English Romanticism

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English Romanticism

• Age of the Romantic Movement (1798-1832)

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Romanticism occurred between the publication of
Lyrical Ballads and the death of Charles Dickens.
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The Age of IndependenceThe aftermath of the
Enlightenment

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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

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Struggles after the immediate Revolution

• Reasons
• --Snowball Effect
• --Unsatisfied Expectations
• --Outbreak of War
• Results
• --Increasing Violence
• --Change in Political Leadership

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Robespierres Reign of Terror

• The Committee of Public Safety
• The Concept of Total War
• Maximum price ceilings on certain goods
• Nationalization of Small Workshops

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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 Robespierres dictatorship on July 28,
  1794

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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

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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

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Major Characteristics of Romanticism

• Abiding trust in natures 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

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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

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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

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The Gleaners by Millet
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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

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La Belle Dames sans Merci
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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)

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George Gordon Byron(1788-1824)

• His name is given to the term Byronic Hero
• His poems include Don Juan (1824) and
• Childe Harolds Pilgrimage (1814)
• Both of which reveal
• his wanderlust and
• desire for new experiences

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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

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Major Works

• Manfred (1817)
• Cain (1821)
• Marino Faliero (1821)
• Sardanapalus (1821)
• The Two Foscari (1821)
• Heaven and Earth (1823)
• Don Juan (181924)

Manfred and the Alpine Witch
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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

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Women Writers

• -Mary Shelley, is an English
• novelist who writes Frankenstein
• (1818) a gothic novel
• -The Brontë sisters, Charlotte and
• Emily write Jane Eyre (1847)
• and Wuthering Heights (1847)
• respectively
• -Jane Austen differs in that her
• novels, Pride and Prejudice,
• Emma, and Northanger Abbey,
• criticize sentimentality and
• romantic passion

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Questions to answer

• Where do you see aspects of Romanticism today?
• Would you consider Jane Austen a romantic? Why or
  why not?
• Identify some of the major themes of the Romantic
  movement.
• How did the attitudes of Romanticism differ from
  those of the Enlightenment?  Why did the
  romantics reject the rationalism of the
  Enlightenment?