Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Can you explain subjectivity in English poetry from 1780 to the 1970?

Subjectivity encompasses a
broad scope and is defined as:


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belonging to the thinking subject rather than to
the object
pertaining to or characteristic of an individual;
personal
placing excessive emphasis on one's own moods, attitudes, opinions,
etc (Dictionary.com)



The
story of subjectivity in English poetry between 1780 and 1970 is a long and twisting
one. Around 1780, poets like Thomas Gray and Robert Burns reacted against the
Augustinian period typified by Dryden and Samuel Johnson in which the Roman and Greek
ideals were emulated, especially as exemplified during the time of Caesar Augustus. Gray
and Burns introduced an emphasis upon the poet's subjective sentiments and
feelings.

This new subjectivity led to the Romantic period's deep
expressiveness of the poet's subjective experience and feelings as was exemplified by
Wordsworth and Coleridge along with others like Shelly and Byron. Milton replaced the
Roman and Greek ideals as the source of inspiration. This newly developing subjectivity
was carried through to and accelerated by Victorian poets like Robert and Elizabeth
Browning. Robert Browning illustrates the deepened subjectivity in dramatic monologues
like "Porphyria's Lover." This trend toward the subjective took deepest root during the
1890s in the work of the Pre-Raphaelites and the decadent poets, when
fin-de-siecle depended upon the French symbolism
model.

Georgian poets reacted against the decadent movement and turned
toward sentimentalism, which is a different form of subjectivism, as was seen earlier in
Gray and Burns. Robert Graves and D. H. Lawrence are two such Georgian poets. Another
branch of poetry during this period is represented by such as Kipling and Henley. Their
poems, with subjective sentimental elements, inspired people during the World War I era.
Kipling wrote of traditional British virtue, like stoicism, in "If," while Henley wrote
of the unconquerable soul in "Invictus." Modernism
followed.

From here, the story of subjectivity becomes more
complicated and twisting, as everything became more complicated and twisting following
two world wars. Modernism, with its fragmented subjectivity best exemplified by Eliot,
led to the highly personal, therefore subjective, political criticisms of poets like W.
H. Auden. These were followed by New Romantic poets like Dylan Thomas who, in reaction
against an earlier emphasis on French classicism by New Country poets, wrote highly
personal subjective poems like "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good
Night."

Poets like Philip Larkin followed. They wrote from an extreme
dislike of modernism and used Hardy's earlier subjectivism as a model. After this,
poetry embraced new expressions in performance poetry, sound poetry, and concrete
poetry. Their subjective expressions often turned to protests against the social order
and nuclear threat. Once subjectivity entered poetry as a reaction against Johnson's and
Dryden's Roman Classicism, it never left; it deepened in nature until the present
era.

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