THE ROMANTIC POETS

1798-1832

CHANGE!

• Great political, economic and social change• American Revolution 1776-1783• French Revolution 1789-1815

(Napoleon )• Industrial Revolution 1750-1850

• Romanticism is a response to the Industrial Revolution

ROMANTICISM’S RESPONSE

• emotion and imagination vs. reason and science• reaction against the cold, rational science of the

Enlightenment

• individual experiences vs. society as a whole• the individual, personal, emotional• movement of protest for freedoms and reform

• civilian life and work conditions

• spontaneity vs. order

• common man vs. ruling class

“ROMANTIC”

• explored new, psychological and mysterious aspects of human experience

• fascination with youth and innocence (seeing the world as “new”)

• social idealism: question authority in order to imagine better, fairer, happier ways to live

• ability to adapt to change

ROMANTICS: “MIND POETS”

• sought a deeper understanding of the bond between human beings and the world of the senses

• often used natural poetic forms

CENTRAL POETS

• William Wordsworth 1770-1850

• Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772-1834

• John Keats 1795-1821

• Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

• Mary Shelley (1797-1851)

• Lord Byron (1788-1824)

• Jane Austen (1775-1817)