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!
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