The Romantic Period

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The Romantic Period

• 1798-1832

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Romantic Period

• During this time period Mary Shelley published
  Frankenstein
• (Published in 1818)

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Romantic Period

• REMEMBER
• This period starts 732 years after the end of the
  Anglo-Saxon time period in England.

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Romantic Period

• Thus, we are jumping ahead in English history and
  literature
• -The Anglo Saxons 449-1066
• -The Middle Ages 1066-1485
• -The Renaissance 1485-1660
• -The Restoration and 18th Century 1660-1800
• -The ROMANTIC PERIOD 1798-1832

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Romantic Period

• The actual period is said to begin with the
  FRENCH REVOLUTION
• The period is said to end with the PARLIAMENTARY
  REFORMS OF 1832 that laid the political
  foundations for modern Britain

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Romantic Period

• You may be wondering
• What does the word ROMANTIC
  mean in the context of this period?

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Romantic Period

• The word romantic comes from the term
  ROMANCE, and romance was one of the most
  popular genres of medieval literature.

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Romantic Period

• Medieval Connection
• Romantic writers self-consciously used the
  elements of romance in an attempt to go back
  beyond the refinements of neoclassical literature
  to older types of writing that they saw as more
  genuine

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Romantic Period

• The romance genre allowed writers to explore new,
  more PSYCHOLOGICAL AND MYSTERIOUS aspects of
  human experience.

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Romantic Period

• The writers of the Romantic period lived in
  England during a time of SOCIAL UPHEAVAL.
• The INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION in England changed the
  way people lived, where people lived, and how
  business was done.
• (England changed from an agricultural society to
  an industrial nation w/ almost everyone living in
  the city)

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Romantic Period

• Writers before this time period tended to rely on
  SCIENCE and REASON to base their writings
  on(Remember, the Restoration was often called
  the Age of Reason)
• Writers soon after this time period, such as the
  Victorian era, wrote to AFFECT CHANGE in society.

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Romantic Period

• In contrast, the Romantic writers focused on
  PERSONAL EXPERIENCE and IMAGINATION in their
  work. (This change in thinking was thought to be
  NEEDED b/c of all the political, economic, and
  social changes taking placeremember INDUSTRIAL
  REVOLUTION)
• Thus, they were not as concerned with REASON
  Imagination was superior!

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Romantic Period

• Mary Shelleys Frankenstein calls into QUESTION
  THE AIMS and METHODS OF SCIENCEwell explore
  this more while we study the novel..Muah Ha HA
  HAAA
• You experienced this questioning in the FOREWORD
  of the novel

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Romantic Period

• Romantic literature that included the elements of
  mystery, horror, and the supernatural is known as
  GOTHIC
• Frankenstein is a Gothic Novel

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No trench coats in class please

• LOL
• NBD

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Gothic Literature

• Gothic novels tended to feature
• TROUBLESOME TONES
• REMOTE SETTINGS
• MYSTERIOUS EVENTS

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Gothic Literature

• The characters INNER EMOTIONAL
  LIVES receive a lot of attention.

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Gothic Literature

• The struggle between GOOD vs. EVIL
  is prominent

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Thats all folks

• THE END
• Any Questions?

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• The Romantic period could be argued to start with
  the selling of Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other
  Poems

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• Lyrical Ballads was written by Samuel Taylor
  Coleridge and William Wordsworth.
• Included Coleridges The Rime of the Ancient
  Mariner and Wordsworths Lines Composed a Few
  Miles Above Tintern Abbey.

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• The era has been most identified with with six
  poets
• William Blake
• William Wordsworth
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• Percy Bysshe Shelley
• John Keats
• George Gordon Lord Byron

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• Remember, before this time the American
  Revolution had taken place and the French
  Revolution was taking place.

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• The American Rev. not only cost England
  economically, but it was also a loss of prestige
  and confidence.

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• The French Rev. was a prime example of an
  anointed king being OVERTHROWN by a democratic
  mob.
• French Rev. meant the triumph of radical
  principlesthe English worried this would spread.

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• The French called for a worldwide revolution
• In 1793 England declared war on France
• In 1804 Napoleon Bonaparte declared himself
  dictator of France. (Napoleon just as bad as
  executed king, associated w/ tyrant)

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• As a result of all the changes in western Europe,
  especially in France, conservatives in England
  institute severe repressive measures
• It outlawed collective bargaining and kept
  suspected spies in prison w/out a trial

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• However, many Romantics (including poets)
  supported the idea of revolution/change, and
  clung to their hopes for the DAWN OF A NEW ERA
  through peaceful change
• Hopes provoked and shaped by upheavals in English
  life brought about by the INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• Remember, Industrial Revolution brought many
  people to the city to work in factories where
  machines replaced handmade articles.
• City populations greatly increased and resulted
  in very POOR LIVING CONDITIONS.

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• Industrial Revolution also caused land to no
  longer be communally owned. This resulted in
  MANY LANDLESS PEOPLE
• Thus, these landless people MIGRATED TO THE CITY
  in search of work or charity.

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• The economic cause of all this misery was called
  LAISSEZ FAIRE
• Translated means let (people) do (as they
  please)
• Meaning economic forces were out of the
  governments control
• Result rich grew richer and the poor got
  poorer. (children also suffered b/c they were
  often times forced to work)

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• As a result
• Frustrated by Englands resistance to political
  and social change during this age of revolution
  around the globe, the ROMANTIC POETS became
  dedicated to bringing about change.

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• These poets believed in the force of literature.
• They turned from the formal, public verse of the
  18th century Augustans to a more private,
  spontaneous, lyric poetry.
• These lyrics expressed the belief that
  IMAGINATION, rather than reason, was the best
  response to the forces of change.

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• The term Romantic has at least THREE useful
  meanings relevant to the Romantic poets.

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• 1 A Childs Sense of Wonder
• Romantic signifies a fascination with youth and
  innocenceparticularly the freshness and wonder
  of a childs perception of the world.
• This perception seemed to resemble the ages
  sense of a new dawnlike what Wordsworth saw in
  his first experience in France as human nature
  being born again.

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• 2 Social Idealism
• The term Romanticrefers to a view of cyclical
  development of human societies. This is the
  stage when people need to question tradition and
  authority in order to imagine better - that is,
  happier, fairer, and healthier - ways to live.
  Romantic in this sense is associated with
  idealism.

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• 3 Adaptation to Change
• The term Romanticsuggests an ability to change-
  an acceptance of change rather than a rigid
  rejection of it. In the so-called Romantic
  period of the first half of the 19th century (up
  to the Civil War in America), Western societies
  met the conditions necessary for
  industrialization. This demanded that people
  acquire a stronger and stronger awareness of
  change, and that they try to find a way to adapt
  to it.

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• Overall, the term romantic signifies a
  fascination with youth and innocence, a
  questioning of authority and tradition for
  idealistic purposes, and an adaptation to change.

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END HERE

• More in depth following
• ANY QUESTIONS?

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• In Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth declared that he
  was writing a new kind of poetry that he hoped
  would be well adapted to the interest of mankind
  permanently

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• In Lyrical Ballads, the subject matter would be
  different form that of earlier giants of poetry -
  like Alexander Pope - who used poetry to
  satirize, or to persuade the reader with
  argumentative techniques.

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• For Wordsworth, good poetry was the spontaneous
  overflow of powerful feelings.
• Such poetry would use simple, unadorned language
  to deal with commonplace subjects.

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• It is a mistake to think of the Romantics as
  nature poets.
• Rather, these poets were mind poets who sought
  a deeper understanding of the bond between human
  beings and the world of the senses.

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• Their search led them to a third, more mysterious
  element present in both the mind and
  nature.this element is a creative power that
  makes things happenthis power is the
  IMAGINATION.
• The Romantics thought this superior to human
  reasoning.

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• Each of the Romantics had his or her own special
  view of the imagination.
• However, all of them believed that the
  imagination could be stimulated by both nature
  and the mind itself.
• These poets had a strong sense of natures
  mysterious forces, which both inspire the poet
  and hint at the causes of great changes taking
  place in the world.

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• Romantic poems usually present imaginative
  experiences as very powerful or moving.
• This suggests that the human imagination is also
  a kind of desire - a motive that drives the mind
  to discover things that it cannot learn by
  rational or logical thinking.

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• In the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth
  makes it clear that the poet is special the poet
  is endowed with more lively sensibility, more
  enthusiasm and tendernessa greater knowledge of
  human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than
  are supposed to be common among mankind.
• All Romantic poets described the poet in such
  lofty terms.

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• For example (differing poets views of the poet)
• William Blake held the poet to be the bard, an
  inspired revealer and teacher.
• Coleridge thought the poet brings the whole soul
  of man into activity by employing that
  synthetic and magical powerthat imagination.
• Shelley called poets the unacknowledged
  legislators of the world.
• Keats wrote that a poet is a physician to all
  humanity and pours out a balm upon the world.

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• Thus, the Romantics saw the poet as someone human
  beings and society cannot do without.
• Romantics saw a very special place for the poet
  or the artist in societythey saw poets in a role
  similar to that of a priest, teacher, or master.
• In the Romantic view, the poet functions as a
  sort of spiritual guide to the inner realms of
  intuition.

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Romantic Poets/Poetry

• Overall, in the Romantic period, poetry was no
  longer used to make complex arguments in a witty,
  polished style. Romantic poets used unadorned
  language to explore the significance of
  commonplace subjects, the beauty of nature, and
  the power of human imagination.