Introduction
I : Romanticism : What , Whence and When ?
Romanticism is generally associated with
Wordsworth and the Lakes ; Byron and the Isles of Greece ; Beethoven and the ramparts of Vienna ; David and the Salons of Paris . But two hundred years ago , almost exactly , one of the most celebrated Romantic poets , John Keats , composed one of the best loved poems in our national literary heritage in our own city , on a walk to St Cross . Jane Austen , in Persuasion , noted of the character Anne Elliot , that “ Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day , from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges , and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn – that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness – that season which has drawn from every poet worthy of being read some attempt at description , or some lines of feeling ”. Keats called his poem ‘ To Autumn ’.
This talk explores what the Romantic movement and one of its most famous poems might owe to Winchester . It argues that Romanticism partly begins in Winchester and partly ends in Winchester also , and there are seven parts .
John Keats , by Joseph Severn ; © National Portrait Gallery , London .
Samuel Johnson , by Sir Joshua Reynolds ; © National Portrait Gallery , London .
“ Though they may write in verse ”, wrote Matthew Arnold , briefly a pupil at Winchester , in 1888 ,“ Dryden and Pope are not classics of our poetry , they are classics of our prose ”. Romanticism , deeply beloved of Arnold , superseded the 18th century classical style . “ I cannot send you my explanation of the word “ romantic ” because it would be 125 sheets long ”, wrote Friedrich Schlegel to his brother Wilhelm , in 1793 . But for the purpose of what we call Div , there has to be an explanation , and mine goes something like this .
Dr Samuel Johnson , virtuosic critic , essayist , editor , biographer and poet , was an arbiter elegantiae , a shaper of literary taste . The finest poems of the 18th century were , in Johnson ’ s opinion , Pope ’ s translations of Homer . Pope ’ s poetry was , in the poet ’ s own words , “ what oft was thought , but ne ’ er so well expressed ” ( An Essay on Criticism , 1711 ). It was generally Latinate , Augustan , and frequently imitative . This style was not for all ages . Matthew Arnold , by Alexander Bassano ; © National Portrait Gallery , London .
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