The Romantic Age in English Literature

8/10/2019 The Romantic Age in English Literature

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The Romantic Age in

English Literature

- Rebels and Dreamers -

1795-1832)


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1795 - William Wordsworth and

Samuel Coleridge

publish Lyrical Ballads

1812 - Byron publishes Childe

Harolds Pilgrimage

1813 - Jane Austen publishes

Pride and Prejudice


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1818 - Mary Wollstonecraft

Shelley publishes

Frankenstein or The

Modern Prometheus

1819 - Percy Bysshe Shelley

writes Ode to the West

Wind

1820 - John Keats publishes

Ode on a Grecian Urn


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1825 - Horse-drawn buses begin

operating in London

1825 - John Nash begins

rebuilding of Buckingham

Palace

1829 - Robert Peel establishes

Metropolitan Police in

London


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1830 - Liverpool-Manchester

railway opens

1831 - Michael Faraday

demonstrates

electromagnetic induction

1832 - First Reform Act extends

voting rights


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The British

Society during

Romantic Period


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The literature of this period reflected

the effects of the American and French

Revolutions.

British leaders did not want France or

any other nation to win dominance on

the European continent.

The Tory government, led by William

Pitt the Younger), banned all talk of

parliamentary reform outside the halls

of Parliament. Banned public meetings

and suspended certain basic rights.)


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Liberal-minded Britons had no political

outlet for their hopes and dreams,

therefore, many turned to literature

and art instead.

Throughout the long wars against

France, Britains government ignored

the problems caused by the industrial

revolution.

Overcrowded factory towns, unpleasant

and unsafe working conditions in the

factories, and long working hours for

low pay.


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The working class grew steadily larger

and more restless resulting to series of

violent protests and riots.

Some attempted to organize into

unions.

Britains government sided openly

with the factory owners and even

helping to crush the workers attempts

to form unions.


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During this time, the British society

was splitting into two angry camps

the working classes, who demanded

reform, and the ruling classes, who

fiercely resisted reform.

A new generation of Tories emerged in

the 1820s and reforms began.

A law was passed in 1824 permitting

Britains first labor unions to organize.


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In 1829 The Catholic Emancipation

Act restored economic and religious

freedoms to Roman Catholics.

Then, in 1830, Whig party won the

election.

Their Reform Bill of 1832 brought

sweeping changes to British political

life.


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By extending voting rights to the

small but important middle class

males only), this law threatened the

traditional dominance of landowning

aristocrats in Parliament.

In 1833, Parliament passed the first

law governing factory safety.

In that same year, it also abolished

slavery.


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The Beginnings

of Romanticism


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Eighteenth-century writers focused on

celebrating the power of human

understanding

Classical art and literature showed the importance ofpeople and leaders, as well as gods and goddesses

Medieval art and literature focused on the Church and

salvation Renaissance art and literature focused on the

importance of people and nature, along with religion

Romantic art and literature raised new

interest in the trials and dreams of the

common people and their desire for

radical change.


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For the Romantics, THE FAITH IN

SCIENCE AND REASON, so

characteristic of eighteenth-century

thought and literature, was not

applicable in a world of tyranny and

factories.

Swiss-born writer Jean-Jacques

Rousseau 1712-1778), a leading

philosopher in France, influenced the

belief of the British Romantics.


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Rousseau saw society as a force that,

throughout history, deformed and

imprisoned an originally free human

nature. Man is born free and

everywhere he is in chains. His ideas

influenced both American and French

revolutionaries.


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The Romantic

Age in British

Poetry


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Romanticism was a movement that

affected not only literature but also all

other arts.

In music, it produced such brilliant

European composers as Germanys Ludwig

Van Beethoven 1770-1827) and

Austrias Franz Schubert 1797-1828).

In painting, it influenced intensely

personal and warmly spontaneous rural

landscapes of Britains John Constable

1776-1837) and the dramatic seascapes

of J.M.W. Turner 1775-1851)


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Wordsworth and Coleridge

William Wordsworth 1770-1850)

provided an early statement of

the goals of Romantic poetry in

the preface of Lyrical Ballads

1798), a collaboration with his

friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge

1772-1834).


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Defined poetry as the spontaneous

overflow of powerful feelingsand

explained that poetry takes its

origin from emotion recollected in

tranquility.

It was said that Wordsworth dealt

with the emphasis on emotions and

incidents and situations from common

life and believed that ordinary things

should be presented in an unusual

way.


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Finally, Wordsworths preface

spoke about incorporating human

passions with the beautiful and

permanent forms of nature.

Viewed nature as not just a force

to be tamed and analyzed

scientifically; rather, it was a wild,

free force that could inspire poets

to instinctive spiritual

understanding.


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Lyrical Ballads became the

cornerstone of Britains Romantic

Age.

Also with time, Wordsworth and

Coleridge became respected

members of Britains literary

establishment.


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The Second

Generation of

Romantic Poets


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George Gordon, Lord Byron

1788-1824)Byron was a member of the

House of Lords.

At first, critics responded

unfavorably to his early poetry but

finally achieved success when he

published his first two cantos of

Childe Harolds Pilgrimage

1812)


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Handsome, egotistical and aloof,

Byron became the darling of

elegant society, but not for long.

Shocked by his radical politics and

scandalous love affairs, London

hostesses began to shun him.

Byron left Britain for Italy in

1816, never to return.


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Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792-

1822)

Byrons friend and was also an

aristocrat and a more consistent

political radical than Byron.

In poems such as Song to the

Men of England 1819), Shelley

urged Englands lower classes to

rebel.


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Like Byron, Shelley was shunned

for his radical ideas; he left Britain

for good in 1818.

In his lifetime, he did not attain

fame that Byron did yet he is now

remembered for the fervor he

brought to lyric poetry in such

intense personal and emotional

verses as To a Skylark 1820)

and Ode to the West Wind


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John Keats 1795-1821)

Also a master of lyrical poetry

Born outside upper-class society,

son of the London stable keeper

Trained to be a doctor but

abandoned his medical career to

pursue his passion for poetry


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In 1819, produced his greatest

poems like The Fall of

Hyperion and Ode on a

Grecian Urn

In his poems, Keats tried to

reconcile the eternal and

almost inhuman beauty of art

with the realities of human

suffering.


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The famous line at the end of

Ode on a Grecian Urn, Beauty is

truth, truth beauty -

represents one response to his

dilemma.

Unfortunately, Keats became ill

because of tuberculosis.

Hoping to get better in a

warmer climate, he traveled to

Italy, where he died at the age

of thirty-five.


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The Romantic

Age in British

Prose


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Less dominant than poetry

during the Romantic Age, but

many significant works

appeared, mainly in the form

of essays and novels.

Romantic Age was a dry

period for drama only two

theatres were licensed to

produce plays.


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Charles Lamb 1775-1834,

William Hazlitt 1778-1830)

and Thomas De Quincey

1785-1859)

British essayists and readers

of the Romantic Age.


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The London Magazine,

although it appeared from only

1820 to 1829, attracted major

contributions from the three

greatest essayists of the era.

Lamb, in particular, transformed

the informal essay of the

eighteenth-century into a more

personal, more introspective or

reflective Romantic composition.


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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

1797-1851)

Author of, one of the most

successful Gothic novel during

the Romantic Age,

Frankenstein or The Modern

Prometheus 1818)


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Gothic novels first appeared in

the middle of the eighteenth

century.

It featured a number of

standard ingredients, including

brave heroes and heroines,

threatening scoundrels, vast

and eerie castles and ghosts.


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The fascination of the

Romantics with mystery and

the supernatural made such

novels quite popular during

that age.


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Jane Austen 1775-1817)

The most highly regarded

writer of novel manners,

turning a satirical eye on

British customs.

Her works include Sense and

Sensibility 1811) and Pride

and Prejudice 1813)


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Sir Walter Scott 1771-

1832)

Passionately devoted to his

native Scotland, used his

knowledge of Scottish history

to create what amounted to a

new literary form, the

Historical novel.


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Characterized by a focus on

historical events and settings,

with attention to local flavor

and regional speech.

It also featured a Romantic

treatment of realistic themes.

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The Romantic Age in English Literature