English Literature in the Romantic Period

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Miss Belén Levican V.







� Romanticism comes from the adjective´Romanticµ used in the 17th century with anegative mean to indicate fantastic and

unrealistic things.� In the 18th century with the revaluation of

supernatural it acquires a positive mean incontrast with reason and rationality of theEnlightment.



� The main themes of the author in this period are:

� Individual relation between Man and Nature

� Imagination as a way to escape from the real

World

� Artist as an original creator, a natural genius freefrom any neo-classical rules

So the Romantic poets wrote poetry that expresses afeeling of nostalgia through introspection andmelancholy.





� We usually divided the Romantic poets in threedifferent generations:

The Early Romantic poetsThey are: Thomas Chatterton (1752 ² 1770)

Robert Burns (1759 ² 1796)William Blake (1757 ² 1827)

The First generationThey are: William Wordsworth (1770 ² 1850)

SamuelT

. Coleridge (1772 ² 1834)The second generationThey are: Lord Byron (1788 ² 1824)

Percy B. Shelley (1792 ² 1822) John Keats (1795 ² 1821)



� In 1798 Wordsworth and Coleridge published´The Lyrical Balladsµ, (manifesto of English Romanticism). In the preface of this opera

Wordsworth established the basis ofRomanticism; in particular he answered tothese questions:



� What is poetry? ´I have said that poetry is thespontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes itsorigin from emotion recollected in tranquillityµ

� What is a poet? ´He is a man speaking to men: a man,it true, endued with more lively sensibility, moreenthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater

knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensivesoul; a man with his own passions and volitionsµ

� What is the best language to describe both ofthem? ´The principal object was to choose incidents

and situations from common life in a selection of language really used by men to throw over them acertain colouring of imaginationµ ´Low and rustic lifewas generally chosen, because in that condition, theessential passions of the heart find a better soil and

speak a plainer and more emphatic languageµ





� He was born in Cocker mouth, near LakeDistrict, and in the peace and the beauty of thiscountry he found inspiration for his poetry.

� His works are: ´The Preludeµ; ´Poems in twovolumesµ; ´The excursionµ.

� His themes are:

� Nature as:

Countryside opposed to the townActive force

Source of feelings



� Child: according to Rousseau·s ideas he thoughtthat during the childhood we can understand thepreciousity of the natural world.

� He wrote for everybody, but thought that noeverybody can be a poet.

� He was a democratic thinker, because he wasconvinced that everybody should read poetry to

learn how to express feelings.� In this poetry we can find both the conception of

nature as opposed to the town and as a source offeeling:



´A slumber did my spirit sealµ

A slumber did my spirit seal;I had no human fears:She seemed a thing that could not feelThe touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;She neither hears nor sees;Rolled round in earth's diurnal course

With

rocks, and stones, and trees.



� The world is too much with us; late and soon,Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;³Little we see in Nature that is ours;We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;The winds that will be howling at all hours,And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;For this, for everything, we are out of tune;It moves us not. Great God! I·d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.



The beginning of the Romantic period of England and

its literature usually set in 1798, the year of the firstedition of literature work from William Wordsworth andSamuel Taylor in which they published a book of their

poem called Lyrical Ballads (Copeland, Royster,Wilhelm). Romantic age or ´Romanticismµ has nothing

to do with the romance or love like its name. Instead,this period allowed people to think freely and usuallyfocused on Individuality and freedom (Melani). That isthe reason why we, as the new generation, saw the

work of Romantic writers as full of imagination andemotion more than any other periods of British

literature. They usually focused and set the value onthe individuality of human beings and the search of

freedom.



� He added to the classical romantic themes theemphasis of the supernatural and the mystery.

� His most famous works are: ´Kubla khanµ;

´The rime of the ancient marinerµ.

� Some kind of scoop about Coleridge:He couldonly write under the effect of drugs and in

particular of opium. Soh

e was ill and suffereda lot.



� ´Kubla khanµ is probably a result of an opiumdream. As a matter of fact it·s incomplete,because he never finished his dream.

�

� This is a piece from the most famous ballad ofColeridge.

�

We can find both

th

e personification of th

enature that had a salvation function, and thevisionary intent of the author.

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English Literature in the Romantic Period