p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica;"span class="Apple-converted-space" /spanThe romantic authors of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries responds and demonstrate to the world what morality and ethics are by painting a picture of suffering and pain by their masterpieces. Percy Bysshe shelley, An ardent and well written author of many tales of melancholy characters and situations, argues that morality's secret is love. Furthermore It is good to imagine, the more one imagines the better, as it is a channel to support morality. however, tying this in to morality, one should also think of others suffering, place oneself in to their situation, and be empathetic enduring others suffering pain as their own. Many romantic authors have taken up this burden and indeed imagine which is the cause of such great imaginative, vivid, moving works about such sufferings there inability for resolution, and feelings of helplessness. Some examples are the last man a novel by Mary Shelley, The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Chimney Sweeper Songs Of Innocence by William Blake, and Resolution and Independence by William Worsworth. These works are numerous, a more careful look at four of these will demonstrate more specifically how suffering is conveyed through the sufferings one encounters in everyday life, degradation of their life and health, and a destruction of nature./p
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica;"span class="Apple-converted-space" /spanIn many works of the romantic period, The subject of the work is often focused on lower classes painful hardships both mentally and physically, and with these four romantic masterpieces this is the case with two of them. The similarities between the leech gatherer in Resolution and Independence and the children in chimney sweeper in song of innocence are both suffering due to the work that is required of them because of their condition of their class. The children of Blake's poem The chimney Sweeper of the song of innocence come from impoverished families that can not afford to raise their children due to struggling of their own. The only method to deal with this dilemma is to sell their children to a trade, and in this case, the trade is Cleaning out the soot from dirty well used chimneys of the city. The old man of Wordsworth's poem has a rather peculiar occupation, which is a leech gatherer. This man is at "this pond had come to gather leeches, being old and poor" (l.l. 105-106). In both, We see their sufferings. The Narrator of The Chimney sweeper of Songs Of Innocence suffers throughout but an example ishow unhealthful their conditions were, because according to Blake's narrator, "So your chimneys I sweep and in soot I sleep: (l. 4). Not only do must they work in the filth, they get insufficient means to clean themselves. The must not only work in bad conditions that is physically harmful, but long hours which is obvious when the narrator claims, "we rose in the dark and got with our bags and our brushes to work" (l. 21). One must remember that these are children and both lack of sleep needing to wake up at an extremely early hour and probably working well in to the evening and needing to live around such filth is detrimental and could potentially be deadly. The Leech gatherer's job is as he points out, "employment hazardous and wearisome! And he had many hardships to endure" (l.l.108-109). For one, leeches suck human blood as well as other animal's blood, and thus can be a hazard. He describes how One must be amongst the leeches in a pond, as he is "stirring things about his feet The waters of the pond where they abide" (l.l. 129-130. It was dangerous because it is possible leeches would be all round him, which would make it the most profitable, at one point it was. as The leech gatherer tells the narrator, "of Resolution And Independence, "'once I could meet with them on every side;But they have dwindled long by slow decay'" (l.l.131-132). A pondful Of leeches could mean that he could be more of a chance he could be attacked by a leech, as careful as he could be. Here in describing poor people and their works and imagining situations, it agrees with Shelly, as he says that poetry imagines others, and puts oneself in the place of another, such as a character. Also, consider the ages, and it's similar that both the Wordsworth's leech gather and Blake's children are a very similar fragile age range and state. The narrator of the Chimney Sweeper was extremely young, maybe a toddler or a little older in age as the child was according to Blake's narrator so young that he "could scarcely cry 'weep weep weep weep" (l. 3), or rather sweep. Also the character of Tom in Blake's poem was also quite young, as "little tomspan class="Apple-converted-space" /span/p
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica;"Dacre who cried when his headspan class="Apple-converted-space" /spanthat curl'd like a lambs back, was shaved" (l.l. 5-6). In Resolution and Independence Wordsworth's narrator comments the man was "in his extreme old age" (l. 73), and describes the man as seeming "The oldest man he seem'd that ever wore grey hairs" (l. 56). These physical degradation is a cause for mental changes for the worse as well. The mind is made to take up a resigned attitude to sustain and remain sane. In The Chimney sweeper of songs of innocence, the narrator has to convince himself and reassure others that shaving one's hair off was just the best, and one who is young as they are should not be upset about it, as the narrator says "'hush Tom never mind it, for when your head's bare. You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair" (l.l. 7-8). Also in The Chimney Sweeper of Songs Of Innocence, the character tom has a strange dream concerning "were all of them lock'd up in coffins of black" (l. 12), which is a sign of doom or of feeling as he was trapped. however Tom from The Chimney Sweeper of Songs Of Innocence Also dreams of liberation, a bright angel according to tom's dream "open'd the coffins and set them all free" (l. 14). The Leech gatherer was also in a sense resigned and content with his job and station in life. The Leech gatherer told the narrator in Resolution and Independence that he goes "from pond to pond he roam'd, from moor to moor, housing with God's good help, by choice or chance, and in this way he gain'dspan class="Apple-converted-space" /spanan honest maintenance" (l.l. 110-112). As mentioned his age, and his emphasis on being "old and poor" (107), wordsworth's leech gatherer did not expect anymore. In this way We see how through the description of these character's suffering physically and mentally and a need to resign themselves to this suffering, We see how these works agrees with Shelley's argument that poetry is not a waste of time and in fact is to display and in fact poetry should selflessly feel and empathize with the sufferings of others./p
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica;"span class="Apple-converted-space" /spanThere are works that have some differences but one shall find essentially that they agree more or less with Percy Shelley's arguments on what poetry is, only from a slightly different vantage Last two poems discussed, the pain and suffering was inflicted upon by others, and due to work. The other two which will be discussed the pain comes from either being self-caused or caused passively by others, or rather one can argue by nature. Mary Shelley's The last man has a suffering character that is "alone—we three—alone—alone—sole dwellers on the sea and on the earth (p. 479), due to a plague which has wiped out the entire planet for the exception of 3 human beings originally from England. Now they wonder the earth, before his friends die they were on the sea, landed in Italy, but decided to travel to greece, but they die when they are still near to the Italian shore, due to a fierce storm. The three as the narrator says "us now in our frail tenement, hemmed in by hungry, roaring waves, buffetted by wind" (479), thus in this state was in great danger. Mary Shelley's Narrator's ship sunk and he was the sole survivor. After which the narrator makes his way back to the shore and onwards to rome. The Ancient Mariner in Rime Of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a mariner who saled with two others, and on the journey An albatross befriends them, becoming somewhat of a pet. Colridge's mariners began by feeding it, letting it visit, and spent time with them, and soon they, the two parties, became friendly as "The albatross did follow,and every day, for food or play, came to the mariner's hollo" (l.l. 72-74). This was then a happy thing, but unlike Shelly's The Last Man, the narrator causes the issues and thus his suffering by unnecessarily killing an innocent creature, as the mariner recounts, "with my cross-bow I shot the albatross" (l.l. 81-82). The suffering was then a punishment, and self caused and not imposed on by nature or others. although different, they do seem imaginative, and is thoughts about others and their situations and their sufferings, which quite agrees with Percy Bysshe Shelly's Essay. However, both are similar in their feelings of loneliness, despair, desirous of companionship, and other such feelings, which the other two pieces don't explicitly mention, or even seem like they were lonely. In the last man, the narrator is so lonely he just cries out as he tells us, "again I raised my unanswered cry, lifting up the only voice that could ever again force the mute air to syllable the human thought" (482). He was lonely and hoped someone would reply, but really he knew no one would ever reply. The narrator of the last man had hope though, he kept searching because "chances were by no means contemptible that there should exist in some part of italy a survivor like myself" (486). He even went to lengths to "write up in a conspicuous part of each,with white paint, in three languages, that "'verney, the last of the race of Englishmen, had taken up his abode in Rome'" (486), so if there were any survivors he could be found by whoever it was, and three languages so the receiver of the message even if they didn't speak one of the languages could still class="Apple-converted-space" /spanThis is despite of it being most likely that there is nobody,but the narrator is simply that desperate to find companionship. In the Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, the sailors were so desperate for being rescued, and felt alone. The Mariner and his crew had given up mostly but was still excited after some disbelief. According to coleridges mariner, he was in such disbelief that "I bit my arm, I sucked the blood" (160). He was so shocked and excited longing for another boat that he "cried, A sail! A sail" (161). This loneliness intenses when the lady death wins the game in a nearby vessel and was even audible to the mariner. According to Coleridge's mariner's story he herd or say, "'The game is done! I've won! I've won!'" (197). Similar to Mary Shelley's narrator, the mariner also feels incredibly desolate after all his crewmates have dies, and utters these words as well, "alone, alone, all, all alone,Alone on a wide wide sea" (l.l. 232-233). He wishes for companionship as well and recounts, "and never a saint took pity on my soul in agony" (l.l. 234-235). Coleridge's mariner laments in a sense of being alive by saying, "and they all dead did lie: and a thousand thousand slimy things lived on; and so did I" (l.l. 237-239). The similarities is also clear in the restlessness of both the characters due to their loneliness. In the Last Man, the narrator "delighted to traverse street after street, to look up at the tall houses" (486), there were other mentions of how restless he was and kept wandering the city and walking to different surrounding places. Coleridge's Mariner was restless and lonely and in his case wished for death instead of roaming the cities, and he laments "seven days, seven nights,I saw that curse,and yet I could not die" (l.l. 261 232). Everything in the story seemed restless as wel or rather the mariner's perception of them. Coleridge's Mariner looks to nature and the moon and claims "The moving Moon went up the sky, and no where did abide" (l.l. 263-264). Likewise motion was perceived in water snakes as Coleridge's Mariner describes, "They coiled and swam" (280). We have here a clear representation of others suffering and what another can go through. This is outside of the author's self, and is quite felt and empathetic in a way, which agrees with Shelley's essay as well. Also, unlike the other two, even though all four of them in some way destroyed nature, even Wordsworth's leech gatherer in a small way, only The last Man and The Rime Of The ancient Mariner had any explicit consequences. The population which polluted the earth died of a plagued that wwiped out most of the earth except for 3 people, so that was in a way a punishment. The Mariner Coleridge's character also received a punishment. First his conscience felt guilty by realizing,span class="Apple-converted-space" /span"I had done a hellish thing, and it would work 'em woe" (91-92). The weather changed before it was fair sailing weather when there wasn't some slight bad weather. However, Coleridge's narrator the mariner describes, "down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down, twas sad as sad can be'br /span class="Apple-converted-space" /span(l.l. 107-108). The mood changed and the boat according to Coleridges narrator was uneasy, "and we did speak only to break the silence of the sea" (l.l. 109-110.) This lasted many days, there was no, movement or wind. Eventually the ship began to decay and everyone was dehydrated and deprived of water despite being on a ship due to being stranded, because according to Coleridge's narrator "water, water, every where,and all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where,nor any dropspan class="Apple-converted-space" /spanto drink" (l.l. 119-122). Eventually they couldn't even speak because according to Coleridge's narrator their "throat unslacked, with black lips baked, we could nor laughed nor wail" (l.l. 157-158). He was also punished by made to wear the albatross around his neck, and according to the narrator the others when they were still alive, and when they were dead as well seemed to give him "evil looks had I from old and young instead of the cross, the albatrossspan class="Apple-converted-space" /spanabout my neck hung" (l.l. 139-142). Another more ominous punishment but somewhat odd too is the death of his crew by either thirst and/or lady death. The experience was rather traumatic as he heard them fall "with heavy thump, a lifeless lump,they droppped down one by one. The souls did from their bodies fly" (l.l. 218-220). This is again a great proof of imagination, imagining the consequences, and in a sense what they would suffer through do to the punishment, and thus agrees with Shelley. Besides differences and similarities just between certain works, there are also overarching similarities even if it's fewer./p
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica;"span class="Apple-converted-space" /spanThere are similarities between all of these since they all come from a common era, The romantic era. three of them mentions nature and it's majesty and beauty, the other piece may have been represented by the pictures that accompanied it. The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner The Mariner describes "The sun came up upon the left, out of the sea came he! And he shone bright. and on the right went down in to the sea" (l.l. 25-29). Also the albatross came and brought better weather, as Colridge's mariner recounts, "The ice did split with a thunder-fit;the helmsman steered us through! and a good south wind sprung up behind" (l.l. 69-71). In Mary Shelley's The Last Man, many scenes were described, this one, the beach is only one of them, "the level sands bounded by a pine forest, and the sea clipped round by the horizon" (p. 481). Wordsworth in Resolution and Independence sets us up with a beautiful sceen in nature, "The birds are singing in the distant woods; over his own sweet voice the stock-dove broods' the jay makes answer as the magpie chatters; and all the air is fill'd with pleasant noises of waters" (l.l. 4-7), which is a peaceful sceen but a leech gatherer is there and in a sense doing the distruction. All of them mention nature being destroyed, either in the work or before it and we are now suffering what is the consequence. The Rime of the ancient Mariner had described the seas and a bird which folllowed and now after the Mariner has destroyed nature and shot down the Albatross, nature has been ruined, and the Mariner states "The good south wind still blew behind, but no sweet bird did follow" (l.l. 87-88). In Mary Shelley's The last Man, we know what happened that destroyed nature was a plague. In Resolution and Independence, The leeches are being captured by the leech gatherer, thus slowly destroying the food chain. Thus, The leech gatherer of Wordsworth's poem, tells us that, They have Dwindled long by slow decay; yet still I persevere, and find them where I may" (l.l. 132-133). In the chimney sweeper by William Blake, the entire poem is about these chimney sweepers, As the narrator says "your chimneys I sweep and in soot I sleep" (4), this is fueling a destructive economy of burning coal and the chimneys needing to be swept, directly speaking of nature being destroyed in action, and with it natural human beings including little children who must sleep and breathe the filth. So, for the most part all of this agrees with shelley and now the similarities and differences between the pieces are brought to the fourfront, it is important to note there are actually complications to Percy Bysshe Shelley's argument./p
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica;"span class="Apple-converted-space" /spanThere are factors that agree with the arguments Put forth in Percy Shelley's essay, but there are indeed a couple of exceptions. Mary Shelley while many things are typical of what Percy Shelley has argued for, does not all match up, because for example, she writes one could say it seems theraputically. It is not always true that she is stepping outside of herself to relate and ffeel another person's suffering. For example, she was in a sense the last woman, like the Last man. All her friends, and fellow known romantics had died, and another era had almost begun. Also her Husband Percy Bysshe Shelley did really die in a boat accident off the coast as the narrator describes, "We were without a rudder—we rushed prow foremost in to the vast billows piled up ahead—they broke over and filled the tiny skiff; one scream I heard— one cry that we were gone, I uttered" (481). Thus this narration and in a sense this novel seems somewhat personal to Mary Shelley, thus not altogether fitting in to Percy Bysshe Shelley's argument. Another complication to Percy Shelley's essay is Wordsworth, because he wrote on experience. Many of the people in his stories are based on real life actual people he had met as a child when he was wandering around in England. For exampl,He probably didn't imagine the leech gatherer, and he was in fact not fictional. Wordsworth, had indeed approached him and spoken to him./p
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica;"span class="Apple-converted-space" /spanThe romantic era was filled up with interesting, very interesting writers who wrote very different but very similar types of things, which can be mostly summed up by Percy Shelley's essay, we have seen here how it does fit, but also how just four out of many works can sometimes contradict this argument or theory. It has also been shown how they all speak of destruction of nature, but done in so many different ways. We can learn from this thought process whilst some arguments are good and can fit most ideas, that sometimes there can be aspects that doesn't work quite well with it./p