1784ish-1832ish

Responses to/against 18th c. LitExtension of literacy Literature as a way

of changing the world

Looking to classical literature for models

Continued influence of journalism, reviews, subscription publishing

Reaction against Neoclassical certainty

Questioning authority, rather than claiming to have it

Excess and emotion rather than moderation, reason, restraint (though Romantic poetry is technically very accomplished)

The Age of Revolutions Revolution replaces

complacency The American Revolution:

challenge to British supremacy and colonialism

The French Revolution: overthrow of perceived tyranny

The Industrial Revolution: economic and class-structures shaken up

Political Revolution: Rise of the commons and the Reform Bill of 1832

Religious Revolution: increase in nonconformity and individualism in religious expression

Zeitgeist“The Spirit of the Age” Elevation of Imagination

over Reason, Science, Empiricism, Certainty

Elevation of ‘nature in the raw’ over Nature Methodized

Celebration of sensibilities, of perception through feeling rather than through the intellect

Attitudinal Shifts

Different Viewpoints

Poetic Theory and Practice

• The poet not as moralist but as vates (prophet) • Spontaneity and freedom over rules • Irregularity and impulsive forms (rise of the ode), metrical

experimentation • Glorification of the ordinary, the common, and the outcast rather

than General Principles • Embellishment with the supernatural and the strange (“The Gothic”) •

Major GenresPoetry

The odeThe lyric

Non-fiction proseThe reflective essayThe familiar essayThe letter

Drama (often “closet drama”)The novel

Gothic novel, novel of purpose, novel of manners, the romance

The SublimeLonginus defined the sublime as differing from

beauty and evoking more intense emotions by vastness, a quality that inspires awe and even terror.

Whereas beauty may be found in the small, the smooth, the light and the everyday, the sublime is vast, irregular, obscure and superhuman. Definition from Grove Dictionary of Art

Becomes fashionable to travel to wild and rugged places, such as the Alps, Snowdonia and the Lake District

Sublime/Beautiful/Picturesquehttp://faculty.winthrop.edu/kosterj/engl203/

overviews/sublime.htm

Mary Wollestonecrafthttp://

www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/wollstonecraft_01.shtml

George Gordon, Lord Byronhttp://

faculty.winthrop.edu/kosterj/engl203/authors&primaryreadings/byron.htm