Romantic Poetry Session – August 18, 2022

Amelia Opie painted by her husband John Opie

The Romantic Poetry session is one that all KRG members look forward to, for it is a perfect time in Kerala to read poetry with a cup of tea or have hot pakoras with coffee – your favourite romantic poet is to hand and the rain is pattering outside.

All the big names of the Romantic Period – Keats, Wordsworth, Shelley, Southey, Byron and Blake – were selected. Shobha chose to spring a surprise on us with Polish poet Adam Mickiewisz, reciting excerpts from his epic poem Pan Tadeusz, a sort of a Polish Romeo and Juliet story about two warring families. The portion Shobha read was a description of the breakfast laid out in the Soplica household. The description had the KRG members in splits and a few stomachs were rumbling and the delights being described! The epic, which is compulsory reading in Polish schools has been made into film twice – in 1928 and 1999.

Pan Tadeusz, the1999 film

Another surprise was Priya’s selection of The Orphan Boy’s Tale by Amelia Opie, née Alderson, a poet and radical novelist who was a staunch abolitionist in Norwich, England. She has not been read before in KRG and was a welcome change.

How can we have a poetry session without Thommo’s songs! He chose Thomas More’s The Minstrel Boy, sung to the tune of an old Irish melody. Since Moore was an Irish poet and a lyricist of the Romantic period, it was most appropriate.

The opening bars of 'The Minstrel Boy', as found in the Gibson-Massie collection of the Irish Melodies at Queen's University Belfast

Joe read to us excerpts from John Keats letters where he sets out his philosophy about poetry. With Kumkum, you can be sure it would be John Keats; Devika and Pamela also chose Keats, making him the most popular poet of the session. 

This session of KRG poetry reading covered a wide range – of poetry, song and letters, of five of the “big six” among the male romantic poets, a female poet as well as a Polish poet, making it a very interesting evening.

Pre-Birthday Celebration visit to our Grande Dame KumKum by Shobha and Arundhaty on August 13th

 Arundhathy

Lord Byron was likewise the most fashionable poet of the early 1800s. He created an immensely popular hero—defiant, melancholy, haunted by secret guilt – the very model of the Romantic hero. He was also a paradox. A leader of the era’s poetic revolution, he named Alexander Pope as his master. A worshiper of the ideal, he never lost touch with reality. A deist yet freethinker, he retained from his youth a Calvinist sense of original sin. A peer of the realm, he championed liberty in his works and deeds, giving money, time, energy, and finally his life to the Greek war of independence.

Throughout his life Byron was a fervent reader of the Bible and a lover of traditional songs and legends. As a champion of freedom, he may also have responded instinctively to the oppression long suffered by the Jewish people.

He toured extensively in the eastern Mediterranean, Athens, Turkey and Greece. He recorded his adventures and reflections in the autobiographical poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, published in 1809. Subsequently he wrote the second canto of the poem in 1810 and finally he published four cantos.

Excerpt from the fourth Canto:

I live not in myself, but I become
Portion of that around me; and to me,
High mountains are a feeling....
And thus I am absorb’d, and this is life

In January 1812 Byron resumed his seat in the House of Lords, allying himself with the Liberal Whigs. The drawing rooms and salons of Whig society vied for Byron’s presence.

Between June 1813 and February 1816, Byron completed and published six extremely popular verse tales, five of them influenced by his travels in Greece and Turkey: The Giaour (June 1813), The Bride of Abydos (December 1813), The Corsair (February 1814), Lara (August 1814), and The Siege of Corinth and Parisina (February 1816).

On July 15, 1819, the first two cantos of Don Juan were published. This poem is considered Byron’s masterpiece and ranks as one of the most important English long poems since John Milton's renowned work Paradise Lost. In 1926 Don Juan was made into an American romantic adventure film directed by Alan Crosland.

As a major political and social satirist, he repeatedly denounced war, tyranny, and hypocrisy. As an untiring champion of liberty, he firmly believed that “Revolution alone can save the earth from hell’s pollution”, a tenet he defended with his life. Byron joined the  Greek War of Independence fighting the Ottoman Empire and died leading a campaign during that war, for which Greeks revere him as a folk hero. He died in 1824 at the age of 36 from a fever contracted after the First and Second Sieges of Missolonghi.

In his dynamism, sexuality, self-revelation, and demands for freedom for oppressed people everywhere, Byron captivated the Western mind and heart as few writers have, stamping upon 19th-century letters, arts, politics, even clothing styles, his image and name as the embodiment of Romanticism.

Byron’s various heroes exhibit not uniformity, but considerable diversity. Among their traits are romantic melancholy, guilt for secret sin, pride, defiance, restlessness, alienation, revenge, remorse, moodiness, and such noble virtues as honour, altruism, courage, and pure love for a gentle woman.

He also formed the first of those passionate attachments with other, chiefly younger, boys that he would enjoy throughout his life; before reaching his teen years he had been sexually initiated by his maid. There can be little doubt that he had strong bisexual tendencies, though relationships with women seem generally, but not always, to have satisfied his emotional needs more fully.

There is much to say about his various amorous pursuits. While living with his half-sister Augusta in a relationship, he proposed to and wrote love letters to many others . The same pattern continued even after he finally married Annabella on January 2, 1815. The marriage did not last long and they were separated in April 1816.

His only legitimate child, Ada Lovelace, is considered as the first computer programmer and whose notes on mathematics were used by Charles Babbage – considered by many as the father of the computer. Byron's extramarital children include Allegra Byron, who died in childhood, and possibly Elizabeth Medora Leigh, daughter of his half-sister Augusta Leigh.

The Girl of Cadiz was selected by Arundhaty, as she found it extremely beautiful in the way Lord Byron drew a comparison between the English and Spanish damsels of his time. From his biography readers can also observe the poet’s extraordinary prowess at carrying on amorous relationships with many beautiful ladies and young men. Perhaps all this stimulation inspired and acted as a catalyst to his copious writing of poetry.

The Girl of Cadiz (1809) was first published in 1832. At first, it was inserted after the 86th stanza in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. It is a praise to Spanish girls, especially those from Cadiz. The choice of such a specific region would mean that Byron was there, that he really knew the place and fell in love with it and its girls.

In the first two verses of the poem, Byron suggests that he was bored with the British climate. This makes us think one of the reasons why he was so keen on Spain, could have been its weather. In the third stanza we find another reference to the Spanish climate: Byron thinks that Spanish women are warmer than English women because they are born “beneath a brighter sun”.

Throughout the poem, Byron compares Spanish women with British women, and we see that he apparently prefers Spaniards because, as he declares in the final verses, “none abroad, and few at home” are similar to them. In the last two verses of the first stanza and in the beginning of the second one, he exalts the Girl of Cadiz’s eye colour above the typical blue eyes of the English. Spanish girls are better made for romance; for Byron, they are much easier to court than the English. But what the author seems to esteem the most is the Spanish women’s strength and determination. In the fourth and fifth stanzas he says they are honest and do not hide their feelings, and are so true as to fight – both figuratively and literally – for people they love.

Lastly, Byron writes on the Spaniards’ talent for singing and dancing. In stanza number six, the poet depicts some Spanish traditions such as playing the guitar and dancing the bolero, historic features – when he mentions songs about Christians and Moors – and Christian practices like telling beads and singing in chorus. All these impressions on Cadiz and Spanish women are also reflected in two letters Byron sent from Gibraltar during his Tour:

“Cadiz, sweet Cadiz!—it is the first spot in the creation. The beauty of its streets and mansions is only excelled by the loveliness of its inhabitants. For, with all national prejudice, he confesses that the women of Cadiz are as far superior to the English women in beauty as the Spaniards are inferior to the English in every manly quality.

The readers see, for example, that he talked about the bolero dance and knew that the “Christian knight and Moorish hero” was a recurrent topic in folkloric songs, which proves that he got to know Spanish culture during the Tour. Readers will also notice that he was also struck by the Peninsular War, as he reflected it in this poem by saying that the girls from Cadiz would fight “When thronging foemen menace Spain”.

Devika

John Keats –31st October 1795 – 23rd February 1821

John Keats, English Romantic lyric poet, devoted his short life to the perfection of poetry marked by vivid imagery, great sensuous appeal, and an attempt to express a philosophy through classical legend. He was part of the Romantic movement in poetry, which laid emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of the past and of nature.

He had a difficult life and died at the age of 25 in obscurity.

TEN INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT JOHN KEATS:

1. SPENCER’S “FAERIE QUEENE” MAY HAVE AWAKENED HIS GENIUS

Keats had been ignorant of his poetic talent until his eighteenth year.It may have been Spencer’s “Faerie Queene” that awakened Keats’s genius. Spenser, who had the reputation as a great awakener of the love of poetry in youth, may well have worked his magic on Keats. Imitation of Spenser may also be seen in his first volume of poems.

2. KEATS NEVER FORGAVE WORDSWORTH FOR HIS INSULT

William Wordsworth was an established poet when Keats was working on his classical poem “Endymion”. Wordsworth could neither praise nor care for any contemporary poetry save his own and had none of the sympathetic or encouraging criticism to bestow on Keats which would have meant a world to the latter. Once, Keats was induced by his friends to recite the “Hymn to Pan” from Endymion to Wordsworth, for the senior’s insights.The recitation met with a cold response from Wordsworth, who dryly called it “a very pretty piece of Paganism” and said nothing more. In Haydon’s account, Keats never forgave Wordsworth for this sly comment.

3. HIS SONNET “TO THE NILE” WAS COMPOSED IN 15 MINUTES
In 1818, the poets John Keats, P.B. Shelley and Leigh Hunt entered a friendly contest. They were each to write a sonnet in quarter of an hour and the subject of the poem was restricted to the river Nile.

4. TUBERCULOSIS WAS LIKE A ‘FAMILY CURSE’ TO THE KEATS FAMILY
Pulmonary tuberculosis was a consistent threat throughout Keats’ life and times. At the age of 12 Keats lost his maternal grandmother to the disease. This was followed two years later by the death of his mother due to the same condition, in 1817. Keats’ beloved brother Tom was engulfed by the sickness and expired the following year. Keats himself came under the influence of the disease in 1819, finally succumbing to it in February 1821. The only surviving brother George, who had migrated to America in 1818, also succumbed to the disease almost 20 years later.

5. HE WISHED THAT HIS NAME SHOULD NOT APPEAR ON HIS TOMBSTONE

Keats spent the last few months of his life in Rome. During this time Keats had made a request to Severn, that he didn’t want his name to appear on his tombstone, but merely a line “Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water”; possibly inspired by the 1611 Beaumont and Fletcher’s play titled ‘Philaster’.

6. COPIES OF HIS DEATH MASKS ARE PRECIOUS COLLECTABLES
When Keats died on 23 February 1821, a plaster cast was taken in Rome to preserve his likeness. Two death masks were then made from this original mould. The two primary masks are now lost but Charles Smith and Sons made several casts of the mask around 1898 to 1905. The auction firm Christie’s now estimates that there are only nine such Smith casts remaining.

7. THERE ARE NO MAJOR EARLY BIOGRAPHIES OF KEATS
Surprisingly none of Keats’s literary friends were able to enlighten anyone about the poet after his death. There was neither a publication of a personal memoir or a biography or his poetry that remained in manuscript by anyone who had been close to him. Though several of them had fully desired and intended to do the same, mutual jealousies and dislikes sabotaged any such undertaking.

8. HIS FIRST FULL BIOGRAPHY WAS WRITTEN 27 YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH
In 1848, about 27 years after his death Keats’ first full biography “Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of John Keats” was finally brought to print. It was a major influence among the pre-Raphaelites and went a long way to establish Keats within the canon of English literature.

9. P.B. SHELLY WROTE A FAMOUS ELEGY IN MEMORY OF KEATS

The poets P.B. Shelley and John Keats were introduced in 1816. He composed ‘Adonais’ a pastoral elegy for Keats calling it “the image of my regret and honour for poor Keats”. Written about 7 weeks after Keats’s death, ‘Adonais’ is counted among the greatest of Shelley’s poems.

10. KEATS’S LETTERS ARE CONSIDERED, THE MOST IMPORTANT EVER WRITTEN BY ANY ENGLISH POET

There are over 240 surviving letters from Keats to his friends, family and beloved, which were first published in 1848 and 1878. Poet Laureate T. S. Eliot later described the letters as “the most notable and most important ever written by any English poet”.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci, painting by Frank Dicksee

Devika selected Keats’ poem La Belle Dame Sans Merci for the reading.In this poem, a medieval knight recounts a fanciful romp in the countryside with a fairy woman. La Belle Dame sans Merci, which translates in English ‘The Beautiful Lady Without Pity’ ends in cold horror. Relating to its focus on death and horror, it is interesting to note that Keats wrote the poem a few months after his brother Tom’s death from tuberculosis.

Devika remembers this being a part of her school curriculum. She loved it then and loves it now!

Geetha

William Blake (1757 – 1827) was a poet, artist, engraver and print-maker. Largely misunderstood during his lifetime, he is now regarded as one of the finest poets of the English language. His unique poetry encompassed a range of emotions and mystical under-currents, shaped by his vision and empathy for the world around him. During his life the prophetic message of his writings were understood by few and misunderstood by many.

However Blake is now widely admired for his soulful originality and lofty imagination. The poetry of William Blake is far reaching in its scope and range of experience. The poems of William Blake can offer a profound symbolism and also a delightful childlike innocence. Whatever the inner meaning of Blake’s poetry we can easily appreciate the beautiful language and lyrical quality of his poetic vision.

“To see a world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.”

(From Auguries of innocence)

William Blake was born in London, where he spent most of his life. His father was a successful London hosier and attracted by the doctrines of Emmanuel Swedenborg. Blake was first educated at home, chiefly by his mother. His parents encouraged him to collect prints of the Italian masters, and in 1767 sent him to Henry Pars’ drawing school.

From his early years, he experienced visions of angels and ghostly monks, he saw and conversed with the angel Gabriel, the Virgin Mary, and various historical figures. These memories never left him and influenced his poetry throughout his life.

William Blake, Oberon, Titania and Puck with fairies dancing c.1786

In 1782 Blake met Catherine Boucher, when he was recovering from a relationship that had culminated in a refusal of his marriage proposal. He recounted the story of his heartbreak for Catherine and her parents, after which he asked Catherine: "Do you pity me?" When she responded affirmatively, he declared: "Then I love you." Blake married Catherine – who was five years his junior – on 18 August 1782 in St Mary's Church, Battersea. Catherine was illiterate and signed her wedding contract with an X. The original wedding certificate may be viewed at the church, where a commemorative stained-glass window was installed between 1976 and 1982.

Later, in addition to teaching Catherine to read and write, Blake trained her as an engraver. Throughout his life she proved a valuable aid, helping to print his illuminated works and maintaining his spirits throughout numerous misfortunes.

His early poems Blake wrote at the age of 12. However, being early apprenticed to a manual occupation, journalistic-social career was not open to him. His first book of poems, POETICAL SKETCHES, appeared in 1783 and was followed by SONGS OF INNOCENCE (1789), and SONGS OF EXPERIENCE (1794). His most famous poem, ‘The Tyger’, was part of his Songs of Experience. Typical for Blake’s poems were long, flowing lines and violent energy, combined with aphoristic clarity and moments of lyric tenderness.

A Dream

Blake's poem, A Dream, contains a miniature world of animals who are mutually helpful, sympathetic and amicable. We happen to meet the wailing mother ant, anxious children and the compassionate dreamer. There, in the world of Blake, though sketched up by dream, they assume a human body and speak like human beings. Dereliction of duty is something unheard of in that imaginary land. The boy dreams of an ant who is in search of her lost children. She is lost and thinks of her distressed husband groaning sadly. The dreaming boy naturally sheds a tear off pity. His innocent heart is not capable of standing the grief of the mother ant which also is innocent. Then the poem takes a turn and the mother ant who is forlorn and caught in the night is met by the glow-worm whose duty is to keep everybody in perfect happiness. He has also the duty of shedding light on the ground when it is dark. He is in short the watchman of the night. Another inhabitant of the dreamland is the beetle that goes on his round of humming. The glow-worm asks the emmet to go back home following the beetle's hum.

This poem is a part of a collection of poems from the Songs of Innocence.

The Songs of Innocence dramatise the naive hopes and fears that inform the lives of children and trace their transformation as the child grows into adulthood. Some of the poems are written from the perspective of children, while others are about children as seen from an adult perspective.

William Blake 'Songs of Innocence' title page 1789, Yale Centre for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

The School Boy                                               

Another critique of this poem is less harsh and more playful than most of Blake’s other such works. The boy loves “to rise in a summer morn,/When the birds sing on every tree.” He enjoys nature in all its splendour, “But to go to school in a summer morn,/O! it drives all joy away.” The boy longs for the freedom of the outdoors and cannot “take delight” in his books. He asks, “How can the bird that is born for joy,/Sit in a cage and sing.” His youth and innocence are suited to playing in the summertime fields, not to sitting captive to a dreary educational system.

"The School-Boy" is a six-stanza poem of five lines each. Each stanza follows an ABABB rhyme scheme, with the first two stanzas using the same word "morn" to rhyme in the first lines. The repetition of the word “morn” as well as similarly low-sounding words such as "outworn," "bower," "dismay," and "destroy" lend the poem a bleak tone in keeping with the school-boy's attitude at being trapped inside at school rather than being allowed to move freely about the countryside on this fine summer day.

Blake suggests that the educational system of his day destroys the joyful innocence of youth; Blake himself was largely self-educated and did not endure the drudgery of the classroom as a child. Again, the poet wishes his readers to see the difference between the freedom of imagination offered by close contact with nature, and the repression of the soul caused by Reason’s demands for a so-called education.

This poem is a part of a collection of poems from the Songs of Experience

Songs of Experience were first published in 1793. A year later they were included with the Songs of Innocence. As might be expected, the poems in Experience are different to the poems in Songs of Innocence. In the Songs of Experience we find poems that are more realistic, cynical and aware of the more pessimistic aspects of life. However, there are poems in Songs of Experience that suggest there is hope for transformation enabling a more rewarding “experience” of life.

                                             

 William Blake Songs of Experience  title page 1794, Yale Centre for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

Joe

Joe – Why read Keats’ letters at a Romantic Poetry session?

Even as he was writing poetry, Keats was developing his ideas and aesthetic concepts in correspondence with sympathetic friends. T.S. Eliot claims that the abundant speculation in Keats’ letters makes them “certainly the most notable and the most important ever written by any English poet.”

 Other Romantic poets wrote tracts expounding their views on poetry: Wordsworth and Coleridge set out their direction in the preface to the Lyrical Ballads. Shelley wrote his eloquent tract In Defence of Poetry. Blake in his Preface to  Milton, his long poem, sets out a whole vision. Keats has only left us  his interspersed thoughts on the subject in his letters.

 Joe decided to take up six letters that yield salient thoughts by Keats :

Six letters

Letter 1 – Benjamin Bailey – 22nd Nov 1817

Letter 2 – George and Thomas Keats – 21st Dec 1817

Letter 3 – John Hamilton Reynolds – 3rd Feb 1818

Letter 4 – John Taylor - 27th Feb – 1818

Letter 5 – Richard Woodhouse – 27th Oct 1818

Letter 6 – Shelley – 16th Aug 1820.

Letter 1 – Benjamin Bailey 22nd Nov 1817

Bailey was an Oxford student of theology. 

Keats declares:

“I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart’s affections, and the truth of Imagination. What the Imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth—whether it existed before or not,—for I have the same idea of all our passions as of Love: they are all, in their sublime, creative of essential Beauty.”

 Truth is in Imagination, says Keats. Instead of searching for truth with logical explanations, find truth through your imagination.

Then we are presented with an apostrophe to Sensation:

“O for a life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts! … another favourite speculation of mine,—that we shall enjoy ourselves hereafter by having what we called happiness on Earth repeated in a finer tone.”

Thus he sets out the essential dependence of the poet on the imagination as a crucible of creativity, indeed of happiness.

Letter 2 – George and Thomas Keats - 21st Dec 1817

Keats was not impressed by a painting he saw, saying that there was nothing in it that could stir the viewer – no depth. Then he makes his point: “The excellence of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate from their being in close relationship with Beauty and Truth.” 

Death on the Pale Horse, painting by Benjamin West which Keats saw and wasn't impressed by

The most important idea comes next: Negative Capability. “…at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakspeare possessed so enormously—I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”

Uncertainties and contradictions could crop up in the mind, but the artist must be able to live with that as a condition of being an artist.

Keats gives a big plus to William Shakespeare (WS) on this score and a minus to Coleridge, because Coleridge was restless and remained unsatisfied with half knowledge – he always wanted more facts, more information.

There is no point in calling a person an artist if she is searching for facts like any other person.

Letter 3 John Hamilton Reynolds – 3rd Feb 1818

Keats met Reynolds in the house of Leigh Hunt, and he became a close friend and correspondent of Keats.
Keats says Art should have a direct effect on the reader's feelings, not work upon the reader’s or viewer’s ideas.
Keats disliked poetry that tries to control the reader – the type of poetry that imposes an ideology of its own onto us.

Consider this quotation from the letter:

“Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself, but with its subject.” The significant point Keats is making is that the impact poetry makes on the reader should be direct, and it becomes distasteful when it is used as vehicle for moralising.

 Letter 4 John Taylor – 2 7th Feb 1818

John Taylor was a friend and publisher of Keats.

 Keats writes how dissatisfied he was with Endymion and that it was easier for him to state what poetry should be like, than to actually follow his own advice. Then he makes a pithy statement:

“I think poetry should surprise by a fine excess, and not by singularity.”

 Not strangeness, not complexity, but a transport of joy through an exquisite choice of words is what he is referring to, Joe thinks.

 Keats’ advice: “Another axiom—that if poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all.” Keats is referring to poetry that is laboured and halting, and has not free flow that comes tripping out from the mind to the tip of the open.

Letter 5 Richard Woodhouse – 27th Oct 1818

In an unusual preface to his long poem Endymion, Keats spoke openly of its flaws. But that opened up a barrage of criticism. One critic, John Lockhart, made fun of Keats's “Cockney” poetry, and wrote of “the spectacle of an able mind reduced to a state of insanity” because of "a sudden attack" of the poetry-writing bug.

Earlier, Keats had said “I think I shall be among the English poets after my death.” Despite his critics who vexed him, this prophecy came true; Keats and Endymion have withstood the test of time and remained precious gifts to the English language.

 Woodhouse encouraged Keats and this rekindled his confidence.

 Keats replies, “As to the poetical Character itself … it is not itself—it has no self—It is everything and nothing—It has no character—it enjoys light and shade; it lives in gusto, be it foul or fair, high or low, rich or poor, mean or elevated.”

 “A poet is the most unpoetical of anything in existence, because he has no Identity—he is continually in for and filling some other body.”

 A poet is therefore, according to Keats, a vehicle, a transport mechanism to convey something, not someone who holds fast to hiser own identity. Poetry abolishes self. Indeed Keats’ one gripe with Wordsworth was he had too much of his self embedded in his poems. Chameleon analogy – a poet doesn't have an own identity – someone who blends into any environment in which shee finds himerself.

Letter 6 To Shelley – 16th Aug 1820.

Keats was introduced by Leigh Hunt to Percy Bysshe Shelley – who became Keats’ friend

 When Keats fell ill, the Shelleys invited him to stay with them in Pisa, but Keats only made it as far as Rome, accompanied by the painter Joseph Severn. Shelley's concern for Keats's health remained undimmed, “I am aware indeed that I am nourishing a rival who will far surpass me and this is an additional motive & will be an added pleasure.”

 Keats replied to Shelley thanking him and his wife. The Theme of death and illness is prominent in this letter:

“There is no doubt that an English winter would put an end to me, and do so in a lingering, hateful manner. Therefore, I must either voyage or journey to Italy, as a soldier marches up to a battery."

He acknowledges Shelley’s favourable notice of his poem, Endymion: “I am glad you take any pleasure in my poor poem, which I would willingly take the trouble to unwrite, if possible, …

 Keats acknowledges a play of Shelley in five acts: “I received a copy of The Cenci, as from yourself, from Hunt. There is only one part of it I am judge of—the poetry and dramatic effect, which by many spirits nowadays is considered the Mammon.”

Most people consider poetry and dramatic effect to be “Mammon” (i.e. materialistic). They say, modern works should have a higher purpose. But according to Keats “an artist must serve Mammon.”

He even advises Shelley: “You, I am sure, will forgive me for sincerely remarking that you might curb your magnanimity, and be more of an artist, and load every rift of your subject with ore. The thought of such discipline must fall like cold chains upon you, who perhaps never sat with your wings furled for six months together.”

To summarise the importance of Keats’ letters: Keats' contemporaries wrote essays showcasing their theories but Keats did it with remarks scattered throughout his letters – which reveal the depth to which he had thought about poetry and life.

Keats-Shelley House in Rome from the Spanish Steps - it houses an extensive collection of memorabilia, manuscripts, and paintings relating to Keats and Shelley, and other poets

Keats-Shelley House, Rome – the room and death-bed of Keats

Keats-Shelley House, Rome, the Library

Shelley learned months after the fact that Keats had died in Rome. This prompted Shelley to compose Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats. Shelley felt tremendous grief and great anger at the critics who did not see the genius that he, Shelley, had been witness to.

Joe recited a few verses from that great eulogy.

I

I weep for Adonais—he is dead!

Oh, weep for Adonais! though our tears

Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!

And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years

To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers,

And teach them thine own sorrow, say: "With me

Died Adonais; till the Future dares

Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be

An echo and a light unto eternity!

…

XXVI

"Stay yet awhile! speak to me once again;

Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live;

And in my heartless breast and burning brain

That word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else survive,

With food of saddest memory kept alive,

Now thou art dead, as if it were a part

Of thee, my Adonais! I would give

All that I am to be as thou now art!

But I am chain'd to Time, and cannot thence depart!

…

XXXVIII

Nor let us weep that our delight is fled

Far from these carrion kites that scream below;

He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead;

Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now.

Dust to the dust! but the pure spirit shall flow

Back to the burning fountain whence it came,

A portion of the Eternal, which must glow

Through time and change, unquenchably the same,

Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of shame.

…

LV

…

The soul of Adonais, like a star,

Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.

 

References:

The Poetry Foundation article below:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69384/

Reynolds (18 April 1817), Bailey, George & Tom Keats, Reynolds (3 February 1818)
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/35698/35698-h/35698-h.htm

Project Gutenberg eBook, Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends, by John Keats, Edited by Sidney Colvin
https://fortnightlyreview.co.uk/2021/10/keats-search-home/

As an orphan, Keats seeks a home through his surviving siblings, George, Tom and Fanny, and in friendships he makes as a boarder at Enfield School; in later life he seeks a home in love, in a pantheon of poets, and in poetry itself.
http://keatslettersproject.com/

The Keats Letters Project is an exploration of the epistolary writing of Romantic poet John Keats.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69384/selections-from-keatss-letters

Selections from Keats’s Letters

Letter to J. H. Reynolds, 17, 18 April 1817

Letter to George and Tom Keats, 21, ?27 December 1817: On Negative Capability

Letter to J. H. Reynolds, 3 February 1818]: On the Aims of Poetry

Letter to John Taylor, 27 February 1818: On Axioms and the Surprise of Poetry

Letter to J. H. Reynolds, 3 May 1818]: On Life as a “large Mansion of Many Apartments”
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-keats

Keats published only fifty-four poems, in three slim volumes and a few magazines. But over his short development he took on the challenges of a wide range of poetic forms from the sonnet, to the Spenserian romance, to the Miltonic epic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onDNg_V7SaQ
The lecturer reads many letter excerpts and illustrates. Uses the book Letters of John Keats by Robert Gittings as his text. Comprehensive 80 min survey of what Keats’ letters teach us about his view of poetry, suffering, pain, death, truth, identity, etc.

Kavita

Robert Southey was an English poet of the Romantic school and a poet Laureate. He was born on 12th August 1774 in Bristol. Southey was educated at Westminster School, London and at Balliol College, Oxford. He published his first collection of poems in 1794.

He experimented with a writing partnership with Samuel Taylor Coleridge and a famous joint composition was the Fall of Robespierre.

He married Edith Fricker in 1795 and remained married to her till her death in 1838. He then remarried in June 1839 to poet Caroline Ann Bowles. Southey died in March 21st 1843 and was buried in the churchyard of Crosthwaite Church, Kenwick, where he had worshipped for 40 years.

He was a prolific writer, scholar, historian and biographer. He is best remembered for his poem After Blenheim and the original version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

In his poem Go Valentine, the lover yearns for his lady love. The poem is set in an era when there was limited interaction between boys and girls. Southey imagines about her even though he had not met her or known her because it was in an era when young men like him rarely dared to speak to a girl like her.


Kumkum

 

John Keats was one of the major poets of the Romantic movement of English literature that spanned between 1790 and 1850. The movement was known for its celebration of nature and ordinary people and their lives. A strong focus is present on individual experience and imagination. Isolation and melancholy was accepted as a condition of the poet's existence. Women were given equal importance.

KumKum chose to read two poems by Keats, the first one is titled, To Mrs. Reynold's Cat or just To a Cat. It is a sonnet and follows a perfect sonnet form of 14 lines, with the Spenserian rhyme pattern: abba abba cdcded.

The sonnet was composed on 16th January, 1818. The Cat of this poem belonged to Mrs. Reynolds, mother of Keat's friend John Hamilton Reynolds. It was an old Cat. ‘Climacteric’ means seven years of human life. And a single life is expected to be only nine climacterics, hence, ‘Grand Climacteric’ is the 63rd, which is the last.

KumKum was immediately captivated by the descriptive nature of this Sonnet – it is simple, and has witty observations of a real cat.

One part of the poem is the poet addressing the old cat about his life, his escapades in hunting and stealing mice, rats, baby birds, fish and tidbits. Then there is a beautiful description of the cat as it was in its old age: green eyes, velvety ears, silky soft fur, dainty wrists. The tip of its tail seemed nicked off at its advanced age.

The poem has a couple of lines on typical cat behaviour – suddenly sticking its talons on a perceived adversary, not looking up at the speaker, and the ability of crossing over walls studded with shards of glass bottles in order to enter its hunting ground.

The second poem KumKum read is titled To. Keats wrote three poems titled To. This one begins with the line: Think not of it, sweet one, and in some anthologies the poem goes by its first line.

To is a beautiful poem of five stanzas, each stanza has four lines. Unlike Keats' more famous poems and Odes, this one is a very simple and musical one. The meaning of the poem is transparent; no reference to obscure ancient literature or mythology is there. Of course, the poem faithfully bears Keats’ philosophy: everything that is born, must die and disappear, and we must let it go. If we must cry to say goodbye, that's all right. No need to extend our goodbyes. We can celebrate death as a dirge, but let it be a dirge of kisses.

Pamela

John Keats was born in England on 31st October 1795 and died in Rome, Italy of Tuberculosis on 23rd February 1821at the age of 25.

Keats was one of the greatest poets and a major figure in the Romantic Movement. He, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, belonged to the second generation of Romantic poets. Although he had a very brief life, he wrote much and influenced many.

His poems were known for its vivid imagery and great sensuous appeal and an attempt to express a philosophy through classical legend. His popularity grew after his early death and he was greatly admired in the Victorian Age. His influence can be seen in the poetry of Alfred Lord Tennyson and the Pre-Raphaelites, among others. His poems had been in publication for less than four years before he died. His poems regularly feature in modern anthologies even after centuries.

His best known poems are Ode to Psyche, To Autumn, Bright Star, On First Looking into Chapman's Homer, Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn, and The Eve of St.Agnes.

In the poem-sonnet Oh! How I love, on a Fair Summer’s Eve, Keats suggests that nature is able to transport him and take him far away from his cares in life. He says, “And there into delight my soul deceive”. The word “deceive” is interesting in this phrase because it seems to suggest that Keats is lying to his soul in some way. The transportation in nature isn’t real. His cares and sorrows still exist, but in nature he is able to deceive his soul into thinking they are gone and he can have delight, at least for a short while. At the end of the poem he says he might drop a ‘delicious tear’. Nature provides an initial escape from his cares and fears, and then turns his sorrow to sweetness.

According to Keats, humans are welcome and even expected to participate in nature. Humans and nature should never distance themselves from one another. Nature is a calming and soothing presence that humans can turn to for comfort. Nature can change humans for the better. Yet they are always two different things. Humans are not a piece of nature, yet they can lose themselves in nature to find relief, however temporary, from the troubles of their lives. In this way, Keats is able to find a dissolution of his troubles in nature.

Priya

Priya chose to read Amelia Opie's The Orphan Boy's Tale.

From Poetry Foundation: Amelia Opie
British Romantic poet, novelist, and playwright Amelia Opie was born and raised in Norwich. The only child of a physician, she studied music and French as a child. Her mother died when she was 15, and she published her first novel, The Dangers of Coquetry (1790), anonymously at the age of 21.

In 1794 she began making annual trips to London, where she became part of a literary circle that included William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Elizabeth Inchbald. She married the painter John Opie in 1798, and thereafter published under her married name. The couple lived primarily in London.

Opie is the author of more than a dozen novels, including The Father and Daughter, A Tale in Prose: with an Epistle from the Maid of Corinth to Her Lover, and Other Poetical Pieces (1801), Adeline Mowbray (1804), and Illustrations of Lying (1824), as well as eight collections of poetry, which include Poems (1803), The Warrior’s Return and Other Poems (1808), and Lays for the Dead (1834). Both her poetry and prose often engage moral and domestic issues.

Following her husband’s death in 1807, Opie published his biography, Memoir of John Opie (1809). She then returned to Norwich to care for her father. An active abolitionist, she joined the Religious Society of Friends, also known as the Quakers, in 1814. Opie died following a brief illness and was buried in the Gildencroft Quaker Cemetery in Norwich.

British War Poetry in the age of Romanticism

“War was the single most important fact of British life from 1793 to 1815. The poetry of the major Romantic writers concerned with the war—Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, and Shelley—reflects this imperfectly because their war poetry constitutes only a part of the total poetic response,” writes Betty T Bennett in her introductory essay in the book,

An internationally known scholar on the life of Frankenstein author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and her circle of friends, Betty T Bennett  is best known for her three-volume The Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, which she edited and published from 1980 to 1988)

She further elaborates on the following points.

1. War was the poetic subject in an age in which society was being restructured in terms of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars, and industrialisation.

2. For a fuller understanding of the historical background of Romanticism, war poetry traces the development of the poetic styles of Romanticism.

3. The Romantic view of war that the civilians believed, was told to everyone by the government of both sides to keep the morale high and recruitment up. The artwork of the time depicted the propaganda of the time, the ideal of patriotism and propagated war as a heroic national experience.

She discusses the poems as a crucial link in the development of Romantic poetic styles. These popular poems illustrate the transition from Percy's Reliques, The Reliques of Ancient English Poetry by Bishop Thomas Percy (1756), and Burns to Wordsworth and Coleridge. They reflect the evolution of styles, subject matter, and attitudes that have come to be called Romantic

For Further Reading:
The Field of Battle by James Henry Leigh Hunt

The Deed of Blood is o'er!

And, hark, the Trumpet's mournful breath

Low murmurs round it a Note of Death—

The Mighty are no more!

How solemn slow that distant Groan!—

O, could AMBITION, wild with fear,

The deep prophetic Warning hear,

And, looking, listning vain around

For one soul-soothing, softer sound,

While near, unseen, the Fiends of Hell

Toll round the wretch his fancied Knell,

Rave all alone!

But, hark, soft Plaints arise!—

Friendship, adieu; farewel, soft Love!

I go to smiling Peace above:—

The Friend, the Lover dies!

Yet, happy Soul to Freedom giv'n,

Go where no proud tyrannic Lord

Drives Man upon his Brother's sword;

Where Angels from thine arms shall tear

The Chains AMBITION bade thee wear;

Where, on the once pale Cheek of Woe,

In Smiles immortal, Roses blow—

The Bloom of Heav'n!

Saras

William Wordsworth (7-4-1770 – 23-4-1850) was one of the founders of English Romanticism along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge when they published their collection of poems Lyrical Ballads, with a few other Poems in 1798.

Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, Cumberland, part of the Lake District which features in so many of his poems. He was educated locally and then attended St. Johns College, Cambridge in 1787, the year he made his debut as a writer by publishing a sonnet in The European Magazine. He made a habit of going on walking tours during his holidays, often visiting places famous for the beauty of their landscape. He went on a walking tour of the Europe in 1790, walking the Alps extensively. He was very close to his sister Dorothy who was just a year younger than him, and she often accompanied him on his long walks.

In 1795, Wordsworth met Coleridge and they become close friends. In 1797 Wordsworth and Dorothy moved to Somerset near Coleridge’s home. Together they published Lyrical Ballads in 1798.Though received modestly by critics, it went on to become a landmark, changing the course of English Literature and Poetry. Most of the poems in the 1798 edition were written by Wordsworth with Coleridge contributing only 4 poems including the famous Rime of the Ancient Mariner which formed one third of the collection. In later editions of the Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth included a preface which in effect became the manifesto of the Romantic Movement. The main points of the manifesto are that everyday language is best suited for poetry, and ordinary life is its best subject. Expression of feeling was more important than the plot. Wordsworth gave one of the best definitions of poetry when he says “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, that takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.”

In 1799, Wordsworth settled in Grasmere in the Lake District, along with his sister Dorothy. Coleridge visited him for a promised tour of the Lake District and poet Robert Southey lived nearby. Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey came to be known as the Lake District poets.

In 1802, Wordsworth married his childhood friend Mary Hutchinson with whom he went on to have 5 children. Dorothy continued to live with them.

Wordsworth wrote poetry throughout his life including Poems in Two Volumes, French Revolution, Guide to the Lakes etc. His most famous work, an autobiographical poem The Prelude was published by his wife Mary after his death. Wordsworth began The Prelude in 1798, at the age of 28, and continued to work on it throughout his life. He never gave it a title, but called it the "Poem (title not yet fixed upon) to Coleridge” in his letters to Dorothy.

Wordsworth became the Poet Laureate in 1843 and continued until his death in 1850. Initially he refused the honour saying he was too old, but the British Prime Minister, Robert Peel persuaded him saying “you shall have nothing required of you.” Thus, Wordsworth became the only poet to write no official verses for royalty. By then he was suffering from depression and had almost completely given up writing new material.

Saras chose to read two small poems by Wordsworth, To a Skylark and To Sleep. She found a book The Poetical works of Wordsworth which had been awarded to her grandfather for elocution by the St. Josephs College, Trichinapoly (modern Trichy) probably in the late 1920s and decided to read the poems from the book.

                                                                           The Book of Poems awarded to her grandfather, that inspired Saras to choose her poems

There are two poems by Wordsworth titled to a skylark “Ethereal Minstrel! Pilgrim of the sky”and “Up with me into the clouds..” Saras chose the first one where the skylark is personified as a divine singer and a traveller of the sky. The skylark is a songbird which can sing only while flying, a fact that Saras learned only while reading up on the poem. In her book, the poem has 3 stanzas, of 6 lines each in the rhyme scheme ABABCC. However, the online versions had only the first and last stanzas. Saras chose to read all 3 stanzas

                                 

Skylark in flight

Wordsworth calls the skylark an ethereal minstrel, a divine singer and pilgrim of the sky, a traveller of the sky. He asks if he despises the earth, where care or unhappiness exists. He further asks whether he still has his heart and eye in his home on the dewy ground, even though his wings want to fly. He asks him this since he always sees him high in the sky, wandering and singing. He has a nest that he cannot drop into at will, but his divine music is consistently composed by his quivering wings. The poet praises the way he can sing his songs even though he cannot enter his home freely.

You can hear the sound of the skylark, Alauda arvensis, singing at this site:

https://youtu.be/rBp1Q_bHe0Y

The meaning of the last sentence can be found in the behaviour of the male skylark. This is also the reason why the skylark is addressed as ‘he’ throughout the poem. The skylark is a songbird, and it is a perching bird. But unlike other perching birds, the male skylark only sings when it is in flight, high in the sky. ‘Cannot enter his home freely’ means that he cannot be at his home if the skylark wants to fly.
The skylark flies to the last point of vision, and beyond meaning, it cannot be seen by the eye. The speaker calls the skylark daring because of the heights he mounts to.

Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond’. The sentence means that there is a strong, unbreakable bond between the skylark and his home

The poet tells the skylark to leave the nightingale to her shady wood. The nightingale is a songbird that sings in the forests, unlike the skylark, which sings in the open sky.

The poet further says that the skylark fills the world with a flood of harmony and has great instincts as it is the type of bird that soars but never roams, that is, however high the skylark may fly, he always returns to his home.

The skylark is true to the kindred points of Heaven and Home. It means that the skylark is closely related both to Heaven (the skies) and Home (the ground).

The poem is a beautiful description of the skylark’s behaviour. The central idea the readers can take away is the  wisdom of staying true to their roots, even when they rise high in life. (This exegesis has been adapted from various Internet sources)

Shobha

Adam Mickiewisz was born in Navahrudak in 1798 in present day Belarus. He studied at the University of Wilno (now Vilnius University in Lithuania). His country of birth no longer existed, having been divided up between Russia, Prussia and Austria.

He was politically active and joined a student society, was arrested and deported to Russia. He was ultimately allowed to leave Russia and in 1832, aged 34, and settled in France. He worked as a librarian as well as a professor of Latin literature. All along, he strove tirelessly for the cause of Polish national freedom. His political activism in support of the scattered Polish population is reflected in all his writings.

Adam Mickiewicz Monument in Warsaw

In 1855, he went to Turkey to help in organising the Poles preparing to fight alongside the Allies in the Crimean War. He contracted cholera and died the same year at Constantinople.

His remains were moved and reburied in 1890 in the vault of Wawel Cathedral in Kraków, ‎Poland, where many Polish kings have been laid to rest. He is considered the national poet in Poland, and held in as high a regard as Shakespeare is in Britain or Pushkin in Russia.

Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań has over 33,000 students and 3,000 faculty

While living in Paris, he wrote the epic poem Pan Tadeusz or Sir Taduesz, the last foray into Lithuania, a story of life among Polish gentry in the years 1811 and 1812, in twelve books of verse.

The history of the original Manuscript

The history of the original manuscript of Pan Tadeusz is almost an epic in itself. It was sold by a family member to a professor of literature in Kraków. A wood carver Josef Brzostowski was employed to make a special chest for the safekeeping of the manuscript. Made of ebony and decorated with ivory carvings depicting scenes from the poem, the chest was a work of art. It remained for a number of years in a castle in southern Poland. In the first days of the second World War, the owners deposited the manuscript, along with some other valuables in Lviv, Ukraine.

Lviv was occupied first by the Soviet Red Army in 1939, then by the Wehrmacht in 1941, and again recaptured by Red Army in 1944.

During the Russian offensive in 1944, it was widely understood that Lviv would not be part of Poland after the war. It was decided to move these valuable collections to Kraków. However, the Wehrmacht had plans to take these treasures to Germany. The cargo was found, abandoned, in Adelsdorf, Germany. In 1947, nearly a hundred years after it was written, it was finally relocated to the Ossolineum library in Wroclaw, Poland.

Historical background of the poem

In 1569, Poland and Lithuania, united to form the Polish Lithuanian commonwealth. It thrived for almost 230 years, but by 1795 (around the time the poet was born) was completely erased from the map of Europe. It was divided up between Russia, Austria and Prussia.

For 120 years, Poland did not exist; only returning to the map of Europe in 1918, as a result of post World War 1 agreements. Despite its non-existence as a political entity, the Polish language and literature played a crucial role in maintaining a spirit of patriotism and keeping alive the hopes of freedom.

Themes in the poem
Lithuania is a major character in the epic. Each section begins with beautiful rendering of the landscape itself. It is the national poem of Poland, yet it is set entirely in Lithuania. It is one of those occurrences in literature that reiterates how bizarre the notion of nationhood is. We think countries and boundaries are set in stone, but if we go back two centuries, countries as we know them now didn’t exist. Viewed aerially, we don’t see countries, only cities, mountains, rivers and oceans.

The poet was Polish born, in Lithuania, that was part of Tsarist Russia at the time (present day Belarus). He lived in Russia and France and died in Turkey. But
he wrote the national poem of Poland! Pan Taduesz is like a love letter to a place, in memory of the way of life there.

            

Pan Tadeuz – Title Page of the First Edition

At the heart of the story is the village of Soplicowo where the story takes place. It shows a deep love of rural life and the idyllic landscape that is now ruled by foreign forces. The poem begins:

“Lithuania! My homeland! You are health alone
Your worth can only, ever be known by one
Who has lost you. Today I see and tell anew
Your lovely beauty, as I long for you.”

Tadeusz is an orphan raised by his uncle, Judge Soplica, who is a younger brother of his long lost father, Jacek Soplica, pronounced: Yatzek Soplitza.

The portion Shobha chose to read, describes in detail, a sumptuous breakfast at the Judge’s house.

Reference: The Incredible Story of Pan Tadeuz

https://blogs.loc.gov/international-collections/2018/11/the-incredible-story-of-pan-tadeusz/

Thomo

While searching for a romantic poet who had not been featured on KRG, Thomo stumbled across Thomas Moore whom he found very interesting.

Thomas Moore was born on 28 May 1799 just a year after the Irish Rebellion. He was an Irish writer, poet, and lyricist who was celebrated especially for his Irish melodies. These melodies set many English-language verses to old Irish tunes and marked the transition in popular Irish culture from Irish to English. The Irish Melodies were an immediate success especially The Last Rose of Summer, which became immensely popular. Moore is often considered Ireland’s national bard and is to Ireland what Robert Burns is to Scotland. 

Moore was very talented. He sang well and acted on stage – in fact one of his regular roles was in Sheridan’s The Rivals.

His friend Lord Byron claimed that he knew all The Irish Melodies by rote and by heart and set them above epics and held Thomas Moore above all other poets for his peculiarity of talent, or rather talents – poetry, music, voice, all his own. The Irish Melodies were also praised by Sir Walter Scott who conceded that neither he nor Byron could attain Moore’s power of adapting words to music.

Today Moore is remembered almost solely for his Irish Melodies and for the role he is believed to have played in the loss of the memoirs of his friend Lord Byron.

Byron’s memoirs, believed to have been written between 1818 and 1821, were never published. Byron gave the manuscript to Thomas Moore, who in turn sold it to John Murray with the intention that it should eventually be published. However soon after Byron’s death in 1824 they were destroyed. Apparently the memoirs recounted at full-length Byron’s life, loves and opinions. Thomas Moore, John Murray, John Cam Hobhouse, and other friends who were concerned for Byron’s reputation gathered together and burned the original manuscript and the only known copy of it. This act has been called the greatest literary crime in history.

Thomas Moore died on 25th February 1852 He was 73 and was preceded by his wife Bessy and all his children.

Having sung the poems for the last few poetry sessions Thomo had planned to recite a poem for the session. However, given the fact that The Minstrel Boy was written to be sung, he had no option but to sing yet another poem.

The Minstrel Boy tells the story of a young man who goes off to fight for Irish freedom. His mission is to defend his country with his sword and sing its praises with his harp. When he falls in battle, he tears the strings from his harp, preferring to destroy it, than let it fall into the hands of the enemy – a fate he regards as tantamount to being subjected to slavery. The kind of person Moore had in mind was young, idealistic, probably naïve, certainly not well acquainted with warfare and yet, in spite of this, the kind of person who was passionately devoted to defending Ireland and achieving Irish nationalism. However, the song works on a deeper level than the purely narrative. Moore used the idea of the warrior musician to symbolise a kind of patriot that was to be found again and again in every Irish rebellion spanning more than a hundred years.

This song The Minstrel Boy was included in the soundtrack of the 2001 urban warfare film Black Hawk Down.

In The Minstrel Boy the poet has tried to convey a message by these words to his nation that if you’ve got three things, no matter the whole world turns against you, you are not too afraid of it. These are: Loyal and faithful companions, a beloved motherland and power to protect that privilege.

Here is Thomo singing The Minstrel Boy .

Zakia

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets. He did not achieve fame in his lifetime but recognition for his poetry grew steadily after his death. Born on 4th August 1792 in Sussex, he died at the young age of 29 years in a boating accident.

Shelley’s life was marked by family crises, ill health and a backlash against his atheism, political views and defiance of social conventions. He went into self exile in Italy and over the next few years produced some of the finest poetry of the Romantic period. His second wife was Mary Shelley who authored Frankenstein, perhaps the first true science-fiction novel.

Among his best known works are Ozymandias, Ode to the West Wind, To a Skylark and the political ballad The Mask of Anarchy.

Vale of Chamouni, Mont Blanc, water colour by George Barnard

His poem Mont Blanc, about the highest mountain in the Alps, is a classic example of Romantic poetry of the sublime, an ode to nature as a powerful force of great beauty. It is a 441-line ode divided into 5 stanzas written in irregular rhyme. In this poem he compares the power of the mountain against the power of the human imagination. It symbolises how sometime nature can be inaccessible in its majesty, awe inspiring, vivifying, and even destructive. He uses the landscape to express his romantic atheism.

The Poems

Arundhaty

The Girl of Cadiz by Lord Byron

                 George Gordon Noel Byron

And frigid even in possession;

And if their charms be fair to view,

Their lips are slow at Love's confession;

But, born beneath a brighter sun,

For love ordained the Spanish maid is,

And who,—when fondly, fairly won,—

Enchants you like the Girl of Cadiz?

The Spanish maid is no coquette,

Nor joys to see a lover tremble,

And if she love, or if she hate,

Alike she knows not to dissemble.

Her heart can ne'er be bought or sold—

Howe'er it beats, it beats sincerely;

And, though it will not bend to gold,

'Twill love you long and love you dearly.

The Spanish girl that meets your love

Ne'er taunts you with a mock denial,

For every thought is bent to prove

Her passion in the hour of trial.

When thronging foemen menace Spain,

She dares the deed and shares the danger;

And should her lover press the plain,

She hurls the spear, her love's avenger.

And when, beneath the evening star,

She mingles in the gay Bolero,

Or sings to her attuned guitar

Of Christian knight or Moorish hero,

Or counts her beads with fairy hand

Beneath the twinkling rays of Hesper,

Or joins Devotion's choral band,

To chaunt the sweet and hallowed vesper;—

In each her charms the heart must move

Of all who venture to behold her;

Then let not maids less fair reprove

Because her bosom is not colder:

Through many a clime 'tis mine to roam

Where many a soft and melting maid is,

But none abroad, and few at home,

May match the dark-eyed Girl of Cadiz

Devika

La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad by John Keats

                                  John Keats

O what can ail thee,

Knight-at-arms,

Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the lake,

And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel’s granary is full,

And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow,

With anguish moist and fever-dew,

And on thy cheeks a fading rose

Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,

Full beautiful—a faery’s child,

Her hair was long, her foot was light,

And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She looked at me as she did love,

And made sweet moan

I set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long,

For sidelong would she bend, and sing

A faery’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,

And honey wild, and manna-dew,

And sure in language strange she said—

‘I love thee true’.

She took me to her Elfin grot,

And there she wept and sighed full sore,

And there I shut her wild wild eyes

With kisses four.

And there she lullèd me asleep,

And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—

The latest dream I ever dreamt

On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci

Thee hath in thrall!’

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,

With horrid warning gapèd wide,

And I awoke and found me here,

On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here,

Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is withered from the lake,

And no birds sing.

Geetha

Two poems by William Blake

                              William Blake

A Dream

Once a dream did weave a shade

O'er my angel-guarded bed,

That an emmet lost its way

Where on grass methought I lay.

Troubled, wildered, and forlorn,

Dark, benighted, travel-worn,

Over many a tangle spray,

All heart-broke, I heard her say:

'Oh my children! do they cry,

Do they hear their father sigh?

Now they look abroad to see,

Now return and weep for me.'

Pitying, I dropped a tear:

But I saw a glow-worm near,

Who replied, 'What wailing wight

Calls the watchman of the night?

'I am set to light the ground,

While the beetle goes his round:

Follow now the beetle's hum;

Little wanderer, hie thee home!'

(From Blake’s Songs of Innocence, published in 1789)

The School Boy

I LOVE 1 to rise in a summer morn

When the birds sing on every tree;

The distant huntsman winds his horn,

And the skylark sings with me.

O! what sweet company.

But to go to school in a summer morn,

O! it drives all joy away;

Under a cruel eye outworn,

The little ones spend the day

In sighing and dismay.

Ah! then at times I drooping sit,

And spend many an anxious hour,

Nor in my book can I take delight,

Nor sit in learning’s bower,

Worn thro’ with the dreary shower.

How can the bird that is born for joy

Sit in a cage and sing?

How can a child, when fears annoy,

But droop his tender wing,

And forget his youthful spring?

O! father and mother, if buds are nipp’d

And blossoms blown away,

And if the tender plants are stripp’d

Of their joy in the springing day,

By sorrow and care’s dismay,

How shall the summer arise in joy,

Or the summer fruits appear?

Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy,

Or bless the mellowing year,

When the blasts of winter appear?

(From Blake’s Songs of Experience, published in 1794)

Joe

Excerpts from Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats by P.B. Shelley

I

I weep for Adonais—he is dead!

Oh, weep for Adonais! though our tears

Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!

And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years

To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers,

And teach them thine own sorrow, say: "With me

Died Adonais; till the Future dares

Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be

An echo and a light unto eternity!

...

XXVI

"Stay yet awhile! speak to me once again;

Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live;

And in my heartless breast and burning brain

That word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else survive,

With food of saddest memory kept alive,

Now thou art dead, as if it were a part

Of thee, my Adonais! I would give

All that I am to be as thou now art!

But I am chain'd to Time, and cannot thence depart!

...

XXXVIII

Nor let us weep that our delight is fled

Far from these carrion kites that scream below;

He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead;

Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now.

Dust to the dust! but the pure spirit shall flow

Back to the burning fountain whence it came,

A portion of the Eternal, which must glow

Through time and change, unquenchably the same,

Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of shame.

...

LV

...

The soul of Adonais, like a star,

Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.

Kavita

Go, Valentine by Robert Southey

                         Robert Southey

Go, Valentine, and tell that lovely maid

Whom fancy still will portray to my sight,

How here I linger in this sullen shade,

This dreary gloom of dull monastic night;

Say, that every joy of life remote

At evening's closing hour I quit the throng,

Listening in solitude the ring-dome's note,

Who pours like me her solitary song;

Say, that of her absence calls the sorrowing sigh;

Say, that of all her charms I love to speak,

In fancy feel the magic of her eye,

In fancy view the smile illume her cheek,

Court the lone hour when silence stills the grove,

And heave the sigh of memory and of love.

KumKum

2 Sonnets by John Keats - To Mrs Reynolds’s Cat. 

          - To ....

Sonnet to a Cat

Cat! who has pass’d thy grand climacteric,

How many mice and rats hast in thy days

Destroy’d? How many tit-bits stolen? Gaze

With those bright languid segments green, and prick

Those velvet ears – but pr’ythee do not stick

Thy latent talons in me – and tell me all thy frays,

Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick;

Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists, –

For all the wheezy asthma – and for all

Thy tail’s tip is nick’d off – and though the fists

Of many a maid have given thee many a maul,

Still is thy fur as when the lists

In youth thou enter’dst on glass-bottled wall.

To--

Think not of it, sweet one, so;

Give it not a tear;

Sigh thou mayest, but bid it go

Any, any where.

Do not look so sad, sweet one,

Sad and fadingly;

Shed one drop then–It is gone–

Oh! ’twas born to die.

Still so pale?–then, dearest, weep;

Weep! I’ll count the tears;

And each one shall be a bliss

For thee in after years.

Brighter has it left thine eyes

Than a sunny hill:

And thy whispering melodies

Are tenderer still.

Yet, as all things mourn awhile

At fleeting blisses,

Let us too!–but be our dirge

A dirge of kisses.

Pamela

Oh! how I love, on a fair summer’s eve – Sonnet by John Keats

Oh! how I love, on a fair summer’s eve,

When streams of light pour down the golden west,

And on the balmy zephyrs tranquil rest

The silver clouds, far — far away to leave

All meaner thoughts, and take a sweet reprieve

From little cares: — to find, with easy quest,

A fragrant wild, with Nature’s beauty drest,

And there into delight my soul deceive.

There warm my breast with patriotic lore,

Musing on Milton’s fate — on Sydney’s bier —

Till their stern forms before my mind arise:

Perhaps on the wing of poesy upsoar, —

Full often dropping a delicious tear,

When some melodious sorrow spells mine eyes.

Priya

The Orphan Boy's Tale by Amelia Opie

                         Amelia Opie

Stay, lady, stay, for mercy's sake,

And hear a helpless orphan's tale,

Ah! sure my looks must pity wake,

'Tis want that makes my cheek so pale.

Yet I was once a mother's pride,

And my brave father's hope and joy,

But in the Nile's proud fight he died,

And I am now an orphan boy.

Poor foolish child! how pleased was I,

When news of Nelson's victory came,

Along the crowded streets to fly,

And see the lighted windows flame!

To force me home my mother sought,

She could not bear to see my joy;

For with my father's life 'twas bought,

And made me a poor orphan boy.

The people's shouts were long and loud,

My mother, shuddering, clos'd her ears;

'Rejoice! rejoice!' still cried the crowd;

My mother answered with her tears.

'Why are you crying thus,' said I,

'While others laugh and shout for joy?'

She kiss'd me -- and with such a sigh!

She called me her poor orphan boy.

'What is an orphan boy?' I cried,

As in her face I look'd and smil'd;

My mother through her tears replied,

'You'll know too soon, ill-fated child!'

And now they've toll'd my mother's knell,

And I'm no more a parent's joy;

O lady, -- I have learnt too well

What 'tis to be an orphan boy.

Oh! were I by your bounty fed!

Nay, gentle lady, do not chide,--

Trust me, I mean to earn my bread;

The sailor's orphan boy has pride.

Lady, you weep! -- ha? -- this to me?

You'll give me clothing, food, employ

Look down, dear parents! look and see

Your happy, happy orphan boy!

Saras

To the Skylark, To Sleep by William Wordsworth:

To the Skylark

                         William Wordsworth

Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!

Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?

Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye

Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?

Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will,

Those quivering wings composed, that music still!

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;

A privacy of glorious light is thine;

Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood

Of harmony, with instinct more divine;

Type of the wise who soar, but never roam;

True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!

To Sleep

A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by,

One after one; the sound of rain, and bees

Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and seas,

Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky;

I've thought of all by turns; and still I lie

Sleepless; and soon the small birds' melodies

Must hear, first uttered from my orchard trees;

And the first Cuckoo's melancholy cry.

Even thus last night, and two nights more, I lay,

And could not win thee, Sleep! by any stealth:

So do not let me wear to-night away:

Without Thee what is all the morning's wealth?

Come, blessed barrier betwixt day and day,

Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!

Shoba

Excerpt from the epic poem Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz

                       Adam Mickiewics

In every room there was a to-ing and fro-ing

Silverware, dishes, bottles coming and going.

Still in their hunting green, the men strolled round

From room to room with plates and drinks, or leaned

Against a door frame, talking for dear life

of hares, hounds, guns. The Chamberlain, his wife,

And the Judge were at table; in a corner seat

Young ladies whispered. It wasn't the etiquette

Of lunch or dinner; in this old Polish home

Customs like these were new. At breakfast time

The Judge allowed such disarray, albeit

Reluctantly – he didn't like to see it.

The ladies and gentlemen had various dishes.

Huge trays patterned with lovely floral washes

Bore coffee services – each kitted out

With a steaming, aromatic metal pot

And gilded cups of Meissen porcelain,

A tiny bowl of cream beside each one.

Such coffee can't be found in other nations.

In decent Polish homes with old traditions

A special maid makes coffee – she is known

As the coffee mistress. She buys fine beans, in town

Or from the barges; and she has acquired

The secret ways by which the drink's prepared.

It has coal's blackness, amber's bright transparency,

The density of honey, mokka's fragrancy.

What cream is to good coffee, everyone knows.

Out here it abounds; the coffee mistress goes

To the dairy once the pots are on the heat

And skims the milk herself, collecting it

Adroitly, in small bowls, so that each cup

Should have a bowl with its own skin on top.

The older ladies, who had long been up,

Had drunk their coffee; now a special soup

Had been prepared for them to eat: beer, heated

And whitened with cream, in which chopped curd cheese floated.

The men had cold cuts served up by the score:

Smoked goose meat, tongue sliced finely, hams galore,

All splendid, all homemade – smoked by the fire

With smoke that came from burning juniper.

A beef roulade brought matters to a close.

Such, then, was breakfast in the Judge's house.

Thommo

The Minstrel Boy by Thomas Moore

                        Thomas Moore

The minstrel boy to the war is gone

In the ranks of death you'll find him

His father's sword he hath girded on

And his wild harp slung behind him

"Land of Song" cried the warrior bard

"Tho' all the world betrays thee

One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard

One faithful harp shall praise thee"

The minstrel fell but the foeman's chain

Could not bring that proud soul under

The harp he lov'd ne'er spoke again

For he tore its chords asunder

And said, "No chains shall sully thee

Thou soul of love and brav'ry

Thy songs were made for the pure and free

They shall never sound in slavery

Zakia

41 lines excerpted from Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni 

by P.B. Shelley

                             Percy Bysshe Shelley

I

The everlasting universe of things

Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,

Now dark—now glittering—now reflecting gloom—

Now lending splendour, where from secret springs

The source of human thought its tribute brings

Of waters—with a sound but half its own,

Such as a feeble brook will oft assume,

In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,

Where waterfalls around it leap for ever,

Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river

Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.

....

IV

The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams,

Ocean, and all the living things that dwell

Within the daedal earth; lightning, and rain,

Earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane,

The torpor of the year when feeble dreams

Visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep

Holds every future leaf and flower; the bound

With which from that detested trance they leap;

The works and ways of man, their death and birth,

And that of him and all that his may be;

All things that move and breathe with toil and sound

Are born and die; revolve, subside, and swell.

....

V

Mont Blanc yet gleams on high:—the power is there,

The still and solemn power of many sights,

And many sounds, and much of life and death.

In the calm darkness of the moonless nights,

In the lone glare of day, the snows descend

Upon that Mountain; none beholds them there,

Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun,

Or the star-beams dart through them. Winds contend

Silently there, and heap the snow with breath

Rapid and strong, but silently! Its home

The voiceless lightning in these solitudes

Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods

Over the snow. The secret Strength of things

Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome

Of Heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!

And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,

If to the human mind's imaginings

Silence and solitude were vacancy?