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8/10/2019 The Romantic Age in English Literature
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The Romantic Age in
English Literature
- Rebels and Dreamers -
1795-1832)
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1795 - William Wordsworth and
Samuel Coleridge
publish Lyrical Ballads
1812 - Byron publishes Childe
Harolds Pilgrimage
1813 - Jane Austen publishes
Pride and Prejudice
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1818 - Mary Wollstonecraft
Shelley publishes
Frankenstein or The
Modern Prometheus
1819 - Percy Bysshe Shelley
writes Ode to the West
Wind
1820 - John Keats publishes
Ode on a Grecian Urn
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1825 - Horse-drawn buses begin
operating in London
1825 - John Nash begins
rebuilding of Buckingham
Palace
1829 - Robert Peel establishes
Metropolitan Police in
London
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1830 - Liverpool-Manchester
railway opens
1831 - Michael Faraday
demonstrates
electromagnetic induction
1832 - First Reform Act extends
voting rights
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The British
Society during
Romantic Period
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The literature of this period reflected
the effects of the American and French
Revolutions.
British leaders did not want France or
any other nation to win dominance on
the European continent.
The Tory government, led by William
Pitt the Younger), banned all talk of
parliamentary reform outside the halls
of Parliament. Banned public meetings
and suspended certain basic rights.)
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Liberal-minded Britons had no political
outlet for their hopes and dreams,
therefore, many turned to literature
and art instead.
Throughout the long wars against
France, Britains government ignored
the problems caused by the industrial
revolution.
Overcrowded factory towns, unpleasant
and unsafe working conditions in the
factories, and long working hours for
low pay.
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The working class grew steadily larger
and more restless resulting to series of
violent protests and riots.
Some attempted to organize into
unions.
Britains government sided openly
with the factory owners and even
helping to crush the workers attempts
to form unions.
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During this time, the British society
was splitting into two angry camps
the working classes, who demanded
reform, and the ruling classes, who
fiercely resisted reform.
A new generation of Tories emerged in
the 1820s and reforms began.
A law was passed in 1824 permitting
Britains first labor unions to organize.
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In 1829 The Catholic Emancipation
Act restored economic and religious
freedoms to Roman Catholics.
Then, in 1830, Whig party won the
election.
Their Reform Bill of 1832 brought
sweeping changes to British political
life.
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By extending voting rights to the
small but important middle class
males only), this law threatened the
traditional dominance of landowning
aristocrats in Parliament.
In 1833, Parliament passed the first
law governing factory safety.
In that same year, it also abolished
slavery.
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The Beginnings
of Romanticism
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Eighteenth-century writers focused on
celebrating the power of human
understanding
Classical art and literature showed the importance ofpeople and leaders, as well as gods and goddesses
Medieval art and literature focused on the Church and
salvation Renaissance art and literature focused on the
importance of people and nature, along with religion
Romantic art and literature raised new
interest in the trials and dreams of the
common people and their desire for
radical change.
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For the Romantics, THE FAITH IN
SCIENCE AND REASON, so
characteristic of eighteenth-century
thought and literature, was not
applicable in a world of tyranny and
factories.
Swiss-born writer Jean-Jacques
Rousseau 1712-1778), a leading
philosopher in France, influenced the
belief of the British Romantics.
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Rousseau saw society as a force that,
throughout history, deformed and
imprisoned an originally free human
nature. Man is born free and
everywhere he is in chains. His ideas
influenced both American and French
revolutionaries.
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The Romantic
Age in British
Poetry
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Romanticism was a movement that
affected not only literature but also all
other arts.
In music, it produced such brilliant
European composers as Germanys Ludwig
Van Beethoven 1770-1827) and
Austrias Franz Schubert 1797-1828).
In painting, it influenced intensely
personal and warmly spontaneous rural
landscapes of Britains John Constable
1776-1837) and the dramatic seascapes
of J.M.W. Turner 1775-1851)
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Wordsworth and Coleridge
William Wordsworth 1770-1850)
provided an early statement of
the goals of Romantic poetry in
the preface of Lyrical Ballads
1798), a collaboration with his
friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1772-1834).
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Defined poetry as the spontaneous
overflow of powerful feelingsand
explained that poetry takes its
origin from emotion recollected in
tranquility.
It was said that Wordsworth dealt
with the emphasis on emotions and
incidents and situations from common
life and believed that ordinary things
should be presented in an unusual
way.
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Finally, Wordsworths preface
spoke about incorporating human
passions with the beautiful and
permanent forms of nature.
Viewed nature as not just a force
to be tamed and analyzed
scientifically; rather, it was a wild,
free force that could inspire poets
to instinctive spiritual
understanding.
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Lyrical Ballads became the
cornerstone of Britains Romantic
Age.
Also with time, Wordsworth and
Coleridge became respected
members of Britains literary
establishment.
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The Second
Generation of
Romantic Poets
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George Gordon, Lord Byron
1788-1824)Byron was a member of the
House of Lords.
At first, critics responded
unfavorably to his early poetry but
finally achieved success when he
published his first two cantos of
Childe Harolds Pilgrimage
1812)
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Handsome, egotistical and aloof,
Byron became the darling of
elegant society, but not for long.
Shocked by his radical politics and
scandalous love affairs, London
hostesses began to shun him.
Byron left Britain for Italy in
1816, never to return.
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Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792-
1822)
Byrons friend and was also an
aristocrat and a more consistent
political radical than Byron.
In poems such as Song to the
Men of England 1819), Shelley
urged Englands lower classes to
rebel.
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Like Byron, Shelley was shunned
for his radical ideas; he left Britain
for good in 1818.
In his lifetime, he did not attain
fame that Byron did yet he is now
remembered for the fervor he
brought to lyric poetry in such
intense personal and emotional
verses as To a Skylark 1820)
and Ode to the West Wind
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John Keats 1795-1821)
Also a master of lyrical poetry
Born outside upper-class society,
son of the London stable keeper
Trained to be a doctor but
abandoned his medical career to
pursue his passion for poetry
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In 1819, produced his greatest
poems like The Fall of
Hyperion and Ode on a
Grecian Urn
In his poems, Keats tried to
reconcile the eternal and
almost inhuman beauty of art
with the realities of human
suffering.
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The famous line at the end of
Ode on a Grecian Urn, Beauty is
truth, truth beauty -
represents one response to his
dilemma.
Unfortunately, Keats became ill
because of tuberculosis.
Hoping to get better in a
warmer climate, he traveled to
Italy, where he died at the age
of thirty-five.
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The Romantic
Age in British
Prose
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Less dominant than poetry
during the Romantic Age, but
many significant works
appeared, mainly in the form
of essays and novels.
Romantic Age was a dry
period for drama only two
theatres were licensed to
produce plays.
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Charles Lamb 1775-1834,
William Hazlitt 1778-1830)
and Thomas De Quincey
1785-1859)
British essayists and readers
of the Romantic Age.
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The London Magazine,
although it appeared from only
1820 to 1829, attracted major
contributions from the three
greatest essayists of the era.
Lamb, in particular, transformed
the informal essay of the
eighteenth-century into a more
personal, more introspective or
reflective Romantic composition.
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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
1797-1851)
Author of, one of the most
successful Gothic novel during
the Romantic Age,
Frankenstein or The Modern
Prometheus 1818)
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Gothic novels first appeared in
the middle of the eighteenth
century.
It featured a number of
standard ingredients, including
brave heroes and heroines,
threatening scoundrels, vast
and eerie castles and ghosts.
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The fascination of the
Romantics with mystery and
the supernatural made such
novels quite popular during
that age.
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Jane Austen 1775-1817)
The most highly regarded
writer of novel manners,
turning a satirical eye on
British customs.
Her works include Sense and
Sensibility 1811) and Pride
and Prejudice 1813)
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Sir Walter Scott 1771-
1832)
Passionately devoted to his
native Scotland, used his
knowledge of Scottish history
to create what amounted to a
new literary form, the
Historical novel.
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Characterized by a focus on
historical events and settings,
with attention to local flavor
and regional speech.
It also featured a Romantic
treatment of realistic themes.
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