When you walk into a lecture room and have a classical symphony playing in the background, then you know it is time for another HCJ lecture. The choice of music for this week was ideal as it fitted in with the main theme of the lecture, Prometheus.
After enjoying a short piece of Ludvig Van Beethoven's, The Creatures of Prometheus (1801), we were introduced to our guest lecturer. Dr Gary Farnell is the head of English Literature at The University of Winchester, as well as a member of the British Association for Romantic Studies, therefore the perfect person to give us a lecture on Romanticism.
The core of this lecture was based around the story of Prometheus. Prometheus was famous for stealing fire from the Roman gods, which gave name to him being known as the bringer of fire. This theft enraged the king of the gods, Jupiter who sentenced Prometheus to be chained to a rock for 30 years. During this time he was tortured by a vulture, who tore out his liver, but this emphasises the lengths Prometheus would go to enable the renewal of humanity and freedom and based the foundations of the romantic movement. This recreation of mankind was not forgotten as Prometheus was bestowed as a god in the era of Romanticism.
Romanticism was described by Dr Farnell as a Euro-American movement that had arisen out of the end of the 18th and early 19th century, which was romantic as a sense of own self-differentiation from a preceding Age of Reason.
Prometheus was seen as a champion of oppressed human kind and was a god who embodies the spirit of "Liberty, Egality and Fraternity", this was a famous quote from The French Revolution of 1789. If we relate this to modern western society, Prometheus could still be seen as a champion of oppressed human kind because of the uproar that has been seen throughout the Middle East and the freedom that many of the Middle Eastern countries are trying to establish for the entire population. I will only touch lightly on this subject as it will explained further in a future blog posting.
Prometheus was portrayed in many poems and stories during the early 18th century, most notably in Lord Byron's Prometheus (1816), Mary Shelley's modern Prometheus in Frankenstein (1818) and her husband Percy Shelley's Prometheus Unbound (1820).
Percy Shelley in a letter to Lord Byron said that "the French Revolution is the master theme of the epoch of which we live". It is important because Percy Shelley was not born until 1792, three years after the revolution began, but it is clear that it had a major effect on the life of Percy Shelley.
Percy Shelley revolutionary spirit infused his 1818 sonnet and his version of Prometheanism in the character "Ozymandis". Ozymandis, was also known as Rameses II was an Egyptian ruler during 13th century BC. He was a proud, tyrannical rule, who named himself "The King of Kings". Shelley wrote this poem after he visited the British Museum in late 1817 where he saw the colossal busy of the Egyptian ruler. The poem was published in January 1818 in The Examiner.
This poem was written in the form of a Sonnet, which is usually used to elevate and celebrate a subject, however Shelley reversed this format and used the sonnet to track Ozymandias eventful fall from grace. In a start contrast, Shelley goes from the boastful and powerful pedestal statement; "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings', to the broken spectacle that is the statue in desert; "Nothing besides remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare."
I think that the ideas Shelley is trying to show is that nothing lasts forever, even if you are the most estbalished, powerful leader who has reigned for a very long time, eventually you will have to surrender your power because as we all grow older our "colossal" power will eventually "decay".
Shelley also plays the ideas of "Empires built on sand" and as sand is only grains of small particles, it also goes back to the theme that nothing will last forever. eventually the vast building structure will collapse because they are only made of sand. It can be compared to Karl Marx's quote from his book Capital 1 (1867); "Where there is nothing, the king has lost his rights."
Shelley also suggests the subversive role of the artist of the statue in the face of the tyrannical power of the society he lived in during the reign of Ozymandias. "Ozymandias" is Percy Shelley's "promethian" sonnet constructs the nature of imperial power in the face of revolutionary art, as well as alluding to the imperial power of the British empire at the time of him writing his sonnet.
You have to remember that he saw this statue in the British Museum and that his writing forms the beliefs of a museum-imperial complex, which emphasises more on the post-tyrannical British forms over power in 1818, than the Egyptian power, which was the main subject of his sonnet.
The themes of this poem have resurfaced with the uprising in Egypt and the Middle East in the first few months of 2011. if you replace Ozymandias with former Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, you can use Shelley's 1818 sonnet as a commentary to the eventful downfall of the now, former Egyptian president. This now infamous speech shows how a tyrannical leader can not accept that his time has come to a end and that the decaying empire that he once had control of, has now slipped from his hands and that the revolution of the Egyptian people shows that change is needed now, not six months down the line. This "colossal wreck" has now been taken from power and shows that the "promethian" spirit is still alive over a thousand years later.
This a profound example of Political Prometheus. Now we move onto Aesthetic Prometheus and the myth to do with the notion of making and creating things, which inspired many Romantic writers. The most notable example Aesthetic Prometheus is the creation of mankind and a prime example of early mankind creation is the Townley Vase, which was found at a villa at Monte Cagnolo, near Rome. The Roman urn can be dated back to the 2nd century and was placed again in the British Museum (I think we have a recurring theme here).
This is where British poet, John Keats came and saw the Townley Vase, which gave him the inspiration for his 1820 poem; "Ode on a grecian urn. This ode again is in form of a museum poem and was a way for Keats to celebrate his artistic, poetic skills with his ode to the Townley Vase. The ode forms a signified element of self conscious artifice in the art that is creation.
Keats celebrates the true artistry of the grecian urn and uses finely tuned phrases of personification and artificially changed the length of the lines to show off his creativity. He shows the true art of the urn and the supreme value as it will outlast all humanity beyond death. This is expressed in the words; "Thou, silent form! Don't tease us out of thought. As doth eternity."
Keats finishs his ode with shaping it in a way to end with absolute affirmation of the beauty of the true association with the supreme art value of the Townley Vase. "Beauty is truth, truth beauty."Keats at a very young age has expressed how the true value and beauty of the urn and defines the true beliefs of Aesthetic Prometheus and the art of creation. The first part of the poem depicts the true beauty of the vase as Keats gives a detailed description of it's true beauty;
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
of deities of mortals , or of both
Keats describes the sheer beauty of what he has seen within the museum and the immortal legend of the urn. "Ode on a grecian urn" expresses the human being true ability to create and make things is brought to the fore within western society by John Keats. It also expresses the true protest of the romantic movement of art and creation against the industrial revolution, which has devalued the art in the capitalist society that had been established.
Raymond Williams in his chapter of "The Romantic Artist" in his book Culture and Society (1958) describes the true meaning of Romanticism. Williams states that "The Romantic Artist is the proponent of an emphasis of the embodiment in art of certain human values, capacities, energies, which is the development of society towards an industrial civilisation was felt to be threatening or even destroying. Now it is the aestheticism of the Romantic critique of "industrial civilisation , that once again, the spirit of prometheus lives on."
Williams also describes how the superior reality of art is in obvious relation with the German school of philosophy. This brings me to the subject of the next seminar, which will be the chapters about Kant and Hegel in Bertrand Russell, The History of Western Philosophy. However, I will not dwell on this subject until next time when the seminar reviews the latest chapters within the Journalist's bible (If you have not realised by now, this book has become the most important tool I need to survive HCJ).
I will comment thought on Kant who Bertrand Russell feels "It is possible to interpret Kant's principle as meaning, not that one man is an absolute end, but that all men should count equally in determining action by which men are affected. So interpreted, the principle may be regarded as giving an ethical basis for democracy." It shows that men even as creative forces, should be able to help form a basis for democracy within society.
Therefore it shows a shift in Kant from aesthetic to political Promethianism. This shows the differences between the two types of Romantic writer in the Aesthetic Prometheus of Kant, to the Political Prometheus of Shelley. It is the legend of Prometheus that brings these two schools of thought and beliefs together to build a joint utopia of creation and thought in a far, democratic society.
This is the key reason why Prometheus has been adopted as a god of Romanticism. This is best described in Lord Byron's "Prometheus" (1816). Byron addresses Prometheus as a god of Romanticism;
"Thou art a symbol and a sign, to mortal of their fate and force."
Prometheus thou you are truly a symbol and a sign in western society and to mortals you are truly a god to all mankind and have help establish democracy finally which is starting to be more true within the western world, than it has ever been.
Until next time bloggers, Hazaaaarrrrrrr!
Sunday 27 February 2011
Sunday 13 February 2011
Introduction into Romanticism: Rousseau, The French Revolution and FREEDOM!
After nearly two months of being away from Winchester it was time for the usual Tuesday after HCJ lecture. After having a heated argument with the Creative Writing lecturer over who had been allocated the right room for their lecture (note to self don't ever try and argue with Brian Thornton), we sat in our seats eager for the next topic in the HCJ timeline: The Romantic Movement.
Before we begin I just want to make it clear we are talking about The Romantic Movement that occured in the 19th Century and not the movement of boy bands who were dressed like women in the early 1980's. So, before we get into any arguments, here is a brief distraction before we return to our normal scheduled blogging:
Now we have got that out the way I will get back to The Romantic Movement. Romanticism occurred during the end of the 18th Century and brought an end to the Enlightenment and the end of the creative force of Christianity, which had near enough vanished. There was one main whose creative force and opinion would drive and base the foundations of The French Revolution; Jean-Jacquees Rousseau.
Rousseau was disowned as a child by his father and uncle and made his living through many jobs throughout France and Italy, including being a servant to being the secretary of the French ambassador to Venice. However, it was not until Rousseau returned to his native Switzerland that his influence over western society began to take shape.
Rousseau would spend countless days in the mountains of Geneva or on a small island off the coast of the Austrian capital, Vienna where he would just listen to the waves. He suggested that when he listened to the waves that his mind was wiped clear of all of the painful memories of the past and the anxieties of the future were lost. All he felt was the sense of being. Rousseau disowned all of his previous beliefs, including those of the church and denounced them all as lies and that you could find the divine truth in human nature.
I decided I wanted to put Rousseau theory into practice and listened to the waves to see if my wind escaped all of the painful memories and could escape all conceou thought except the sense of being.
Now I did not listen to the waves for the whole ten minutes, however even a couple of minutes of listening to them can help your mind relax and escape some thought.
Rousseau believed in the beauty and innocence of nature and that it could be extended to man. He believed that the natural man was virtuous and reacted against the corruption that was profound in 18th Century society. Rousseau glorified the noble savage, who without any form of civilisation was pure and natural. This followed the concept of Locke who believed that people were good in the sense of being pre-civilised.
Now I can understand Rousseau's concept that a person who has had no contact with modern civilisation will be pure, but even in modern western society, that concept is near impossible due to the social democracy we live in and the nearest we become to the noble savage is through out first few years of life when we are learning about the world as a child.
Rousseau was intelligent enough to accept the fact that his vision of the noble savage was near impossible due to the influence of society that has chained us in and made us naturally civilised. The French philosopher Voltaire argued against this opinion saying, "No one has such intelligence to persuade us to be stupid. After reading your book one feels as if we should walk on all fours.
Even though we are descended from Primates, I can not believe that Voltaire can suggest that Rousseau is suggesting that the noble savage is in fact a pig. Rousseau suggests that the social statue has left us alienated and has us trapped in the competition of self esteem and the personal wealth and the competition that we keep up with our peers. Personally, I feel that self esteem will always be profound because it constructs a personal self belonging and places people within the structure of civilised society. This would be profoundly argued by Voltaire that this is wrong and everyone should act as individuals and should only worry about themselves, not everyone else around them.
Rousseau constructed a document that would base the foundations of the French Revolution in his Social Contract. Rousseau believed in "taking men as they are and law as they might be. Rousseau identified the main problem within society in the late 18th century and stated "Find forms of association which defends and protect with all the common force, the person and good of each associate and by means of which each one while united with all only obeys himself as remain as free as before."
Rousseau is stating that we should as individual find forms of association with each other and protect all our common human rights as a group, but at the same time have our own free will and rights as individuals.
He went on to describe about the general will of a individual or a group. As a group we all contribute to shaping our own general will in society and that we should only obey laws, no more than we obey ourselves. Rousseau goes on to say that our general will is driven by appetite alone and that as slaves within a dictatorship, they must abide to and follow the laws laid down by the dictatorship .
Therefore, Rousseau believes that a free society is one where all the laws and laid down and agreed upon by the people and for the people (I think I have been watching the Egyptian protests a little too long). This means for example that you must not do anything that interrupts or goes against your own free will, however if it is something that is a law you must follow this law because you have all agreed to follow it.
This does contradict Rousseau as he says that we should only do things that we are happy to do, however the system suggest that we may have to do thing we do not want to do. For example if the law dictates that everyone has to play Football on a sunday morning, then everyone must abide and follow this rule and if they is someone who objects to this rule, then they are excluded from the group and hazed until they accept this law and abide by it. This is the danger of a new kind of dictatorship that even though it has been agreed upon by the people, there is a risk of people refusing to obey and then these individuals being "forced to be free", until they conform.
Rousseau says that freedom exists only free the laws begins. Now I agree with Rousseau's concept of free will and that everyone should only do thing that make them happy, but I feel that the social contract and the declaration of general will is contradict and we must conform to law that are set out by everyone, even if they do not make us happy. This does not make any sense, but I understand within society there will be people who will confirm and abide by the rules and then there will be others who will objects and fight laws to establish their freedom. This reminds me of one the iconic films scenes of the last twenty years.
This scene in Braveheart sees William Wallace rallying up his troops in the fight to secure the freedom of Scotland. You can compare this scene in Braveheart to the night of the 14th July 1789 and the storming of the Bastille, which brought upon the beginning of The French Revolution.
The French government at the end of the 18th Century were bankrupt and during May and June 1789 King Louis XVI held meetings of the three estates. The three estates comprised of the Clergy (the church), The Nobles and The peasantry. They met to reform the financial stability of France, however the King had the clergy and nobles on the right of the assembly hall and the peasantry on the left, which initially formed the basis of what we know today as left-wing and right-wing politics.
The peasantry rebelled against the monarchy and formed the national assembly. They based their constitution on the ideas of Rousseau and declared that the right of men are born and remain free and are equal in rights and that law is the expression on general will. It also expressed that every citizen has the right to represent themselves personally. The initial beginning of the revolution was pedantic and the constitutional phase belongs in the realms of the age of reason.
The assembly denounced everything that happened before in time and started again, even to the point where they started from the year 0 and changed all the months of the year to months of emotions. Word of the revolution has crossed over to the shores of Great Britain and the British philosopher Wordsworth said that the revolution had brought upon Rousseau's ideas of natural man into reality and therefore the romantic movement had begun.
The Monarchy were not at pleased with the formation of The French Assembly and wanted to stop this power vacuum, before it could gain momentum. The advantage was that no one in the assembly knew who was in charge, leaving everyone to run round like headless chickens, not knowing who to follow and what to believe. At the same times the Prussians were fuming about the uprising in France and wanted to stop this rebellion once and for all. The potential invasion sparked fear throughout France and the paranoia led to the country giving all of it's citizens weapons to protect themselves.
They did not know that the paranoia would get to the point where the citizens would turn on each other and in September 1792, the September Massacre began with the search of counter-revolutionaries brought upon by the profound paranoia that had been embedded in the minds of the French population. This eventually led to the execution of King Louis XVI in 1793 and the invention of the guillotine, which was created as a simpler way of executing people seen to be counter-revolutionists.
The government were seen as deliberately using violence to create a reign of terror and to stop the revolution in it's track. It only created a counter-affect and added more fuel to the fire and spurred on the revolution, as it changed the landscape of western society forever.
One of the key figures of the revolution was Mary Wollstoncraft and her writings majorly influenced the role of women within society and helped shape the revolutions as a whole. Her readings, including A vindication of the women are the subject of this week's seminar. I will leave this subject until next time, but until them I leave you with one strong message.
You have come to fight as free men and free men you are. What will you with that freedom, will you fight. This strong statement makes me realise that freedom is a precious thing to have and that historical events, such as The French Revolution has given society such freedom. So until next time I only have one thing to say FREDOM and I think I may have just gave myself a splitting headache!
Before we begin I just want to make it clear we are talking about The Romantic Movement that occured in the 19th Century and not the movement of boy bands who were dressed like women in the early 1980's. So, before we get into any arguments, here is a brief distraction before we return to our normal scheduled blogging:
Now we have got that out the way I will get back to The Romantic Movement. Romanticism occurred during the end of the 18th Century and brought an end to the Enlightenment and the end of the creative force of Christianity, which had near enough vanished. There was one main whose creative force and opinion would drive and base the foundations of The French Revolution; Jean-Jacquees Rousseau.
Rousseau was disowned as a child by his father and uncle and made his living through many jobs throughout France and Italy, including being a servant to being the secretary of the French ambassador to Venice. However, it was not until Rousseau returned to his native Switzerland that his influence over western society began to take shape.
Rousseau would spend countless days in the mountains of Geneva or on a small island off the coast of the Austrian capital, Vienna where he would just listen to the waves. He suggested that when he listened to the waves that his mind was wiped clear of all of the painful memories of the past and the anxieties of the future were lost. All he felt was the sense of being. Rousseau disowned all of his previous beliefs, including those of the church and denounced them all as lies and that you could find the divine truth in human nature.
I decided I wanted to put Rousseau theory into practice and listened to the waves to see if my wind escaped all of the painful memories and could escape all conceou thought except the sense of being.
Now I did not listen to the waves for the whole ten minutes, however even a couple of minutes of listening to them can help your mind relax and escape some thought.
Rousseau believed in the beauty and innocence of nature and that it could be extended to man. He believed that the natural man was virtuous and reacted against the corruption that was profound in 18th Century society. Rousseau glorified the noble savage, who without any form of civilisation was pure and natural. This followed the concept of Locke who believed that people were good in the sense of being pre-civilised.
Now I can understand Rousseau's concept that a person who has had no contact with modern civilisation will be pure, but even in modern western society, that concept is near impossible due to the social democracy we live in and the nearest we become to the noble savage is through out first few years of life when we are learning about the world as a child.
Rousseau was intelligent enough to accept the fact that his vision of the noble savage was near impossible due to the influence of society that has chained us in and made us naturally civilised. The French philosopher Voltaire argued against this opinion saying, "No one has such intelligence to persuade us to be stupid. After reading your book one feels as if we should walk on all fours.
Even though we are descended from Primates, I can not believe that Voltaire can suggest that Rousseau is suggesting that the noble savage is in fact a pig. Rousseau suggests that the social statue has left us alienated and has us trapped in the competition of self esteem and the personal wealth and the competition that we keep up with our peers. Personally, I feel that self esteem will always be profound because it constructs a personal self belonging and places people within the structure of civilised society. This would be profoundly argued by Voltaire that this is wrong and everyone should act as individuals and should only worry about themselves, not everyone else around them.
Rousseau constructed a document that would base the foundations of the French Revolution in his Social Contract. Rousseau believed in "taking men as they are and law as they might be. Rousseau identified the main problem within society in the late 18th century and stated "Find forms of association which defends and protect with all the common force, the person and good of each associate and by means of which each one while united with all only obeys himself as remain as free as before."
Rousseau is stating that we should as individual find forms of association with each other and protect all our common human rights as a group, but at the same time have our own free will and rights as individuals.
He went on to describe about the general will of a individual or a group. As a group we all contribute to shaping our own general will in society and that we should only obey laws, no more than we obey ourselves. Rousseau goes on to say that our general will is driven by appetite alone and that as slaves within a dictatorship, they must abide to and follow the laws laid down by the dictatorship .
Therefore, Rousseau believes that a free society is one where all the laws and laid down and agreed upon by the people and for the people (I think I have been watching the Egyptian protests a little too long). This means for example that you must not do anything that interrupts or goes against your own free will, however if it is something that is a law you must follow this law because you have all agreed to follow it.
This does contradict Rousseau as he says that we should only do things that we are happy to do, however the system suggest that we may have to do thing we do not want to do. For example if the law dictates that everyone has to play Football on a sunday morning, then everyone must abide and follow this rule and if they is someone who objects to this rule, then they are excluded from the group and hazed until they accept this law and abide by it. This is the danger of a new kind of dictatorship that even though it has been agreed upon by the people, there is a risk of people refusing to obey and then these individuals being "forced to be free", until they conform.
Rousseau says that freedom exists only free the laws begins. Now I agree with Rousseau's concept of free will and that everyone should only do thing that make them happy, but I feel that the social contract and the declaration of general will is contradict and we must conform to law that are set out by everyone, even if they do not make us happy. This does not make any sense, but I understand within society there will be people who will confirm and abide by the rules and then there will be others who will objects and fight laws to establish their freedom. This reminds me of one the iconic films scenes of the last twenty years.
This scene in Braveheart sees William Wallace rallying up his troops in the fight to secure the freedom of Scotland. You can compare this scene in Braveheart to the night of the 14th July 1789 and the storming of the Bastille, which brought upon the beginning of The French Revolution.
The French government at the end of the 18th Century were bankrupt and during May and June 1789 King Louis XVI held meetings of the three estates. The three estates comprised of the Clergy (the church), The Nobles and The peasantry. They met to reform the financial stability of France, however the King had the clergy and nobles on the right of the assembly hall and the peasantry on the left, which initially formed the basis of what we know today as left-wing and right-wing politics.
The peasantry rebelled against the monarchy and formed the national assembly. They based their constitution on the ideas of Rousseau and declared that the right of men are born and remain free and are equal in rights and that law is the expression on general will. It also expressed that every citizen has the right to represent themselves personally. The initial beginning of the revolution was pedantic and the constitutional phase belongs in the realms of the age of reason.
The assembly denounced everything that happened before in time and started again, even to the point where they started from the year 0 and changed all the months of the year to months of emotions. Word of the revolution has crossed over to the shores of Great Britain and the British philosopher Wordsworth said that the revolution had brought upon Rousseau's ideas of natural man into reality and therefore the romantic movement had begun.
The Monarchy were not at pleased with the formation of The French Assembly and wanted to stop this power vacuum, before it could gain momentum. The advantage was that no one in the assembly knew who was in charge, leaving everyone to run round like headless chickens, not knowing who to follow and what to believe. At the same times the Prussians were fuming about the uprising in France and wanted to stop this rebellion once and for all. The potential invasion sparked fear throughout France and the paranoia led to the country giving all of it's citizens weapons to protect themselves.
They did not know that the paranoia would get to the point where the citizens would turn on each other and in September 1792, the September Massacre began with the search of counter-revolutionaries brought upon by the profound paranoia that had been embedded in the minds of the French population. This eventually led to the execution of King Louis XVI in 1793 and the invention of the guillotine, which was created as a simpler way of executing people seen to be counter-revolutionists.
The government were seen as deliberately using violence to create a reign of terror and to stop the revolution in it's track. It only created a counter-affect and added more fuel to the fire and spurred on the revolution, as it changed the landscape of western society forever.
One of the key figures of the revolution was Mary Wollstoncraft and her writings majorly influenced the role of women within society and helped shape the revolutions as a whole. Her readings, including A vindication of the women are the subject of this week's seminar. I will leave this subject until next time, but until them I leave you with one strong message.
You have come to fight as free men and free men you are. What will you with that freedom, will you fight. This strong statement makes me realise that freedom is a precious thing to have and that historical events, such as The French Revolution has given society such freedom. So until next time I only have one thing to say FREDOM and I think I may have just gave myself a splitting headache!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)