English Romanticism: Rebels and Dreamers

“Come forth into the light of things.

Let Nature be your teacher.”

1798-1832

Historical Events !   American Revolution

!   revolutionary forces (with aid from France) defeat the British

!  main issue: taxation without representation

!  Americans declare independence in 1776, though battles continue until as late as 1781 (Cornwallis surrenders to Washington at Yorktown)

!   French Revolution !   storming of the

Bastille on July 14, 1789

!   limits imposed on the power of Louis XVI

!  Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen: “liberty, equality, brotherhood”

!   France becomes a constitutional monarchy

!   September Massacres -- the radical Jacobins seize control of the French legislature, abolish the monarchy, and kill aristocrats and priests !   Louis XVI is beheaded; Jacobins install Robespierre

as the leader

!   Reign of Terror -- over the course of about 1 year, the Jacobins behead approximately 17,000 royalists (and eventually execute Robespierre as well)

!   In 1792, France invades Austria and Prussia

!   In 1793, France declares war on England

Reign of Terror in France

Napoleonic Wars !   The French Revolution sparked a continent-wide commitment to the idea that

monarchs were criminals against all humanity.

!   As Napoleon’s troops swept through Europe, feudal societies were overthrown, modern-style, people-centered democracies were installed.

!   By 1807, Napoleon’s forces controlled almost all of continental Europe as far east as the borders of Russia.

!   Invading Russia, however, proved foolish as Napoleon’s forces faced the harsh Russian winter and the vast Russian landscape.

!   Meanwhile, Napoleonic forces experienced losses in Spain and Portugal.

!   In 1814, the British defeated Napoleon and exiled him to the Mediterranean island of Elba.

!   Napoleon returned to France in 1815 -- in a period known as the Hundred Days -- but he met his final defeat (at the hands of the British hero the Duke of Wellington) at Waterloo, Belgium.

English Reaction !   While the ruling class felt threatened by events in France and

America, the intellectual class (most poets) supported revolution and democratic ideals.

!   British leaders feared a revolutionary uprising among their own people while opposing the French-led “liberation” of Europe.

!   Parliament banned public meetings (particularly discussions of political reform) and suspended many basic civil rights.

!   Reform-minded Britons were left with no outlets for expressing their opinions.

!   British society was seemingly split into two angry factions: the working class (demanding reform) and the ruling class (resisting reform).

!   There were many workers vs. rulers riots and massacres throughout England.

1820: The Onset of Reform !  1824 -- workers are allowed to form labor

unions

!  1829 -- Catholic Emancipation Act (restored economic and religious freedoms to Catholics)

!  1832 -- voting rights extended to middle class males, thus ending the dominance of land-owning aristocrats in Parliament

!  1833 -- factory safety laws are passed

!  1833 -- slavery is abolished

The British Romantic Poets

Robert Burns, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats

Romanticism !   opposes...

!   aristocratic, societal, and political norms

!   a rationalized view of nature !   reason and logic

!   supports... !   folk art and the nature and customs of the common

man

!   the individual imagination !   emotion and feeling

Romantic Top Five (1798) 1. emphasis on the individual

2. rejection of artificiality in favor of passion and emotion

3. love of nature

4. respect for the commonplace / everyday

5. freeing of the imagination

Wordsworth & Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads

English Romantic Poets  The English Romantic poets defined poetry in the following ways:

!  “the spontaneous overflow of human emotion”

!  “emotion recollected in tranquility”

 According to the English Romantic poets, a poem did the following things:

!  described “incidents and situations from common life” that are given a “certain coloring of imagination” by the poet

!  incorporated human emotions with the “beautiful and permanent forms of nature”

 For the English Romantics, nature is a wild, free force not meant to be tamed, but instead meant to inspire us to greater spiritual understanding.

Literary Evolution  Romantic Poets

 Emotion & Imagination  Subjectivity  Exalted Nature  Intense Passion & Vision  Experimentation & Spontaneity

Wordsworth, Blake, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, Shelley

• Neoclassical Poets

– faith in reason and logic – Objectivity – Respect for Church & State – Tradition & Order – Controlled Wit & Urbanity

Donne, Milton

William Blake •  claimed to be inspired by

mystic visions���

•  first saw God at the age 4; at the age of 8, saw a tree filled with angels���

•  Blake’s parents encouraged and nurtured his “gift of vision”���

•  wrote, illustrated, and published his own works���

•  encouraged readers to recapture the wonderment of childhood���

•  earned fame as a poet only after his death���

Robert Burns The Voice of Scotland

•  family’s poverty kept him from getting a formal education

•  nicknamed the “heaven-taught plowman”

•  almost all of his poems are written in Scottish dialect

•  Burns’ Night is celebrated on January 25 with Burns’ Suppers

•  most famous work: Auld Ang Syne

William Wordsworth •  his poetry presents an

intensified vision of ordinary life and nature���

•  spent his youth in the countryside of the English Lake District���

•  called his poems ballads that showed how the lives of ordinary people are actually extraordinary ���

•  his collection The Prelude is considered his poetic autobiography���

George Gordon, Lord Byron •  from a long line of handsome,

irresponsible aristocrats who lived life in the fast lane: “Mad, bad, and dangerous to know”!

•  while at Cambridge: made friends, played sports, spent money!

•  traveled extensively throughout Europe and the Middle East!

•  charming and friendly facade concealed a brooding and pensive persona!

•  Byronic hero - moody, sensitive, reckless!

•  national hero in Greece: died while battling to help free Greece from Turkish rule!

Percy Bysshe Shelley •  Lord Byron’s bff •  Died - boating accident at 29 •  born of wealth and raised on

a country estate, but rebelled against the ruling class

•  expelled from Oxford because of his rebellious publications

•  married to Mary Wollstonecraft, the author of Frankenstein

•  an outcast in his native land, Shelley lived the majority of his adult life in Italy

John Keats •  working-class Londoner whose striking good looks

got him lots of attention •  liked to fight •  gave up studying

medicine for poetry •  Bad 9 months: lost

brother to tb, met Fanny Brawne, and contracted tb

•  Poetry’s purpose: the “banner of beauty”

•  Died at 25