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Teachers' Resource Web Romanticism and Byron's Don Juan Jennifer Thompson, UCI, English 28A I. We recently looked at one of the persistent problems of language: the fact that it is incommensurate with the natural world. It obeys different rules, allows different possibilities. Though the law of gravity forbids me from flying, no rule of language prevents me from calling myself "Flying Jennifer," or advocating that we all learn how to fly. In fact, literature frequently deals in the impossible. A. The neoclassical solution to this problem was simply to assert that things come before ideas, and ideas before language. Poems should be true to what is ("whatever is, is right"), not go running off after meaningless coincidences of language, or describing physical and moral impossibilities. B. The Romantic solution to the problem is different. For romantics, the poet's imagination to words to ideal reader to world. Words change and act upon the world. Not "whatever is, is right," but rather the poet as legislator or prophet. C. Shelley: "Reason respects the differences, and imagination the similitude of things"; that is, reason = judgement, imagination = wit. "Reason is to imagination as the instrument to the agent, as the body to the spirit, as the shadow to the substance." Exact reversal of Pope's claim that "True wit is nature to advantage dressed / What oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed." Body/clothes, spirit/body. D. Truth is something the poet creates--long autobiographies, political poems, tragedies that criticise established authority structures. Not whatever is, is right, but responsibility to create your own reality. E. Don Juan is odd as a romantic poem. Makes fun of everything, is ironic about everything. Is classically romantic in one sense, however: constantly points to the act of narration, highlighting both his absolute power and his whimsical, arbitrary use of that power. Think back to M.H. Abrams, who speaks of romantic Irony as "a mode of dramatic or narrative writing in which the author builds up the illusion of representing reality, only to shatter it by revealing that the author, as artist, is the arbitrary creator and manipulator of the characters and their actions ( 100). Narrator "Is often at a loss for material to sustain his story and undecided about how to continue" (100). F. The German ironist Friedrich Schlegel called this "permanent parabasis." Parabasis is the Greek term for when the action in a play would break off and the chorus would step forward and express the playwright's ideas about issues of the day. Permanent parabasis = instead of representing reality, play is about building up and tearing down illusions. Look at the Introduction to Don Juan." The primary theme of the poem is ... poetry, heroism, love poetry, etc. G. So in Don Juan Byron never advocates any line of action; never represents the perfect hero (DJ is passive), virtuous woman (Julia uses Christianity to rationalize an affair), good poetry (constant ghastly lines). Compare to Pope's "Essay on Criticism," which is also about good poetry, and is frequently funny, but takes a fundamentally different stance towards the world. Makes fun of bad poetry and bad critics, but also advocates very specific things. II. Love in Don Juan: systematically mocks the idea of transcendent, spiritual love. Always reduces love to the physical. It's either sex or hormones. Look at stanzas 88-89 and 92-94. III. Platonic love: stanzas 109 and 116. IV. Pair off. Consider how Byron represents love. Stanzas 71-85, 86-96, 106-117. Consider these questions: 1. What does he make fun of? He often paraphrases a particular ideal of love, then has characters behave differently. Isolate a few lines where he conveys a high-flown sentiment that he will mock. 2. Isolate the precise lines where he makes fun. How, exactly, does he do it? (Plato as pimp, ideals into flesh.) 3. What role does parabasis play in the portion I've given you? When does the narrator speak for himself? Why does he do it? What's the goal or effect of his speech? To do in class, 11 /20/97: Intro: A. Pass out sign-in sheet; B. For Tue 11/25: Read selections from Don Juan in the Norton Anthology. pp. 769-92. How is Byron's poetry different from what we've read so far? He was a bad boy and a rule breaker--look for indications of that. He set himself the assignment of violating every convention of poetry and rule of the epic genre. I. Take five minutes to answer two questions: A. Why did you choose the assignment you did? Work further on your poetry? Stick with an author you understood better? Take on the sonnet again? B. What did you learn as you wrote it? II. Recite Hopkins' "Pied Beauty;" have them count errors. My errors = five points. A. Put into threes, have them write down their names on a sheet of paper, count errors, grade each other. III. Still in threes, look at poem roughs from Norton anthology ("Tyger, Tyger" and "O world, O life, O time"). What strikes you about them? A. What can you tell about each author's writing process? B. How is it like yours? Unlike? The question applies even if you haven't written poetry for me this quarter. C. Pick out 2-3 substitutions each poet makes. How are they significant? Are they better? How? IV. Introduction to Romanticism: A. Romanticism: 1785-1830. Big names in romanticism: Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Byron. We'll be reading Blake, Shelley and Byron because they're not frequently taught at UC; majors will learn more than they ever wanted to know about Wordsworth and Keats. B. Begin by defining the word. Confusing. Meaning of "romance" has shifted substantially over the centuries; romantic now means something very different from g£ romantic" poetry. Word has three distinct eras, associated meanings: 17-18thC, 19th C, 20th C. C. Truth for neoclassical writers: World to ideas to words. Should always match. You develop ideas by observing the world, then refine them by comparing them to the world. Your words should match your ideas as closely as possible. But, as you all know, that frequently doesn't happen. There's a failure, a gap. Two reasons: 1. We are most likely to attribute our failure to inadequacy of words as tools. We may lack the correct word (prosopopeia, flange, widget), or feel that words simply cannot express our feelings (of love, of awe at "God's grandeur"). Think of poor Spenser with his blazon. Doesn't manage to show us what his beloved actually looks like; instead, he merely asserts that he's precious by comparing her to precious objects. We get the idea, but it's a metaphor--a substitution--he substitutes words signifying precious things (rubies, pearls, gold) for her actual, precious limbs and mind. 2. More importantly, however, is the idea that the natural world and words work on different principles, and according to different rules. Natural world is bound by natural laws: gravity, for example. I can't flap my wings and fly. I can >imagine< flying, however, and no rule of language forbids me from saying, "the winged teaching assistant," or "flying Jennifer." We can immediately imagine it, even if 1 can't do it. I can even advocate (foolishly, perhaps) that all TA's grow wings, or say with Donne, "Go and catch a falling star, get with child a Mandrake root." So words don't have to obey natural laws. They're exempt. In Milne's Winnie the Pooh, Tigger bounces up a tree, gets stuck, climbs down the lines of text after the book gets placed sideways. 3. So natural laws don't apply; can assert things that aren't "true" or possible. You can lie; you can imagine impossible things. Also, one word may have several meanings-think of "romantic"--or a single sound can stand for more than one word--eye/I--even if the things in question have nothing to do with each other. Language has capacity for metaphor--my love is a red, red rose, the lion hearted Achilles; for puns--will/Will/will, lie/lie. It's not precisely that language is inadequate to the real world; it's that a tree is not a tree. Relationship is arbitrary and conventional. So the neoclassical way of solving this problem was simply to assert that things come before ideas, and ideas before language. Should be true to what is (whatever is, is right), not go haring off after meaningless coincidences of language. That's a kind of materialism. D. The Romantic solution to the problem is different. For romantics, imagination to words to ideal reader/poet to world. Words change and act upon the world. Not "whatever is, is right," but rather the legislator or "prophet." E. Shelley: "Reason respects the differences, and imagination the similitude of things"; that is, reason = judgement, imagination = wit. "Reason is to Imagination as the instrument to the agent, as the body to the spirit, as the shadow to the substance." Exact reversal of Pope's claim that "True wit is nature to advantage dressed / What oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed. Body/clothes, spirit/body. F. Truth is something the poet creates--long autobiographies, political
poems, tragedies that criticize established authority structures.
Not "whatever is, is right," but responsibility to create
your own reality.
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