Romantic Age Lecture

Wordsworth

Coleridge

Lyrical Ballads

Sir Walter Scott Died in 1832

First Reform Bill 1. Sought to eliminate rotten boroughs 2. Redistributed parliamentary representation to new industrial cities and extend the vote* * Half the middle class, almost all the working class, and all women remained without a franchise

Romantic vs. Romanticism The word romance originally referred to the highly imaginative medieval tales of knightly adventure written in the French derivative of the original Roman (or *Romance) language, Latin. * Romance languages derived from Latin = Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Romanian

Declaration of the Rights of Man

Storming of the Bastille

September Massacres

Robespierre and the Reign of Terror

Napoleon Bonaparte

Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli “I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few.” “Two Nations” – the two classes of capitol and labor, the large owner or trader and the possessionless wageworker, the rich and the poor.

William Wordsworth “emotion recollected in tranquility.” “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” “speak in a language really spoken by men.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Mysterious and demonic poetry

George Gordon, Lord Byron The Byronic hero: Heathcliff, Rochester, Captain Ahab

Percy Bysshe Shelley Mad Shelley Mary Shelley – Frankenstein Mary Wollstonecraft – Vindication of the Rights of Women

John Keats Keats died at the age Of 25. Remember that WW did not start writing in earnest until he was 27. On his death bed, Keats’s achievements greatly exceed that of Chaucer, Shakespeare, or Milton.

Poetic Theory and Poetic Practice A.Spontaneity – WW described all good poetry as, at the moment of composition, “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” B.Nature Poems – Nature poems are in fact meditative poems

I wandered lonely as a cloud I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced, but they Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee; A poet could not be but gay, In such a jocund company! I gazed—and gazed—but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.

C. The Commonplace – glorification of the common man and rustic life D. The Supernatural – An interest in the realms of mystery and magic E. Individualism, Infinite Striving, and Nonconformity – A higher estimate was put on human powers. A radical individualism surfaced

Gothic Architecture

Gothic Novel

Gothic Music

Gothic Fashion

Jane Austen & Sir Walter Scott

End of the Romantic Age Death of Sir Walter Scott – 1832 Passage of First Reform Bill – 1832 Queen Victoria’s reign begins – 1837