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