1. Romantic Period

2. Romanticism
A movement that developed as a reaction against neoclassicism in the late 18th century and dominated the 19th century
Emphasizes emotion, imagination, intuition, freedom, personal experience, and the beauty of nature

3. Romanticism Examines inner feelings, emotions, imagination
Idealistic (optimistic)
Mysterious, supernatural
Concerned with the particular (very specific)
Romanticizing the past
Excess, spontaneity
Concerned with common people and individuals
Felt nature should be untamed

4. SOCIAL & POLITICAL CONTEXT
Period of Great Change in England
Agricultural Society with Powerful Landholders
Aristocracy was giving way to modern Industrial nation
Large-scale employers
Growing, restless Middle Class

5. Change
American and French Revolutions were important elements of the political landscape
Threats to existing social structure were being posed by new, revolutionary ideas.
A time of harsh political repression in England despite need for changes brought on by Industrial Revolution

6. Mill towns grew
Landscape was increasingly subdivided
Factories spewed pollution over slums
Population was increasingly divided into rich and poor.

7. Laissez-Faire
THE PHILOSOPHY OF LAISSEZ-FAIRE (“LET ALONE”) PREVAILED.

8. Consequences LOW WAGES HORRIBLE WORKING CONDITIONS
LARGE-SCALE EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN BRUTALLY HARD OCCUPATIONS (SUCH AS COAL MINING).

9. Lack of Reform
IN THE FACE OF TECHNOLOGICAL UNEMPLOYMENT AND POVERTY, WORKERS—WHO COULD NOT VOTE—HAD TO RESORT TO PROTESTS AND RIOTS, INCURRING FURTHER REPRESSION.
BUT WHILE THE POOR SUFFERED, THE LEISURE CLASS PROSPERED.

10. 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
HAD ALMOST NO LEGAL RIGHTS.

11. Poetry and the Poet
FIRST-PERSON LYRIC POEM BECAME THE MAJOR ROMANTIC LITERARY FORM
“I” OFTEN REFERRED DIRECTLY TO THE POET.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SELF BECAME A MAJOR TOPIC OF ROMANTIC POETRY.

12. Nature
LANDSCAPE WAS OFTEN GIVEN HUMAN QUALITIES OR SEEN AS A SYSTEM OF SYMBOLS REVEALING THE NATURE OF GOD.
CLOSENESS WITH NATURE WAS SEEN AS BRINGING OUT HUMANITY’S INNATE GOODNESS.

13. Glorification of the Commonplace
HUMBLE, RUSTIC SUBJECT MATTER AND PLAIN STYLE BECAME THE PRINCIPAL SUBJECT OF POETRY.
POETS SOUGHT TO REFRESH READERS’ SENSE OF WONDER ABOUT THE ORDINARY THINGS OF EXISTENCE, TO MAKE THE “OLD” WORLD SEEM NEW.
RENEWED INTEREST IN THE MIDDLE AGES (AND THE BALLAD FORM) AS A BEAUTIFUL, EXOTIC, MYSTERIOUS BYGONE ERA.

14. The Supernatural and Strange
MANY ROMANTIC POEMS EXPLORE THE REALM OF MYSTERY AND MAGIC
INCORPORATE MATERIALS FROM FOLKLORE, SUPERSTITION, ETC.;
ARE OFTEN SET IN DISTANT OR FARAWAY PLACES.

15. Individualism
HUMAN BEINGS WERE SEEN AS ESSENTIALLY NOBLE AND GOOD (THOUGH CORRUPTED BY SOCIETY)
ALSO SEEN AS POSSESSING GREAT POWER AND POTENTIAL THAT HAD FORMERLY BEEN USED TO DESCRIBE ONLY GOD

16. Individualism GREAT BELIEF IN DEMOCRATIC IDEALS
CONCERN FOR HUMAN LIBERTY
A GREAT OUTCRY AGAINST VARIOUS FORMS OF TYRANNY.
THE HUMAN MIND WAS SEEN AS CREATING (AT LEAST IN PART) THE WORLD AROUND IT, AND AS HAVING ACCESS TO THE INFINITE VIA IMAGINATION.

17. The Big 6 Romantic Poets William Blake William Wordsworth
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Percy Bysshe Shelley
John Keats
George Gordon, Lord Byron

18. Other Romantic Writers
Jane Austen
Leigh Hunt
Mary Shelley
Mary Wollstonecraft
Sir Walter Scott
Robert Southey

19. Notable Romantic Musicians
Beethoven
Franz Schubert
Claude Debussy
Verdi
Chopin
Franz Josef Haydn
Mozart

20. Key Romantic Themes Imagination Egotism The particular The remote
The primitive
The medieval
The Far East
The sublime
Nature
Irrational experiences (dreams and drugs)
Awareness of process and current conceptions of art and introspection
Longing for the infinite encounter through intense experiences of sublime nature (storms, mountains, oceans)

21. Key Events in Literature
1798: Lyrical Ballads published
1812: Byron publishes Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
1813: Jane Austen publishes Pride and Prejudice
1818: Mary Shelley publishes Frankenstein
1819: Percy Bysshe Shelley publishes “Ode to the West Wind”
1820: John Keats publishes “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
1832: First Reform Act extends voting rights and end of the Romantic Age

22. Elegy
A lament setting out the circumstances and character of a loss. It mourns for a dead person, lists his or her virtues, and seeks consolation beyond the momentary event.
“Elegy Written in a Country Courtyard” by Thomas Gray
“Adonais” by Percy Bysshe Shelley

23. Pastoral
A mode of poetry that sought to imitate and celebrate the virtues of rural life (a nature poem).
“To My Sister” by William Wordsworth
“Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats

24. Ode A formal address to an event, a person, or a thing not present.
Three types: Pindaric, Horatian, and Irregular.
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
“To Autumn” by John Keats

25. Lyric
One of poetry’s three categories, the others being narrative and dramatic. The poet addresses the reader directly and states his own feelings.
“Frost at Midnight” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“To Spring” by William Blake

26. Sonnet Apoem of fourteen lines, usually iambic.
Two types: the Petrarchan and the Shakespearean
“Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802” by William Wordsworth
“Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley