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