Viva La Vida

After listening to Coldplay's  'Viva La Vida'over and over again, it gave me some thought about a thing that I recalled before my holiday.  One day in my class, I somehow needed to give some insights to my students about the history of English literature in the romantic triumph era. 

It was really interesting how the politic situation actually was one of the factors that influence the romantic movement for  English literature world. Before this era, English literature works were never the portrayals about sensitivity of beauty and nature. 

Most of them were what we called as 'tragedy' (which we can find it in Shakespeare's works like Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, and even Romeo and Juliet) and 'comedy'. 

These two types of literature were popular in Queen Elizabeth I era. So, what has actually the romantic triumph era given to English literature world? Coleridge, Wordsworth, to Jane Austen (for Austen and some other female writers, before this, there was no female writer in English literature).

Back to one of the factors that influenced that romantic movement, as I mentioned before, was the politic situation. French revolution in the end of the reign of Louis XVI was one important factor. 

Why France? Because before the event, English literature styles were influenced by French and Italian literature. After the revolution which also affected the most of European's politic situation, English literature had its styles in varies and brought it to the modern English literature.

So what is the connection between Coldplay's 'Viva La Vida' with romantic triumph of English literature and French revolution? Well, I already mentioned that the song just reminded me with the insight of one of the factors of the romantic movement of English literature which was the French revolution. 

Talking about the French revolution, it was started when Louis XVI couldn't handle the monetary crisis at that time, which actually that problem was not only caused by the incapability of the king, but it was the fluctuation of problems that had already existed since Louis XIV era. Yes, and the glamorous lifestyle that was obviously shown by his wife, Marie Antoinette, also caused the anger of his people. Why? Because at that time, there was a big gap at the country's social inequality. 

Yet, all the blame was not on Marie Antoinette. It was only few of the factors how the French revolution happened. And at the end? The last French king and queen, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette died for treason/Counter-revolutionary by the guillotine which was first used at the reign of Louis XVI himself. Tragic? Yes.

So, allegedly, the lyrics of 'Viva La Vida' was written for King Louis XVI. But some people say that it's not actually about it. I myself haven't found any article that stated about it yet. Well, no matter what it is about, I think it is quite interesting to listen to the lyrics of the song, isn't it?  J