The Romantics

1
The Romantics

The Raft of the Medusa 1819Oil on canvas491 x
716 cmMusee du Louvre, Paris
2
Historical Background1780-1830

• The French Revolution-the lower-class rebelled to
  try to create a democratic government as opposed
  to a dictatorship

3
Impact of the French Revolution

• British writers and artists were moved (to say
  the least) by the cry of the French for Liberty,
  Equality, and Fraternity

4
Characteristics of Romanticism

• Literature focuses on the individual
• Considered optimists
• Believe in the possibility of progress social
  human reform
• Attack all forms of tyranny, evils of
  industrialism such as urban blight, a polluted
  environment, and the alienation of people from
  nature one another
• See humanity as naturally good, but tainted by
  society and institutions of religion, education,
  govt.

5
Englands Impact on Romanticism

• The Industrial Revolution took place from
  1750-1850
• Eng. Went from an agricultural to an industrial
  society
• Rev. helped make Eng. Prosperous and powerful
• Workers were exploited and working conditions
  were horrible

6
Industrial Revolutions Impact

• Towns turned into cities
• Villagers forced to seek work in factories
• Wages were meager hours/days were long
• Children suffered greatly

7
England Awakens

• English society realized its obligations to the
  poor, miserable, helpless
• Reformers church and govt assumed
  responsibilities
• Sunday schools were organized

• Hospitals were built
• Regulations were put in place for child labor
• Even prisons were being reformed

8
Romanticism Rises

• Englands Romanticism movement affected all
  countries of Western Europe
• Romanticism comes in many shapes and sizes
• What made one person a Romanticist did not
  necessarily mean the same for others

9
Romanticism-In Brief

• Romanticism can best be summarized by stating
  that it represented an attempt to rediscover the
  mystery wonder of the world.
• It was an attempt to go beyond ordinary reality
  into the deeper, less obvious, and more elusive
  levels of individual human existence.

10
Romantic Poets

• Nature was principal source of inspiration,
  spiritual truth, enlightenment
• Focused on the ordinary person common life in
  order to affirm the worth dignity of all
  humans, and to repudiate the evils of a class
  system that artificially designated a few select
  people as more important than others b/c of
  wealth, position, or name

11
The Poets

• Robert Burns 1759-1796
• William Blake 1757-1827
• William Wordsworth 1770-1850
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772-1834
• George Gordon, Lord Byron1788-1824
• Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792-1822
• John Keats 1795-1821

12
Romantic Writers

• Thomas De Quincey 1785- 1859
• Confessions of an English Opium Eater On the
  Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth
• Mary Shelley 1797-1851
• Frankenstein