English Romanticism
English Romanticism
1798-1832
Historical Background
Industrial Revolution
1776 American Revolution
1789 - 1815 Revolutionary and Napoleonic Period in France
1789 storming of the Bastille
1793 King Louis XVI executed
Political unrest in Britain, harsh repressive measures against radicals
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution of France 1790
Tom Paine, Rights of Man 1791
Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman 1792
1793 Britain at war with France
The Regency 1811-20
George, Prince of Wales acts as Regent for George III
1815 Waterloo; first modern industrial depression
1819 Peterloo, St. Peter's Fields, Manchester
1832 First Reform Bill
Social and economic changes
Industrialisation - the age of the machine
Social philosophy of laissez-faire 'let alone'
urbanisation
Literature
Lyrical poetry
Two generations of poets
First generation: WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, S.T. COLERIDGE
Second generation: BYRON, SHELLEY, KEATS
Keats 'Great spirits now on earth are sojourning'
William Hazlitt - the new poetry 'had its origin in the French Revolution. It was a time of promise, of renewal of the world - and of letters.'
Wordsworth, The Prelude
France standing on the top of golden hours
And human nature seeming born again!
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven....
The poet as a 'bard' or 'prophet'
Poetic spontaneity and freedom
Poetry - subjective; it expresses the poet's own feelings (lyric poetry)
Rebellion against the Neo-classical 'rules'
Keats: 'if poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had not come at all'
The importance of 'the heart' - instinct, intuition,
INDIVIDUALISM, NONCONFORMITY
The human mind - IMAGINATION
Turning to NATURE
THE INTEREST IN THE SUPERNATURAL, and DREAMS
1798
Wordsworth & Coleridge
LYRICAL BALLADS
1770 born at Cockermouth, The Lake District
Educated at Cambridge
1798-1832
Historical Background
Industrial Revolution
1776 American Revolution
1789 - 1815 Revolutionary and Napoleonic Period in France
1789 storming of the Bastille
1793 King Louis XVI executed
Political unrest in Britain, harsh repressive measures against radicals
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution of France 1790
Tom Paine, Rights of Man 1791
Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman 1792
1793 Britain at war with France
The Regency 1811-20
George, Prince of Wales acts as Regent for George III
1815 Waterloo; first modern industrial depression
1819 Peterloo, St. Peter's Fields, Manchester
1832 First Reform Bill
Social and economic changes
Industrialisation - the age of the machine
Social philosophy of laissez-faire 'let alone'
urbanisation
Literature
Lyrical poetry
Two generations of poets
First generation: WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, S.T. COLERIDGE
Second generation: BYRON, SHELLEY, KEATS
Keats 'Great spirits now on earth are sojourning'
William Hazlitt - the new poetry 'had its origin in the French Revolution. It was a time of promise, of renewal of the world - and of letters.'
Wordsworth, The Prelude
France standing on the top of golden hours
And human nature seeming born again!
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven....
The poet as a 'bard' or 'prophet'
Poetic spontaneity and freedom
Poetry - subjective; it expresses the poet's own feelings (lyric poetry)
Rebellion against the Neo-classical 'rules'
Keats: 'if poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had not come at all'
The importance of 'the heart' - instinct, intuition,
INDIVIDUALISM, NONCONFORMITY
The human mind - IMAGINATION
Turning to NATURE
THE INTEREST IN THE SUPERNATURAL, and DREAMS
1798
Wordsworth & Coleridge
LYRICAL BALLADS
1770 born at Cockermouth, The Lake District
Educated at Cambridge