Visualizing the Romantics

Introduction

Byron’s Darkness, written in July of 1816, is a resemblance of the way authors during the period of Romanticism felt about the connection between humans and the environment, while incorporating many themes of the “sublime.” This theme, by definition, is the “grand or terrifying aspects of nature” (Shaw, 2014). This exhibit analyzes these very themes of nature, and how it, through its many aspects, can either aid human existence, or hinder it dramatically.

As described previously, Byron’s Darkness…

Introduction:

            The Chimney Sweeper, a poem in The Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake, focuses on two young children who work as chimney sweeps in the 17th century. This exhibit focuses on the young children such as the one depicted in The Chimney Sweep from Songs of Experience published in 1794. The young child speaking to us from this poem expresses feelings of hardship and abandonment that come from the conditions working children sweeps are exposed to. Blake…

Introduction:

Anna Laelita Barbauld - The Rights of Women (1795)

In her conquest of liberating and comforting women, Barbauld unapologetically utilizes her confidence to boost the purposes of women during the Romanticism era. She, like many other artists and writers, used her platform to urge the eagerness and advances of women to develop a potential ‘hard-shell’ that’ll limit and reduce the negative impacts that society has created when judging women. Some may argue that Barbauld’s argument is a little too offensive and uncensored, but she believes that this is…

Introduction:

In Kincaid’s novel Lucy, there is a depiction of the idea ‘ignorance is bliss’ where the main character, Lucy, recalls an incident involving daffodils. As a young girl, Lucy was forced to recite a poem about daffodils, flowers that were not grown in her home country. Being that Lucy’s home country was colonized by Britain, Britain’s culture was taught throughout schools, which is why she had to recite this poem. And rather than falling in love with the flowers, Lucy came to hate them. However, Lucy’s employer, Mariah, had a different experience growing up.…

A Disconnection

In an excerpt of Lucy: A Novel by Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy illustrates her disdain for daffodils to her friend Mariah by recalling a bitter memory from childhood. She recalls a time in her grade school where she had to recite a poem for flowers she had never seen in her life, then later had a dream about being chased by those same flowers and suffocating underneath when they caught up to her. She stated, “I felt sorry that I had cast her beloved daffodils in a scene she had never considered, a scene of conquered and conquests; a scene of brutes masquerading as…