The Romantic Period 1785-1830 Whitechapel High Street, ca. 1894

Timeline 1772 – Slavery is outlawed in England (slave trade continues) 1776 – America declares independence 1781 – the British lose the American Rev. 1781 – 133 Africans thrown overboard from the slave ship Zong 1787 – 1st fleet of convicts transported to Australia 1789 – the fall of Bastille launches the French Revolution

Timeline 1791 – Parliament rejects bill to abolish slave trade 1793 – France declares war on England 1794 – England suspends habeas corpus 1795 – Speenhamland poor relief system begins 1798 – Society of United Irish rebel against British rule 1801 – The Act of Union joins Great Britain (England, Scotland, Wales) with Ireland to create the United Kingdom

Timeline 1804 – Napoleon crowns himself emperor of France 1807 – Slave trade is abolished 1812 – Widespread economic distress; textile workers attack machinery due to job losses 1815 – Napoleon defeated at Waterloo 1819 – 11 citizens killed at the “Peterloo Massacre”: a protest against gov’t policies and high food prices

Timeline 1820 – George III dies after long battle with mental illness 1825 – 1st steam locomotive passenger service begins 1832 – the right to vote given to landed men with a specific amount of property 1833 – Factory Act limits work hours for women and children and provides some mandatory schooling for children 1833 – The Abolition of Slavery Act frees all slaves in the British empire

The Romantic Period Began in 1785, the year Blake and Burns published their first poems. Ended in 1830, by which time the major writers of the preceding century were either dead or no longer productive. It was a turbulent time period, when England changed from a primarily agricultural society to a modern industrial nation. Wealth and power shifted from the landholding aristo- cracy to large-scale employers, who found themselves against a large, restive working class.

Reaction to Revolution The American Revolution was a recent memory for the British, at once an inspiration to political progressives, an embarrassment for the prestige of the Empire, and a worry to a conservative ruling class concerned about the arrival of democratic ideas on British shores. When the next Revolution exploded in France, the press of radical, violent, and inevitable change seemed imminent. In response, the English government prohibited public meetings, suspended habeas corpus (the release from unlawful restraint), and advocates of even moderate political change were charged with high treason.

Economic and Social Changes Yet economic and social changes created a desperate need for corresponding political changes, and new social classes were demanding a voice in government. Viaduct across the Great Northern Railway, 1851

The Industrial Revolution Resulted from the invention of power-driven machinery replacing hand labor. Open fields and farms were enclosed into privately owned agricultural holdings. A new labor population massed in the sprawling mill towns that burgeoned in central and northern England. The new landless class migrated to the industrial towns or remained as farm laborers, subsisting on starvation wages. Megg's almshouses, 1800s

Protests and Riots In the face of newfound technological unemployment and extreme poverty, workers - who could not vote – had to resort to protests and riots, incurring further repression.

Results of the Industrial Revolution The landscape began to take on its modern appearance, with rural areas divided into a checkerboard of fields enclosed by hedges and stone walls. Factories of the industrial and trading cities cast a pall of smoke over vast areas of jerry-built houses and slum tenements. The population polarized into two classes of capital labor, the large owner or trader and the possessionless wage-worker, the rich and the poor.

Stats Population Life Expectancy: 37-39 Average Annual Income: 1791 – 8.3 million; 1831 – 14 million Life Expectancy: 37-39 Average Annual Income: 4,000 p: wealthy gentry (city & country houses) 150 p: shopkeepers 120 p: clergy, farm owners, & schoolmasters 55 p: skilled laborers 20 p: seamstresses (modern 1 p in 1880 = $48.80 today)

Governmental response to the Industrial Revolution A laisses-faire attitude encouraged government to not interfere The results were inadequate wages, long hours of work under harsh discipline in sordid conditions, and the large-scale employment of women and children for tasks that destroyed both the body and the spirit.

Plight of Women Women of all classes were regarded as inferior to men, were undereducated, had limited vocational opportunities, were subject to a strict code of sexual behavior, and had almost no legal rights. In spite of this, the cause of women’s rights was largely ignored

Colonialization While the poor were suffering, the landed classes, the industrialists, and many merchants prospered as the British Empire expanded aggressively both westward and eastward. During this time period, the British Empire became the most powerful colonial presence in the world. The British East India Co. ruled the entire Indian sub- continent, and black slave labor in the West Indies generated great wealth for British plantation owners.

Romanticism The term “Romanticism” is difficult to define because of the variety of literary achievements. The period was labeled “Romantic” much later.

The “Spirit of the Age” Writers during this time period did not think of themselves as “romantic.” Many writers, however, felt that there was something distinctive about their time – a pervasive intellectual and imaginative climate which they called “the spirit of the age.” They described it as a release of energy, experimental boldness, and creative power that marked a literary renaissance, an age of new beginnings when, by discarding traditional procedures and outworn customs, everything was possible.

Poetry Wordsworth described all good poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” He believed that the source of all poetry was not in external things, but in the individual poet. The lyric poem, expressing the poet’s own feelings and temperament, became a major Romantic form.

Poetry . The natural scene became a primary poetic subject, and poets described natural phenomena with an accuracy of observation that had no earlier match. Poets bestowed attitudes and sentiments on the landscape that earlier writers had felt only for God, parents or a beloved. Humble, rustic life and plain style were elevated and the wonder of ordinary things was exalted. Poets sought to refresh readers’ sense of wonder about the ordinary things of existence, to make the “old” world seem new.

England’s Lake District Themes in Literature Nature Isolationism Exile – especially of a disinherited mind that cannot find a spiritual home in its native land Fascination with the outlaws of myth, legend, or history Mysticism, visionary states of consciousness, hypnotism, dreams, drug-induced states Results of the industrial revolution England’s Lake District

Authors from the Romantic Period William Blake Robert Burns William Wordsworth Samuel Taylor Coleridge George Gordon, Lord Byron

Percy Bysshe Shelley John Keats

Rousseau: “Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains Rousseau: “Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.” In other words, civilization is in part the cause of our corruption.

But there were 2 views of Nature The first viewed nature as peaceful, calm, nurturing, a source for spiritual renewal. It often showed an innocent life of rural dwellers, a world of peace and harmony which nurtures and comforts the human spirit. This is very much how Wordsworth viewed nature.

John Constable: The Hay Wain

But nature could also be frightening in its power, and cause a dizzying sense of awe and wonder.

J.M.W. Turner: Avalanche

Edmund Burke defined these two views of nature as: The beautiful and The sublime

A BRIEF SERIES OF PAINTINGS FROM THE ROMANTIC PERIOD Starting with Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was President of the Royal Academy in England

Blake quit the Royal Academy partly because of Sir Joshua Reynolds So, on to some of Blake works

Two Works by Henry Fuseli, a Swiss artist living in England who was friends with Blake

One of the most interesting artists of the period is J.M.W. Turner Starting with an early, fairly conventional painting

And then to end on John Constable Who said, “I try to paint as if I had never seen a painting before.”

And then: Eugene Delacroix

And . . . Caspar David Friedrich