The Romantic Age

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The Romantic Age

• English 12 British Literature
• Ms. Owen
• April 2007

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A Definition of Romanticism

• A literary movement, and profound shift in
  sensibility, which took place in Britain and
  throughout Europe roughly between 1770 and 1848.
  Intellectually it marked a violent reaction to
  the Enlightenment. Politically it was inspired by
  the revolutions in America and FranceEmotionally
  it expressed an extreme assertion of the self and
  the value of individual experiencetogether with
  the sense of the infinite and the transcendental.
  Socially it championed progressive causesThe
  stylistic keynote of Romanticism is intensity,
  and its watchword is Imagination (Drabble
  842-843 The Oxford Companion to English
  Literature)

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A Map of England
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Put It In Context

• Before
• Restoration (or Neoclassicism)
• 1660-1798
• Order, reason, clarity, logic, scientific,
  universal experiences
• Gullivers Travels

• After
• The Victorian Age
• 1833 1901
• Depicting realism and naturalism (detail-loaded),
  optimism education, morality
• A Tale of Two Cities

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Restoration versus Romanticism

• Scientific observation of outer world logic
• Pragmatic (practical)
• Science, technology
• General, universal experiences
• Optimistic about present
• Moderation, self-restraint
• Aristocratic society as whole
• Nature controlled by humans

• Examine inner feelings, emotions, imagination
• Idealistic (optimistic)
• Mysterious, supernatural
• Concerned with the particular (very specific)
• Romanticizing the past
• Excess, spontaneity
• Concerned with common people and individuals
• Felt nature should be untamed

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Important Dates

• 1775-1783 American Revolution (fighting ended in
  1781)
• 1789-1815 French Revolution
• 1798 Publication of Lyrical Ballads
• 1798-1832 Romantic Period

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The Big Six Romantic Poets

• William Blake
• William Wordsworth
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• Percy Bysshe Shelley
• John Keats
• George Gordon, Lord Byron

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Other Romantic Writers

• Jane Austen
• Leigh Hunt
• Mary Shelley
• Mary Wollstonecraft
• Sir Walter Scott
• Robert Southey

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Schools of Romantic Poetry
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Notable Romantic Painters

• John Constable (painting of Flatford Mill
  1817 to the right)
• J.M.W. Turner
• William Blake
• Claude Monet
• Eugene Delacroix

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Notable Romantic Musicians

• Beethoven
• Franz Schubert
• Claude Debussy
• Verdi
• Chopin
• Franz Josef Haydn
• Mozart

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Lyrical Ballads

• First published anonymously in 1798 as Lyrical
  Ballads, with a Few Other Poems
• by Wordsworth and Coleridge
• Includes Tintern Abbey and Rime of the Ancient
  Mariner
• In the Preface, Wordsworth writes that good
  poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful
  feelings

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Key Romantic Themes

• Imagination
• Egotism
• The particular
• The remote
• The primitive
• The medieval
• The East
• The sublime
• Nature

• Irrational experiences (dreams and drugs)
• Awareness of process and current conceptions of
  art and introspection
• Longing for the infinite encounter through
  intense experiences of sublime nature (storms,
  mountains, oceans)

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Key Events of Romantic Age

• 1798 Lyrical Ballads published
• 1812 Byron publishes Childe Harolds Pilgrimage
• 1813 Jane Austen publishes Pride and Prejudice
• 1818 Mary Shelley publishes Frankenstein
• 1819 Percy Bysshe Shelley publishes Ode to the
  West Wind
• 1820 John Keats publishes Ode on a Grecian Urn
• 1832 First Reform Act extends voting rights and
  end of the Romantic Age

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Elegy

• Definition An elegy is a lament setting out the
  circumstances and character of a loss. It mourns
  for a dead person, lists his or her virtues, and
  seeks consolation beyond the momentary event. It
  is not associated with any required pattern,
  cadence, or repetition.
• Examples Elegy Written in a Country Courtyard
  by Thomas Gray and Adonais by Percy Bysshe
  Shelley

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Thomas Gray, from Elegy

• The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,The
  lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,The
  ploughman homeward plods his weary way,And
  leaves the world to darkness and to me.Now
  fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,And
  all the air a solemn stillness holds,

• Save where the beetle wheels his droning
  flight,And drowsy tinklings lull the distant
  foldsSave that from yonder ivy-mantled
  towerThe moping owl does to the moon complainOf
  such as, wandering near her secret bower,Molest
  her ancient solitary reign.

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Shelley, from Adonais (I)

• I weep for Adonais - he is dead!O, weep for
  Adonais! though our tearsThaw not the frost
  which binds so dear a head!And thou, sad Hour,
  selected from all yearsTo mourn our loss, rouse
  thy obscure compeers,And teach them thine own
  sorrow, say "With meDied Adonais till the
  Future daresForget the Past, his fate and fame
  shall beAn echo and a light unto eternity!"

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Pastoral

• Definition The pastoral is a mode of poetry
  that sought to imitate and celebrate the virtues
  of rural life (a nature poem).
• Examples To My Sister by William Wordsworth
  and Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats

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Wordworth, from To My Sister

• It is the first mild day of March Each minute
  sweeter than before The redbreast sings from the
  tall larch That stands beside our door. There
  is a blessing in the air, Which seems a sense of
  joy to yield To the bare trees, and mountains
  bare, And grass in the green field. My sister!
  ('tis a wish of mine) Now that our morning meal
  is done, Make haste, your morning task resign
  Come forth and feel the sun.

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Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn

• Textbook page 726

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Ode

• Definition An ode is a formal address to an
  event, a person, or a thing not present. There
  are three types Pindaric, Horatian, and
  Irregular.
• Examples Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe
  Shelley and To Autumn by John Keats

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Shelley, Ode to the West Wind

• Textbook page 704

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Keats, To Autumn

• Textbook page 729

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Lyric

• Definition An ancient subdivision of poetry.
  One of poetrys three categories, the others
  being narrative and dramatic. The poet addresses
  the reader directly and states his own feelings.
• Examples Frost at Midnight by Samuel Taylor
  Coleridge and To Spring by William Blake

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Coleridge, from Frost at Midnight

• The Frost performs its secret ministry,Unhelped
  by any wind. The owlet's cryCame loud--and hark,
  again ! loud as before.The inmates of my
  cottage, all at rest,Have left me to that
  solitude, which suitsAbstruser musings save
  that at my sideMy cradled infant slumbers
  peacefully.'Tis calm indeed ! so calm, that it
  disturbsAnd vexes meditation with its
  strangeAnd extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and
  wood,This populous village ! Sea, and hill, and
  wood,With all the numberless goings-on of
  life,Inaudible as dreams ! the thin blue
  flameLies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not
  Only that film, which fluttered on the
  grate,Still flutters there, the sole unquiet
  thing.

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Blake, To Spring

• O THOU with dewy locks, who lookest down Through
  the clear windows of the morning, turn Thine
  angel eyes upon our western isle, Which in full
  choir hails thy approach, O Spring! The hills
  tell one another, and the listening Valleys
  hear all our longing eyes are turn'd Up to thy
  bright pavilions issue forth And let thy holy
  feet visit our clime! Come o'er the eastern
  hills, and let our winds Kiss thy perfumed
  garments let us taste Thy morn and evening
  breath scatter thy pearls Upon our lovesick
  land that mourns for thee. O deck her forth
  with thy fair fingers pour Thy soft kisses on
  her bosom and put Thy golden crown upon her
  languish'd head, Whose modest tresses are bound
  up for thee.

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Sonnet

• Definition A sonnet is a poem of fourteen
  lines, usually iambic. There are two prominent
  types the Petrarchan and the Shakespearean.
• Examples Composed upon Westminster Bridge,
  September 3, 1802 by William Wordsworth and
  Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

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Wordsworth, Composed Upon

• Textbook page 653

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Shelley, Ozymandias

• Textbook page 702

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Recap of Poetry Portfolio

• Portfolio title page (1)
• Section title pages (5)
• Romantic poetry you find (10)
• Poetry you create (3)
• Romantic illustrations you find (10)
• Illustrations you find or create (3)
• Author background turning in your source (10)
• Explanation of themes and symbols (10)
• Responding to how poem is representative of
  Romantic Age (10)
• Reader Response (10)
• Due date April 30, 2007
• If you work with a partner, you should have 6
  poems and illustrations and 20 reader responses.