GLOSSARY

ENGLISH ROMANTICS SET TO MUSIC  by  JM SCHROEDER

ROMANTIC POEMS SET TO MUSIC - START PAGE

atmosphere * ballad * ballad stanza * fancy * image * imagination
lyrical ballads * lyric * metaphor * meter * poetry * Reason * rhyme
romantic * romanticise * Romanticism * scansion * simile * stanza * symbol

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Reason

 

 

 

is the enumeration of quantities already known; [...] is to imagination as the in-strument to the agent [...] may be considered as mind contemplating the relations borne by one thought to another.. [is the] principle of analysis [...] considering thoughts [...] as the algebraical representations which conduct to certain general results. SHELLEY, A DEFENCE OF POETRY (1821), VII, 109-110

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Note: Anyone’s mind could perform ‘operations’ that would help him/her ‘understand’ what a rose is or generally looks like (a flower unlike a tulip, violet, etc., with thorns, etc.)

 

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imagination

 

 

 

[may be considered] as mind acting upon [..] thoughts [however produced] so as to colour them with ist own light, and composing from them, as from elements, other thoughts, each containing within itself the principle of ist own integrity...

SHELLEY, A DEFENCE OF POETRY (1821), VII, 109-110

 

has no reference to images that are merely a faithful copy, existing in the mind, of absent external objects; but is a word of higher import, denoting operations of the mind upon these objects, and processes of creation or of composition...

WORDSWORTH, PREFACE TO ‘LYRICAL BALLADS’

 

[Primary imagination is]  the living Power and prime Agent of all human Perception... [Secondary imagination is] an echo of the former, co-existing with the conscious will, [...] identical with the primary in the kind of its agency, and differing only in degree, and in the mode of its operation. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate;

COLERIDGE, BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA, CHAPTER 13, I, 202

 

is spiritual sensation. W. BLAKE, in a letter from 1799,  in the following context:

And I know that this world is a world of imagination and vision. [...] As a man is, so he sees.[...] Why is the bible more entertaining and instructive than any other book? Is it not because [it is] addressed to the imagination, which is spiritual sensation,[and only] mediately to the understanding or reason?

 

[is] the IMAGE-making and synthesizing power of the human mind; the source of creative thinking.
MORNER/RAUSCH, DICTIONARY OF LITERARY TERMS

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Note: The rose as someone individually sees, smells, feels it, or imagines doing so.

 

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fancy

 

 

 

has no other counters to play with, but fixities and definites [...]

is no other than a mode of Memory emancipated from the order of time and space [...] must receive all its materials ready made from the law of association.

COLERIDGE, BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA, CHAPTER 13, I, 202

 

depends upon the rapidity and profusion with which she scatters her thoughts and images; trusting that their number, and the felicity with which they are linked together, will make amends for the want of individual value...

WORDSWORTH, PREFACE TO ‘LYRICAL BALLADS’

 

[is] an aspect of IMAGINATION that often involves  wishful thinking or whim.

MORNER/RAUSCH, NTC`s DICTIONARY OF LITERARY TERMS

 

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Note: In this sense you could ‘fancy’ getting a bunch of 100 red roses without imagining what they would look, smell, feel like.

 

Note: that in the times before (and after) ‘the Romantics’ the terms imagination and fancy (syn. ‘fantasy’) were used, or have been used, respectively, without any or with only little difference in meaning.

 

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romantic

 

 

 

belonging to or suggesting ROMANCE , [i.e. in this context] a story of love, adventure, strange happenings, etc., often set in a distant time or place, whose events are happier or grander or more exciting than those of real life

 

fanciful [cf. imaginative !], not practical, (too much) liking for dreams of love marked by ROMANTICISM

 

LANGENSCHEIDT-LONGMAN, DICT. OF CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH

 

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romanticise

 

 

 

[...] make (an event) sound more ROMANTIC 1  by adding interesting or exciting details. LANGENSCHEIDT-LONGMAN, DICT. OF CONTEMP. ENGLISH

 

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Romanticism

 

 

 

[is] a Movement in art and LITERATURE in the 18th and 19th centuries in revolt against the NEOCLASSICISM of the previous centuries.

 

[is] literature depicting emotional matter in an imaginative form. [SCHLEGEL; according to LUCAS, there are 11, 396 definitions of  romanticism]

MORNER/RAUSCH, NTC`s DICTIONARY OF LITERARY TERMS

 

[is] the quality of admiring feeling rather than thought, and wild beauty rather than things made by man. LANGENSCHEIDT-L., DICT. OF CONT. ENGLISH

 

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poetry

 

 

 

[is] LITERATURE in its most intense, most imaginative, and most rhythmic forms.

[It is] written in lines of arbitrary lengths instead of in paragraphs.

MORNER/RAUSCH, NTC`s DICTIONARY OF LITERARY TERMS

 

may be defined to be ‘the expression of the imagination’ [...] is not like reasoning, a power to be exerted according to the determination of the will...

SHELLEY, A DEFENCE OF POETRY (1821), VII, 109, 135

 

[as represented in the ‘Lyrical Ballads’ means] fitting to metrical arrangement a selection of the real language of men in a state of vivid sensation [...]

[produces pleasure] which the mind derives from the perception of similitude [i.e. identity or similarity of sounds or metrical patterns] in dissimilitude [the ‘normal’ flow of words].

[as a process] is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity...
WORDSWORTH, PREFACE ‘L.B.’

 

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Lyrical
Ballads

subjects
principles

 

 

 

[most representative collection of ‘Romantic Poetry’,  in which COLERIDGE’S] endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural or at least romantic [in the sense of romantic 1]; yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination  that willing suspense of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.. Mr WORDSWORTH ... was to ... give the charm of novelty to things of every day...  COLERIDGE, BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA, CHAPTER 14

 

[WORDSWORTH’s] principal object [...] was to choose incidents and situations from common life and to relate them [...] in a selection of language really used by men; and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of magination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way; and, further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them [...] the primary laws of our nature [...]

Low and rustic life was generally chosen,     [a] because in that condition,the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more  emphatic language;       

     [b] because in that condition of life our elementary feelings coexist in a state of greater simplicity, [...],     [c] because the manners of rural life germinate from those elementary feelings; [...] are more easily comprehended; and are more durable; and lastly,     [d] because in that condition the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature.

WORDSWORTH, PREFACE TO ‘LYRICAL BALLADS’

 

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lyric

 

 

 

(concerning) a short personal poem focusing on feelings and thoughts

 

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ballad

 

 

 

form of (dramatic) narrative poetry presenting a single dramatic episode
folk
ballads  (often passed on orally) 
literary (art) ballads (composed for print)

 

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atmosphere

 

 

 

prevailing emotional attitude towards the subject (mood) and/or the reader (tone)

 

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image

 

 

 

term used in a text or (mental) representation in the reader’s mind, referring to something perceptible through the senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste,touch).

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E.g.: gardens bright ... incense-bearing trees (involved here: sight and smell)

 

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metaphor

 

 

 

(element of ) figurative language implying an analogy (identity or similarity of qualities) between dissimilar objects/persons.

 

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E.g.: England’s Rose (ELTON JOHN in his tribute to Princess Diana; rose with its literal meaning is the ‘vehicle’ used to imply a non-literal meaning, The Princess is the ‘tenor’ that the relevant semantic properties of the ‘vehicle’ are ascribed to.)

 

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simile

 

 

 

(element of ) figurative language expressing an anology (identity etc. of qualities) between dissimilar objects, explicitly stating the comparison (as, like, etc.)

 

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E.g.: ... you lived your life like a candle in the wind (s.a.; the Princess Diana’s life was as unsteady etc. as the light of a candle flickering in the wind.)

 

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symbol

 

 

 

(element of ) figurative language presenting a (set of) word(s) that signifies an object or event which itself signifies something else

 

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E.g.: the Cross  (term signifies ‘real’ object which itself stands for Christianity etc.)

 

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scansion

 

 

 

analysis of the metrical pattern (meter) of a poem or parts of the poem

 

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meter

 

 

 

rhythmic pattern determined by the type and number of feet per line; one of the aspects that create ‘similitude in dissimilitude’ (WORDSWORTH, see poetry).

 

The basic unit of rhythmic measurement is the (metrical)  foot consisting of

unaccented (-) and/or accented (/) syllables.

 

The most common types are:

iamb  (- /) and

anapa(e)st  (- - /), each a so-called ‘rising meter’.

trochee (/ -) and

dactyl  (/ - - ), each termed as ‘falling meter’.

 

The number of feet or accented syllables in a line produces the line patterns

dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, (‘heroic’) pentameter, hexameter, heptameter

 

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rhyme

 

 

 

(partial) congruity of sound in order to create harmony or ‘similitude in dis-similitude’ (WORDSWORTH; see poetry). Distinctions can be made by

 

1. extent:

masculine rhyme: 1 syllable:  bright / night)

feminine rhyme: 2 syllables:  ending / bending)

 

2. position:

internal rhyme

end rhyme: rhyme pairs aabb, cross rhyme abab,

embracing rhyme abba, tail rhyme aa-bccb

 

3. quality:

true (‘exact’) rhyme (bright / night)

identical rhyme;  use of same word or homonym (too / too ,  to / two)

slant (‘half’,‘approximate’) rhyme; further distinctions:

assonance: repetition of vowel sounds:  rage - made

consonance: repetition of consonant sounds before / after differing vowel sounds:    red / rod

alliteration: repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of or within successive words:   mazy motion, life’s fever

 

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stanza

 

 

 

(strophe): section or division of a poem, grouping or pattern of lines:

couplet , tercet, quatrain, cinquain, sestet, rhyme royal, octave,

Spenserian stanza

 

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ballad stanza

 

 

 

typographical convention of the ballad 
prevailing rhyme pattern: a - b - c - b
most typical metrical pattern: 4 - 3 - 4 - 3 stresses

 

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(c) Juergen Matthias Schroeder 2002

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1 NOV 2009