Romanticism in English LiteratureMrs. Cumberland

Objectives:1. To recognize Romanticism as a literary period in English

literature2. To understand the Romantic Movement as a rebellion against

Neoclassicism3. To analyze Romanticism as a comprehensive philosophical

movement that affected all arts in the 19th century

The Years of the Period…

The thirty-some years usually designated as the romantic Period in English literature are bound by two literary events: the publication of Lyrical Ballads in 1798, and the death of Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1834

These years saw an intense philosophical rebellion against the Enlightenment, one sympathetic to the ideas about individual rights that spawned the French and American Revolutions

Even before 1798, poets had challenged the hold of Classicism on the English mind

The shift to vernacular language in Medieval English literature and the representation of common people in Medieval and Renaissance works typify attitudes that would later be labeled “Romantic”

Themes:

In the 18th century, while Pope and Johnson dominated the literary scene with neoclassical themes and verse forms, numerous poets- among them Christopher Smart, Edward Young, William Cowper, Thomas Gray, Robert Burns, and William Blake- anticipated Romanticism with themes of isolation and retirement, death, and the wild beauty of nature

Marking the beginning

Critics typically date the beginning of the Romantic movement with the publication of Lyrical Ballads in 1798

The volume was a joint venture of poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Wordsworth and Coleridge

The plan was for Wordsworth to write about the beauty and inspiration in common things, while Coleridge was to write about the supernatural

Both men wrote notable poems for the 1798 edition; among them “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Coleridge

Challenging the Classic

Wordsworth, however, proved the main contributor, as his simple characters and nature scenes challenged the classical school of poetry

Furthermore, Wordsworth directly attacked the poetical language of the classical school in the Preface to the volume: [Readers] accustomed the gaudiness and inane

phraseology of many modern writers…will, no doubt, frequently have to struggle with feelings of strangeness and awkwardness…Such readers…while they are perusing this book, should ask themselves if it contains a natural delineation of human passions, human characters, and human incidents; and if the answer by favorable to the author’s wishes… they should consent to be pleased in spite of that most dreadful enemy to our pleasures, our own pre-established codes of decisions

They knew…

Clearly, Wordsworth and Coleridge knew that readers with classical taste would ridicule their poems, but they hoped that readers with other tastes would be pleased.

Lyrical Ballads

In the second edition of Lyrical ballads(1800), Wordsworth wrote a long preface explaining his anticlassical intentions in detail. One important passage describes the romantic idea of what poetry is and how it originates: [P]oetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it

takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility: the emotion is contemplated till by a series of reaction, the tranquility gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind

A second important passage explains why Lyrical Ballads was written: The principal object, then,…was to choose incidents and

situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible, in a selection of language really used by men; and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of the imagination whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way, and, further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary law as of our nature…Low and rustic life was generally chosen, because, in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, and less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language…

Key points

In these two passages, Wordsworth makes three key points. His poetry: (1) would be drawn from the humble and rustic

life (2) would contain the language people really use (3) would employ imagination in the depiction of

“ordinary things” in an “unusual aspect.”

Primary focus behind the movement These characteristics soon became the

primary forces behind the entire romantic Movement

In addition to their literary manifestations, the characteristics of Romanticism also pervade the music and visual art of the 19th century

Nature

Romanticism reflects the following basic themes: 1. Love of nature in all of its aspects

Common People

2. concern and sympathy for common people

Imagination

3. interest in the world of imagination, especially the supernatural

Rebellion

4. rebellion against any form of tyrannical control

Past

5. interest in past legends, especially the medieval and primitive

lonely

6. involvement with the lonely and melancholic, especially in the contemplation of eventual death and dissolution

Individual

7. a focus on individual feelings, not intellect

Children

8. an interest in childhood