Romanticism and Literature

Following are the extracts you are asked to analyze on the final examination. You will be asked to demonstrate how they are related to each other and furthermore to the Romanticism in general. Based upon three chosen passages below, examine in what why the texts are similar and/or in what way they are different. Think about the way they deploy the Romantic idiom and why? Compare, synthesize, and contrasts the three texts. How do they express the borderline mental experiences, 'in your mind,' as we have discussed online. Please submit the exam via Blackboard by the end of Wednesday, June 24. It should be between 3 and 4 pages in length.

General suggestions: think about what the three passages have in common. Use the text by Sigmund Freud as a guide: the idea of the double (doubling of consciousness), self-destruction, egoism, the ‘ language’ of dreams (i.e., the notion that literature is a form of dreaming), narcissism (i.e. intense introspection), the idea of death. As you know, these are essential characteristics of Romanticism. Remember, there is not a right answer. I am asking that you explore possible connections and ways of looking at and understanding these brief passages in a essay exam of between 3 and 4 pages.



Polidari:
"He watched him; and the very impossibility of forming an idea of the character of a man entirely
absorbed in himself, who gave few other signs of his observation of external objects, than the
tacit assent to their existence, implied by the avoidance of their contact: allowing his imagination
to picture everything that flattered its propensity to extravagant ideas, he soon formed this object
into the hero of a romance, and determined to observe the offspring of his fancy, rather than the
person before him. He became acquainted with him, paid him attentions, and so far advanced
upon his notice, that his presence was always recognized. He gradually learnt that Lord
Ruthven's affairs were embarrassed, and soon found, from the notes of preparation in ——
Street, that he was about to travel. Desirous of gaining some information respecting this singular
character, who, till now, had only whetted his curiosity, he hinted to his guardians, that it was
time for him to perform the tour, which for many generations has been thought necessary to
enable the young to take some rapid steps in the career of vice towards putting themselves upon
an equality with the aged, and not allowing them to appear as if fallen from the skies, whenever
scandalous intrigues are mentioned as the subjects of pleasantry or of praise, according to the
degree of skill shewn in carrying them on. They consented: and Aubrey immediately mentioning
his intentions to Lord Ruthven, was surprised to receive from him a proposal to join him.
Flattered by such a mark of esteem from him, who, apparently, had nothing in common with
other men, he gladly accepted it, and in a few days they had passed the circling waters.


Gautier:

My love, although the growth of a single hour, had taken imperishable root. I did not even dream
of attempting to tear it up, so fully was I convinced such a thing would be impossible. That
woman had completely taken possession of me. One look from her had sufficed to change my
very nature. She had breathed her will into my life, and I no longer lived in myself, but in her
and for her. I gave myself up to a thousand extravagancies. I kissed the place upon my hand
which she had touched, and I repeated her name over and over again for hours in succession. I
only needed to close my eyes in order to see her distinctly as though she were actually present;
and I reiterated to myself the words she had uttered in my ear at the church porch: 'Unhappy
man! Unhappy man! What hast thou done?' I comprehended at last the full horror of my
situation, and the funereal and awful restraints of the state into which I had just entered became
clearly revealed to me. To be a priest!—that is, to be chaste, to never love, to observe no
distinction of sex or age, to turn from the sight of all beauty, to put out one's own eyes, to hide
for ever crouching in the chill shadows of some church or cloister, to visit none but the dying, to
watch by unknown corpses, and ever bear about with one the black soutane as a garb of
mourning for oneself, so that your very dress might serve as a pall for your coffin.

Poe:


He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of the peculiar gloom which thus
afflicted him could be traced to a more natural and far more palpable origin—t o the severe and
long-continued illness—indeed to the evidently approaching dissolution—of a tenderly beloved
sister, his sole companion for long years, his last and only relative on earth. “Her decease,” he
said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, “would leave him (him the hopeless and the
frail) the last of the ancient race of the Ushers.” While he spoke, the lady Madeline (for so was
she called) passed slowly through a remote portion of the apartment, and, without having noticed
my presence, disappeared. I regarded her with an utter astonishment not unmingled with dread;
and yet I found it impossible to account for such feelings. A sensation of stupor oppressed me as
my eyes followed her retreating steps. When a door, at length, closed upon her, my glance sought
instinctively and eagerly the countenance of the brother; but he had buried his face in his hands,
and I could only perceive that a far more than ordinary wanness had overspread the emaciated
fingers through which trickled many passionate tears.


Freud:

“ The theme of the ‘double’ has been very thoroughly treated by Otto Rank (1914). He has gone
into the connections which the ‘double’ has with reflections in mirrors, with shadows, with
guardian spirits, with the belief in the soul and with the fear of death; but he also lets in a flood
of light on the surprising evolution of the idea. For the ‘double’ was originally an insurance
against the destruction of the ego, an ‘energetic denial of the power of death’, as Rank says; and
probably the ‘immortal’ soul was the first ‘double’ of the body. This invention of doubling as a
preservation against extinction has its counterpart in the language of dreams, which is found of
representing castration by a doubling or multiplication of a genital symbol. The same desire led
the Ancient Egyptians to develop the art of making images of the dead in lasting materials. Such
ideas, however, have sprung from the soil of unbounded self-love, from the primary narcissism
which dominates the mind of the child and of primitive man. But when this stage has been
surmounted, the ‘double’ reverses its aspect. From having been an assurance of immortality, it
becomes the uncanny harbinger of death