Introduction to the

Romantic Age of English

Literature
 Definition
 Contrary to what you may
think, the term
Romanticism is not just
about romantic love
(although love is sometimes
the subject of romantic art).

 Romanticism is an
international artistic and
philosophical movement
that re-defined the ways in
which humans in Western
civilization thought about
themselves and their world.
 Historical Considerations
English Literary History
 Dates:
 English Literary History begins the
Romantic Period officially in 1798,
with the publication of Lyrical Ballads
by Wordsworth and Coleridge, and
ends it in 1832, with the deaths of Sir
Walter Scott and the German
Romantic poet, Goethe.
 Romanticism as an
International Movement
 Affected all of the arts (literature,
music, painting, philosophy)
 Began in the 1770s and extended
through the second half of the 19th
century (1870).
 “The Age of Revolutions”
 Since the early Romantic period includes
the American (1776) and the French (1789)
revolutions, it has been called the “age of
revolutions” (changes). It was a time of
massive energy (intellectual, social,
artistic). It set out to transform not only the
theory and practice of all art, but also the
ways in which human beings perceived the
world. Some of its ideas survive even to our
present day.
 The Role of Imagination
 Imagination now replaced reason as
the supreme faculty of the mind—
hence the flowering of creative
activity in this period. For Romantic
thinkers, the imagination was the
ultimate “shaping,” or creative
power, the approximate human
equivalent to divine creative
powers.

 As the poet Wordsworth would

suggest, humans not only perceive
and experience the world around
them; they also, in part, create it.
The imagination unites reason and
feeling, enabling humans to
reconcile differences and opposites
—this reconciliation is a central ideal
for Romantics. Finally, the
imagination enables humans to
“read “ nature as a system of
symbols.
Nature
 Celebration of Nature
 Nature often presented as a work of
art from the divine imagination
 Nature as a healing power
 Nature as a refuge from civilization
 Nature viewed as “organic,” (alive)
rather than “mechanical” or “rationalis
t”
 Nature viewed as a source of
refreshment and meditation
 Symbolism and Myth
 Valued as the human means for
imitating nature in art
 Could simultaneously suggest many
things in a creative way
 Based on a desire to “express the
inexpressible” through the resources
of language
 Emotion, Lyric Poetry, and the
Self
 Greater emphasis on the importance of
intuition, instincts, and feelings

 Wordsworth’s definition of good poetry as “the

spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”
was a turning point in literary history.

 Ultimate source of poetry found in the

individual artist and his/her traditions
(present and past)
 Value of Art
 Source of illumination of the world within the
self
 Led to a prominence for first-person lyric
poetry; the “speaker” became less a persona
and more the direct person of the poet. Ex.
Wordsworth’s Prelude and Whitman’s “Song of
Myself”
 Also a wealth of autobiographical verse
described as poetry about someone else:
Byron, Childe Harold
 Contrasts with Neoclassicism
(the Age of Reason)
 Shift in focus from rationalism to the
imagination
 Shift toward a more expressive
orientation toward the literary art
 Freedom of expression
 Freedom of the individual
 Individualism
 Summed up in opening statement of
Rousseau’s Confessions :

 “I am not made like anyone I have

seen; I dare believe that I am not
made like anyone in existence. If I
am not superior, at least I am
different.”
 The Romantic Hero
 As the Romantic
writers show us, our
heroes were not
always cowboys:

 1. The hero as artist

 2. The hero striving
beyond the moral
restrictions of society
 3. The hero who
reappears from the
ancient classics
 The Everyday and the
Exotic
 Romantic writers embraced everyday
realism (poetry of Wordsworth)
 Also sought the folk legends of the past
 Promoted exotic ideas suggested by
technology and the imagination (a
beautiful soul in an ugly body, as in
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or Victor
Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame).
 The Romantic Artist in
Society
 The Romantics were
often ambivalent
toward the “outside”
world. On the one
hand, they were socially
and politically
passionate—involved in
worthy causes and
social issues. On the
other hand, they
isolated themselves
from the public.
 Spread of the Romantic
Spirit
 All of the arts—from music, to
painting; from sculpture to
architecture—were affected by and
continue to be affected by the
revolutionary energy underlying the
Romantic movement. Strains of
Romanticism infuse every age and
every generation.
 Most Famous Writers

 1. William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

 2. S.T Coleridge (1772–1834)
 3. Lord Byron (1778–1824)
 4. P.B. Shelley (1792–1822)
 5. John Keats (1795–1821)
 William Wordsworth

 The poet William Wordsworth was born on April

7, 1770, in Cockermouth, a remote town in the
lowlands of northern England. He is known as
“Poet of Nature,” “Worshiper of Nature,” “The
Lake Poet.” The French Revolution inspired
him. He became The Poet of Laureate in
England.” In nature, the great Creator exists,”
his belief is known as Pantheism William
Wordsworth was the brightest star of the age
of the Romantic Period.. This poet died in 1850.
 His Well-known Works :
 · Lyrical Ballads
 · The Daffodils
 · The Solitary Reaper
 · The Excursion
 · The Prelude
 · The Recluse
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in 1772, the
youngest of thirteen children of his parents. He
was an extraordinary child who read the Bible
and Arabian Nights before he was five. He was an
influential writer, poet, literary critic, and
philosopher of the age of the Romantic Period. He
was a founder of his friend William Wordsworth of
the Romantic Movement in England. He was
called “Opium Eater,” “The Poet of Super-
naturalism.” This poet died in 1834.
 His Well-known Works :
 · Lyrical ballads
 · The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
 · Christabel
 · Kubla Khan
 · Dejection: An Ode
 · The Nightingale
 · Biographia Literaria
 John Keats
 John Keats was not only the last but also the most
perfect of the Romanticists. He was most young
among the Romantic poets. The famous poet of
English literature was born in 1795 in Mubfields,
London. He was called “Poet of Beauty” “Poet of
Sensuousness.” He was most famous for his
sense of beauty and professionally known as a
man of medicine. This poet died at the age of 26
of Tuberculosis in 1821.
 His Well-known Works :
 · Ode to a Nightingale
 · Ode to Psyche
 · Odeon Melancholy
 · Ode to Autumn
 · Isabella
 · Lamia
 Daffodils
 by William Wordsworth
 I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
 Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed'and gazed'but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
 For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.