The Romantic Age

English 12: British Literature

Ms. Nash

A Definition of “Romanticism”

• “A literary movement, and profound shift in sensibility, which took place in Britain and throughout Europe roughly between 1770 and 1848. Intellectually it marked a violent reaction to the Enlightenment. Politically it was inspired by the revolutions in America and France…Emotionally it expressed an extreme assertion of the self and the value of individual experience…together with the sense of the infinite and the transcendental. Socially it championed progressive causes…The stylistic keynote of Romanticism is intensity, and its watchword is ‘Imagination’” (Drabble 842-843 [The Oxford Companion to English Literature])

A Map of England

Put It In Context

• Before• Restoration (or

Neoclassicism)• 1660-1798• Order, reason, clarity,

logic, scientific, universal experiences

• Gulliver’s Travels

• After• The Victorian

Age • 1833 – 1901• Depicting realism and

naturalism (detail-loaded), optimism education, morality

• A Tale of Two Cities

Restoration versus Romanticism• Scientific observation of

outer world; logic• Pragmatic (practical)• Science, technology• General, universal

experiences• Optimistic about present• Moderation, self-restraint• Aristocratic; society as

whole• Nature controlled by

humans

• Examine inner feelings, emotions, imagination

• Idealistic (optimistic)• Mysterious, supernatural• Concerned with the

particular (very specific)• Romanticizing the past• Excess, spontaneity • Concerned with common

people and individuals• Felt nature should be

untamed

Important Dates

• 1775-1783: American Revolution (fighting ended in 1781)

• 1789-1815: French Revolution

• 1798: Publication of Lyrical Ballads

• 1798-1832: Romantic Period

“The Big Six” Romantic Poets

• William Blake• William Wordsworth

• Samuel Taylor Coleridge

• Percy Bysshe Shelley• John Keats

• George Gordon, Lord Byron

Other Romantic Writers

• Jane Austen

• Leigh Hunt

• Mary Shelley

• Mary Wollstonecraft

• Sir Walter Scott

• Robert Southey

Schools of Romantic Poetry

1.

Lake School

William Wordsworth

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Robert Southey

2. Cockney School

Leigh Hunt John Keats Other Londoners

3. Radcliffe School

Imitators of the gothic style

(Anne Radcliffe pioneered gothic

style)

4.

“Young Poets”

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Reynolds John Keats

Notable Romantic Painters

• John Constable (painting of “Flatford Mill” [1817] to the right)

• J.M.W. Turner• William Blake• Claude Monet• Eugene Delacroix

Notable Romantic Musicians

• Beethoven

• Franz Schubert

• Claude Debussy

• Verdi

• Chopin

• Franz Josef Haydn

• Mozart

Lyrical Ballads• First published

anonymously in 1798 as Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems

• by Wordsworth and Coleridge

• Includes “Tintern Abbey” and “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

• In the Preface, Wordsworth writes that good poetry is the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”

Key Romantic Themes

• Imagination

• Egotism

• The particular

• The remote

• The primitive

• The medieval

• The East

• The sublime

• Nature

• Irrational experiences (dreams and drugs)

• Awareness of process and current conceptions of art and introspection

• Longing for the infinite encounter through intense experiences of sublime nature (storms, mountains, oceans)

Key Events of Romantic Age

• 1798: Lyrical Ballads published• 1812: Byron publishes Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage• 1813: Jane Austen publishes Pride and Prejudice• 1818: Mary Shelley publishes Frankenstein• 1819: Percy Bysshe Shelley publishes “Ode to the West

Wind”• 1820: John Keats publishes “Ode on a Grecian Urn”• 1832: First Reform Act extends voting rights and end of

the Romantic Age

Elegy

• Definition: “An elegy is a lament setting out the circumstances and character of a loss. It mourns for a dead person, lists his or her virtues, and seeks consolation beyond the momentary event. It is not associated with any required pattern, cadence, or repetition.”

• Examples: “Elegy Written in a Country Courtyard” by Thomas Gray and “Adonais” by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Thomas Gray, from “Elegy”• The curfew tolls the knell of

parting day,The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,And all the air a solemn stillness holds,

• Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled towerThe moping owl does to the moon complainOf such as, wandering near her secret bower,Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Shelley, from “Adonais” (I)

• I weep for Adonais - he is dead!O, weep for Adonais! though our tearsThaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!And thou, sad Hour, selected from all yearsTo mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers,And teach them thine own sorrow, say: "With meDied Adonais; till the Future daresForget the Past, his fate and fame shall beAn echo and a light unto eternity!"

Pastoral

• Definition: “The pastoral is a mode of poetry that sought to imitate and celebrate the virtues of rural life (a nature poem).”

• Examples: “To My Sister” by William Wordsworth and “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats

Wordworth, from “To My Sister”• It is the first mild day of March:

Each minute sweeter than before The redbreast sings from the tall larch That stands beside our door.

There is a blessing in the air, Which seems a sense of joy to yield To the bare trees, and mountains bare, And grass in the green field.

My sister! ('tis a wish of mine) Now that our morning meal is done, Make haste, your morning task resign; Come forth and feel the sun.

Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

• Textbook – page 726

Ode

• Definition: “An ode is a formal address to an event, a person, or a thing not present. There are three types: Pindaric, Horatian, and Irregular.”

• Examples: “Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelley and “To Autumn” by John Keats

Lyric

• Definition: “An ancient subdivision of poetry. One of poetry’s three categories, the others being narrative and dramatic. The poet addresses the reader directly and states his own feelings.”

• Examples: “Frost at Midnight” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and “To Spring” by William Blake

Coleridge, from “Frost at Midnight”

• The Frost performs its secret ministry,Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cryCame loud--and hark, again ! loud as before.The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,Have left me to that solitude, which suitsAbstruser musings : save that at my sideMy cradled infant slumbers peacefully.'Tis calm indeed ! so calm, that it disturbsAnd vexes meditation with its strangeAnd extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,This populous village ! Sea, and hill, and wood,With all the numberless goings-on of life,Inaudible as dreams ! the thin blue flameLies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not ;Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.

Blake, “To Spring”• O THOU with dewy locks, who lookest down

Through the clear windows of the morning, turn Thine angel eyes upon our western isle, Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!

The hills tell one another, and the listening Valleys hear; all our longing eyes are turn'd Up to thy bright pavilions: issue forth And let thy holy feet visit our clime!

Come o'er the eastern hills, and let our winds Kiss thy perfumed garments; let us taste Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls Upon our lovesick land that mourns for thee.

O deck her forth with thy fair fingers; pour Thy soft kisses on her bosom; and put Thy golden crown upon her languish'd head, Whose modest tresses are bound up for thee.

Sonnet

• Definition: “A sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines, usually iambic. There are two prominent types: the Petrarchan and the Shakespearean.”

• Examples: “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802” by William Wordsworth and “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley

ORIGINAL CREDIT GIVEN TO A MS. BOWEN