The Romantic Period

1. The Romantic Period 1780-1830

2. The Romantic Period • A more daring, imaginative, and individual approach to life and literature • Individual more important than society • Optimistic world-view based on the possibility of progress and social and human reform • Favored democratic ideals • Shunned all forms of tyranny and the spreading evils of industrialism: pollution, alienation of people from nature, alienation of people from one another • Society shunned any form of social injustice

3. An Age of Revolution • 1776—American Revolution • 1789—French Revolution • Peasant class in France rose up and overthrew the French aristocracy • 1750-1850 Industrial Revolution • England changed from an agricultural nation to an industrial society • Moved from home manufacturing to factory production • More towns became cities • More and more people moved to cities for work, living in slums • Children were exploited as a child labor force • Increasing numbers of people lived in poverty

4. Reforms • Gradually society began to realize its obligation to the poor and helpless • Sunday schools were organized • Hospitals were built • Prison reform began • Child labor became regulated • Simplicity and naturalness replaced artificiality and excess of British society

5. View of Man • Romantic writers saw humanity as naturally good, but corrupted by society and its institutions of religion, education, and government • Writers dreamed of a society in which there would be liberty and equality for all.

6. Art and Literature • Romantic Poets • Focused on nature as the principal source of inspiration, spiritual truth, and enlightenment • Nature was seen as the “eternal language” whereby God teaches and molds the human spirit (Coleridge) • Focused on the ordinary person and common life in order to affirm the worth and dignity of all human beings (class, wealth, and position were unimportant) • Tone varied from awe and reverence towards nature and man to anger and outrage towards unfair societal rules • Supernatural/exotic theme occasionally employed • Utopian ideal was established • Define: • Coleridge’s Utopia:

7. Themes: • Nature • God is in nature (can be found in nature) • God as Creator • Man as creator • Individualism (the common man) • Social justice/injustice • Imagination • Industrialization • Revolution • Utopia • Supernatural/exotic

8. Terms: • Allusion • Blank Verse • Couplet • Free Verse • Gothic • Heroic Couplet • Imagery • Metaphor • Mood • Octave • Personification • Quatrain • Repetition • Rhyme • Sestet • Simile • Slant Rhyme • Sonnet • Petrarch • Shakespeare • Symbol • Tercet • Theme • Tone

9. 4 Major Poets • William Wordsworth • Ordinary life is best subject because people are sincere and natural • Ordinary language is best suited to poetry-most natural • Expression of feeling is most important in poetry • Poetry stems from “an overflow of powerful feelings” • Poems: “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey,” “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802,” “The World is Too Much With Us”

10. Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Poem: “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” • Percy Bysshe Shelley • Poems: “England in 1819” and “Ozymandias” • John Keats • Poems: “When I Have Fears” and “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

11. Your Wordsworth Moment • Think of the most beautiful natural scene you have seen, the one that took your breath away. • Focusing on imagery, reflect on the following questions and jot down your thoughts. • What did the scene sound like? What did you hear? • What did the scene smell like? • What did it feel like? What did the air feel like? • What did the scene look like?

12. Wordsworth Moment • Compile your reflections on the most beautiful natural scene you have seen. • Write a poem, either free verse or a sonnet, in which you depict that scene. • Use imagery • Use at least two similes and two metaphors • Use at least one line of repetition