Romanticism: Meanwhile, in Chile

When I was listening to our professor talking about the features of the Romantic period I just tried to place myself in space and time as to understand when Romanticism took place. When I noticed that the romantic period took place in the late 18^th century until approximately 1850’s, I immediately thought: What was happening in Chile in those years? Was there any Romantic movement in our country? Having this question triggered my curiosity, I started an extensive research on this matter.

We, Chilean people, tend to change conventions and behave differently according to any framework or what has been established, and this is not an exception. Of course that there are cultural implications that fully explain this matter, but it will be explained later.

As to introduce the Chilean-Romantic-way, it is strictly necessary to recall, briefly, some of the features of the English Romanticism.  Firstly, seeing nature as a source of inspiration. Nationalism is praised by the inspiration of revolutionary ideas that come from the Industrial and French Revolution. A reshaped society has emerged in terms of hierarchy and emotions. The latter is one of the aspects of great importance in romanticisim since it involves this  view of being closer to the instincts, to let your pure emotions take control over you and the understanding that everything is related to the universe. 

After having provided this scrawny overview of the Romantic period, I will present what I found. 

The Romantic period in Chile was not silent movement, actually it was the beginning of the fanatic promotion of literature as to praise national identity. The elements of the Chilean Romantic movement are not strikingly different from the ones that we know. In fact, there are some features that bear resemblance with the English version such as the increasing prevalence of emotions in poems and novels, the pursuit of a common identity throughout nationalism, the romantic hero, and the special Chilean ingredient: society.

This period (1800-1850) was particularly marked by the beginning of the process of the Chilean independence with the First National Government assembly, that is the reason why there is a permanent expression of strong admiration to the idea of nationalism in the Chilean literature. Some of the major figures of this period are José Victorino Lastarria, Alberto Blest Gana, Eduardo de la Barra Lastarria, Eusebio Lillo and Guillermo Matta.

In marked contrast to the English Romanticism, the Chilean one does refer to nature as to escape of reality.  In fact, reality and society are the main topics of this literature. This kind of writing has been called by some authors as “Romantic realism”since it contains both features of Romanticism and Realism.

The aformentioned trademarks of Romanticism are depicted in the following authors and pieces of work. For instance, José Victorino Lastarria, was born in Rancagua, he was chancellor of the exchequer of Chile and writer, and he attended the Instituto Nacional. He is considered a figure of paramount importance in the 1840’s since he was an active member of the Literary Society, a liberal advocacy group that encouraged the development of national writing and at the same time strongly rejected the influence of foreign literary models and Bulnes’ conservative government. He wrote “Don Guillermo” (1842) “Antaño y Hogaño, novelas y cuentos de la vida hispanoamericana” (1885), “El mendigo” (1843), among others. In general, he portrays the pure state of emotions to express situations such as a turmoil caused by painful unrequited love, the harsh criticism and bitter resent towards the colonial system, and the social implications as well as the dreadful and tragic fate of being a bastard who has been born out of wedlock, etc. A lot of drama.

Alberto Blest Gana is also part of this period. He was a novelist and diplomatic man who wrote “El loco Estero” (1909) “Martin Rivas” (1862) among others. In the latter, he adressed the archetype of the Romantic hero in which a character decries what is established in society, but at the same time he depicts what society was like.

Furthermore, Eduardo de la Barra Lastarria who was born in Santiago, was a journalist, writer and diplomatic man. He attended the British school in Valparaiso, the land of chorrillana, and the Instituto Nacional. His name may sound familiar to you. He was the headmaster of the Liceo Nº1 de Hombres in Valparaíso, that later in 1944 received his name. Among his great masterpieces, we can find some essays regarding the Spanish language and at the same time some poetry such as “Poesías líricas” (1866) and “Rimas chilenas” (1890),  in which he emphasized the use of the metric in his pieces of writing.

In sum, Romanticism in Chile had some traces of the English one, but with the marked Chilean essenece. it came as a surprise to me that there were lots of authors that were part of this Romantic movement whose names are usually used either to refer to a street in Santiago or a school in Valparaíso; but what really sparked my interest in exploring the lives of those poets and their pieces of writing was the fact that they all have something in common: they were active members in politics and most of them attended the Instituto Nacional in their former education.
And some questions to discuss,

Do you think that Chilean Literature praised nationalism after this period?

Do you think that contemporary Chilean Literature has some elements of nationalism? If not, what elements you can find?

References
  Barr-Melej, P. (2001) Reforming Chile: Cultural Politics, Nationalism, and the Rise of the Middle Class.  The University of North Carolina Press.

  De la Barra, E. (1866) Poesías Líricas. Imprenta de la Unión Americana. Santiago de Chile.

  Foresti, S.,  Löfquist, E.,  & Foresti, A. (1999) La narrativa chilena desde la Independencia hasta la Guerra del Pacífic. Tomo 1, 1810-1859. Editorial Andres Bello. Santiago de Chile.
  Memoria Chilena, Biblioteca Nacional de Chile. El Mendigo. Obtained on August, 28th from http://www.memoriachilena.cl/602/w3-article-67600.html

Whitman´s poetry: Song of my self

Song of my self is one of the best wellknown poems of the book Leaves of Grass written by Walt Whitman in 1855. The poem is very extensive as it consists of 52 sections that were written by the author with a combination of meditation and biography. Additionally,the poem is a democratic manifestation because Whitman considered himself  a democatic cityzen of  the United States of America so Whitman´s values respond to equality and togetherness. He thinks that all peope are equal and that all people have the same opportunities in life.
But,why Song of myself? well, the answer is very simple.Whitman uses himself as an onject matter to talk to the reader about the ideals of democracy, not only as a politican system but also as way of thinking and living.

 

"I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,

I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil,

this air..."

Moreover, the poem is a celebration itself because when the reader starts to read this poem realizes that the aim of the writer is to  celebrate life and for doing this Walt presents us the miracles of nature to show us how incredible life is.Also Whitman in Song of myself  celebrates himself,his soul,his life as human being that is also part of the universe and the cosmos. In the poem, Walt uses the grass to symbolize the nature and also life. What is grass?, grass are the leafes of his book, it is also the child that he used to be, and it is also an element of the nature that at the same time is part of the whole universe and part of us.

"A child said

What is the grass?

fetching it to me with full

hands;

How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any

more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful

green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,

A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,

Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we

may see and remark, and say

Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the

vegetation."

The  grass symbolizes life and death and at the same time the grass in the hands of the child assumes the role of United States as a democratic country that is becaming stable in comparison to the grass´ regeneration that from being death has emerge to life. The Grass is a trascendental element linked to the inmortality idea of nature, and this nature is an emblem of God eternal presence that is everywhere.
The poet´s idea in showing us this relationship is to pointout that even small things play an important role in the cosmos.

References
http://www.literary-articles.com/2009/03/use-of-symbols-in-song-of-myself-by.html
http://www.letras.ufrj.br/veralima/veralima_2004/5_lit_am2/lit_am2i/essays/e11.htm
http://www.ukessays.com/essays/english-literature/song-of-myself-by-walt-whitmans-english-literature-essay.php

Flocking from the Neoclassical Period to The Romantic Era

On the fly the class, we’ve covered in brief the key concept of Romanticism : Nature and the motor of the previous era, Neoclassical: Reason. What sparked my interest in doing some research on the transition from the Neoclassical Period to the Romantic Era was the need of understanding what triggered this reshape in poetry and art in general and also the differences between them. As to do so, I analyzed in depth the values, inspiration, subjects,  the target audience, etc as to have a big picture of the ideas behind both periods and how those sets of beliefs shape and construct poems and novels.

Before Romanticism flourished, Neoclassical literature had its momentum between 1660 and 1785.  The core of art in this time was reason and logic, dealing primarily with human being.  Humans were seen as a vital piece of the ‘’social’’ puzzle. Most of the writers in this era belonged to the upper-class, the aristocracy and their ‘’target audience’’ was people from the same social class. They were conformed with society. Grammar and vocabulary were of paramount importance in the process of writing a Neoclassical  poem or novel.  Furthermore, neoclassical writers praised the classical age. They were greatly influenced by this era, having that period as a vital source of inspiration for their poems or novels. What poets and writers from this era wanted to reflect on their pieces of writing was the values of order and solemnity as well as the moral and inspirational role that art plays in life. 

Another aspect of great importance is that by reading a neoclassical either poem or novel, the reader could see the mind of the character only throughout the ‘’eyes’’ of the poet. To put it into simple words, readers could see the mind of the character through the poet, what the reader grasp is the character and not the poet. In the case of the poems, they were well-structured in terms of stanzas and rhythm.

In marked contrast to the Neoclassical period, Romanticism had its heyday between 1790 and 1830. This era is strikingly different from the Neoclassical, it does not bear any resemblance to the previous period. The foci of romantic writers were self-experience, wildness and emotions , replacing human beings for nature as the subject matter. In stark contrast to the Neoclassical writers who  belonged to the aristocracy , the romantic poet or novelist was a common man and the target audience was common people. Therefore, the language used in the process of writing was simple. Neither grammar nor diction were given special attention. What’s more, the poems and novels from this time do not have a generic structure whatsoever since they were against structured literature, because it limits poetry. What is really important to bear in mind is that Romantic writers were not conformed with the social , political nor the economic background , they were rebels. What they wanted to reflect on their pieces of writing was the values of intuition, emotion and imagination. What is more, the cultivation of imagination started to blossom in this period. It was the cornerstone along with nature of this movement. Imagination is the gateway to the world of what might be. Another paramount aspect of this period is that by reading a romantic novel you could see the mind of the poet,  you could grasp the feelings, the ideas, the emotions behind the poet.

What triggered this transition from a more classical and conservative period, Neoclassical, to the Romantic Era, was that there was a spin on how poets wanted to express and understand the world they live in. Neoclassical writers used the classics as a source of inspiration. they wanted to maintain that heritage, but the Romantic writers did not want to do so. They wanted to branch out from that and find new ways of expressing themselves. Moreover, Neoclassical poets were conformed with the current social background, since they were part of the upper-class, whereas, the romantic poets were common people who were not privileged. My personal point of view  is that this transition was a way of airing the common people's grievances against the system.

‘’Farewell ungrateful traitor’’  by  John Dryden is a very good example of neoclassical literature. You can easily see the aspects aforementioned. In the case of Romantic poetry, i really liked how all the features of this period are presented in Keats’ poem ‘’ La belle Dame Sans Merci’’

Do you think these poems reflect the features of each of the periods? If not, which one would do so?

Can you see other features for each of the periods?

I found this 8-minutes video on youtube about the Neoclassical and Romantic Era. I think is part of a whole :)

Bibliography

Kliger, S. (1950). The Neo-classical view of old english poetry. (U. o. Press, Ed.)

Warren, A. The mask of Pope. 1946: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Bate, W. J. (1946). From Classic to Romantic. (H. U. Cambridge, Ed.)

Wellek, R. The Concept of "Romanticism" in Literary History. I. The Term "Romantic" and Its Derivatives. 1949: University of Oregon.

Walt Whitman and the idea of togetherness

First of all, I’ve decided to choose this topic because, when reading Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself, it really caught my attention the many references to the self as an individual but at the same time in harmony with the universe forming a whole in connection with nature, which is precisely what is needed in today's society, go back to simplicity, be one with others and nature, and, by doing that, regenerate our damaged society, so in order to make my point clear, I should probably start by briefly describing what transcendentalism is.

Trascendentalism

Well, transcendentalism “is an American literary, political, and philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century” (Goodman, 2013) which main representatives are Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Margaret Fuller, among others. This movement attempts to bring the subject and the community or society in general, back to the simplest and natural beliefs that influence mankind's behavior in order to promote a better and healthier society
Trascendentalism includes ideas of self-reliance, which refers to the principle that the best way of doing things is to go your own way; simplicity; nature and optimism.

Furthermore, in the poem Song of myself, there are a lot of references to the self starting by the title and at first sight I, as an inexpert reader, thought that it was a little bit too centered on the self. However, after reading it and listening to the explanation of the teacher, I realized that the self is not disassociated from the whole, since, for the author, the self refers not only to the personal dimension, but also to the universal one. Therefore, as an individual subject we all have our own personalities, perspectives and identities, but at the same we are part of something bigger, the universe, which is interconnected and cannot be separated from us. Through the poem, Whitman is trying to express the idea that every person is an individual but, at the same time universal and that you cannot talk about yourself without talking about the universe, owing to the fact that there was a union between the self and a bigger entity, a sort of higher self, and this serves as an example of the unification of the subject and a community which is made through a key element.

Nature

The rol of nature in trascendentalism is a central one, since it is a sort of the conductor to a greater truth, a higher state of the being, since it laws and items are perfect and function flawlessly, thus, observing nature is not a pointless action since you're seeing a the universe itself in front of your eyes and through ourselves when we are one with nature, as Emerson said "the currents of the universal circulates through me" 

Whitman employs nature in the poem Song of Myself as the starting point for contemplating, thinking and meditating as in the first section of his poem in which he invites his soul and observes the grass

"...I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass..."(Whitman, 1855:1)

As nature is the starting point for contemplating and getting to this greater self and also the start of this poem which is a journey in which the author wants to describe and explain how each one of us is unique and irreplaceble, but simultaneously, united in and with nature, which is represented by the grass, an element which includes and links all people as a group, as part of the same energy, as mentioned in section 6 of Song of Myself, when a child asks him what the grass is

“…Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,

And it means, sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow

Zones,

Growing among black folks as among white,

Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same,

      I receive them the same…” (Whitman, 1855:8)

Furthermore, this union with nature is the result of the experience of self-referral consciousness (a state in which the conscious is open to the self only) which allows you to experience the self of everything, meaning, the “self-referral functioning of nature itself” (Setzer, 1999). In plain words, as I understand it, this means that by being conscious of yourself, you can understand everything which means comprehends nature.

All in all and as a final thought, as Whitman wanted to unite America on the basis of nature, we should also try to turn ourselves into nature, make the journey, try to go back to the simplicity and the natural principles and ideas, look ourselves as equals united in this same energy called universe in order contribute to a better and healthier society.

References:

http://jayroc.lookingforwhitman.org/2009/09/24/transcendentalism-in-song-of-myself/
http://www.articlemyriad.com/transcendentalism-transcendentalist-movement-whitman/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/transcendentalism/
http://maharishi-programmes.globalgoodnews.com/vedicscience/programmes.html
https://www.mum.edu/pdf_msvs/v09/setzer.pdf

Romanticism and John Keats (negative capability)

Romanticism 

As my entrie will be focused on the poet John Keats, who belongs to the second generation of the Romantic poets, I believe it's pertinent to first have a look to the context of that period, Romanticism.

“Romanticism, first defined as an aesthetic in literary criticism around 1800, gained momentum as an artistic movement in France and Britain in the early decades of the nineteenth century and flourished until mid-century. With its emphasis on the imagination and emotion, Romanticism emerged as a response to the disillusionment with the Enlightenment values of reason and order in the aftermath of the French Revolution of 1789”.

With the Romantic a change in the concept of literature happened; they changed the character of literature. Hence, the objective of literature is more straight: use of literature to get better diction, to get more culture, and so on. Moreover, thanks to the Romantic we connect literature with imagination.

On the other hand, there was a consequent development of mass production.The economy was essentially agricultural but with the creation of industry there were huge movements of populations from these areas (rural ones) that started going to urban areas, which demanded a growing also in commerce. Moreover, there was a huge gap between the entrepeneur and the workers.The millionaires arise as a new social class and start to displace the aristocracy as the ruler class. Furthermore, workers needed to live near where they worked, therefore the city became overcrowded and the aristocracy started selling their houses and moving outside. All these led to the richer getting richer and the poorer getting poorer, and the indifference of the ruler classes.

Even in the 17^th century there was still the chain of beings, but as scientists started growing and religion was being discredited, there were a lot of people that started to think that it was possible to change that, and the middle class started growing. What's more, there was the crisis of textiles and also the closing of commons. There was anger in London, but in addition to this, there was the American Independence war, plus the French revolution (people revealing). All these fed people's ideas and the neccessity of change. Poor people started thinking that it was possible to change something. But that wasn't enough because people realized that they could take over, and nothing miraculous would happen. The french revolutionary young people started decline since after the revolution the regime of terror came, and they began to behead people in France. By the same token, London authorities were aware of the Independence War and French revolution, and they started taking measures in order to repress people, for instance public manifestations were banned. Therefore, the energy of revolution went to a place in which there was no censorship: poetry. Poets adopted new roles, in which they expressed this liberty, anxiety or eggearness, in order to show their discontent, but in an indirect way. The English Romantic poets reacted to the city, its poverty and pollution, and they started to write about nature, and the utopian countryside. Nature becames the place where poets could be closer to divinity (God or beauty). Nature was connected to simplicity.

To be a Romantic meant to be against of the age of reason, the enlightment, since this period had to do with reason governing nature and human nature. Reason was valued over imagination. People were basically good, and a perfect society was possible but required freedom. Social was valued over personal/individual. Order, harmony, balance, and tradition. And finally, influenced Classical period in classical music. By opposition, Romantic poets and writers believed that poetry should be motivated  by human creativity, not artificial, but one set of imagination and sensitivity. Men became a central being with endless possibilities. What they were trying to say was that literature was not ornamental nor artificial, or an instrument, or a product. Since imagination was very important and men have the ability to create, this led to start questioning about what was real or not.The boundary between imagination and reality became more and more fragile.

Now, it's time to move on to Keats, who was like the Hemingway of the Romantics. In the medicine school he discovered  he was into beauty and decided to be a poet and wrote revolutionary poetry that were intellectual. He wrote about feelings and pure emotions. Moreover, he was poor, and he moved to Rome to live in a better place with better weather. He died at the age of 26 because of the tuberculosis, far from his love.

Abandon the sensations and get to the other side of the wall

His conception of poetry

Keats believed in the pleasure of the physical. Sensation is the key for Keats, through sensation you can capture the essence, while you get to the essence you are part of this special energy, and through getting in contact with this energy, you are able to get apprehend, its an absolute feeling. You just feel the thing, you experience the beauty. Hence, through this you get to the absolute true.

Reality

We take for reality what we see, but it is not reality: it is the shadow. And the shadow is the reality. We do not have access to the real, we can just guess what the real is. We reconstruct what we see, what is beyond. Keats believed in the idea that we can, through poetry, create a bridge or a whole in the wall and have a look at absolutes. I found two definitions for the word “absolute” that caught my attention: 1) “Viewed or existing independently and not in relation to other things; not relative or comparative”. 2) “A value or principle which is regarded as universally valid or which may be viewed without relation to other things”. So,  what I personally think that Keats was trying to claim is that we can see and feel imagination as a power to build a vision of a transcendent or perfect/ ideal beauty. Or as a power which takes account of reality but changes it into a more difficult and comprehensive vision of beauty. I consider that many of Keats poems examine the ability of the imagination, in order to set up a transcendent vision of endless beauty.

Negative capability

Moving on, according to Keats, the poem has an element of absolute, and I experience beauty, hence we can experience an absolute, but for that we have to create new instruments, a re-interpretation with the universe; we have to re-evaluate our attitute towards pleasure (Reason prevents pleasure to have its transcendent).So, to get to the other side of the wall we have to develop the negative capability, which is the ability to abstract ourselves from thinking (thoughts) into the total experience of the sensations. Ex: when you take a bath, or when you are kissing someone, you are not thinking about that, you are just kissing. In that moment you are showing negative capability because you are abstracting yourself and enjoying the moment through sensations, and experiencing the absolute pleasure. That kiss transcends, that kiss is definable. Negative capability should allows the reader to abandon him/herself to the sensations and to get to the other side of the wall.

Keats first coined the term "Negative Capability" in his discussion of the qualities of "Man of Achievement" in one of his letters to his brothers George and Thomas Keats dated in 22nd December 1817: “I had not a dispute but a disquisition, with Dilke on various subjects; several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare 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-Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. This pursued through volumes would perhaps take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration”.

I find myself in accord with what Keats says about negative capability, and I really appreciate his point of view because it's something that I haven't experienced so far. They way in which it was explained by the teacher, and the examples that he used, plus all the information that I read about this interesting concept made me realized how important is to, sometimes, get to the other side of the wall. I quote: “To reach negative capability, the poet must go through three steps, i.e., annihilating his identity, unified with the object; hence, getting the ability to explore the eternal beauty and truth implied in them”. What I understood about this, and I may be wrong, is that we have to destroy our identity, that is consolidated with the object, and then we can explore an imaginatively discerned reality which goes beyond the ephemerality or the transience of the world.

All things considered, I definitely think that Romanticism changed people's faith, that was no longer in reason, but a faith in imagination, senses, and feelings. A change that also meant interest in the rural and natural. What's more, poetry became more abstract, more subjective. And finally, an important matter were the mysterious and infinite. 
To finalize, as a personal view, I prefer to live in a world where sensations predominate rather than thoughts. As much as I can remember experiencing something that took me to the other side of the wall, I can't. I'm always thinking and reasoning situations that perhaps would've been better experiencing it with the negative capability. I believe that now it's more difficult to actually experience this journey. We are surrounded by more and more technology everyday that limit us from thinking in other things. So, it's pretty much complex to leave our cellphone aside and get involve in this journey through sensations in its fullness. Once in a while it's of great importance to notice that good things doesn't require money or an exact hour. You have the chance to live it any time, any moment.

Bibliographical sources

• http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/roma/hd_roma.htm
• http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/absolute
• http://www.mrbauld.com/negcap.html
• http://www.iasj.net/iasj?func=fulltext&aId=50581

Some quote I found somewhere

“Hey," said Shadow. "Huginn or Muninn, or whoever you are."
The bird turned, head tipped, suspiciously, on one side, and it stared at him with bright eyes.
"Say 'Nevermore,'" said Shadow.
"Fuck you," said the raven.”

Neil Gaiman, American Gods.