Romantic lit

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The Romantic Period

1800-1830

Developments

• Industrial revolution: brought wealth and prosperity to the country
  
• Britain grew from a agricultural nation into an industrialised nation
  
• Farmers had to find work in factories in the cities (long hours, miserable working conditions)
  
• The gap between rich and poor became wider; wealth wasn’t equally divided -> social unrest
  
• The ideals of the French revolution (1789), freedom, equality and the abolition of class distinctions appealed to many, especially young, people all over Europe, including English Romantic poets (e.g. Lord Byron)
  

1798 William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

Lyrical Ballads

Poetry of simplicity, both in form and in contents.

In a period of social change and growing unrest people longed for another world.

Coleridge

1772-1834

Wordsworth

1770-1850

Romantic period

beauty and value of nature

distant and exotic cultures

innocence of children

The supernatural

God as the centre

Scientific knowledge

Clasical influences

Feelings

courtly love

The Romantic poets - the first generation

• 1789: publication of Lyrical Ballads  (William Wordsworth & Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
• Goal: bring poetry within reach of ordinary people
  
• Form: simple poems > normal, everyday language
  
• Subjects: ordinary country folk and their (highly idealized) pure lives in the country
  

The Romantic poets - the first generation

William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850)

• Probably England's greatest nature poet
  
• Inspired by the Lake District
  

Famous for:

• short, lyrical poems
  
• I wandered lonely as a cloud
• We are Seven

The Romantic poets - the first generation

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

Famous for his art ballad

• The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
  

The Romantic poets - the second generation

George, Lord Byron  (1788-1824)

• Notorious life-style!
  

Best known for two long narrative poems

• Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
  
• Don Juan
  

The Romantic poets - the second generation

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822)

• Unconventional life
  
• Husband of Mary Shelley (author of Frankenstein)
  

Most famous for:

• shorter verse - Ozymandias, Ode to the West Wind
  
• masterpiece - Adonais (long elegy on the death of John Keats)
  

The Romantic poets - the second generation

John Keats (1795 - 1821)

• Early death from tuberculosis
  
• Neglected during life-time
  
• Now one of England's most beloved poets
  

Famous for:

• Three famous odes: On a Grecian Urn, To A Nightingale, To Autumn
  
• Art ballad: La Belle Dame Sans Merci
  

Early 19th Century Novel

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)

• immensely popular in Britain and abroad
  
• "Father of the historical novel"
  
• Many books based on Scottish history
  
• Most famous work: Ivanhoe (1819)
  

Early 19th Century Novel

Jane Austen (1775 - 1817)

• Most important novelist of early 19th century
  
• "Mother of the romance novel"
  
• Elegant + witty studies of young women
  
• Focusing on love and common sense

Most important novels:

• Sense and Sensibilty / Emma /  Persuasion 
  
• Pride and Prejudice
  

What are the characteristics of Romantic prose?

1. departure from reason
2. focus on nature
3. element of the supernatural
4. focus on individual

Wuthering Heights

Frankenstein

Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen

Emily Brontë

Mary Shelley

Romanticism

18th/19th century
(industrial revolution)

If you were to live in these circumstances, what would you look for/long for?

Romanticism as a reaction

-pollution

- urbanisation

- "filling in the map"

- Reason & science

The Romantic Period

• the beauty and value of nature
• idealization of the countryside and country people
• the (idealized) past and distant and exotic cultures
• senses and emotions over reason
• the supernatural (horror/magic) and the sublime