Romanticism lecture- guest speaker





Prometheus

The guest lecture was based around the concept of Romanticism and how many writers in the 19^th century were heavily influenced by the classical mythological God, Prometheus. Prometheus stole fire to give to people in society and was named the “bringer of fire”. For his actions he was punished by Jupiter and chained to a rock where a vulture attacked his liver for 30 years. It was this act of heroism that inspired many writers to celebrate his life and to an extent Prometheus brought together the ideas of Romanticism and shaped the way people viewed the movement. Writers such as Mary and Percy Shelley and also Ludwig Von Beethoven viewed Prometheus as the God of romanticism and there are many works of literature and art celebrating his actions. To them he symbolised freedom and resistance to tyranny and oppression as he tried to help society no matter what the consequences were and he can be seen as the spirit of “liberty, egality and fraternity”. This school of philosophy is called Promethenism and there are two main ideas: political and aesthetic Promethenism.         

Political Promethenism is best highlighted in the sonnet Ozymandias by Percy Shelley which was written in 1818. Ozymandias or Rameses II as he is also known was a 13^th century Egyptian ruler who was considered the “king of kings” due to his tyrannical approach to ruling Egypt. Shelley’s inspiration for writing the sonnet came from a visit to the British Museum in London where he saw a sculpture of Ozymandias. The sculpture was broken and stood alone in a cabinet and this is reflected in the poem. Instead of presenting Ozymandias as a hero and placing him on a pedestal which is a classical feature of a sonnet, Shelley undermines his strength and power as a king and highlights his downfall as due to his tyrannical actions he became a weak and broken person.

The Townley Vase, housed in the British Museum

Aesthetic Promethenism can be best seen in John Keat’s poem Ode to a Grecian Urn written in 1820. Keat’s inspiration came from a Townley Vase which he also saw in the British Museum like Shelley. The urn was a Roman vase which was found at a villa near Monte Cagnolo near Rome and can be seen as a paradox as the outside of the urn depicts figures and landscape which are typical subject matters of the Romantic movement whereas the inside of the vase shows images that can be associated with death and suffering.  The carvings on the vase demonstrate skill and Keats argues that this skill should be celebrated and this is reflected in the ode.  The urn is presented as having human qualities through the use of personification and it is suggested that the urn is a supreme object as it will outlive human mortality and its beauty will live on forever. The ode can also be viewed as a protest by Keats against the devaluation of art in the industrial society during the 19^th century when the industrial revolution was fully underway in England.

Seminar about Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft
27 April 1759 – 10 September 1797

The first seminar of semester 2 was based around chapter 4 of the essay entitled Vindications Of The Rights Of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft which was written in 1792. As a group we discussed how some of the ideas in her essay can be viewed by both society in the 18th century and modern day society. Women were percieved to be objects of beauty and their sole purpose in life was to marry and provide her husband with children to continue the family name. In comparison, women today are allowed to have very successful careers and are highly educated and this is accepted by society. I read the seminar paper to the rest of the group and was pleased with the feedback they gave me saying that I had managed to summarise the key points of chapter 4 very well and I hope to get a good mark for it! 

Seminar Paper (Semester 2)

Mary Wollstonecraft- Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Chapter 4)

In Vindications of the Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft argues that women are degraded in society and are to an extent powerless in decision making and are thought of as second class citizens. Men stand in the way of women and reason and due to the power of men in society; they have very little influence in daily living. Women are duty-bound to men in a variety of ways such as decision making, marriage and to provide their husband with children to continue the family name.

In the chapter, Wollstonecraft uses the example of birds to describe the socially accepted role of women. They are shut up in cages day after day with no option but to plume themselves to look as attractive as possible so that men will take an interest in them. Therefore, passions of men have placed women on thrones like queens and they are seen as idols that can be worshipped. Until mankind becomes more reasonable towards women, there is a possibility that women will always be considered the inferior sex unless attitudes within society change over time.

Wollstonecraft argues that idea of women being the property of men is one of the most important questions that we should ask ourselves about society. When a man lawfully marries a woman then he is obliged to take care of both the woman and her children financially. If the woman remains faithful to the father of her children then she should not be treated like a prostitute and used just to provide children. In addition, the man and woman should live together in order to bring up their children, and the man should remain faithful to his wife at all times as a man must never have more than one wife.

In one particular section of her essay, Wollstonecraft presents the idea that men are able to get a well-paid job as they have been highly educated unlike women who have no means of education. The only way a woman is able to rise above her social class is to marry a wealthy man who will provide for her. She challenges the views presented by the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau stating that being educated to the same level as men, women should not have power over men, only the power to be able to make their own decisions in life. This contradicts the viewpoint of Rousseau as he believes that if we educate men and women in the same way then men will lose some of their power and women may become the dominant sex in society.

Wollstonecraft concludes in chapter 4 that women should not be considered heroes for struggling and fighting to become equal to men. They should just be treated as normal human beings with rights and the freedom to do as they please without being under the strict control of men.  

Romanticism and Rousseau



Jean- Jacques Rousseau
(28 June 1712  – 2 July 1778)



The first lecture of semester two was based around romanticism and the ideas of Jean Jacques Rousseau. Romanticism began in the 19th century around Europe and it marked a shift away from objectivity to subjectivity. It was a reaction against the Enlightenment in the 16th century as it was seen as too scientific and the answers to life can be found within nature. Rousseau was a very influential figure throughout the movement and his ideas have been written about and interpreted by writers such Mary Wollstonecraft.

Rousseau was fascinated by nature especially mountains and he strongly believed that mankind could only find truth within nature itself and that everything before nature was lies and deceit. This idea was highly contraversal and Rousseau was forced to flee his town in Vienna and find refuge on an island off the coast of Vienna. He also argued that reason got in the way of human understanding and that the purpose of life is to experience nature and feelings and that civilisation had corrupted the purity of nature by evolution and development " man is born fre, but everywhere is in chains". Children are born as a free spirits but as they advance through life they are controlled by the rules of society and corrupted.  Primitive people who developed before civilisation are the the pure humans and that mankind today should behave in a more animalistic manner, however Rousseau realised that we couldn't move backwards and live like primatives as society was too developed in the 18th century. These ideas were written in a book and were sent to Voltaire, who was a prolific writer during the 18th century.  What Rousseau didn't expect was that his ideas about how the world could be changed were to be highly influential in politics to the present day especially during the French Revolution in 1879.

In his work The Social Contract,Rousseau outlined ways in which he believed society could change in order for humans to be allowed freedom. He argued that the government should not interfere with everyday life except when a person commits a crime and that laws should be passed which everybody agrees with. This means that freedom is not lost as everyone in society follows the same set of laws. On the other hand, this could be interpreted as an early form of dictatorship as anybody who disobeys the laws will forced to be free.

The ideas published in The Social Contract were put in to practise during the French Revolution. France was on the verge of bankruptcy and the King had become powerless so a meeting was called between the aristocracy, clergy and the common man in order to pass a law to raise taxes. The three classes in society were unable to agree on the amount of taxes so the people formed an independant assembly and announced their ideas (Declaration of the Rights of Man) which were largely based on Rousseau's theories. This sparked a revolution and at last it was time for the lower classes of society to rise above the elite and attack the old regime. Following the storming of the Bastille, things began to get out of hand as there was not a ruler in the country to take charge. People began to riot and kill each other (September massacres) and the government resorted to violence in what was later known as the Reign of Terror. There was severe paranoia as France feared anti -revolutionists mixing in society and people began suspecting their own friends and family and the end result was that tens of thousands of people were killed.

Mary Wollstonecraft can be seen as a key feminist during the Romantic period. She wrote a series of books in response to the ideas of Rousseau. She argued that poor women had no place in society and that education was the key to a woman's freedom as it made men and women equal and that they should just be human beings until they fall in love and only then can they be given an identity.