Great Scottish poet R. Burns: life and creative work.

Speak about the Romantic movement in England: its historical background; its attitude to nature, religion and myths; the image of the romantic hero; its social and political consciousness.

Romanticism appeared at the end of the 18th century as a reaction to rationalism, as an attempt to show people that emotions, spiritual values and yearnings constitute a great part of human life.

The characteristic features of Romanticism are:

- dissatisfaction with the present and with the limitations of the reality;

- an emphasis upon imagination stimulated by the writer’s emotions as a key to communicate experience and spiritual truth;

- a romanticist obeys only his inner world code, he is a dreamer. In his dreams a great significance is attached to symbolism, but he never resorts to explanations of symbols – a reader should find a necessary impulse himself;

- a deepened appreciation of the beauties of nature;

- a general exaltation of emotion over reason and of the senses over intellect;

- a heightened examination of human personality and its moods and mental potentialities;

- a preoccupation with the genius, the hero, and the exceptional figure in general, and a focus on his passions and inner struggles;

- an obsessive interest in folk culture, national and ethnic cultural origins;

- a inclination to the exotic, the remote, the mysterious.

2. Speak about W. Blake’s “Songs of Innocence and Experience” (their mood, image, topics, devices, etc.). Compare two verses – one from “Songs of Innocence” and one from “Songs of Experience” (e.g. “The Lamb” and “The Tyger”)

Blake’s “Songs of Innocence and Experience” juxtapose the innocent, pastoral world of childhood against an adult world of corruption and repression; while such poems as “The Lamb” represent a modest virtue, poems like “The Tyger” exhibit opposing, darker forces. Thus the collection as a whole explores the value and limitations of two different perspectives on the world. Many of the poems fall into pairs, so that the same situation or problem is seen through the lens of innocence first and then experience. Blake stands outside innocence and experience, in a distanced position from which he hopes to be able to recognize and correct the fallacies of both. In particular, he himself fights against despotic authority, restrictive morality, sexual repression, and institutionalized religion.

Great Scottish poet R. Burns: life and creative work.

Robert burns was a poet and a songwriter. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is the best known of the poet who have written in the Scot language, although much of his writing is also in English and in a “light” Scots dialect which would have been accessible to a wider audience than simply Scottish people. At various times in his career, he wrote in English, and in these pieces, his political or civil commentary is often at its most blunt.

The genius of Burns is marked by spontaneity, directness, and sincerity, and his variety is marvellous, ranging from the tender intensity of some of his lyrics through the rollicking humour and blazing wit of Tam o' Shanter to the blistering satire of Holy Willie's Prayer and The Holy Fair. His life is a tragedy, and his character full of flaws. But he fought at tremendous odds, and as Thomas Carlyle in his great Essay says, "Granted the ship comes into harbour with shrouds and tackle damaged, the pilot is blameworthy... but to know how blameworthy, tell us first whether his voyage has been round the Globe or only to Ramsgate and the Isle of Dogs."

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