Lingual-Stylistic Peculiarities of Poetic Works of English Romanticism

Мiжнародний Гуманiтарний Унiверситет

Кафедра Лiнгвiстики та Перекладу

Курсова робота

на тему:

Lingual-Stylistic Peculiarities of Poetic Works of English Romanticism

студента 6 курсу

Руснака Геннадiя

науковий керiвник

канд. фiлол. наук

доц. Мартинюк О.А

Одеса 2013

Plan

Introduction

Chapter 1. The Notion of Romanticism in terms of Style

.1 General View of Romanticism

.2 Life and Heritage of the Romantic Poets

Chapter 2. Peculiarities of Style of the works of Romantic Poets

.1 Stylistic analysis of Lord Byrons works Destruction of Sennacherib, Prometheus, Darkness

.2 Stylistic analysis of Shellys works Adonais

2.3 Stylistic analysis of Wordsworths work A Fact and Imagination

Conclusion

References

value of English Romanticism can be hardly ever overestimated. It is not just poetry or prose in itself, but an entire world of philosophy, world of brilliant ideas and world of crushed hopes for the future of mankind. It shows us the widest range of human potential to analyze and feel, the universe of dreams collected in lines of masterpieces that will outlive the centuries.

And, of course, it represents a wonderful field for stylistic analysis. Doubtless the works of great masters are loaded with immense amount of different means to create an image.paper researches the lingual-stylistic peculiarities of style reproduction: the way the authors style is created via the combination of different artistic means at all levels of language. The aim of the research is to study the methods and procedures which were applied for the reproduction of specific ideas; and the influence that they cause on the reader. Poetic works by Lord Byron, Wordsworth and Shelley are the object of the research; and lingual-stylistic peculiarities of the poems Destruction of Sennacherib, Prometheus, Darkness, A Fact and Imagination, Adonais, To the Men of England are its subject.present work concentrates mainly on that second part and researches what formal elements create the style at different levels, ways of their rendering and their overall influence on the style reproduction.aim of this paper is to contrast the style of the poems, finding the convergent and divergent features in their building elements and defining their impact at the correspondent level as well as generally at the level of a poem. In the course of research different methods were used, quantitative, comparative, contrastive and oppositional being among them.the material for the research, it was decided to take poems of Romantic poets as the variety of artistic means at all the language levels provides a rich base for the study. The introduction focuses upon the theoretical premises of the research, its topic and objectives.first chapter covers the study of theoretical problems discussed in the research, outlines the Romanticism as art and works of the Lord Byron, Wordsworth, Shelly studied.second chapter discusses the peculiarities of the style-creating means of reproduction of Lord Byron`s, Wordsworths, Shellys poems at all the language levels.results of the research are summarized in the conclusions.

1. THE NOTION OF ROMANTICISM IN TERMS OF STYLE

1.1 General view of Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the European culture, originating toward the end of the 18th century. Having reflected the despair and disappointment caused by the results of the French Revolution, ideology of Enlightment and scientific progress, it opposed the utilitarianism and leveling of personality the tendency to unlimited freedom, will for perfection and renovation, pathos towards personal and civil independence(8,97). Tense and painful dissonance of an ideal and social reality is the basis for romantic type of perception of the world and art. The assertion of self-worth of spiritual and creative life of an individual, representation of strong feelings, spiritual and healing nature meet in art of Romantics the themes of heroic protest along with motifs of universal sorrow, universal evil, night side of a human soul, that are often covered in forms of irony, grotesque and tragicomic essence(3,111). The interest towards national folklore and culture of own and foreign nations, towards the past and its idealization, tendency to create its own universal world view (and in particular of history and literature), the idea of synthesis of arts and philosophy is considered to be among the most prominent features of ideology of Romanticism. Its effect on politics was considerable and complex; while for much of the peak Romantic period it was associated with liberalism <#"justify">The writers tried to solve the problems, but we can't treat all the Romantics of England as belonging to the same literary school. William Blake (1757-1827) was bitterly disappointed by the downfall of the French Revolution. His young contemporaries, Samuel Coleridge (1772- 1834) and William Wordsworth (1770-1850), both were warm admirers of the French Revolution, both escaped from the evils of big cities and settled in the quietness of country life, in the purity of nature, among unsophisticated country-folk. Living in the Lake country of Northern England, they were known as the Lakists. The Late Romantics, George Byron (1788-1824), Percy Shelley (1792-1822), and John Keats (1795-1821), were young rebels and reflected the interests of the common people. That is why the Romantic Revival of the 18th-19th centuries can be divided into three periods: the Early Romantics, the Lakists and the Later Romantics. In some poets this spirit of revolt and defiance resulted in a sort of titanism in an overstatement of passions. In others it led to the exaltation of the irrational and mystic aspects of life and a concern with the supernatural.

Some looked for solace in an idealized Hellenism inspired by a Greek ideal of beauty and by the concept of poetry for poetrys sake. Others romantic English poets found the escape from reality in the exotic and distant following the lead of the Gothic novels. This love for the strange, the exotic and the distant also informed the new interest in history and especially in the Middle Age <#"justify">Percy Bysshe Shelley was born in 1792, into a wealthy Sussex family which eventually attained minor noble rank-the poets grandfather, a wealthy businessman, received a baronetcy in 1806. Timothy Shelley, the poets father, was a Member of Parliament and a country gentleman. The young Shelley entered Eton, a prestigious school for boys, at the age of twelve. While he was there, he discovered the works of a philosopher named William Godwin, which he consumed passionately and in which he became a fervent believer; the young man wholeheartedly embraced the ideals of liberty and equality espoused by the French Revolution, and devoted his considerable passion and persuasive power to convincing others of the rightness of his beliefs. Entering Oxford in 1810, Shelley was expelled the following spring for his part in authoring a pamphlet entitled The Necessity of Atheism-atheism being an outrageous idea in religiously conservative nineteenth-century England. At the age of nineteen, Shelley eloped with Harriet Westbrook, the sixteen-year-old daughter of a tavern keeper, whom he married despite his inherent dislike for the tavern. Not long after, he made the personal acquaintance of William Godwin in London, and promptly fell in love with Godwins daughter Mary Wollstonecraft, whom he was eventually able to marry, and who is now remembered primarily as the author of Frankenstein. In 1816, the Shelleys traveled to Switzerland to meet Lord Byron, the most famous, celebrated, and controversial poet of the era; the two men became close friends. After a time, they formed a circle of English expatriates in Pisa, traveling throughout Italy; during this time Shelley wrote most of his finest lyric poetry, including the immortal Ode to the West Wind and To a Skylark. In 1822, Shelley drowned while sailing in a storm off the Italian coast. He was not yet thirty years old.

Shelley belongs to the younger generation of English Romantic poets, the generation that came to prominence while William Wordsworth <#"justify">romantic poet stylistic analysis

CHAPTER 2. PECULIARITIES OF THE USE OF STYLISTIC DEVICES IN THE WORKS OF ROMANTIC POETS

2.1 Stylistic analysis of Lord Byrons works Destruction of Sennacherib, Prometheus, Darkness

"The Destruction of Sennacherib" is a poem by Lord Byron <#"justify">The poem Prometheus was written in 1816. Byron had left England for the last time and settled in Switzerland, where he started a friendship with Percy Shelley and his wife, Mary Shelley. The influence of the Shelleys over Byron (and vice versa) is especially noticeable in this particular poem, and, as an evidence, we must mention both Percy Shelleys poem Prometheus unbound and Mary Shelleys novel Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus.Byron and the Shelleys shared a period of intense creativity together.he poem is about the figure of Prometheus, the famous titan who brought fire to men and was condemned by Zeus to be eternally chained to a rock with his liver eaten every day by an eagle. Here we are dealing not exactly with a narrative poem, but with a demonstration of praise to the figure of a heroic character.

The given poem is structured in three stanzas that are irregular to each other, not following the same rhyme pattern and having an extension which varies from one to another. In the first stanza we are introduced to Prometheus as an immortal being who, however, is paradoxically subjected and condemned to suffer, something that is characteristic of human race (The sufferings of mortality). Here, we observe for the first time in the poem with two aspects that are essential for it: the semi-god nature of Prometheus, which fits with the duality of man (Like thee, Man is in part divine,), and the inexorable existence of suffering, consubstantial to man (14, 178).

Next, Byron throws a question, notably tainted with irony (What was thy pity's recompense?), which gets an immediate answer that shows and emphasizes the injustice of his punishment and that occupies the next and last 9 lines of the strophe: His recompense is a strong and extreme imposed suffering (note that the chain, mentioned in line 7 symbolizes very well this imposition), a suffering that is noiselessly and heroically bore by Prometheus (A silent suffering), who is represented as a lonely and remarkably individualized being who, however, must be contented as far as his cry is listened (nor will sigh until its voice is echoless), fact that provides him with a perceptible revolutionary nuance.

In the second stanza, the term power is the essential concept that is treated. While we are reading this part of the poem we are led through a process of inversion of what is power and to whom it really belongs.

At the beginning, Prometheus is represented as the one who is oppressed and defenceless, in the same way Zeus (and, extensively, all form of deity or superior being, ruling class, etc.) incarnates the powerful oppressor (inexorable Heaven, tyranny of Fate, etc.). But at the end, the fact is that the power and inner strength of Prometheus as an individual surpasses and goes beyond any supernatural and apparently superior power of Zeus. And in thy Silence was his Sentence / And in his Soul a vain repentance / and evil dread so ill dissembled / that in his hand the lightings trembled. This passage symbolizes the victory of the individual and his strong spirit over any kind of oppressor trying to reduce and silence him. It shows how the direct comparison between gods and man illustrates the ability of man to overcome power and display bravery despite his shortcomings and the gods' advantage for being powerful and possessing extraordinary skills (14,157).

Finally, in the third stanza, the paradoxical relation between Prometheus punishment and its cause is ironically remarked again: Thy Godlike crime was to be kind and at the same time his labour and greatness (thine impenetrable Spirit) is thanked and recompensed as it was to the benefit of man, whose inherent pain and fatal destiny is highly stressed in this particular strophe from a very pessimistic point of view: His own funereal destiny / his wretchedness, and his resistance / And his sad unallied existence.

Prometheus serves as a model for man to bear pain and suffering with a firm will, and a deep sense, to overcome the misfortune of mortality with a strong Spirit characteristic of immortality (20, 124). draws an admirable and idealized character, punished due to a generous and benevolent crime, victim of the tyranny of a God and condemned to suffer an eternal torture in complete loneliness. However, as it has been said at the beginning, he was not the only one who made this representation of Prometheus. Defeated but unsubmissive, the Titans (and Prometheus in particular) were popular in the nineteenth century as symbols of revolution or resistance to tyranny.

Now we are going to place the poem in relation with all the poetical production of Byron as a whole, which is the final aim of that paper. The presence of a heroic character in Byrons work seems to be a constant and characterising feature. The sum of the almost autobiographical character in Childe Harolds Pilgrimage, the protagonists of his famous Oriental Tales (The Giaour, The Corsair, etc.) and others like Manfred, Mazeppa, etc., have contributed to configure what we know as the Byronic hero, that has been described as embodying the ultimate in individualism, self-sufficiency, ambition, and aspiration, yet isolated, gloomy, unsatisfied, and dangerous to himself and others.

Still, Prometheus does not seem to perfectly fit this description, because, as we may have perceived when analysing the poem, Prometheus is much more idealised and lacks that carnal aspect that completes the figure of the Byronic hero, who combines the grandness and ambition of his spirit with a sinful and vicious corporeal life.

Nonetheless, since Byrons first successful work, Childe Harolds Pilgrimage, we can observe his melancholic feelings towards the Ancient Greek, from where he is reclaiming the hero hes trying to find. In Childe Harolds Pilgrimage-and throughout his entire career-Byron is looking for a hero.

Prometheus revolutionary spirit matches also with that of Napoleon Bonaparte, and in Byrons Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte (1814), a very symbolic and revealing comparison is made:

"Or, like the thief of fire from heaven / Wilt thou withstand the shock? / And share with him- the unforgiven / His vulture and his rock?".

Prometheus' suffering can be likened to Napoleon Bonaparte who has to experience suffering and death first before the society realized his fight for freedom of all people (18, 146).

Also we can find the same pessimistic and apocalyptic view of mans funereal destiny in Byrons poem Darkness (1816).

All earth was but one thought--and that was death / Immediate and inglorious; and the pang / Of famine fed upon all entrails-men / Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh (22,45).importance of Prometheus myth during the Romantic age can be hardly compared with any other times. Prometheus gave the romantics an example of courage and rebelliousness against Zeus, who they saw as personification of tyranny. He was the spirit of the French Revolution and of the divinely inspired artist, and Prometheus is one of the best examples of this.

Darkness - Byron wrote this poem in July-August 1816. It is composed in a style of an apocalyptic vision dealing with degeneration of the human race and total destruction of the world. was greatly influenced by 2 events that occurred at that time - a mysterious prognosis made by an Italian astronomer who proclaimed that sun would burn itself that year and darkness would fall on earth, marking the end of the world; and sudden eclipse that really occurred but as a result of a sudden eruption of a volcano in Indonesia. The poet was at that time in state of depression (he left his family and England for the last time) and his cynic attitude towards human civilization and its future reached the highest peak. All this stuff along with the tendency to implement allusions from Bible made the poem sound especially terrifying (14, 115).

First it is essential to discuss the rhythm of the poem under analysis. Byron employs several poetic techniques to unify "Darkness" and to create a sense, of time passing away. The poem's blank verse creates the feeling of time beating wildly, and then slowing to a stop when world's destruction is completed. Time, after this smooth, regular beat, soon changes to a faster, different pace. As men run wildly to preserve light and their lives, time runs like a clock gone wild. Byron doesnt use complex stylistic devices to describe the scene. Everything happens unbelievably fast, and as rapidly as Byron envisioned it. But closer to the end pace of the poem slows down giving us a feeling of the calm after the storm.should also pay attention to the fact that there are only 6 sentences throughout the entire poem. Byron allows no time to pause to rest once the narration begins. It creates feeling of despair and hopelessness intensified by the use words relating to destruction, chaos and death.the poem the author uses alliteration to compensate the absence of rhymed lines. This can be seen in the following lines:

fearful hope was all the world contain'd; were set on fire--but hour by hour fell and faded--and the crackling trunks'd with a crash--and all was black.(14,144)

also gives emphasis to words - beasts are described as "tame and tremulous, Death as "immediate and inglorious".

Then it should be also mentioned that there are some sets of images. First, movement downwards, all the time descending, like into the abyss - men burn the palaces and huts down, then birds flutter on the ground, masts are falling, and then the silent depths - everything moves down in the direction of hell.

Then we observe the direction from light to darkness, comparison of men with animals, and the whole desperation and anguish that fill the narration and impress in that way that one can imagine the annihilation of the humanity on his/her own. This calls to mind the words of Jesus in the Gospels, where those who are cast away from God are cast into outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8:11-12). The biblical allusion increases the apocalyptic tone of the poem, making this darkness a curse of Biblical proportions.

Deliberate morphemic repetition of functional suffixes -less and -ing support the idea of despair and emphasize the process of dying. Another thing to add is the description of mental and moral state of men - they lost their faith, but still express hope in that selfish prayer for light. They degenerated to the lowest limit, but its not the only thing that unites humanity.Byron envisions the very end of the human world, famine has killed all but two men, and they were enemies. These last two survivors of a dead world meet by accident at a place where other horrors have been perpetrated: a mass of holy things / For an unholy usage (here we observe antithesis, that is seen throughout the human history). The blasphemers, who sacrificed morality for a little temporary safety, are now dead. In the small flames the two enemies cooperate, not thinking of themselves as enemies. But when they manage to stoke the flames they see one anothers faces in horror and die. The men die only able to see the fiend (could mean the Devil and then another allusion to the Bible) written upon each others brow by famine .They see the utter horror of the end and can no longer take it.use of antonomasia - Death, War, Darkness also makes us remind the New Testament and the similar acts done by the supernatural forces used as Gods servants(the 4 Horsemen or 7 Angels if to recall a few of them).

Death and Darkness are represented as the great levelers, as houses of the rich and poor are equally burnt down and all men gathered together in their last hope. Still the bitter sarcasm is heard in the lines when the War that has stopped because of the supernatural disaster, however rages on; but here it turns from political warfare to fighting and killing out of a desire to survive. Heres another moral from Bible as it is said that nothing but Death will teach the human race, what inevitably comes as the result in the poem.

Adonais - is an elegy written in memory of one of the greatest Romantics and a close friend of Shelley, John Keats. The whole poem is a an outstanding allusion to the Ancient Greek mythology, dealing in some sense with the motifs from Christianity. Strictly speaking, Keats was the first to promote the idea of relating to Ancient Greek times as ideal times for humans (poets in particular). This could be one of the points why Shelley chose such an exclusive form of praising his friend who died. The other is that Christian theme was always close to Shelley, as well as to Byron, despite their mutual hatred towards the Church. In Adonais Shelley sees Jesus Christ in Greek disguise, as we feel from the tone of the poem, the main hero is praised as a martyr. Yet, in his poetry, he often represents the poet as a Christ-like figure and thus sets the poet up as a secular replacement for Christ. Martyred by society and conventional values, the Christ figure is resurrected by the power of nature and his own imagination and spreads his prophetic visions over the earth. Shelley further separates his Christ figures from traditional Christian values in Adonais, in which he compares the same character to Christ, as well as Cain, whom the Bible portrays as the worlds first murderer. For Shelley, Christ and Cain are both outcasts and rebels, like romantic poets and like himself. is also interesting to dwell upon the name of the poem and the main hero himself. Adonais is a conversion made up by means of combining two versions of one name of a Deity - Adonis and Adonai. Adonis was a Phrygian god of dying and reviving nature; he emanated on the earth and died suddenly, likening the fate of Christ, his cult became a part of Greek-Roman religious system and influenced the further Christian dogmatism. Adonai is a form of address to the Almighty God originally taken from Judaism and then also transferred to the Christian religion. So the peculiarities of different systems were synthesized here in one notion and the author created a somewhat new mysterious and super powerful image.the type of verse - Shelley chose the specific Spenser verse (so admired by Byron, by the way). It is the pastoral elegy, so specific for Greek and Roman poetry (so we see Lucan, mentioned in the poem). The difference between ancient and Shellys poem lies in the fact that in Adonais Shelley accuses a person who, to his viewpoint, was the real cause of poets death - literary critic. Next thing is the obvious prediction of own Shelleys death - he described with admiration a part of Roman cemetery, and told that he would follow his friend to the Otherworld. Indeed, he died just in two years and was buried in the place he described.the obvious parallel that both were taken at a young age, Shelley uses this poem to make readers hold onto him in memory and rejoice in his virtual resurrection by reading his words.we apparently see from the narration, Shelley blames Keats death on literary criticism that was recently published (he was unaware that Keats was suffering from tuberculosis). He scorns the weakness and cowardice of the critic compared with the poet. The poet wonders why Adonis mother (Urania) was not able to do more to save her beloved son, and he summons all spirits, living and dead, to join him in his mourning(so he mentions Byron Pilgrim of Eternity, Thomas Moore - sweetest lyrist, Chatterton, Sydney - calling them by name). Shelley argues that Keats had great potential as a poet and is perhaps the loveliest and the last great spirit of the Romantic period.eight and nine continue with Shelleys beckoning of mourners. Stanza ten changes to dialogue: his mother, Urania, holds the corpse of her young poet son and realizes that some dream has loosened from his brain (19, 134).That is, something about his mind is not dead although his body may be dead. The body is visited by a series of Greek Goddesses, who take three or four stanzas to prepare the corpse for the afterlife; Keats deserves it.nature is mourning the loss, where things like the ocean, winds, and echoes (here we observe a great example of antonomasia) are stopping to pay their respects. As the seasons come and go, the mourned is feeling no better. By stanza twenty, the hero finally perceives a separation between the corpse and the spirit, one going to fertilize new life in nature, the other persisting to inspire aesthetic beauty. This is when Urania awakens from her own dejected sleep and takes flight across the land, taunting death to meet her but realizing she is chained to time and cannot be with her beloved son, so she is again left feeling hopeless and dejected. She acknowledges her sons defenselessness against the herded wolves of mankind but then compares him to Apollo, suggesting he will have more inspiration in death than he would have in life (1, 217).poet then describes the death of Keats with scorn for those he thinks is responsible. Keats visits his mother as a ghost whom she does not recognize. The author calls for Keats to be remembered for his work and not the age of his death, and Shelley takes an unusual religious tone as he places Keats as a soul in the heavens, looking down upon earth. Shelley contends that Keats, in death, is more alive than the common man will ever be, and he can now exist peacefully, safe from the evils of men and their criticisms.stanza forty-one, the poem takes a major shift. The narrator begins to rejoice, becoming aware that the young Adonis is alive (in spirit) and will live on forever. We see the Romantic notion that he is now one with nature, and just as other young poets who have died (Shelley lists them), their spirits all live on in the inspiration we draw from their work and short lives. Even so, Keats is a head above the rest. Completely turning on his original position, the speaker now calls upon anyone who mourns for Adonis as a wretch, arguing that his spirit is immortal, making him as permanent as the great city of Rome. Shelley ends the poem wondering about his own fate, when he will die, and if he will be mourned and remembered with such respect as he is giving Keats (1, 145).poem is overloaded with stylistic devices that are aimed to express deep sorrow for Adonais, splendor of his rebirth and ultimate doom that awaits everyone, the author in particular. Mentioning the deliberate use of antonomasia along with capitalization which is so common for all the Romantic poets (i.e. Light, Beauty, Benediction, Curse, Love, Time, Hour etc.) one should notice that those images are not only personified, they act as characters too and mourn Adonais along with real human beings. Epithets are also numerous, concerning only Adonais himself - young Dawn, a pardlike Spirit, a Power, a Love, Vesper etc. Among others - trembling throng, revolving year, eclipsing Curse, sustaining Love, cold mortality, kingless sphere, dazzling immortality, unascended majesty, mourning mind. We can observe several important cases of other lexical stylistic devices, such as metaphor (soft sky smiles, ages, empires, religions lie buried), metonymy (Light whose smile shines, bones of Desolations nakedness), simily (Rome as Paradise, grave, wilderness; time feeds a slow fire, soul like flame, life like a dome of many colored glass), comparison (wrecks like shattered mountains, , Adonais like a star). Among syntactical stylistic devices we may enumerate frequent use of repletions (Adonais died, weep for Adonais; why, why, why; up to Rome etc), suspense and asyndeton. Although the whole poem is an immense allusion we must mark some cases inside of it - spirits bark, allusion to Charons ferry; sphere skies , allusion to the movement of Gnosticism, kingly Death has his court, allusion to Hades, Greek God of Underworld.as a whole, then, Adonais expresses the many stages of grieving, mourning, with deep lamentation being soon replaced with rejoice of Adonais revival. Shelley chooses allusion and allegory going back to ancient myth in order to express his sorrow for the loss of his friend and to implore the rest of the world to never forget the work of the young bard. The use of ancient mythology suggests that Shelley sees Keats as a truly majestic figure, as the rest of the poem demonstrates.

A Fact and Imagination - a poem was written in form of a vision where truth is mixed with an unreal supposition that, however, is inclined to prove the central theme. We evidently observe that the poem consists of 2 parts, one spoken by King Canute, the other by King Alfred. Both of them were real historical figures that from different times, so the author intrudes into the narration to bind both parts. The main aim of the poet was to show the people that all material things like wealth, status, and power are of little value when compared to Gods grace bestowed upon the people.us have a closer view. The first part, obviously, the Fact deals with King Canute, the Danish Conqueror who invaded England in the 10th century and successfully occupied it thus becoming King of England. He was a religious man who supported the Church and was told to be a faithful man.put the Gods authority higher than mans ambitions that is seen in such passages:

He only is a King, and he alonethe name (this truth the billows preach)everlasting laws, sea, earth, and heaven, obey (10, 86).

initially he is presented as a powerful man, which might is so great that he alone is able to command the waves - '

yeApproaching of the deep, that sharethis green isle my fortunes, come not whereMaster's throne is set.(10, 86)

in the poem he turns to his servants who praise him, he tells them about Gods eternal power, but they are blind and do not accept the highest meaning of his words. Therefore, King Canute bends before Gods authority as it is seen the only true one and defies the human power as being senseless to gain and hold -

From that time forth did for his brows disown ostentatious symbol of a crown;earthly royaltyas vain.(10, 86)

the narration stops abruptly and with the help of the authors guide, the vision transfers to another scene, with King Alfred. This second part is mostly pantheistic, praising nature as Gods emanative representation. This way of stylistic description was adopted by W. Wordsworth and is commonly seen throughout his poetry. Alfred once had lost all his power and sought any place to stay and rest with his thoughts of own fate. He spent much time on the run, wandering around the villages and, as he too was a religious man, might have turned to God for help. This is also quite obviously shown in the entire second part of the poem.attention should be drawn to the distinct variety of stylistic devices used by the author in the poem: epithets ( Rich Theme of Englands fondest praise towards Alfred, wanton air, oriental flattery, earthly royalty), metaphors (Waters of the Deep towards sea, sluggish pools as bays), simily (souls like the flood), anaphoric repetition (such…..such) - all that powerful items were used to draw our attention and to intensify the effect that is made by the magnificent plot. Extensive use of capitalization (Conqueror, King - relating to God, Nature, Ocean etc.) and antonomasia make that pantheistic and sublime image so admired by Wordsworth. One more thing that attracts our view is the attitude of the author to the barren men. He calls them Servile Courtiers, the undisguised extent of mortal sway, even rugged northern mouths (metonymy) to convey the thought of their mutual incapability to accept and evaluate the grace and power of the nature and thus Gods authority even despite Kings speech and personal example of loyalty towards the Highest Power, they are only able to display oriental flattery. This is important for understanding of his views concerning the extensive degeneration of the human society and his disregard towards this, meanwhile accentuating that only love to nature can bring back all the purity of thoughts and feelings in mens minds, and only faith can return people to the real progress.significant is the point that both main characters (Canute and Alfred) dont communicate with each other, as it couldnt occur in the real time; they are not confronted with each other too. But both of them are doubtlessly considered as the greatest rules of England and ones among the most prominent leaders in Europe of that time. And they both serve the only aim in the poem - by their own example of virtue, faith and goodness they would guide to light and grace those who would read the poem and realize the great power of the Creator.

one term can be used to describe the forces that have shaped the modern world, it is Romanticism. So potent has Romanticism been since the late 18th century that one author has called it the profoundest cultural transformation in human history since the invention of the city (11, 218). Romanticism was not a movement; it was a series of movements that had dynamic impacts on art, literature, science, religion, economics, politics, and an individuals understanding of self. Not all streams of Romanticism were the same. Some, in fact, were almost completely the opposite in their results from others. Nor was the impact the same at all times. Thus, as romantic literature everywhere developed, imagination was praised over reason, emotions over logic, and intuition over science-making way for a vast body of literature of great sensibility and passion.research was dedicated to some of the most prominent poets of English and world Romantic literature: G.G. Byron, P. B. Shelley and W. Wordsworth. Several masterpieces were taken as the basis for the study. As the result of this research certain peculiarities have been found - the texts are enriched with various stylistic devices, commonly used to describe and praise nature, doom, and humans potential for freedom and self-realization. The nature and its elements are largely personified, and play often a meditative role, significant for understanding of reality by the reader. Allusions which can be seen throughout all the poems intend to take us back to the ancient times, so idealized by the Romantic poets. Often we observed the reference to the Bible in terms of impending doom and inevitable punishment for the deeds of the human race. God is praised as that eternal ideal which we must seek for self-development.poets had different views on the world; Romanticism was very contradictive because of the constant conflicts that occurred in the poets circles. But one should be said for sure - it is a magnificent movement, a philosophy in itself that draws our attention to the grace and power of the nature, strong will in overcoming obstacles, and faith in God as the main way of understanding mans destination, and foremost individual freedom.

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2.A Refutation of Deism: in a Dialogue (London: Printed by Schulze & Dean, 1814). - 172p.

3.Chatman, Seymor «Stylistics: Qualitive and quantative», 1967. - 145p.

4.Delaney D., Ward G., Fiorina C.R. «Fields of Vision: English Literature in English», «Longman», 2009. -89p.

5.Edwin Stein, Wordsworth's Art of Allusion (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988). - 161p.

6.Ernest Hartley Coleridge, ed., A Bibliography of the Successive Editions and Translations of Lord Byron's Poetical Works, in The Works of Lord Byron: Poetry, volume 7 (London: John Murray, 1904). - 348p.

7.Essay on Christianity, in Shelley Memorials, edited by Lady Jane Shelley (London: Smith, Elder, 1859). - 131p.

8.Fonagy I. «Communication in Poetry», 1961. - 158p.

9.Galperin I.R. «Stylistics» «Moscow Higher School», 1977. - 117p.

10.George McLean Harper, William Wordsworth, His Life, Works, and Influence, 2 volumes (London: Murray, 1916). - 128p.

11.Jakobson R. «Linguistics and Poetry. Style in Language.», 1929. - 391p.

12.Kukharenko V.A. A book of Practice in Stylistics: A manual. - Vinnytsia: Nova knyha, 2000. - 160 p.

13.Peter L. Thorslev, Jr., The Byronic Hero: Types and Prototypes (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962). - 134p.

14.Rutherford, Byron: The Critical Heritage (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970; New York: Barnes & Noble, 1970). - 245p.

15.Samuel C. Chew, Byron in England: His Fame and After-Fame (London: John Murray, 1924). - 407p.

16.Soshalskaya E.G., Prokhorova V.L. «Stylistic Analysis», «Moscow Higher School», 1976. - 219p.

17.The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907-21). Volume XII. The Romantic Revival - 1918. - 312p.

18.The Poetical Works of Lord Byron. - London: Oxford University Press (Humphrey Milford) - 1935. - 345p.

19.The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, 4 volumes, edited by Mary Shelley (London: Edward Moxon, 1839; 1 volume, Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1839). - 235p.

.Trueblood, ed., Byron's Political and Cultural Influence in Nineteenth-Century Europe: A Symposium (London: Macmillan, 1981). - 134p.

.William H. Galperin, Revision and Authority in Wordsworth: The Interpretation of a Career (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989). - 234p.

22.William H. Marshall, The Structure of Byron's Major Poems (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1962). - 340p.

23.Willis W. Pratt, Lord Byron and His Circle: A Calendar of Manuscripts in the University of Texas (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1947). - 123p.

Main Sources:

1.Rutherford, Byron: The Critical Heritage (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970; New York: Barnes & Noble, 1970). - 245p.

2.The Poetical Works of Lord Byron. - London: Oxford University Press (Humphrey Milford) - 1935. - 345p.

3.George McLean Harper, William Wordsworth, His Life, Works, and Influence, 2 volumes (London: Murray, 1916). - 128p.

.The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, 4 volumes, edited by Mary Shelley (London: Edward Moxon, 1839; 1 volume, Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1839). - 235p.