The Romantic Period

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The Romantic Period

• 1798 - 1832

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• 1798 Publication of Lyrical Ballads
• 1832 Parliament passed the First Reform Bill
• Fueled by the French Revolution and French
  philosopher Jean Jacques Rouseau

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• Rouseau

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• Reminder The word Romantic with reference to
  the Romantic Period.
• Freely imaginative idealizing fiction
• Not love between a man and a woman

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Characteristics of Romantic Literature

• 1. Writers emphasized imagination and emotion
• 2. Writers were concerned with the particular,
  not the general
• 3. Writers championed the value of the
  individual, not the group
• 4. Writers attempted more freedom in their
  writing
• 5. Writers were inspired (and wrote about)
  medieval subjects and settings

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• Romantic writers never felt totally accepted by
  English Society.
• Why?

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Historical Background

• Revolutions (2)
• American
• French
• Disappointment in France
• Robespierre and Napoleon

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Industrial Revolution more important in
transforming English cities

• Steam engine Watt 1765
• Workers no vote and no labor unions
• New demands on agriculture enclosure laws. No
  communal cultivation and grazing
• Wealthy vs. poor
• Government laissez faire (allow to do)
• Lack of leadership

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Romantic writers

• Wanted freedom from 18th century writing
  rules
• Feared loss of rural ways and values
• Championed the unspoiled natural world and the
  downtrodden and oppressed

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• First Reform Bill of 1832
• Extended vote to more people
• Curtailed political privileges of
  
  aristocracy
• Redistributed parliamentary
  representation

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18th Century Art
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Romantic Period Art
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Romantic MusicBeethoven
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Foundations of Romantic Poetry

• Lyrical Ballads collaborative effort of William
  Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge

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• Different from 18th century writers
• FORM
• Strove to make poetic language more like the
  real language of men in metrical arrangement.
• SUBJECT MATTER
• 1. Incidents and situations from common life
• 2. supernatural willing suspension of
  disbelief
• 3. concern with the poets own life, emotions
  and subjective experience

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The role of Nature

• -reflects an intense love of nature
• -wrote about nature as it affects the human mind
  and personality
• -belief that nature is the source of
• morality
• -belief that those closest to nature were
  fartherest from evil

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Wordsworth quote

• All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of
  powerful emotion recollected in tranquility.

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William Wordsworth
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Sam Coleridge
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Second Generation Romantic Poets

• (Admired Wordsworth and Coleridge but felt they
  lost their early passion for humanitarian rights
  later in life )

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Lord Byron
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• Born into poor but aristocratic family
• Clubbed foot, thus cripple
• Attended prestigious schools
• Olympic caliber swimmer
• Became the most celebrated poet of his time
• Left England because of social pressures
• Died at 36, helping train Greek troops fight for
  independence from Turkey

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Percy Shelley
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• Born to aristocratic parents
• Attended prestigious schools but was taunted by
  classmates
• 2nd marriage to Mary Shelley (later wrote
  Frankenstein)
• Left England
• Died in sailing accident in Switzerland at age of
  30

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John Keats
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• Born to humble parents but attended excellent
  private school until father died
• Both parents died before he was 15, mother and
  brother of TB
• Trained to be pharmacist but devoted his life to
  writing poetry
• Wrote most of his well-known works during 9-month
  period when he was 22.
• Nursed his younger brother until he died
• Died himself of TB at 25

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• Poetry
• Most important form of literary expression in
  Romantic Age
• Other publications
• Magazines
• (London Magazine)
• Gothic novels
• (Frankenstein)
• Novels
• Jane Austin wrote of 19th century women
• Sir Walter Scott blended historical detail with
  memorable events. Best known international
  writer from Romantic England

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1832

• Death of Sir Walter Scott
• Passage of First Reform Bill
• Signaled the end of the Romantic Age