The%20Romantic%20Period%20in%20Literature%20

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The Romantic Period in Literature 1789-1832

• Every era is a reaction to the era before it.

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Art of the Romantic Period
John Constable 1822
J.M.W. Turner
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William Turner
Hellen Allingham
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Important Poets of the Romantic Era

• William Wordsworth
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• Percy Bysshe Shelley
• John Keats
• Lord Byron

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England in the 19th Century

• At first, writers like Wordsworth were excited by
  the French Revolution which gave more power to
  the common people
• However, as time went on, they realized that the
  revenge taken out on the aristocrats went too
  far.
• With the invention of the guillotine innocent
  aristocrats were getting their heads chopped off
  at an alarming rate.
• Napoleon Bonaparte became Emperor and eventually
  a dictator who was even more ruthless than the
  executed king
• His final defeat was at the hands of the English
  conservatives who instituted extremely repressive
  laws.

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The Industrial Revolution

• Cottage industries decreased and factories
  increased
• City populations exploded causing deplorable
  living conditions
• Lands were sold to private owners for sport and
  recreation and little was used for agriculture
• Less communal land meant more landless people
• Landless people went to the cities and had to go
  on welfare The Dole
• The wealthier got richer and the poor got poorer

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Laissez Faire Let the people do as they please.

• Decreased government interference led to
  desperate poverty and economic decline
• Small children were used as beasts of burden to
  keep the industrial revolution/factories working

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Child Labor
Small children were used as beasts of burden in
the coal pits like donkeys. They were often
harnessed to carts.
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Romantic Poetry as a Reaction to the Industrial
Age and Its Abuses

• Fascination with youth and innocence
• Focus on a stage in life when you question
  authority
• Idealism finding better ways to live
• A need to adapt to change
• Spontaneous
• Focus on rural life
• Powerful imaginative experiences
• Emotional
• Create new realities of the mind

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• Poetry as human experience
• The thought of nature as mysterious and not
  threatening
• An exploration of the relationship between the
  mind, heart, imagination and other people and
  things

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Young chimney sweep late 19th century
William Blakes engraved Illustrations.
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