English Romanticism

Age of the Romantic Movement (1798-1832)

Romanticism occurred between the publication of Lyrical Ballads

and the death of Charles Dickens.

The Age of Independence:The aftermath of the

Enlightenment

French Revolution

• The French Revolution was the inaugural European revolution

• The French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution together transformed the western world

• This “Dual Revolution” changed everything politically, socially and economically

• Triumph of European states and economies globally

• The Modern Era was inaugurated by the Dual Revolution

Struggles after the immediate Revolution

• Reasons:

--Snowball Effect

--Unsatisfied Expectations

--Outbreak of War• Results:

--Increasing Violence

--Change in Political Leadership

Robespierre’s Reign of Terror

• The Committee of Public Safety

• The Concept of “Total War”

• Maximum price ceilings on certain goods

• Nationalization of Small Workshops

Reign of Terror

• Execution of 40,000 “Enemies of the Nation”

• Stress on radical definition of equality

• Wanted a legal maximum on personal wealth

• Wanted a regulation of commercial profits

• End of Robespierre’s dictatorship on July 28, 1794

Romanticism- Historical Events/Political Influences

• Began during Napoleonic Wars

• Romanticism flourished during periods of economic trouble and chaos

• Union with Ireland

• Industrial Revolution

• Debates on Reform Bill

• Humanitarianism was the result of observing the suffering of masses

Age of Romantic Movement

• Characteristics of Age:– Called by Dickens “the best of times and worst of

times” because of developing democracy, sudden growth in cities, and prevalence of human pain, profit motive

– Philosophical romanticism – Value place on individual, nature, organic art– Some skepticism seen parody and satire– Optimism prevailed– However, most of optimism associated with impulse

to revolt and political reform

Major Characteristics of Romanticism:

– Abiding trust in nature’s goodness– Emotions and Instincts more important than reason– Glorification of "The Natural Man" – the "noble

savage" – the primitive and untutored personality – Equality of people– social and economic classes

disparaged – A premium on detail – detail is the pathway to truth– Ultimate truth– Art served an exalted purpose– Subjectivity

EXAMPLES OF ROMANTICISM

• Love of Nature

• “Are not the mountains, waves, and

skies, a part / Of me and my soul, as I

of them?” Byron

• “[A mountain is] the type of a majestic intellect, . . . There I beheld the emblem of a giant mind that feeds upon infinity.” Wordsworth

Examples of Romanticism

• Idealization of rural living

“I met a little Cottage Girl: / She was eight

years old, she said; / Her hair was thick with

many a curl / That clustered round her head. /

She had a rustic, woodland air, / An she was

wildly clad: / Her eyes were fair, and very

fair; / --Her beauty made me glad.”

Wordsworth

“The Gleaners” by Millet

Other Qualities of Romanticism

• Re-discovery of Folk Culture

• Nostalgia for Pre-Industrial Past

• Interest in “Exotic” Locales

• Escape into Imaginative Worlds

• Passionate Belief in Liberty and Equality

“La Belle Dames sans Merci”

Romantic Poetry

-Authors: Wordsworth, Coleridge- “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, Shelley, Keats, Byron, Tennyson-Poetry was marked by the social issues-Popular forms: blank verse, the ballad, the short lyric, Rime Royal stanzas, Spenserian stanzas, the sonnet -Meter: lines were often enjambed, loose, with a free use of caesura and other spontaneous breaks in patterns.

“. . . spinning still/ The rapid line of motion, then at once/ Have I, reclining back upon my heels,/ Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs/ Wheeled by me -- . ..” (Wordsworth-- “The Prelude”)

George Gordon Byron(1788-1824)

• His name is given to the term Byronic Hero

• His poems include Don Juan (1824) and

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1814)

Both of which reveal

his wanderlust and

desire for new experiences

The Byronic Hero• having great talent • exhibiting great passion • having a distaste for society and social institutions • expressing a lack of respect for rank and privilege • thwarted in love by social constraint or death • rebelling • suffering exile • hiding an unsavoury past • ultimately, acting in a self-destructive manner

Major Works

• Manfred (1817)• Cain (1821)• Marino Faliero (1821)• Sardanapalus (1821)• The Two Foscari (1821)• Heaven and Earth (1823)• Don Juan (1819–24)

Manfred and the Alpine Witch

Percy Bysshe Shelley(1792-1822)

• Shelley inspired by

nature, which is

likened to extremes

of human emotion• Unconventional and

outspoken• Prometheus Unbound

(1820) and Ozymandias

Women Writers

-Mary Shelley, is an Englishnovelist who writes Frankenstein(1818) a gothic novel

-The Brontë sisters, Charlotte andEmily write Jane Eyre (1847)and Wuthering Heights (1847)respectively

-Jane Austen differs in that hernovels, Pride and Prejudice,Emma, and Northanger Abbey,criticize sentimentality andromantic passion

Questions to answer:

1. Where do you see aspects of Romanticism today?

2. Would you consider Jane Austen a romantic? Why or why not?

3. Identify some of the major themes of the Romantic movement.

4. How did the attitudes of Romanticism differ from those of the Enlightenment?  Why did the romantics reject the rationalism of the Enlightenment?