Romantic Poetry 1798-1832

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Romantic Poetry1798-1832

• Truth and Imagination

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Influences on Romantic Poetry

• Spread of democratic ideals through the American
  and French Revolutions and the disillusionment
  created by the failure of the French Revolution.
• Reaction against the harsh living and working
  conditions created for poor people in urban areas
  by the Industrial Revolution
• Fascination with nature and country life, which
  seemed a blissful retreat in comparison to the
  squalor of city slums

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3 Main Characteristics of Romantic Poetry

• Instead of placing emphasis on reason, Romantic
  poets embraced imagination and naturalness.
• Romantic poets wrote poetry that spoke of
  personal experiences and emotions, often in
  simple, unadorned language.
• Romantics viewed nature as transformative they
  were fascinated by the ways nature and the human
  mind mirrored each others creative properties.

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NATURE

• Romantics believes that imagination was the
  poets guide to truth, and Nature the teacher who
  can deliver the lesson.
• Nature was a balm to soothe the relentless
  hounding of an industrialized world.
• This inclination toward natural images/themes is
  one reason that Gothic Literature also thrived
  during this period (Think Frankenstein). Gothic
  Literature drew attention to the mysterious side
  of nature and human ability to manipulate it.
• The American Romanticism movement
  (Transcendentalists and Dark Romantics) was
  strongly influenced by this period in English
  history.

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More facts

• Romantic poets favored idealized rural settings
  over city settings, which they found to be
  overcrowded and oppressive.
• Industrial factories drew workers away from small
  farms. As a result, workers, including young
  children, labored for long hours under dangerous
  conditions with no government regulations to
  protect them.
• Romantic poets dreamed that poetry could improve
  these horrific conditions by offering an example
  of model behavior.
• What we have loved,
• Others will love, and we will teach them how
• Instruct them how the mind of man becomes
• A thousand times more beautiful than the earth
• On which he dwells.
• -William Wordsworth