Restoration

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The Flowering of Romanticism

• 1798-1832

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Beginning of the Period

• Beginning marked by the publication of Lyrical
  Ballads by Coleridge and Wordsworth.
• Most significant historical event of the Romantic
  period was the French Revolution.
• Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) French
  influence, and considered the father of
  romanticism.

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Lyrical Ballads

• 1st edition published in 1798
• 2nd edition published in 1800, contained an
  extensive preface, written by Wordsworth, but
  planned with Coleridge
• became the real language of men
• drew on the powers of ordinary speech

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• Romantic subjects
• the natural or commonplace
• the supernatural or romantic
• Both were treated similarly to make the reader
  aware of the human mind and emotions.

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What does Romantic mean?

• romance - refers to the highly imaginative
  medieval tales of knightly adventure written in
  the original Roman (or romance) language Latin.
• Not love between a man and a woman as the word is
  used today.

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History-Revolution Reaction

• Near the end of the 18th Century, three major
  revolutions disturbed the English sense of
  security and well-being
• The American Revolution
• The French Revolution
• The Industrial Revolution

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American Revolution

• Causes English to see a cry for democracy
• Loss of the thirteen colonies causes economic
  loss, loss of prestige and loss of confidence

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French Revolution

• Being at first exhilarating to the idealists and
  liberals in England, it becomes a disappointment
  with the September Massacre
• King Louis XVI beheads hundreds with the latest
  invention the guillotine.
• Napoleon Bonaparte emerges as dictator

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Industrial Revolution

• Transforms European society
• violent in its impact on human life
• James Watt perfected the steam engine in 1765
• industries that depended on traditional hand
  labor were converted into mills and factories
  where machines did the work.

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• The Industrial Revolution sharply divided England
  into two classes
• 1. Wealthy property owners
• 2. Poor class of wage earners deprived of
  virtually all rights and possessions
• Rich got richer - Poor got poorer (almost
  virtually wiped out the middle class).

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Rulers

• England suffered from lack of leadership
• King George III 1760-1811 declared insane in 1811
  - Son takes over throne from 1811-1820
• Prince of Wales who acted as Regent
• Years of regency - time of lavish social display,
  indulgence of upper class

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End of the Period

• Marked by the death of Sir Walter Scott
• and the passage of the first reform bill in
  Parliament

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Literature - Romantic Writers

• were affected by the promise and disappointment
  of the French Revolution
• were affected by the controlling effects of the
  Industrial Revolution
• Romanticism sought to free itself from the rules
  and standards of eighteenth-century literature
  and to open up new areas of vision and expression

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• The Industrial Revolutions exploitation of the
  working class underlie the romantic writers love
  of the unspoiled natural world and remote country
  settings

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Literature - Characteristics

• Emphasized imagination and emotion
• Concerned with the particulars
• valued of the individual
• took a revitalized interest in medieval subjects
  and settings
• Most romantic writers saw themselves as reacting
  against the thought and literary practice of
  their predecessors

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Writers - First Generation of Poets

• Born before period began
• Blake
• Wordsworth
• Coleridge

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William Blake

• 1757-1827
• Lived most of his life in London
• He was an engraver and illustrator
• Believed innocence and experience were contrary
  states of the human soul.
• Spent final years of his life in poverty.

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William Wordsworth

• 1770-1850
• lived longer than any other romantic poet
• felt there was a deep kinship between nature and
  the soul of humankind
• greatest nature poet

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge

• 1772-1834
• Brought magic to his poetry by including the
  supernatural
• Never completed his college degree
• Briefly served in the military
• Planned a utopian community in America
• His addiction to opium ruined his friendship with
  WW - reconciled later in life

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Writers - Second Generation of Poets

• major inspiration from Wordsworth Coleridge
• felt the founders of English had given values to
  an unjust reactionary society
• moral political disillusionment
• Byron
• Shelley
• Keats

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George Gordon, Lord Byron

• 1788-1824
• born of aristocratic family
• attended prestigious private schools
  universities
• left England because of social pressures against
  his unconventional personal life
• died prematurely in distant Mediterranean country

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Percy Bysshe Shelley

• 1792-1822
• born of aristocratic family
• attended prestigious private schools
  universities
• left England because of social pressures against
  his unconventional personal life
• died prematurely in distant Mediterranean country

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John Keats

• 1795-1821
• Studied medicine at age 15
• Youngest of the second generation
• first to die of tuberculosis in a distant
  Mediterranean country
• Barely 5 feet tall

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The End