The%20Age%20of%20Reason

1
The Age of Reason

• Early to Late Eighteenth Century

Click Here For Music
2
Dominant Concepts

• Discovering truth through human reason
• Perfectibility of Man
• DeismGod is benevolent but distant
• Great Watchmaker Theory
• Emphasis on Science
• Emphasis on Society

3
The Romantic Period

• 1785-1830

Click Here For Music
4
The Romantic Period

• 1785-1830

5
Historical Background

• Period of Revolution
• American and French Revolutions
• Democracy transformed to despotism
• Napoleonic Wars

6
Historical Background

• Change from agricultural to industrial society
• Industrial Revolutionnew technology
• Rise of urban centers of industry
• Creation of impoverished working class

7
Historical Background

• Pressure for Political, Social, and Artistic
  Reform
• Hunger riots, machine breaking
• Womens movement
• First Reform Bill of 1832
• Lyrical Ballads of 1798

8
Dominant Concepts
Click Here For Music

• Emotion and Imagination
• The spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings
• External objects transformed by poets feelings
• Speaker/hero reflects the poet
• Poetry about formation of the self

9
(No Transcript)
10
Dominant Concepts

• Individualism
• Stresses individual over society
• Glorifies desire to go beyond human limits
• Infinite longing
• Heroes are isolated nonconformists or guilty
  outcasts

11
(No Transcript)
12
Dominant Concepts

• Spontaneity and Naturalness
• Age of Reason regarded poetry as an art
• For Romantics poetry should be spontaneous and
  inspired
• Poetry should be free from rules and artful
  manipulation

13
Dominant Concepts

• Emphasis on Nature
• Nature as it reflects the Mind of Man
• Nature endowed with human qualities
• Natural objects symbolize greater concepts
• Divine mysteries reflected in nature

14
Dominant Concepts

• Glorification of the Commonplace
• Wordsworths democratization of poetry
• Emphasize humble and rustic life
• Use plain style and common language
• Express the wonder and divinity of the commonplace

15
Dominant Concepts

• The Supernatural
• Achieves a sense of wonder through supernatural
  incidents
• Supernatural events have psychological
  significance

16
Dominant Concepts

• The Supernatural
• Settings in distant past or exotic locales
• Unusual modes of experience
• For more on the supernatural in Romantic
  Literature, see the PowerPoint Presentation
  Gothic Motifs