Romantic Revival and Gothic Literature

100 question-and-answer style flashcards reviewing key concepts, artwork, literature, authors, and historical contexts of the Romantic Revival and Gothic Literature based on the provided notes.

What style in fine arts and literature emphasizes passion over reason and imagination over logic?

Romanticism

Which historical period is formally designated as the Romantic Movement?

From the late 18th century to the mid-19th century

In contrast to Neoclassicism's emphasis on intellect and reason, what did Romanticism emphasize?

Imagination, intuition, free play of emotions, and spontaneous action

Where did Romanticism seek inspiration in contrast to Neoclassicism's turn to Classical writers?

The Medieval Age, country life, and nature

When did medieval romances flourish, and who were they originally written for?

Flourished in the 12th century; written by clerks for aristocratic patrons in a leisured, refined society

What were four key features of medieval romances that influenced the Romantic movement?

Stories based on legendary material, themes of courtly love and seduction, fantasy and imaginative freedom, and secular portrayals of life

Why is the 18th-century artistic movement in England and Germany called the "Romantic Revival"?

Because it was a strong reaction against rationalistic French classicism that drew upon surviving medieval romantic material

Name three German precursors of Romanticism mentioned in the lecture notes.

Herder, Schiller, and Goethe

How did the focus of poetry shift during the Romantic movement regarding society and style?

Shifted from faith in reason to feelings/imagination, from urban society to rural/natural interests, from public/impersonal to subjective poetry, and from the scientific/mundane to the mysterious/infinite

According to Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical Ballads, how does the Poet bind together human society?

By passion and knowledge

What was John Keats's view on how poetry should be produced?

"If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all."

What poetic device was used in Romantic poetry to create loose, spontaneous line patterns?

Enjambment and free use of caesura

How did Wordsworth recall France during the early years of the French Revolution in The Prelude?

"France standing on the top of golden hours, / And human nature seeming born again."

Which poem by PB Shelley exhorts the working men of England to resist political oppression and tyranny?

"To the Men of England"

Which 1830 painting by Eugène Delacroix depicts an allegorical female figure leading revolutionaries?

"Liberty Leading the People"

How did William Wordsworth define poetry in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads?

"The spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings", resulting from "emotions recollected in tranquility."

How did William Hazlitt define poetry?

The language of imagination and the passions

Which 1818 painting by Theodore Gericault features a dramatic sky, blasted tree, and classical ruins evoking melancholic reverie?

"Evening: Landscape with an Aqueduct"

What was the primary objective of the poems in Lyrical Ballads regarding subject matter and language?

To choose incidents from common life and describe them in language really used by men, thrown over with a colouring of imagination

What is the title and painter of this 1862–64 painting showing third-class train passengers?

"Third-Class Carriage" by Honoré Daumier

What are the main characteristics of the Romantic Hero in literature?

A solitary dreamer or outlaw who turns away from society, plagued by guilt and remorse, and in revolt against social conventions

Why did Ludwig van Beethoven become a mythic figure following his death?

He was immortalized through his music as a tragic genius, Romantic revolutionary, and hero

What is the title of William Blake's 1805 artwork depicting a winged figure in glory?

Satan in His Original Glory: "Thou Wast Perfect Till Iniquity Was Found in Thee"

What phrase from Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" asks the wind to spread the poet's words?

"Be through my lips to unawakened Earth / The trumpet of a prophecy!"

Quote the opening lines of William Blake's Auguries of Innocence expressing yearning for the infinite.

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

What is the title and artist of this 1817–18 painting of a figure contemplating a fog-covered mountain landscape?

"The Wanderer Above the Mists" by Casper Friedrich

What 1844 painting by JMW Turner depicts a train crossing a bridge in atmospheric weather?

"Rain, Steam and Speed: The Great Western Railway"

What did Thomas Gray say about the Scottish Highlands during his Grand Tour?

"The mountains are ecstatic.. None but.. God know how to join so much beauty with so much horror."

What is the title of John Constable's painting showing a cathedral and rainbow?

"Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows"

In Wordsworth's "We are Seven", how old is the rustic Cottage Girl?

Eight years old

What is the title and artist of this 1857 painting depicting peasant women working in a field?

"Gleaners" by Jean-François Millet

Who painted "The Grand Odalisque" in 1814?

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

Who painted "The Women of Algiers" in 1834?

Eugène Delacroix

What social and philosophical ideal was influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Romantic thought?

The belief that people are naturally good but corrupted by civilization, and the idealization of the "noble savage"

Who introduced the aesthetic concept of the "picturesque" in 1782?

William Gilpin

How is the aesthetic ideal of the "picturesque" defined?

"In the manner of a picture"; capable of being illustrated by painting, positioned between the regularity of "beauty" and the horror of the "sublime"

What are three key stylistic traits of Romantic music?

Increased emotional expression, greater fluidity of form, lyricism, adventurous modulation, rich harmonies, and nationalistic folk elements

Who was the first English critic to emphasize the organic nature of poetry, drawing on German philosophy?

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Which parliamentary act in 1737 led to the "discovery" of Shakespeare as a Romantic in temperament?

The Licensing Act of 1737

What 1765 collection by Bishop Percy contributed significantly to the revival of folk traditions?

Reliques of Ancient English Poetry

Who translated the Sanskrit drama Shakuntala into English in 1789?

Indologist William Jones

Where did the phrase "noble savage" first appear in English literature?

In John Dryden's play The Conquest of Granada, spoken by the character Almanzor

According to Edmund Burke, what emotion is the basis of the aesthetic "sublime"?

Terror / sublimity of terror

Why are 18th-century writers like Blake, Gray, and Burns called "Transitional Poets"?

Because they used classical forms while incorporating romantic themes, serving as precursors to Romanticism

What is John Dyer's best-known poem that describes a Welsh countryside landscape?

"Grongar Hill"

What is the subject matter of John Dyer's poem "The Fleece"?

The care and shearing of sheep

What are the four individual seasonal poems that make up James Thomson's The Seasons?

Winter (1726), Summer (1727), Spring (1728), and Autumn (1730)

What verse form did James Thomson use in writing The Seasons?

Quasi-Miltonic blank verse

Who wrote the elegy "In Yonder Grave a Druid Lies" to commemorate James Thomson?

William Collins

What famous patriotic poem by James Thomson was set to music by Thomas Arne in 1740?

"Rule, Britannia"

Which line from Thomson's tragedy Sophonisba was criticized by Dr. Johnson as feeble?

"O! Sophonisba, Sophonisba, O!"

What verse form and style did James Thomson adopt for his 1748 poem The Castle of Indolence?

Spenserian stanzas in an allegorical Spenserian mood using obsolete words

Which American author quotes the opening lines of Thomson's The Castle of Indolence in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"?

Washington Irving

What two major poems by Oliver Goldsmith showcase transitional poetry using heroic couplets?

"The Traveller" (1764) and "The Deserted Village" (1770)

What social issue does Oliver Goldsmith address in "The Deserted Village"?

The destruction of rural villages and conversion of agricultural land into ornamental landscape gardens, ruining the peasantry

Who were the Graveyard Poets?

An informal group of 18th-century poets in the 1740s–50s who wrote gloomy, meditative verse set in graveyards contemplating mortality

What is Edward Young's major Graveyard poem, and who is the worldly person rebuked in it?

Complaint, or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death and Immortality; rebukes Lorenzo

What 1743 blank-verse poem by Robert Blair is a prominent example of Graveyard poetry?

"The Grave"

Who were Thomas Gray's school friends at Eton College?

Horace Walpole, Richard West, and Thomas Ashton

What poem did Thomas Gray write to commemorate the loss of Horace Walpole's pet?

"Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Bowl of Gold Fishes"

What famous concluding lines belong to Thomas Gray's "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College"?

"Where ignorance is bliss, / 'Tis folly to be wise"

In what location was Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard composed?

In the graveyard of the church in Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire

What did Dr. Samuel Johnson say about Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard?

"In the character of his Elegy I rejoice to concur with the common reader… The 'Churchyard' abounds with images which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo."

What are Thomas Gray's two famous Pindaric Odes?

"The Progress of Poesy" and "The Bard"

What is the plot of Thomas Gray's Pindaric ode "The Bard"?

The last ancient Celtic Bard curses King Edward I after the conquest of Wales, prophesies the downfall of the House of Plantagenet, and hurls himself from a mountain to his death

Which post did Thomas Gray decline in 1757 after the death of Colley Cibber?

Poet Laureate

What two Norse odes did Thomas Gray write in 1761 after investigating Scandinavian past?

"The Fatal Sisters" and "The Descent of Odin"

What academic post was Thomas Gray appointed to at Cambridge in 1768?

Professor of Modern History

What was William Collins's first poetic work, completed when he was 17?

Persian Eclogues (1742, revised as Oriental Eclogues)

How is William Collins's "Ode to Fear" structured?

Arranged in classical Pindaric form with strophe, antistrophe, and epode

Which classical Greek playwright is celebrated in William Collins's "Ode to Pity"?

Euripides

Why is William Collins's "Ode to Evening" historically significant in English poetry?

It is one of the few successful examples of the unrhymed lyric in English

Who provided the missing stanzas when William Collins's "Superstitions Ode" was published in 1788?

Henry Mackenzie

Who wrote the biography titled "The Life of Collins"?

Dr. Samuel Johnson

What did Samuel Taylor Coleridge call William Cowper?

"The best modern poet"

What is William Cowper's famous line about the countryside from The Task?

"God made the country, and man made the town."

What object's transformation is playfully described in Book I ("The Sofa") of Cowper's The Task?

A wooden stool developing into a sofa

Which tragic poem by William Cowper about a sailor washed overboard is repeatedly quoted in Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse?

The Castaway

Who challenged the authenticity of James Macpherson's translation of the Ossianic poems?

Irish historians and Samuel Johnson in A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775)

Who was Thomas Rowley in the literary works of Thomas Chatterton?

An imaginary 15th-century monk from Bristol invented by Chatterton as a pseudonym for his forged Middle English poems

How did Thomas Chatterton die at the age of seventeen?

Suicide in a London garret due to extreme poverty

What subtitle did William Blake give to his combined 1794 edition of Songs of Innocence and of Experience?

Showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul

What artwork by William Blake illustrates his poem "The Lamb"?

Blake's Engraving for "The Lamb"

What 1790 prose work by William Blake serves as an ironic response to Emmanuel Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell?

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

What are the Four Zoas in William Blake's mythology and what human faculties do they represent?

Urizen (reason), Urthonah (spirit), Luvah (passion), and Tharmas (body)

In William Blake's personal mythology, what do Urizen and Orc symbolize?

Urizen symbolizes restrictive morality; Orc symbolizes anarchy and rebellion

Why was Robert Burns known as the "Ploughman Poet"?

Because he was a Scottish peasant farmer who wrote poetry in both English and Scots vernacular

What is the title of Robert Burns's only narrative poem, telling the tale of a drunk farmer chased by witches?

Tam o' Shanter

What was the origin of the term "Gothic" in art and architecture before its adoption in literature?

Originally named after Late Middle Ages architecture; later used during the Renaissance to describe dark, heavy, and melancholic structures lacking proportion

What 1765 novel by Horace Walpole initiated the vogue of Gothic fiction in England?

The Castle of Otranto

What real-life architectural project by Horace Walpole heralded the Gothic revival in architecture?

Strawberry Hill in Twickenham

In Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, how is Manfred's son Conrad killed on his wedding day?

A gigantic helmet from a statue falls on him

What major literary history was written by Clara Reeve in 1785?

The Progress of Romance

What is Ann Radcliffe's most famous 1794 Gothic novel featuring Emily St. Aubert and Signor Montoni?

The Mysteries of Udolpho

How did critic Robert Hume distinguish between Radcliffean and Lewisian Gothic fiction?

Radcliffean Gothic is the "novel of terror", whereas Lewisian Gothic is the "novel of horror"

What is the plot of Matthew Gregory Lewis's 1796 novel The Monk?

The monk Ambrosio is led into depravity by Matilda, sells his soul to the devil to escape the Inquisition, and is hurled from a precipice to his death

What 1786 Oriental Gothic romance was written in French by William Beckford?

Vathek (subtitle: An Arabian Tale)

What ideological Gothic novel was written by William Godwin in 1794 about a servant fleeing his master Falkland?

Things as They Are, or The Adventures of Caleb Williams

What is the premise of C.R. Maturin's 1820 Gothic novel Melmoth the Wanderer?

Melmoth sells his soul to the devil for 150 extra years of life and spends that time searching for someone to take over his pact

Who coined the term "Female Gothic" in 1977, and what does it refer to?

Coined by Ellen Moers in Literary Women; refers to the unique treatment of the Gothic genre by women writers and its gender implications