Romantic Period
1785-1830
Romanticism• A movement that developed as a reaction against
neoclassicism in the late 18th century and dominated the 19th century
• Emphasizes emotion, imagination, intuition, freedom, personal experience, and the beauty of nature
Romanticism• Examines 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
SOCIAL & POLITICAL CONTEXT
• Period of Great Change in England• Agricultural Society with Powerful Landholders• Aristocracy was giving way to modern Industrial
nation• Large-scale employers • Growing, restless Middle Class
Change
• American and French Revolutions were
important elements of the political landscape
• Threats to existing social structure were
being posed by new, revolutionary ideas.
• A time of harsh political repression in
England despite need for changes brought on
by Industrial Revolution
• Mill towns grew• Landscape was increasingly subdivided• Factories spewed pollution over slums• Population was increasingly divided into rich
and poor.
Laissez-Faire• THE PHILOSOPHY OF LAISSEZ-FAIRE (“LET ALONE”)
PREVAILED.
Consequences• LOW WAGES• HORRIBLE WORKING CONDITIONS• LARGE-SCALE EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN
AND CHILDREN IN BRUTALLY HARD OCCUPATIONS (SUCH AS COAL MINING).
Lack of Reform• IN THE FACE OF TECHNOLOGICAL
UNEMPLOYMENT AND POVERTY, WORKERS—
WHO COULD NOT VOTE—HAD TO RESORT TO
PROTESTS AND RIOTS, INCURRING FURTHER
REPRESSION.
• BUT WHILE THE POOR SUFFERED, THE
LEISURE CLASS PROSPERED.
Plight of Women
• WOMEN OF ALL CLASSES WERE REGARDED AS INFERIOR TO MEN
• WERE UNDEREDUCATED• HAD LIMITED VOCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES• WERE SUBJECT TO A STRICT CODE OF
SEXUAL BEHAVIOR• HAD ALMOST NO LEGAL RIGHTS.
Poetry and the Poet
• FIRST-PERSON LYRIC POEM BECAME THE
MAJOR ROMANTIC LITERARY FORM
• “I” OFTEN REFERRED DIRECTLY TO THE POET.
• THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SELF BECAME A
MAJOR TOPIC OF ROMANTIC POETRY.
Nature
• LANDSCAPE WAS OFTEN GIVEN HUMAN
QUALITIES OR SEEN AS A SYSTEM OF
SYMBOLS REVEALING THE NATURE OF GOD.
• CLOSENESS WITH NATURE WAS SEEN AS
BRINGING OUT HUMANITY’S INNATE
GOODNESS.
Glorification of the Commonplace
• HUMBLE, RUSTIC SUBJECT MATTER AND PLAIN STYLE BECAME THE PRINCIPAL SUBJECT OF POETRY.
• POETS SOUGHT TO REFRESH READERS’ SENSE OF WONDER ABOUT THE ORDINARY THINGS OF EXISTENCE, TO MAKE THE “OLD” WORLD SEEM NEW.
• RENEWED INTEREST IN THE MIDDLE AGES (AND THE BALLAD FORM) AS A BEAUTIFUL, EXOTIC, MYSTERIOUS BYGONE ERA.
The Supernatural and Strange
• MANY ROMANTIC POEMS EXPLORE THE REALM OF MYSTERY AND MAGIC
• INCORPORATE MATERIALS FROM FOLKLORE, SUPERSTITION, ETC.;
• ARE OFTEN SET IN DISTANT OR FARAWAY PLACES.
Individualism
• HUMAN BEINGS WERE SEEN AS ESSENTIALLY NOBLE AND GOOD (THOUGH CORRUPTED BY SOCIETY)
• ALSO SEEN AS POSSESSING GREAT POWER AND POTENTIAL THAT HAD FORMERLY BEEN USED TO DESCRIBE ONLY GOD
Individualism
• GREAT BELIEF IN DEMOCRATIC IDEALS• CONCERN FOR HUMAN LIBERTY• A GREAT OUTCRY AGAINST VARIOUS FORMS
OF TYRANNY.• THE HUMAN MIND WAS SEEN AS CREATING
(AT LEAST IN PART) THE WORLD AROUND IT, AND AS HAVING ACCESS TO THE INFINITE VIA IMAGINATION.
The Big 6 Romantic Poets
• William Blake• William Wordsworth• Samuel Taylor Coleridge• Percy Bysshe Shelley• John Keats• George Gordon, Lord Byron
Other Romantic Writers
• Jane Austen• Leigh Hunt• Mary Shelley• Mary Wollstonecraft• Sir Walter Scott• Robert Southey
Notable Romantic Musicians
• Beethoven• Franz Schubert• Claude Debussy• Verdi• Chopin• Franz Josef Haydn• Mozart
Key Romantic Themes
• Imagination• Egotism• The particular• The remote• The primitive• The medieval• The Far 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)
Key Events in Literature• 1798: Lyrical Ballads published• 1812: Byron publishes Childe Harold’s
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
Elegy
• 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.
• “Elegy Written in a Country Courtyard” by Thomas Gray
• “Adonais” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Pastoral
• A mode of poetry that sought to imitate and celebrate the virtues of rural life (a nature poem).
• “To My Sister” by William Wordsworth• “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats
Ode
• A formal address to an event, a person, or a thing not present.
• Three types: Pindaric, Horatian, and Irregular.• “Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelley• “To Autumn” by John Keats
Lyric
• One of poetry’s three categories, the others being narrative and dramatic. The poet addresses the reader directly and states his own feelings.
• “Frost at Midnight” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge• “To Spring” by William Blake
Sonnet
• Apoem of fourteen lines, usually iambic. • Two types: the Petrarchan and the
Shakespearean• “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September
3, 1802” by William Wordsworth• “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley