English 841 Fall 2008 Joseph Viscomi

Thurs: 6-8:30 office GL 504

526A, 5^th floor Greenlaw office hrs. T & th 2-3:15 & by appt.

jsviscom@email.unc.edu 962-8764

Texts: Revolutions in Romantic Art and Literature

Electronic course pak with extra readings and selected criticism at:

http://sites.unc.edu/viscomi/romrev [userid: blake; password: Catherine]

Blake, William. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (copy H). Ed. G. Keynes, Oxford U. Press, 1975.

Richey, William, and Daniel Robinson, eds. The Lyrical Ballads and Related Writings. NY: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002.

The William Blake Archive: http://blakearchive.org

Resources:

ART RESERVE: Books and Exhibition Catalogues on Reserve in Art Library, Hanes Art Center, under catalogue number [see separate sheet]

GASKIN LIBRARY RESERVE: Many of the books and readings at the Art Library are also in Gaskin, as are books on romanticism with articles on graphic arts, lyrical poets, landscape painting. There are also many articles in folders, some assigned reading and many to assist you in your research.

For Advanced Research:

Eighteenth-Century Collections Online (ECCO), in UNC’s E-Research Tools. A superb database of 18^th c. books and essays, with a very robust search engine.

Index for 18^th-Century Periodicals and Journals on MicroFilm in Davis Library: Z692.S5.U56.1981

Bibliography of 18^th-Century Aesthetics, ed. John Draper. Davis PE 25 A5 HEFT 71

in Gaskin, article folder.

see also bibliography on the sublime in Peter de Bolla’s Discourse of the Sublime

in Gaskin, article folder (also online)

The English Romantic Poets; A Review of Research and Criticism, ed. Frank Jordan, 4th edition. MLA, l985. [Davis Reference Shelf, PR590.E5.1985, ROW 29]. This is an annotated bibliography of books and important articles on the Romantic poets and their works. Standard critical works on Romantic writers, minor and major, from before and after1985 to the present can be found in the index of periodical literature, the annual bibliography published by Garland Press (from 1979), and journals in the field, e.g., Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly, The Wordsworth Circle, and Keats-Shelley Journal, which is now online for the years 1994-1999 at: http://www.rc.umd.edu/reference/ksjbib/. See also http://www.lib.unc.edu/ for UNC’s E-Research Tools and Article Databases (e.g., MLA International Bibliography [1963-2004], and Literature Online), E-Journal Finder, and Print Journals (Catalog Search); the Romantic Circles at http://www.rc.umd.edu, the Norton Anthology web site at www.wwnorton.com/nael, Voice of the Shuttle (http://vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=2750), Romantic Literary Resources (http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Lit/romantic.html), and Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com/schhp?hl=en&tab=ws). For articles online, see the Scholarly Journal Archive at http://www.jstor.org/. Also helpful is the Introduction to Library Research, http://www.lib.unc.edu/instruct/tutorial/.

Blake's The Book of Thel, The Songs of Innocence and of Experience, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, America, a Prophecy, Europe, a Prophecy, The Book of Urizen are illuminated books that are reproduced in excellent facsimiles, copies of which are in the Department of Rare Books, Wilson Library; for excellent digital reproductions of various exemplary copies of these and other of Blake’s illuminated books, as well as his engravings, drawings, watercolors, and paintings, go to The Blake Archive at http://blakearchive.org [WBA]. The Archive also contains bibliographies on Blake’s work, a profusely illustrated biography, and an essay on his illuminated printing technique.

NB. “cp” refers to the page numbers of the pages in the articles or sections in the course pack;

“pp” refers to page numbers in books and articles on Reserve.

“*”means you should print this out and bring to class

8/21 Introduction to Course: Drawing as Paradigm, Print as Reproduction:

concepts of taste, originality, models, education, spontaneity, translation, and deception

Reynolds on sketches, from Discourse VIII (handout)

8/28 The Sublime, the Beautiful, and the Picturesque

Burke: Introduction

*Burke: Essay on Taste + chap. 1-3 from A Philosophical Enquiry

*Gilpin: Three Essays

*Blake: letters, 1800 to Cumberland, 1802 to Butts

GASKIN LIBRARY

Bicknell, Beauty, Horror and Immensity , preface to catalogue (folder and catalogue)

Part I of Bolla’s The Discourse of the Sublime (folder; online)

Hipple, on Burke (folder; online)

Kroeber , “Romantic Historicism: the Temporal Sublime” (folder, book)

RARE BOOKS, WILSON LIBRARY, EXHIBITION ON ROMANTICISM

9/4 The Picturesque and Anti-Picturesque in practice

slide lecture on the development of watercolor painting, 1760-90

*Gilpin: Two Essays

*Cozens: The New Method, + illus.

*Drawing Manuals: Craig, Aiken, and reviews attacking the Picturesque

*Hazlitt: On the Picturesque and Ideal

ART RESERVE

Bicknell, Wordsworth’s Guide to the Lakes,

(introduction, itinerary, chronology; look at the pictures)

Wilton, Pars' Journey Through the Alps

Wilcox, British Watercolors

GASKIN LIBRARY

Wilcox, Line of Beauty

Wilton, British Watercolor s, 1750-1850

(examine Smith, Sandby, Towne, Pars, J.R. Cozens, A. Cozens)

Parris, Landscape in Britain, browse through

Rosenblum, Romantic Art in Britain, browse through

Wordsworth, et. al, Wordsworth & the Age of English Romanticism, parts 4-5

9/11 Wordsworth’s lyrical poetry

Wordsworth and Coleridge, Advertisement to the Lyrical Ballads (Richey ed.)

Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, ch. 14 (Richey ed.)

Wordsworth: poems from the Lyrical Ballads (Richey ed.)i

GASKIN LIBRARY

Swingle, “Wordsworth’s ‘Picture of the Mind’” (folder, online)

Kroeber, “Beyond the Imaginable: Wordsworth and Turner” (folder, online)

Johnston “The Triumphs of Failure: Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads of 1798” (folder; online)

9/18 Wordsworth’s lyrical poetry

Wordsworth: poems from the Lyrical Ballads (Richey ed.)

*Gilpin: Observations on the River Wye (also in Richey ed.)

GASKIN LIBRARY

Levinson, “Introduction,” “Insight and oversight: reading ‘Tintern Abbey’” (folder, online)

Johnston, “The Politics of ‘Tintern Abbey’” (folder, online)

Abrams, “On Political Readings of Lyrical Ballads” (folder, online)

9/25 Coleridge’s lyrical poetry

*Coleridge: Pantisocracy, Eolian Harp (Effusion XXXV, in Richey, 156).

*Coleridge: Nightingale, Reflections, Frost at Midnight, Kubla Khan,

*Coleridge: “On the Principles of Genial Criticism”

GASKIN LIBRARY:

Simpson, “Romanticism, Criticism, and Theory” (folder; online)

Keach, “Romanticism and Language” (folder, online)

Woodring, “What Coleridge Thought of Pictures” (folder, online)

*Abrams, “Structure and Style in the Greater Romantic Lyric” (folder, online)

*Magnuson, “Politics of ‘Frost at Midnight’” (folder, online)

ORAL REPORTS #1

10/2 Wordsworth’s prose and aesthetics

Wordsworth: Preface to Lyrical Ballads, 2^nd edition, and Appendix (Richey ed.)

*Wordsworth: "On the Sublime and Beautiful”

ORAL REPORTS #2

tba Special session: workshop in illuminated printing and wash drawing

Cozens: The New Method; art supplies: large sheets of drawing paper and transparent papers,

black ink and large watercolor brushes, pencils

10/9 Technical and aesthetic origin of Blake's illuminated printing:

*Drawing Manuals: Selection of comments on prints and drawings

Blake Archive/About Blake: Blake biography and illustrated essay on illuminated printing

*Blake: Critical comments on illuminated printing

*Blake: Prospectus for illuminated books

*Blake: letters: 1800 to Cumberland, 1808 to and from Cumberland, 1818 to Turner, 1827 to

Cumberland

Gilpin: On Sketching Landscapes, from Three Essays

Gilpin: Essay on Prints, cp i-xii, 1-52, 165-174

*Landseer: Lecture III

Selected Criticism:

Fitzwilliam, The Print in England, Art & Genius: Printmaking in early 19^th c. England pp 6-11

Viscomi, “William Blake, Illuminated Books, and the Concept of Difference”

Eaves, “Blake and the Artistic Machine”

*Benjamin, “The Work in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”

William Blake Archive:

Explore the illuminated books and Book of Job, Dante, and The Grave engravings

answers to study questions #1 due

10/23 William Blake: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (copy H)

Select Criticism (from William Blake’s Illuminated Books, vol. 3, in Gaskin):

Eaves, Essick, Viscomi, “Introduction to Blake’s Illuminated Books”

Eaves, Essick, Viscomi, “Introduction to The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”

William Blake Archive:

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, copies C, D, F, G, I

10/30 William Blake: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (copy H)

*Hazlitt: On Imitation; On Originality

*Blake: letters: 1799 to Trusler (2) and to Cumberland

*Coleridge: On Poesy and Art (on imitation and copy)

Select Criticism:

Eaves, “Romantic Expressive Theory”

Viscomi, “The Evolution of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” parts I, II, III

11/6 Technical and aesthetic context for illuminated printing revisited: Blake’s art theories

Reynolds: Contents and Introduction, Reynold’s Intro, and

*Reynolds: Discourses III, IV, VI, VII

*Blake: Annotations to Reynolds (c. 1808)

*Blake: from the Descriptive Catalogue (1809) cp 547-48, cat. # VIII and IX

*Blake: Public Address (c. 1809)

*Blake: Laocoon (c. 1827)

*Hazlitt: on Reynolds; Genius and Originality; Imitation of Nature,;the Ideal

*Hazlitt: Why the Arts are not Progressive

GASKIN LIBRARY:

Intro and Commentary on Laocoon in Milton a Poem (vol. 5 of Blake Trust series)

Read, “The Context of Blake’s Public Address” (folder)

Eaves, “Inquiry into the Real and Imaginary Obstructions …” (folder)

Eaves, “The Sister Arts in British Romanticism” (folder)

Hipple, The Beautiful, the Sublime, and the Picturesque, ch. on Reynolds (folder; online)

Barrell, “The Republic of Taste,” in Barrell’s The Politics of Art Theory from Reynolds to Hazlitt (folder; online)

Eaves, review of Barrell (folder; online)

ORAL REPORTS #3:

11/13 Watercolor Painting

slide lecture on Girtin, Cotman, Turner, Constable

*Turner, Constable: background readings

*Hazlitt: On the Pleasure of Painting

ART RESERVE

Wilcox, British Watercolors

Butlin, Turner’s Watercolors

Gadney, Constable’s Oil Sketches *Parris, *Rosenblum: browse

GASKIN LIBRARY

Wilton, British Watercolors, 1750-1850 (entries on Girtin, Cotman, Turner, Constable);

Reynolds, Constable’s England

Parris, Landscape in Britain

Rosenthal, Constable: The Painter and His Landscapes

Rosenblum, Romantic Art in Britain

Shanes, Turner: The Great Watercolors

*Kroeber, “The Clarity of the Mysterious and the Obscurity of the Familiar: Friedrich
and Turner” (folder; online)

*Meisel, “The Material Sublime: Martin, Byron, Turner, and the Theater” (folder; online)

Wordsworth and the Age of English Romanticism, part 6

ORAL REPORTS #4

answers to study questions #2 due.

11/20 Wordsworth’s Prelude

*Wordsworth: Prospectus to the Recluse

*Wordsworth: Prelude, parallel text: books 11/12

GASKIN LIBRARY

Johnston, “The Romantic Idea-Elegy: the Nature of Politics and the Politics of Nature”

(folder. online)

Simpson, “Criticism, Politics, and Style in Wordsworth’s Poetry” (folder, online)

ORAL REPORTS:

12/4 Wordsworth’s Prelude

*Wordsworth: Prelude, parallel text: books 12/13, 13/14

12/12 Papers Due

Requirements:

short essay answers to study questions (due 10/9 and 11/13)

one oral report (this can be collaborative)

research or critical essay

The paper is due at the end of the semester but will be developed concurrent with the class. The paper can be on any of the poets, artists, critics, or printmakers of the period, or any interdisciplinary topic, that is, a comparative analysis of works in various media, or on any relevant aesthetic issue, theme, subject, or concept, including a further development of study or exam questions or your oral report. The paper can be a collaborative and/or multi-media Web project. I will expect you to discuss your ideas for papers with me and with other members in the class.

Study questions can also be used as topics for your class paper.

#1. Answer two of the following questions in 4 or more pages each. Due 10/9

1. Discuss the ways in which Burke's idea of the sublime or Gilpin's idea of the picturesque figure into the poetry of Wordsworth or Coleridge. Focus on passages from poems in the Lyrical Ballads, or the Prelude, or one or two other poems.

2. Discuss the ways in which Burke's idea of the sublime or Gilpin's idea of the picturesque figure into the prose of Wordsworth or Coleridge. Focus on passages from the Preface, essay on Wordsworth’s "The Sublime and the Beautiful," or Coleridge’s "On the Principles of Genial Criticism."

3. Examine the themes of mediation and/or natural vs arbitrary sign-systems, as expressed in the writings or creative works (paintings, drawings, prints, or poems) of two or more poets and artists.

4. Discuss the use of painting as a metaphor or analogy in the poetry and/or prose of Wordsworth and Coleridge.

5. Discuss the ways in Wordsworth and/or Coleridge “picture” nature, i.e., how they verbally describe pictures and the picturesque in light of or in contrast to the fashions of the day.

6. What are Cozens objectives in the New Method and why does he consider them important? Are they realized in practice? If so, how; if not, why not?

7. Define the Picturesque traveler and argue the case for or against him, using the writings and works of the critics and painters to support your claims.

8. In what ways does Gilpin see himself as extending the aesthetic theories of Burke and/or Reynolds?

9. Discuss a few watercolor drawings or paintings that express Burkean ideas of the sublime and beautiful.

#2. Answer two of the following questions in 4 or more pages each. Due 11/13.

1. Discuss the ways in which Blake and Landseer agree and disagree about the state and status of printmaking in England in the Romantic period.

2. What is Blake's idea of books, prints, and/or readers in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell?

3. Discuss the ways in which text and/or illustrations of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell or The Book of Urizen comment on the creative process, perception, or the usurpation of originals by imitations.

4. Reynolds recommends "not the industry of the hands, but of the mind." Discuss in detail what he means by this and why he advocates this position.

5. Blake states "How very Anxious Reynolds is to Disprove and Contemn Spiritual Perceptions." Explain what Blake means by this and why he says it.

6. Both Blake and Reynolds are concerned with the way that art is taught and perceived. Examine some of the main topics, like inspiration and genius, on which they agree and disagree.

7. Discuss how Blake and Hazlitt agree and disagree regarding theories of Reynolds or on the topics of progress in the arts, imitation, genius, and originality.

8. Compare and contrast the drawing instructions and practices of Cozens (or Gilpin) and Blake (or Craig), using examples from their work and/or writings (or works executed in their styles) to support your findings.

9. How do you think Burke, Reynolds, Blake, and Cozens would respond to the watercolors of Turner reproduced in Butlin? Explain their responses by citing their writings or painting styles.

10. Examine Hazlitt’s views on originality and imitation or on depicting nature in art and compare them with Wordsworth’s, Coleridge’s, or Blake’s.

Study questions and potential topics for final papers

1. Read the Mount Snowdon episode in the last book of the Prelude in light of Wordsworth’s essay on the Sublime and Beautiful.

2. How does Wordsworth express the “tyranny of the eye” and one’s escape from it? Or how looking is transformed into seeing/vision/perception of a deeper kind?

3. Discuss the painting styles of Towne, J. R. Cozens, and Girtin in relation to one another, to the topographical ideal, and to the late watercolor paintings of Turner.

4. Discuss various linguistic strategies used by W or C for representing the mind in motion.

ART RESERVE BOOK LIST

ND1140.B36. 1986 Barrell, J. Political Theory of Painting from Reynolds to Hazlitt

ND1354.4.B47.1 Bermingham, A. Landscape and Ideology

N6766.B52. 1981 Bicknell, P. Beauty, Horror and Immensity

ND2240.B535. 1987 Bicknell, P. Gipin to Ruskin

DA 670. L1 W67. 1984 Bicknell, P. Wordsworth's Guide to the Lakes
PR 4142. E285. 1998 Blake, W. The Early Illuminated Books

PR 4144.U7. 1995 Blake, W. The Urizen Books

N6797.B57.B87 Butlin, M. Complete Paintings & Drawings of W. Blake

Folio ND 1942 T8. B8 1965 Butlin, M. Turner's Watercolors

N6766.C8 Cummings, F. Romantic Art in Britain
PE 25 A5 HEFT 71 Draper, J. Bibliography on18th Century Aesthetics [Davis]

NE628.P756. 1985 Fitzwilliam The Print in England
ND 1942 C66 F55 Fleming-Williams Constable's Landscape Drawings

NC 242 C5 G33 Gadney, R. Constable's Oil Sketches

NE 850 G37 1986 Gasgoinge, B. How to Recognize Prints [reference section]

Folio ND497 C7. H5 1985 Hill, D. Constable's English Landscape Scenery
BH221.G72.H5 Hipple, W. J. The Beautiful, The Sublime, The Picturesque

BH301.L3 H8 Hussey, C. The Picturesque

ND 1354.4 P37.1973 Parris Landscape in Britain
N6797 C67 A4.1982 Rajnai, M. John Sell Cotman

N6766.C8 Rosenblum Romantic Art in Britain

Folio ND 1942 T8. A4 Shanes, E. Turner's Picturesque Views in England & Wales
NE 642.B5.V57.1993 Viscomi, J. Blake and the Idea of the Book

ND 1928 W533. 1985 Wilcox British Watercolors

ND 1928 W55. 1977 Wilton British Watercolor 1750-1850

N6797.T88 A4. 1980 Wilton Turner and The Sublime

Folio NC 242 P33. W5 Wilton William Pars Journey Through the Alps

ND 1942 T8. W55 1982 B Wilton Turner Abroad

Topics for Oral Reports

#1 and #2

In Search for the Picturesque, M. Andrews

Grand tours and Cook's Tours, Lynne Withey

18^th c. English Landscape Gardening (see J. Dixon Hunt)

Alexander Cozens or J. R. Cozens

Capability Brown, the landscape architect

Dr. Syntax (a parody of William Gilpin, by Rowlandson and Coombs)

Anne Bermingham, The Ideology of Landscape

Drawing's role in the education of women (see Bermingham, Sha, and essays of V. Knox, E. Darwin, John Burton, Hannah More, John Moir; de Bolla has a good bib on the subject)

Edward Dayes, on Taste or Drawing, from his Works (1805)

Humphry Repton, landscape architect

The English country house (see Mark Girouard and Clive Wainwright)

The grand tour

The picturesque tour, or a specific tour once taken by a painter, poet, or connoisseur

The English Lake District of painters or poets

The Man of Taste

Achibald Alison, on Taste (see Hipple, Draper)

Edmund Burke

William Gilpin

Connoisseurship (see C. J. Gibson-Wood)

Uvedale Price, theorist of the picturesque (see Hipple, Draper)

Richard Paine Knight, theorist of the picturesque (see Hipple, Draper, N. Penny)

WW Descriptive Sketches and Evening Walk

WW Ruined Cottage or Pedlar

WW's Guide to the Lakes

Kantian Sublime

Wordsworth and the Sublime (Weiskel or Ferguson vs Wlecke)

Theresa Kelly, Revisionary Aesthetics (in Wordsworth)

Tintern Abbey as popular site visited by picturesque tourists-or one comparable Landscape, a Poem (Gilpin)

WW and travel literature (see Coe)

WW and Constable (see Kroeber)

George Beaumont, art patron and friend of WW (see F. Own and D. Brown)2Green Romanticism (see Kroeber's Ecological Literary Imagination)

James Thomson's The Seasons

18^th c. Topographical poetry

John Clare

#3

William Hazlitt Joshua Reynolds

British Institution

Royal Academy British Museum

Blake and the Sublime (see Deluca)

Morton Paley, The Apocalyptic Sublime

Idea of patronage (see Prince Hoare's Director or The Artist, in Rare Books)

Boydell's Shakespeare (large prints after paintings of scenes from Shakespeare; see me for bib)

Morris Eaves, The Counter-Arts Conspiracy: Art and Industry in the Age of Blake

Robert Essick, The Language of Adam (study of Blake in light of 18^th century theories of language)

Rudolf Ackerman's Repository of Art

Prince Hoare (e 19^th c. art critic) on Cultivating the Public's Taste and the influence of Art on Morals Thomas Rowlandson, biography, The Microcosm, or satires of Regent society

James Gillray and the satirical/political etchings

Paul Sandby, experiments as painter and/or etcher,

"Original Genius" (see Draper for bib)

Alexander Gerard, on Genius (see Hipple, Draper)

#4

The Gothic in art, architecture, or literature

Ruins, as image and/or idea, in romantic art or literature Thomas Girtin’s panoramas or watercolor landscapes

Turner's tours, or one of his specific tour

Turner's poetry

Turner's prints

Constable's prints

Constable’s skies

Constable’s England

One of Constable’s six-footer paintings (e.g., Haywain) and its preliminary sketch

MISC.

Ut Pictora Poesis (see Rensselaer W. Lee)

Wordsworth and "Romantic Religion"

Shee's Rhymes on Art, 1809

Thomas Stothard: The Mechanisms of Art Patronage in England, c. 1800. S. Bennett

The Discovery of Painting: The Growth of Interest in the Arts in England 1680-1768, Iain Pears Selling Art in Georgian England: The Rise of Arthur Pond, L. Lippincott

Politics of the Picturesque, ed. Copley and Garside.

The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism, Colin Campell

"Portrait Painting as a Business Enterprise in London in the 1780s" M. Pointon (Art History 7 1984) Landscape Imagery and Urban Culture in early 19`^h-c. Britain, A. Hemingway

Forgery and the Philosophy of Art

Hogarth's Analysis of Beauty

Rousseau's Essai sur l'origine des langues, ch. 16 "Fausse analogie entre les couleurs et les sons" Bromley, on painting's superiority over poetry