The Romantic Age in Literature 17851830 12 Grade British Literature Mrs' Smart

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The Romantic Age in Literature1785-183012
Grade British LiteratureMrs. Smart
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The Importance of the Romantic Age in British
Literature
The Romantic Age in Literature was a
revolutionary time in history. Many changes were
taking place in England and France, as well as,
in other parts of the world including America.
Just like in todays world where technology and
new ideas are changing our daily lives, so it
was in the late 1700s. This period in literature
has been named the Romantic age, not because of
romance as a notion of love, but rather because
of the writers emphasis on the beauty of nature
and the inner beauty of the individual. These
ideas were a sort of backlash against the
emphasis on reason, science and the
industrialization dominating the world. The
political and social events taking place during
the late 1700s prompted the writings of the
Romantic poets therefore this lesson will cover
historical events as well as a brief biography
and a list of writings of the poets of the
Romantic era.
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Main Menu

• Historical Background
• The Major Romantic Poets
• The Minor Romantic Poets

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Life in England

• The beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
• From home to the factories
• Child labor
• Sunday Schools
• Education

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The French Revolution

• Napoleon Bonaparte
• Coup detat
• Idealism
• Equality
• Power to the masses
• Democracy

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Causes of the French Revolution

• Enlightenment
• Absolutism
• Bourgeoisie
• Taxation
• Hunger
• Louis XVI
• Descartes

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The Romantic Poets

• Focus on the individual rather than on society
• Excitement and Awakening
• Emotional and turbulent
• Changing humankind
• Going within
• Beauty of nature

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William Blake

• 1757- 1827
• Born in London
• Poet
• Painter
• Visionary mystic
• Engraver
• Imagination over Rationalism/materialism

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William Blake (contd)

• Visions of the supernatural
• Married Catherine Boucher
• Wrote Songs of Innocence (1789)
• Songs of Experience (1794)
• Gothic Art and Architecture
• Natural energies vs. Reason

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Lord Byron

• 1788-1824
• Born George Gordon
• Became Lord Byron at age 11
• Traveled throughout Asia
• Married Annabella Milbanke
• Joined the Greek War
• Died at age 36 of a fever

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Lord Byron (contd)

• Attended Cambridge
• Well read in Latin and Greek
• Member of the House of Lords
• Wrote Childe Harolds Pilgrimage (1818)
• Best known for Don Juan (1819-1824)
• Shorter poems When We Two Parted(1814)
• She Walks in Beauty (1814)

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge

• 1772-1834
• The youngest of 13 children
• Poet, critic and philosopher
• An avid reader
• Attended Cambridge
• Met Wordsworth in 1797
• Wrote long narrative poems

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge (contd)

• Wrote the Lyric Ballads with Wordsworth
• Wrote his greatest poem The Rime of the Ancient
  Mariner in 1797
• Dreamy imagery of Kubla Khan (1797)
• Wrote Christabel (1800)

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William Wordsworth

• 1770-1850
• Visited revolutionary France
• Attended Cambridge
• Lived in the mountains of the Lake District of
  northern England
• Worked closely with Coleridge
• Theory of poetry all good poetry is the
  spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling.

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William Wordsworth (contd)

• Wrote Lyrical Ballads with Coleridge (1798)
• His greatest poem Tintern Abbey (1800)
• He wrote The World Is Too Much With Us
• It Is A Beauteous Evening
• London, 1802
• The Prelude an autobiographical poem
• He was Englands Poet Laureate from 1843 until
  his death

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John Keats

• 1795-1821
• The eldest of four children
• Became an orphan at age 15
• Began writing poetry at age 21
• Spent the last few months of his life in Italy
• The great beauty of Poetry is, that it makes
  every thing every place interesting - 'John
  Keats to his brother George, 1819

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John Keats (contd)

• Most famous poem Endymion (1817)
• Based on the Greek myth of Endymion
• Rhyming couplets
• First verse of Endymion A thing of beauty is
  a joy forever
• Ode on a Grecian Urn
• Ode to a Nightingale

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Percy Bysshe Shelley

• 1792-1822
• Attended Oxford
• Married Mary Godwin Shelley
• Unconventional views on politics
• Very skeptical of traditions
• Died in a sailing accident at age 29

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Percy Bysshe Shelley (contd)

• His greatest work Ozymandias (1818)
• England in 1819 (1819)
• Prometheus Unbound (1820)
• Ode to the West Wind (1819)
• To a Skylark (1820)
• Adonais (1821)

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