The%20Romantic%20Period

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The Romantic Period

• 1789-1832

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Definition

• Romanticism refers to a movement during the 19th
  century.
• Romanticism was a movement across all the arts
  visual art, music, and literature.
• The arts embraced themes prevalent in the Middle
  Ages, such as chivalry and courtly love.
• Shakespeare became popular again .

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Origins

• 1789 Romanticism began to take root as a
  movement following the French Revolution. The
  French Revolution brought inspiring new ideals of
  democracy that were eventually crushed by the
  disillusioning reign of the guillotine that
  followed.
• 1798 The publication of Lyrical Ballads with a
  Few Other Poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel
  Taylor Coleridge in 1792 is considered the
  beginning of literary Romanticism.

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Context

• The Industrial Revolution factories and
  overcrowded cities
• Laissez faire economics the government does not
  interfere in the economy which allowed the rich
  to grow richer and poor grow poorer
• Upset by the economic and social conditions
  Romantic poets rebelled against literary norms
  which favored reason and rigid structure

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Characteristics

• Romanticism is characterized by the 5 Is-
• Imagination
• Intuition
• Idealism
• Inspiration
• Individuality

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Imagination

• Imagination emphasized over reason
• Backlash against the rationalism characterized
  by the Neoclassical period or Age of Reason
• Imagination considered necessary for creating all
  art
• British writer Samuel Taylor Coleridge called
  imagination intellectual intuition and
  encouraged willing suspension on disbelief in
  reading lit.

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Idealism

• Idealism refers to any theory that emphasizes the
  spirit, the mind, or language over matter
  thought has a crucial role in making the world
  the way it is.
• Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher, held that
  the mind forces the world we perceive to take the
  shape of space-and-time.

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Intuition

• Romantics placed value on intuition, or feeling
  and instincts, over reason.
• Emotions were important in Romantic art.
• British Romantic William Wordsworth described
  poetry as the spontaneous overflow of powerful
  feelings.

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Inspiration

• The Romantic artist, musician, or writer, is an
  inspired creator rather than a technical
  master.
• Fascinated with youth and innocence in which one
  matures by learning to explore and trust the
  emotions, sense of will, and identity
• Romanticism emphasized going with the moment, or
  being spontaneous, rather than being precise,
  controlled, or realistic.

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Individuality

• Questioned tradition and authority and imagined a
  better, idealistic society
• Embraced affinity for change and adapting to
  change
• Romantics celebrated the individual.
• During this time period, Womens Rights and
  Abolitionism took root as major movements.

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Literary Developments

• Poetry composed of simple, unadorned language,
  common objects/occurrences and references to
  nature in order to express emotions and encourage
  imagination
• Lyrical poetry
• Contains a speaker different from the poet who
  is speaking to some one/thing
• Does not use reason to convince reader, but
  reader must use his/her imagination to overhear
  the conversation to understand the truths of the
  heart expressed
• A genuine account of an experience and the
  relationship between the mind and other people or
  things

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The Romantic Poets

• Irreplaceable contributors to their society who
  used acted as teachers, prophets and rulers
• Robert Burns (To a Mouse)
• William Blake (Songs of Innocence Experience)
• William Wordsworth (Tintern Abbey)
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge (The Rime of the Ancient
  Mariner Kubla Khan)
• Lord Bryon (The Destruction of Sennacherib)
• Mary Wollstonecraft (Frankenstein)
• Jane Austen (Sense and Sensibility)
• John Keats (Ode to a Nightingale)

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Common Literary Devices

• Apostrophe
• Allusions
• Blank verse
• Imagery
• Paradox
• Romantic Lyrics
• Figurative language Word choice

• Internal external rhyme
• Assonance consonance
• Personification
• Parallelism Repetition
• Symbolism
• Similes metaphors

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The British Romantic Hero Byronic Hero

• Often rebellious in nature doesnt wish to
  follow the norms of society
• He is usually isolated from society as a wanderer
  or is in exile of some kind.
• Because he rejects the values and moral codes of
  society, he is often unrepentant by society's
  standards.
• Larger than life intellectual capacity, pride,
  and passion.
• These heightened abilities often make the hero
  arrogant, extremely confident, abnormally
  sensitive, and extremely conscious of himself.
• Moody by nature or passionate about a particular
  issue.
• Often plagued by a guilty memory of some terrible
  unnamed crime.
• With the possibility greatness, yet seriously
  flawed in some manner, our hero usually meets
  with sad a end.
• Due to these characteristics, the hero is often a
  figure of repulsion, as well as fascination.

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Pre Romantic Robert Burns 25 January 1759 21
July 1796

• Claim to fame Best read, best loved, most
  popular of Scottish poets regarded as the
  national poet of Scotland.
• Reputation stems from a natural lyrical ability
  (majority of his poems have been set to music)
  and his use of the common vernacular (dialect).
• Life and career pre-date the Romantic period, but
  his poetry is worthy of our attention because it
  anticipates many of the Romantic ideals and
  techniques. His pre-Romantic influence shows
  especially in the works of these Romantic
  writers Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Percy
  Shelley. According to one text, Burns talent was
  of the natural genius. . .whose poems owed
  nothing to literary study, but instead
  represented the spontaneous overflow of his
  native feelings (Greenblatt et. al.).

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Burns Enduring Appeal

• After his death Burns became an important source
  of inspiration to the founders of both liberalism
  and socialism. A cultural icon in Scotland and
  among Scots who have relocated to other parts of
  the world, celebration of his life and work
  became almost a national cult during the 19th and
  20th centuries, and his influence has long been
  strong on Scottish literature.

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Gothic

• Setting pseudo-medieval, e.g. in a dark castle
  or abbey with secret passageways and hidden trap
  doors
• Themes often focused on the darker side of human
  nature betrayal, the desire for revenge,
  insanity, superstition, etc.
• Supernatural Elements ghosts and spirits
• Mood and Tone mysterious, dark, suspenseful,
  meant to arouse terror