The Lake School ( Eng. Lake Poets ) is the conditional name for the group of English romantic poets of the late 18th - first half of the 19th centuries , named after the Lake District - the place of activity of its most important representatives: Wordsworth , Coleridge and Southey . Another name for this trinity is the Leucists , from the English. lake - "lake".
Composed by Wordsworth and Coleridge under the influence of German romantics in 1798, the collection " Lyrical Ballads " sounded a protest against 18th century classicism with its rhetorical pomp. Rejecting the rationalistic ideals of the Enlightenment , Coleridge and Wordsworth contrasted them with a belief in the irrational, in traditional Christian values, in the idealized medieval past.
According to the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary , Wordsworth and his friends, who were young zealous Republicans and adherents of the French Revolution , become strict conservatives on the “lakes” [1] . Having formed a close friendly circle, they sing on the shores of the lakes of northern England the enchanting charm of artless life in the bosom of picturesque nature.
Conventionality of the term
"Lake poets" in mockery nicknamed in 1807 the so-called. Wordsworth Club Edinburgh Review Magazine [2] . Its authors did not accept the aesthetics of romanticism, of which Wordsworth's poetry was considered the quintessence. This label stuck in the Victorian era , despite the protests of all three main "leucists", paying attention to the fact that their poetics are more different than common [3] .
In modern English literary criticism, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and William Blake are commonly called “older romantics,” while poets such as Lord Byron , P. B. Shelley, and John Keats are referred to the younger generation of romantics.
Notes
- ↑ Lake School // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
- ↑ William Arthur Speck. Robert Southey: Entire Man of Letters . Yale University Press, 2006. Page 94.
- ↑ Lynda Pratt. Robert Southey And the Contexts of English Romanticism . ISBN 9780754630463 . P. 232.
Links
- Lukov Vl. A. , Trykov V.P. What is the "Lake School" and who are the Leykists? // Information humanitarian portal “ Knowledge. Understanding. Skill . " - 2012. - No. 6 (November - December) (archived in WebCite ) .
- Lakeside School // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.