Hello Learners,
This blog is about the two famous transitional poets of 18th Century; Thomas Gray and Robert Burns.
It was the
mid-eighteenth century and poets were tiring of the neoclassical ideals of
reason and wit. The Neoclassic poets, such as Alexander Pope, "prized
order, clarity, economic wording, logic, refinement, and decorum. Theirs was an
age of rationalism, wit, and satire." (Guth 1836) This contrasts greatly
with the ideal of Romanticism, which was "an artistic revolt against the
conventions of the fashionable formal, civilised, and refined Neoclassicism of
the eighteenth century." (Guth 1840) Poets like William, "dropped
conventional poetic diction and forms in favour of freer forms and bolder
language. They preached a return to nature, elevated sincere feeling over dry
intellect, and often shared in the revolutionary fervour of the late eighteenth
century." (Guth 589) Poets wanted to express emotion again. They wanted to
leave the city far behind and travel back to the simple countryside where
rustic, humble men and women resided and became their subjects. These poets,
William Blake, Thomas Gray, and Robert Burns, caught in the middle of
neoclassic writing and the Romantic Age, are fittingly known as the
Transitional poets.
Thomas Gray
transitioned these phases nicely; he kept "what he believed was good in
the old, neoclassic tradition" ("Adventures" 442) but adventured
forth into "unfamiliar areas in poetry." In particular, Gray brought
back to life the use of the first-person singular, for example "One morn I
missed him on the customed hill…" ("Elegy Written in a Country
Churchyard", p. 433, line 109) which had been "considered a barbarism
by eighteenth century norm." (431) Thomas Gray’s poem Elegy Written in a
Country Churchyard is a wonderful example of natural settings in transitional
poetry. It "reflects on the lives of common, unknown, rustic men and women,
in terms of both what their lives were and what they might have been".
("English" 268) Gray is unafraid to see the poor, and emotionally
illustrates how death affects their life: "For them no more the blazing
hearth shall burn, / Or busy housewife ply her evening care: / No children run
to lisp their sire’s return…."
However,
humble settings were also readily used by Robert Burns, a Scottish poet
"frequently counted wholly as a romantic poet" ("English"
281), but who’s work often makes him a more transitional as it incorporates
both neoclassical and romantic verse ideals. To a Mouse, also takes place in
the country, and this time the humble subject is not a man, but a lowly mouse.
Using such terms as "beastie" and "Mousie" results in an
affectionate tone, as the human species is emotionally weighed up against
"Mousie’s" life. A common ground is found when the poet notes that
"the best laid scheme o’ mice an’ men/ Gang aft agley, / An’ lea’e us
nought but grief an’ pain". This public display of emotion, such as the
affection and concern for the mouse, as well as a depressing revelation that
life can go wrong for all, would have been surprising to pre-romanticism
readers. One of Burns most significant influences though, was his use of
Scottish dialect to write his poems; it was "a great departure from the
elegant and artificial diction of eighteenth-century poetry."
("Adventures" 441) His use of dialect gave the reader a sense of
connection to the common man and the humble subjects of this poetry. It created
a rawer, more real mood that would have been lost in the ornamental heroic
couplets used by the Neoclassic writers.
The
transitional poets were no longer afraid to feel and were brave men who put
their hearts on paper for all to see. They expressed a simple affection for
uncomplicated country life, and used such settings to make profound comments on
mankind in general, death, and religion. These poets idealised the humble man,
the country setting, and universal truths. It is fitting to call Gray, Burns
and Blake adventurers, whose guides to new lands were their pens. They dared
change through the use of unconventional devices, such as dialect, the
invocation of emotions, and the egotistic use of the first person singular.
These changes in verse, and the subsequent popularity, and admiration received
from the public, for Gray and Burns (Blake was not appreciated until the next
century) and their transitional poetry marked the beginning of the end of
Neoclassicism. Now, these three poets having forged the way, it was time for
the Romantics to follow.
·
Adventures in English Literature, New York:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1996
·
English Literature 12: The Enlightenment
Concluded, Victoria: Open School, 2000
·
Guth, Hans P., and Gabriele L. Rico. Ed.
Discovering Literature. Toronto: Prentice-Hall Inc, 1997
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