“The ancient idea of the Sublime, as set forth by the Hellenistic critic we call ‘Longinus,’ seems to [be] the origin of [the] expectation that great poetry will possess an inevitability of phrasing. …In the experience of the Sublime we apprehend a greatness to which we respond by a desire for identification, so that we will become what we behold” (Bloom 21). For Keats, Shelley, and Byron there is a distinct sense of this ideal. Their words and visions are dedicated to a sagacity of revolution and prophetic thought intended to be possess-able by the reader, which we identify in their carefully crafted words and vision. In this prophetic state of mind there is the knowledge of the physical revolution, the storming of the Bastille and the eradication of the French Monarchy, and taking this physical revolution to heart writers saw the slate had been wiped clean, that there was a space to be filled and they took it as their duty. The musings of these writers are not without dark, Gothic tones which help to temper what might otherwise be an assortment of ambivalent and unapproachable ideals. Keats writes of the immortal moment, Shelley of the mortal quest, and Byron of the un-heroic hero. These authors present the reader with moments and stories that, while highlighting the combination of the perfection of language, the possibility of the poetic voice to explore the revolutionary spirit, and the aesthetic darkness of the Gothic do so through the success of including the reader in their experience.
The endeavor to include the reader means that these poets are responsible for coalescing thoughts into words and phrases in a manner so as to create what Harold Bloom attributes to only the most perfect of poems, inevitable phrasing. He alleges that great poetry has unavoidable word choices, that great poets know their words are the only possible choice for their poems. This thought is not new to Bloom, as early as Aristotle’s dramatic and poetic critique there was present the idea that a piece of a whole must be essential to the perfection of the work, and if that piece should prove non-essential then it never was a piece at all. It then follows that poetry which is striving to attain a sense that the reader is part of the experience in a way that follows with the revision of the Hellenistic ideals that pervaded the Romantic period would need, by definition to fulfill this ideal.
John Keats’s poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn” utilizes the aforementioned elements of the Hellenistic High Romantics, in a way that illustrates the Aristotelian dramatic principle and Harold Bloom’s assertion. The first way in which this poem illustrates the points is in the avant-garde voice. The revolutionary spirit is not at once present in the forthright words of the poem. “Ode on a Grecian Urn” does not indicate the revolution as a literal event, but induces it as a revolution on the contemporary thoughts as emerges from the evocation of diametric entities within the poem. In this poem Keats asserts a relationship between the immortal moments depicted on the Urn and the mortal moments in which he and all humans live.
As the poem begins Keats leads into the opposing forces present in the poem with the lines of question “What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? /What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? / What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? (NAEL 905, 8-10). Thus Keats aligns our interests with the possibility of finding answers to these questions. This questing mood is directed towards duality in the next stanza with the line “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard/ are sweeter” (NAEL 905, 11-12). Now we are intrigued, and Keats pulls us along with the introduction of the complex idea of this duality existing in the realm of mortality. He speaks of the figures on the urn, “She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss/ For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair” (NAEL 905, 19-20). With these lines there is a tinge of pain borne in the understanding that while the woman, the object of the affection will not wilt, the bloom forever fair, the lover will never know that touch, that intimate moment of culmination of erotic fervor is unattainable. This painful realization is carried on in the lines “Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu” (NAEL 905, 22) where we realize that the natural order of life has been disturbed, there is no autumnal season in these lives. Then again we visit this idea in the last stanza of the poem when Keats exclaims “Cold Pastoral”. Here is the introduction of the death scene through the use of two conflicting terms. Up to this utterance there has been affirmation after affirmation of the state of immortality upon the urn, it is here that the narrative voice realizes that they will die, we will die and the urn will go on.
Bloom and Aristotle thought of such precise wording, one missing and the entirety of the piece changes, but one must also think of the precision used in the application of punctuation in a poem. Keats’s line “Beauty is truth, truth is beauty” (NAEL 906, 49) is an example of where punctuation can change the entire meaning of the poem. It was in the original publication of this piece that there were quotations, later that year when published in Annals of the Fine Arts the quotations had been removed. The shift in meaning cannot go unobserved. In the original printing, with the quotation marks, the argument could be made for the urn speaking to the narrator, without the quotes the line may just be another narrative observation. Each interpretation ads an element to the poem which is imperceptible in the other option, illustrating the critical nature of the poet’s choice.
This distinct control over perception, Keats ability to move us as he wills until we see his meaning is what aligns Keats with the great poets of all time. His ability to manipulate a fictional object into a profound statement on duality and mortality through the use of divergent elements makes him a visionary. It is the marriage of all of these abilities with precision word choices that makes Keats a voice of revolution and a Romantic that epitomizes the Aristotelian ideal of construction.
In the vein of upheaval Percy Bysshe Shelley presents us with a sense of the radical spirit, searching for the answers and revelations which were promised by the upheaval of the status-quo, but when the French revolution turned bloody and the results which had been sought were not attained the people were left still wandering. This aspect of the revolutionary tone of Romanticism is depicted most eloquently by Shelley’s poem “Alastor”. While holding true to the Aristotelian principles of unavoidable phrasing he shows the mortal ends to what seems an unending quest for fleeting moments of perfection. Shelley asserted that this work was a most complex piece when he himself said that it tangles with “‘doubtful knowledge’ --- matters that are humanly essential but in which no certainty is humanly possible” (NAEL 745). Even a poet in full knowledge of the challenge at hand would be composing a less than perfect piece if not for their capacity to utilize the language towards the execution of an idyllic string of words which showcase the poet’s intention without compromise when taking on a challenge as portentous as this.
In the introduction to the poem Shelley says of the bard in the piece “He drinks deep of the fountains of knowledge, and is still insatiate. …the period arrives when these objects cease to suffice. His mind is at length suddenly awakened and thirsts for intercourse with an intelligence similar to itself.” (NAEL 746) Shelley then delves into this thought in the first stanzas of his poem, showing that the poet so insatiate with principal learning goes into the world to see what can be learned from experience. With precise terms Shelley says “When early youth had past, he left/ His cold fireside and alienated home/ To seek strange truths in undiscovered lands” (NAEL 749, 75-77). With these words Shelley illustrates what his preface described. Once the reader knows that the poet in the poem is so alienated and inadequately fulfilled by his knowledge of the world, the reader begins to expect an answer. What does this poet do? This is the affliction visited upon the reader by Shelley’s particular language, we are now with the main character, and we begin to share that feeling of insatiate longing.
As the poet continues his drifting he makes his way to the greatest of monuments of man. “His wandering step/ Obedient to high thoughts, has visited/ The awful ruins of he days of old” (NAEL 749, 106-108) and in going to such places the poet takes us with him. We see Athens, Tyre, Balbec, These, Babylon, we see all these monuments with him and are awestruck at the idea of the epitome of human creativity and construction. As the poet passes these sights and is yet unquenched we too go with him. It is throughout the next stanzas that we begin to understand the severity of the struggle the poet is facing.
Shelley tells the reader that this poet ignored the tangible beauties of a girl enamored with him and in doing so missed the connection of human intimacy, which was the knowledge that the poet had been missing. In the night, Shelley tells us “A vision on his sleep/ There came, a dream of hopes that never yet/ Had flushed his cheeks” (NAEL 750, 149-151). Shelley has now, in three lines illuminated the struggle of the poet. This of intimacy is fleeting and starts the poet on his pursuit, which is to be as lonely and as cold a quest as Frankenstein’s. Shelley writes
The cold white light of morning, the blue moon
Low in the west, the clear and garish hills,
The Distinct valley and the vacant woods,
Spread round him where he stood. (NAEL 751, 193-196)
Shelley maintains this motif through to the poem’s end. As he does so he continues to use choice words “mocking”, “strange charms”, “immeasurable”, “slimy caverns”, “grey precipice”, “musical motions”, “black gulphs[sic]”, “yawning caves”, and others so evocative of precise emotional responses which are often at odds with one another until we, as readers, take on the sense of frustration and dismay with which the central character is filled. This construction technique comes to a climax in the lines “When on the threshold of the green recess/ The wanderer’s footsteps fell, he knew that death/ Was on him” (NAEL 761, 625- 627). We know now that this journey has led only to the ironic demise of the poet, much as the questing and ideals that led to the beginning of the revolution were only to end in the fatality of hundreds and the ruin of an empire.
From this grim perspective came, arguably, the most illustrious of the Romantic voices, that of Lord Byron. Byron’s poetry included an element of himself which readers of the day attached to immediately. This character, the Byronic Hero also known as the Satanic Hero, has become synonymous with the romantic ideals of revolution and the counter-culture of the period. The Byronic Hero is the ultimate un-hero. These characters are aloof, cunning, with little or no respect for cultural norms and expectations, they are exceedingly handsome, exceptionally intelligent, sophisticated, narcissistic, adaptable, and possibly above all they have made a choice to be apart from society, either physically or mentally they are isolated. The Byronic hero represents the throws of the revolution paired with the Gothic nuances of obscurity and mystery. To pull off the complex nature of the Byronic Hero, Byron must pair all the sensibilities of the Romantic period as aforementioned with the poetic intelligences of the Aristotelian doctrine. In his dramatic poem “Manfred” Byron showcases all these elements and in doing so constructs “[a] most impressive representation of the Byronic Hero” (NAEL 636).
To begin the poem Byron quotes Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, “There are more things in Heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” (Shakespeare, Hamlet 1.5. 168-69) “Manfred” is at once cast in a dark light of question and intrigue. This is Byron’s first perfect choice of phrasing. If this introduction had been of another nature, or had not existed the reader would not enter into the poem with the same pretense of darkness and question. Byron makes us ask ourselves what there may be beyond our perceptions and philosophies, essential in establishing the Gothic elements and the groundwork from which the Byronic Hero emerges. As the poem builds Byron makes another essential phrasing choice when Manfred states “I have had my foes, / And none have baffled, many fallen before me” (NAEL 637, 19-20). Here Byron sows the seeds of egoism when, through the use of precise language he lets the reader be privy to the way Manfred views those who have and would oppose him. This statement can also be tied to the idea of the revolutionary spirit of the era which the Byronic Hero unabashedly personifies. Byron continues the development of this dramatis persona when Manfred, in seeking to explain the state of the world around him utters “The burning wreck of a demolish’d world, / A wandering hell in the eternal space” (NAEL 637,45-46).
As the poem progresses Byron makes more calculated choices about the journey upon which he is taking the reader. He shows Manfred communing with otherworldly spirits, sets him in the wilderness apart from humanity, has Manfred argue with an abbot over the principles of religion, and finally had Manfred confess his crimes and troubles with integrity all the while deliberately showing him to be unaffected by the temptations of ultimate darkness as well as the contrivances of the status quo. While all these episodes in the dramatic poem are well and purposefully worded to perfect affect Byron’s ultimate work of unavoidable phrasing comes in the last lines of the poem. Manfred says to the elderly Abbot who is counseling him in hopes of averting Manfred’s suicide attempt, “Old man! ‘tis not so difficult to die” (NAEL 668, 151). This line is so essential to the poem that when it was originally omitted in a publishing Byron retorted by telling the publisher that “You have destroyed the whole effect and moral of the poem by omitting the last line of Manfred’s speaking” (NAEL 668).
This statement makes total the importance which the poets of the Romantic period placed on their words, especially Keats, Shelley, and Byron. Each word is an essential piece in the culmination of emotion, character, and revolution which the High Hellenistic Romantics sought to attain. Remove a single phrase, neigh word, and you alter forever the work proving by Aristotelian assertions, and Bloom’s measures that these works are of the most elevated status. This superiority is shown by their ability to craft poetry which creates an experience for the reader where they are transported with the poet, breaking the limitations of understanding through language. These poets create the Sublime experience of the High Hellenistic Romantic movement.
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