I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

SEMINAR 4

SEMINAR 4

The Romantic Revival

W. Blake “ London”

W. Wordsworth “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”

G. G. Byron “She Walks in Beauty”

& Read:

W. Blake “ London”

W. Wordsworth “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”

G. G. Byron “She Walks in Beauty”

! Render:

Render the poem by W. Wordsworth “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” into Ukrainian/Russian

1. The historical background of the period.

2. Read the passage below and comment on it:

" Today the word romantic is often a derogatory label to describe sentimental writing, particularly those best-selling paperback 'romances' about love – a subject that many people mistakenly think the Romantic poets popularized."

What did the term “romantic” signify in reality?

3. William Blake:

a) Sketch the biography of a poet.

b) Read the poem "London" and answer the questions after it:

LONDON

I wander thorough each chartered street,

Near where the charted Thames does flow,

And mark in every face I meet

Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every man,

In every infant's cry of fear,

In every voice, in every ban,

The mind-forged manacles I hear.

How the chimney sweeper's cry

Every blackening church appalls,

And the hapless soldier's sigh

Runs in blood down palace walls.

But most through midnight streets I hear

How the youthful harlot's curse

Blasts the newborn infant's tear

And blights with plagues the marriage hearse.

VOCABULARY of the poem:

Chartered: controlled by law;

H

Ban: legal prohibition, public condemnation, or curse;

also, a marriage announcement

Appalls: causes to lose colour;

also, dismays, terrifies, weakens.

Harlot's curse: the curse upon the harlot by a hypocritical society which pushed women into prostitution and then condemned them for it, and the curse the harlot utters in return. A very real form of a 'curse' is disease.

b.1) Does the poem sound angry to you? Give your reasons. Do you find it:

- depressing;

- encouraging;

- altruistic;

- terrifying?

b.2) W. Blake uses specific, concrete images to stand for larger concepts and institutions. Identify the images of

- war;

- oppression and restriction;

- prostitution;

- anger.

b.3) In W. Blake's time, sexually transmitted diseases were often incurable. If the husband had previously been infected by a prostitute, he infected his wife and the disease then "blasted" (infected) their children's "tear" (the disease caused infants to be blind from birth). In W. Blake's time, the word hearth could mean both a carriage and a funeral bier. Given all this information, how would you explain the poem's final line?

4. William Wordsworth.

a) Sketch the biography of a poet.

b) Read the poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" and render it into Ukrainian/Russian:

I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed – and gazed – but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-31