by calling him a “heaven-taught ploughman”. Burns would influence later Scottish writers, especially Hugh MacDiarmid, who fought to dismantle the sentimental cult that had dominated Scottish literature in MacDiarmid's opinion.
Romanticism in British literature developed in a different form slightly later, mostly associated with the poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whose co-authored book Lyrical Ballads (1798) sought to reject Augustan poetry in favor of more direct speech derived from folk traditions. Both poets were also involved in utopian social thought in the wake of the French Revolution. The poet and painter William Blake is the most extreme example of the Romantic sensibility in Britain, epitomized by his claim “I must create a system or be enslaved by another man's.” Blake's artistic work is also strongly influenced by Medieval illuminated books. The painters J. M. W. Turner and John Constable are also generally associated with Romanticism. Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley and John Keats constitute another phase of Romanticism in Britain.
An example of the Burns literary influence in America is the novelist John Steinbeck, who took the title of his 1937 novel Of Mice and Men from a line contained in the second-to-last stanza of “To a Mouse”: “The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley”. When asked for the source of his greatest creative inspiration, singer songwriter Bob Dylan selected Burns's 1794 song “A Red, Red Rose”, as the lyric that had the biggest effect on his life.
Burns also became the “people's poet” of Russia. In Imperial times, the Russian aristocracy were so out of touch with the peasantry that Burns, translated into Russian, became a symbol for the ordinary Russian people. In Soviet Russia, Burns was elevated as the archetypal poet of the people. A new translation of Burns, begun in 1924 by Samuil Marshak, proved enormously popular, selling over 600,000 copies. Russia was the first country in the world to honor the man with a commemorative stamp in 1956. The poetry of Burns is taught in Russian schools alongside their own national poets. Burns was a great admirer of the egalitarian ethos behind the French Revolution, and that was an additional reason for the Communist regime to endorse him as a “progressive” artist. However, he has remained popular in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union as well.

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epistemology: the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, its presuppositions and foundations, and its extent and validity认识论
Chinoiserie: style in Western art characterized by forms and motifs derived from Chinese art. (欧洲摹仿的)中国艺术风格
Byronic: relating to or characteristic of Lord Byron or his poetry拜伦式的; 拜伦诗风的; 慷慨悲歌式的
Sturm und Drang movement: 狂飙运动, 18世纪后半期德国浪漫主义文学运动
Zeitgeist: the spirit of the time; the taste and outlook characteristic of a period or generation, 时代精神, 时代思潮
Augustan: of or characteristic of English literature during the early 18th century.
奥古斯都时代文学的, 属于或具有18世纪早期英国文学特征的
Egalitarian: affirming, promoting, or characterized by belief in equal political, economic, social, and civil rights for all people平等主义
 
Going-over复习反馈
Multiple-choice Questions
1. Romanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the______ century in Western Europe.
A. 17th        B. 18th       C. 19th
2. In the second half of the______century, Realism was offered as a polarized opposite to Romanticism.
A. 17th        B. 18th       C. 19th
3. Who is regarded as a pioneer of the Romantic movement?
A. John Steinbeck      B. Robert Burns     C. Mary Shelley
4. Who is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland?
A. Robert Burns       B. Lord Byron     C. William Wordsworth
5. An example of the Burns literary influence in America is the novelist ______ who took the title of his 1937 novel Of Mice and Men from a line contained in the second-to-last stanza of “To a Mouse”.
A. Mark Twain        B. Earnest Hemingway   C. John Steinbeck
6.The poet and painter ______ is the most extreme example of the Romantic sensibility in Britain.
A. William Blake      B. Samuel Taylor Coleridge  C. John Keats
7. The poets ______ and Samuel Taylor Coleridge co-authored Lyrical Ballads (1798).
A. William Wordsworth     B. Robert Burns     C. John Keats
8. The poems and songs of Burns that remain well-known across the world today include ______ , A Man's A Man for A' That and To a Louse.
A. Of Mice and Men      B. A Red, Red Rose   C. Lyrical Ballads
9. The modern sense of a ______ character may be expressed in Byronic ideals of a gifted, perhaps misunderstood loner.
A. optimistic       B. supernatural     C. romantic

Essay Questions
10. Summarize the major characteristics of Romanticism.
11. Give a brief introduction to Robert Burns.
12. Compare William Blake with William Wordsworth.