The romantic period

The Romantic Period
(1798-1832)

A period marked by great changes in England and the Western world.

England experienced the ordeal of change; shifting from an agricultural society with landholders being the wealthy (aristocratic), to an industrial nation where power shifted to large-scale employers who had to deal with an enlarging working class
There were constant economic cycles of:
These threatened social structures
Three revolutions occurred prior to and within this time period affecting Britain tremendously:
American Revolution  1776 (dealt Britain heavy military and economic losses)
French Revolution  1789 (drew England back into costly wars)
Industrial Revolution
The term Industrial Revolution evolved as power machinery began replacing hand labor
Two Nations developed (capitol and labor), the wealthy industry owners and the poor wage workers/(working class)
A laissez-faire (hands off”) philosophy formed which held that the government should not interfere with private enterprise and so the working class were at the mercy of the owners
Women were considered a deprived class, regarded as inferior to men in all but domestic tasks
They received limited schooling, held lowly vocations, lived under rigid codes, held no legal rights

Despite these seemingly gloomy conditions, this period was also marked by a growing desire to expand the mind and several key developments in literature occurred:

The writers of this period dubbed their time The Spirit of the Age  meaning it was a persuasive, intellectual, and imaginative climate; a time of renewal and promise
The emphasis of writers of this time was on personal experience; the expression of individual thoughts and feelings; use of nature as inspiration

Three romantic schools of poetry existed under which several important writers flourished:
The Lake School  Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey
The Satanic School  Lord Byron, Percy Shelley
The Cockney School  (derogatory term for Londoners) William Hazlitt, John Keats
The real flowering of the Romantic movement came with the 1798 publication of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridges poetic collaboration Lyrical Ballads
Lyrical Ballads , as declared by Wordsworth in the books preface, was a collection of experiments in poetic language and subject matter
Wordsworth was committed to the common people and deliberately chose language and subjects from the common life instead of the upper class
Coleridge was into exploring the exotic and supernatural experiences, letting his imagination wander
Both poets rejected the scientific and industrial worlds, and felt that a better insight into human experiences came from humans relation to nature
Coleridge, Wordsworth, and their fellow friend and writer Robert Southey, spent a great deal of time in a rural lake district of England and are therefore dubbed The Lake Poets

A second generation of poets followed Wordsworth and Coleridge:
Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats
Byron popularized the self-absorbed romantic hero figure in his writings
Byron and Shelley were involved in radical politics and affairs that became scandalous, leading to their self-imposed exile from Britain
Keats also left Britain, but was not overly concerned with the political and social affairs of his contemporaries

               Romantic period, though best known for its poetry, also produced many memorable works in prose
(novels/fiction):

Personal essays from Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt and Thomas De Quincey focused on the romantic emphasis of personal experience and appeared in literary journals
The historic novel was pioneered by Sir Walter Scott (most popular novelist of his day); through his best seller Waverley
Gothic novels (involving mystery, horror and supernatural elements) became popular; most famous  Mary Shelleys Frankenstein
Jane Austens Pride and Prejudice, an ironic/satire novel of manners, introduced more dialogue into fiction and helped pave the way for more realistic novels

Romantic writers strove to break free from the style of their Enlightenment predecessors, dubbed neoclassical writers for their admiration and imitation of classic forms
Romantic writers strove for a sense of freedom, wrote more serious lyric poems about their own experiences, and stressed emotions and imagination in their works  (see the chart on pg 707 of your text for a more in-depth comparison
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