RomanticismIt’s not all hugs & kisses!

Romantic Period in British Literature

a time of nature-inspired poetry,

political questioning, and individualism.

The Beginning

• William Wordsworth co- published a “new kind” of poetry with friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

• “Lyrical Ballads” (1798) - the beginning of the Romantic Period.

Historic Connections

German literary movement Sturm und

Drang suffering main

character

–martyr, a rebel,

–an iconoclast going against society.

ROMANTICS

• question authority and

values

• question anything that infringes on

personal liberty

•Movies popularize the ideal of an irresistible bad boy,

•This stereotype entered our culture in the Romantic poetry of Lord Byron.

•These ill-fated but beautifully emotional characters are called “Byronic Heroes.”

Captain Jack Sparrow?

The ability to describe ordinary events as extraordinary is characteristic of Romantic literature.

ORDINARY = EXTRAORDINARY

EMOTIONS

RULEThe Romantics…

valued individual experience,

trusted in emotions

rejected the social ‘us’ and embraces the ‘me’!

let Intuitions, feelings, and emotions rule.

believed man’s heart was a more valuable guide than his head.

THE BIG 8 ROMANTICS

WILLIAM BLAKE

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

JANE AUSTEN

LORD BYRON

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

JOHN KEATS

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY

ROMANTIC NOVELS

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein representative of the period.

Romanticism: 12 Characteristics

SensibilityPrimitivism

Love of NatureSympathetic Interest in Past

MysticismIndividualism

Idealization of Rural LifeEnthusiasm for Wild/Irregular/Grotestue

Unrestrained ImaginationEnthusiasm for “Uncivilized” or Natural

Human RightsEmotional Psychology in Fiction

Characteristic #1 Sensibility

AwarenessConsciousness raising

Characteristic #2: Primitivism

The belief that man continues to corrupt

nature of manPrimitive = sense of

goodness, Purity, Connection to God

Characteristic #3: Love of Nature

A preference for a world that is untamed, or unspoiled by man

Characteristic #4: Sympathetic Interest in

the Past

Medieval Period

Picturesque Details that are unnatural because they are so ‘picture perfect” that they could not exist in the real world.

Characteristic #4 Cont.

Nostalgia:Showing a preference for living in the past, rather than the present, because the past is considered to be better, simpler, or more exciting.

Characteristic #5: Mysticism

Belief that there is common flow of spiritual matter shared by allOnce a person dies their spirit returns to common pool of life

Characteristic #6: Individualism

Emphasis on the uniqueness of each individual

Characteristic #7: Idealization of Rural Life

Love of the Country

Simplicity

Characteristic # 8: Enthusiasm for the wild,

irregular, or grotesque in nature & art

Wild and untamed

Unexplainable

Characteristic # 9: Unrestrained imagination

No Limits to what you can do!

Characteristic # 10: Enthusiasm for Uncivilized

or natural

Savage man

Indian stereotypes

Characteristic #11: Sentimental Melancholy

Focus on death

“Graveyard School”

Characteristic #12: Emotional Psychology in

fiction

Frankenstein

Denied love, search for acceptance, rejected, turns to hate