The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Sixth Edition, Volume 2 (1993)

M.H. Abrams, General Editor

W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., New York

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD (1785-1830)

1789-1815: Revolutionary and Napoleonic period in France. 1789: French Revolution begins with the storming of the Bastille on July 14; 1793: King Louis XVI executed and England joins the alliance against France; 1793-1794: The Reign of Terror under Robespierre; 1804: Napoleon crowned emperor; 1815: Napoleon defeated at Waterloo.

1798: Lyrical Ballads published anonymously by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

1811-1820: The Regency – George, Prince of Wales, acts as regent for George III, who has been declared incurably insane.

1820: Accession of George IV.

Political Background

This was a turbulent period during which England evolved from a primarily agricultural society (where power was concentrated among the land-owning aristocracy) to a modern industrial nation. Economic power shifted to companies that employed vast numbers of people, and the working class became more restive.

During this time, two major events were happening in other parts of the world – the French Revolution and the American Revolution. Initially, the French Revolution had enthusiastic support from the English. Writers such as Tom Paine and William Godwin advocated a democratic republic for England, too, even if it meant a revolution was inevitable. However, as the French Revolution got very violent and bloody, the English withdrew their support, and even went to war against the French and Napoleon, the newly-crowned despot of France.

During the Napoleonic wars, life was very oppressive in England. Public meetings were prohibited and anyone advocating even minor political change was accused of treason. But as the Industrial Revolution was in full swing in England, the increasingly powerful manufacturing class wanted a larger say in government. The physical landscape of England changed, too. Large, open became fenced in by stones and hedges, and factories and industrial towns started appearing everywhere. The distinction between the rich (the people who owned capital) and poor (the labor) increased. The labor class worked long hours in horrible conditions for

inadequate pay and lived in slum tenements. Child labor was rampant. Women were still considered an inferior class and had limited education and only lowly jobs open to them. The landed classes, the industrialists, and the merchants prospered, however, during this time.

The Spirit of the Romantic Period

Almost all the Romantic writers were “preoccupied with the fact and idea of revolution” (p4), mainly the French Revolution. The Revolution created a feeling that this was an “age of new beginnings when, by discarding inherited procedures and outworn customs, everything was possible, and not only in the political and social realm but in intellectual and literary enterprises as well.” (p4)

Poetry

William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge revolutionized the theory and practice of poetry when they published the Lyrical Ballads in 1798. They claimed that the poets of the 18th century had imposed “on poetry artificial conventions that distorted its free and natural expression.” (p5) Those earlier poets regarded poetry as a reflection or mirror of life, but Wordsworth and Coleridge felt that poetry was not a description of external events but an expression of the powerful, inner feelings of the poet. Poetry was a seed that originated in the poet’s imagination and then took shape based on the poet’s mood, emotions, experiences, etc. As a result, the lyric poem written in first person became a major Romantic form. Even in fictional writings, authors wanted the hero to be identified with themselves.

The Lyrical Ballads also glorified what was considered commonplace at that time. They described humble life in the language of the “rustics.” In fact, William Wordsworth went so far as to write about the vagrants and delinquents of society, breaking traditional poetic norm and etiquette. His radical approach to poetry opened up many avenues and still has an impact on the poets of today. Not just Wordsworth, but “…Romantic writers deliberately put themselves in competition with the greatest of their predecessors and experimented boldly in poetic language, versification, and design. Especially in their longer poems they struck out in new directions, and in the space of a few decades produced an astonishing variety of forms constructed on novel principles of organization and style.” (p 11)

While Wordsworth focused on the ordinary, Samuel Taylor Coleridge turned his attention to the supernatural in the Lyrical Ballads. Drawing upon ancient folklore and superstition, he included magical and mysterious elements in his poetry. John Keats was another poet of the Romantic era who delved into mysticism. Both Coleridge and Keats used medieval settings for their poetry to create the appropriate mood; the term “medieval revival” is sometimes associated with the Romantic period.

Many poets of this period wrote about nature and sometimes Romantic poetry is called “nature poetry.” However, the longer Romantic poems “are in fact usually meditative poems, in which the presented scene serves to raise an emotional problem or personal crisis whose development and resolution constitute the organizing principle of the poem.” (p7) Also, Romantic poets endowed nature with human qualities, almost as a “revolt” against the rationalist and scientific movements of the 17th and 18th centuries. Poets like Wordsworth, Blake, and Shelley gave natural objects spiritual significance in their poems.

Individualism and non-conformity were two other significant features of the Romantic period. Writers and poets “deliberately isolated themselves from society in order to give scope to their individual vision.” (p12) Poetry and prose abounded with words like “single”, “solitary”, and “alone.” They called for a spiritual revolution where “we can make our visionary imagination triumph over our senses and sensebound understanding.” (p13)

The Essay

Prior to the Romantic period, essays and reviews were mainly written by “hacks who acceded to the political bias and financial interests of the publisher and advertisers.” (p13) This changed in the early 1800s with the publication of the Edinburgh Review, which set much higher literary standards and gave more freedom to its writers. A spate of rival magazines and publications followed, significantly elevating the quality of writing. Writers were paid so well that a talented and prolific author could easily earn a good living. Lamb, Hazlitt, and De Quincey were the three major essayists of the Romantic period. “Like the poets, these essayists were personal and subjective; their essays are often candidly autobiographical, reminiscent, self-analytic; and when the writers treated other matters than themselves, they tended to do so impressionistically, so that the material is seen reflected in the temperament of the essayist.” (p14) These essayists also tackled diverse subjects like the Romantic poets and developed new styles and principles of writing.

Drama

None of the plays written during the Romantic era are read nowadays. This is due to the fact that a quirky licensing act prohibited the staging of drama in all but two theaters (Drury Lane and Covent Garden), which, unfortunately, were huge, badly lit, and frequented by a noisy and unruly crowd. As a result, the only plays that could succeed in these venues were “blatant and magniloquent…[and] tended to the extremes of either farce or melodrama.” (p14) A few of the Romantic poets such as Byron and Shelley tried their hand at poetic plays, but they were not successful.

The Novel

The type of fiction that was popular during the Romantic period was the Gothic novel. The Gothic novel was typically set in dark mansions, filled with an aura of suspense and dread. The story usually revolved around a beautiful girl who was the object of obsession of a terrorizing villain. Most of the influential writers of this genre were women such as Ann Radcliffe.

Interestingly, the two major novelists of the Romantic era were not Gothic novelists. One of them was Jane Austen, who seemed “untouched by the political, intellectual, and artistic revolutions of her age.” (p 16) She preferred to write about genteel English folk and their lives, especially about women who showed grace and moral integrity under economic and social pressures. The other famed novelist of this time, Sir Walter Scott, set his stories in historical events of the past, often with a romantic theme. Even though “in his great scenes of action there a scope and sweep not to be exceeded in fiction until the appearance of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace in the 1860s”(p 16), Scott’s story plots were “often loose, his romantic lovers pallid, and his kings and chieftains large-scale puppets.” (p16) While Jane Austen’s works were not much appreciated during her time, they have stood the test of time.

WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827)

1783: Poetical Sketches

1794: Songs of Innocence and Experience

1804-1820: Milton, Jerusalem

ROBERT BURNS (1759-1796)

To a Mouse

To a Louse

A Red, Red Rose

Auld Lang Syne

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850)

1798: First edition of the Lyrical Ballads

1800: Second edition of the Lyrical Ballads in two volumes, with the famous Preface

1807: Poems in Two Volumes

Simon Lee

Lines Written in Early Spring

Tintern Abbey

I Travelled Among Unknown Men

Lucy Gray

The Solitary Reaper

The Prelude

SIR WALTER SCOTT (1771-1832)

1814: Waverley, the first novel

Lochinvar

Old Mortality

Rob Roy

The Bride of Lammermoor

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (1772-1834)

1798: Lyrical Ballads

1817: Biographia Literaria

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Christabel

Frost at Midnight

Dejection: An Ode

CHARLES LAMB (1775-1834)

1820-1825: Contributes “Essays of Elia” to the London Magazine

WILLIAM HAZLITT (1778-1830)

1813-1814: Begins writing dramatic criticism and general essays

1815-1822: The height of his achievements as essayist and as a lecturer on English poetry and drama

THOMAS DE QUINCEY (1785-1859)

1821: Begins literary career with Confessions of an English Opium Eater

1853-1860: “Collective Edition” of his writings

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON (1788-1824)

1812: Childe Harold, cantos 1 and 2

1813-1814: The Oriental tales, including The Giaour, The Corsair, and Lara

1818: Begins Don Juan

Manfred

She Walks in Beauty

Darkness

January 22nd. Missolonghi

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792-1822)

1819: The great year: Prometheus Unbound, The Cenci, Ode to the West Wind

Alastor; or, The Spirit of Solitude

The Indian Girl’s Song [The Indian Serenade]

To a Sky-Lark

To Night

Adonais

The Triumph of Life

JOHN KEATS (1795-1821)

1817: Poems, Keats’s first book

1818: Endymion: A Poetic Romance

1819: Keats’s annus mirabilis, in which he writes almost all his greatest poems

1820: Publishes the volume Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems

Sonnet to Sleep

Ode to a Nightingale

Ode on a Grecian Urn

To Autumn

The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY (1797-1851)

1818: Frankenstein