Eng 302 Prelude
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The document summarizes key themes and ideas about how nature is portrayed in Romantic-era art and literature. It discusses how nature is depicted as something that transcends society and man, conveying both beauty and danger. Specific works discussed include Turner's paintings Hannibal Crossing the Alps and Tintern Abbey, as well as Caspar David Friedrich's Wanderer Above the Mist. Wordsworth's poetry, such as from The Prelude, is analyzed for how it portrays nature as both an innocent and violent power. Blake's poem "Auguries of Innocence" is also referenced.
Eng 302 Prelude
- 1. Tintern Abbey, J.M.W. Turner, 1795, British Museum
- 3. Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, Th. Gainsborough, 1750, National Gallery, UK
- 4. QuickTimeª and a decompressor are needed to see this picture. Hannibal Crossing the Alps, Turner, 1826, Tate Gallery
- 5. Wanderer Above the Mist, Caspar David Friedrich, 1818, Kunsthalle Hamburg
- 6. The Sublime • Man lost in nature -- smallness in immense nature • Nature transcends society and man • Nature connotes beauty and eternity • But also terror, awe, danger • World without God, society, convention • Eternity and freedom of nature
- 7. Nature as Innocent Power To see the world in a grain of sand And heaven in a wild flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And eternity in an hour. --Blake, “Auguries of Innocence”
- 8. Nature as Violent Power The boat incident: Prelude Book I I dipped my oars into the silent lake, And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat Went heaving through the water like a swan; When, from behind that craggy steep till then The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge, As if with voluntary power instinct Upreared its head… --Prelude 1.374-400
- 9. Nature as Violent Power The power, which all Acknowledge when thus moved, which Nature thus To bodily sense exhibits, is the express Resemblance of that glorious faculty That higher minds bear with them as their own. --Prelude, 14.86-90
- 10. Echoes on Mt. Snowdon There I beheld the emblem of a mind That feeds upon infinity, that broods Over the dark abyss, intent to hear Its voices issuing forth to silent light In one continuous stream; (14.70-74) …Thou from the first Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread And mad’st it pregnant: What in me is dark Illumine, what is low raise and support (Paradise 1.19-23)
- 11. Echoes on Mt. Snowdon There I beheld the emblem of a mind That feeds upon infinity, that broods Over the dark abyss, intent to hear Its voices issuing forth to silent light In one continuous stream; (1850 Prelude 14.70-74) The perfect image of a mighty mind, Of one that feeds upon infinity, That is exalted by an underpresence, The sense of God, or whatso’er is dim Or vast in its own being… (1805 Prelude 13.69-73)