1. Romantic Era/Period
Ruby Agustin

2. Do You Remember?
1. The time period where Scholars began to use
reason to question superstition, ignorance,
intolerance, and tyranny is known as…
The Enlightenment
2. The Time in France when Divine Right was
questioned and a radical movement violently
overthrew the Monarchy is known as…
The French Revolution

3. Industrial
Revolution

4. Historical Background
• The Industrial Revolution (just one of the 19thC
revolutionary movements) entirely changed the face
of society
• Country people left their rural environment to work
in the growing cities.
• The middle class standard of living rose as
technology and machines replaced handwork—and
production greatly increased; but the lower classes
suffered from the exploitation in the factories, mills,
and sweatshops created by the Industrial Revolution.

5. SOCIAL & POLITICAL CONTEXT
• PERIOD OF GREAT CHANGE IN ENGLAND:
– AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY W/ POWERFUL
LANDHOLDING ARISTOCRACY WAS GIVING WAY TO
MODERN INDUSTRIAL NATION OF LARGE-SCALE
EMPLOYERS & A GROWING, RESTLESS MIDDLE
CLASS.

6. PERIOD OF CHANGE (cont.)
• MILL TOWNS GREW, THE LANDSCAPE WAS
INCREASINGLY SUBDIVIDED, FACTORIES
SPEWED POLLUTION OVER SLUMS, & THE
POPULATION WAS INCREASINGLY DIVIDED
INTO RICH & POOR.

7. PERIOD OF CHANGE (cont.)
• REFORMS DID NOT OCCUR BECAUSE THE
PHILOSOPHY OF LAISSEZ-FAIRE (“LET ALONE”)
PREVAILED.

8. LACK OF REFORM (cont.)
• CONSEQUENCES WERE LOW WAGES,
HORRIBLE WORKING CONDITIONS, LARGE-
SCALE EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN & CHILDREN
IN BRUTALLY HARD OCCUPATIONS (SUCH AS
COAL MINING).

9. LACK OF REFORM (cont.)
• IN THE FACE OF TECHNOLOGICAL UN-
EMPLOYMENT & POVERTY, WORKERS—WHO
COULD NOT VOTE—HAD TO RESORT TO
PROTESTS & RIOTS, INCURRING FURTHER
REPRESSION.
• BUT WHILE THE POOR SUFFERED, THE
LEISURE CLASS PROSPERED.

10. PLIGHT OF WOMEN
• WOMEN OF ALL CLASSES WERE REGARDED AS
INFERIOR TO MEN, WERE UNDEREDUCATED,
HAD LIMITED VOCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES,
WERE SUBJECT TO A STRICT CODE OF SEXUAL
BEHAVIOR, AND HAD ALMOST NO LEGAL
RIGHTS.

11. PLIGHT OF WOMEN (cont.)
• IN SPITE OF THE ABOVE, THE CAUSE OF
WOMEN’S RIGHTS WAS LARGELY IGNORED.

12. Pre-Romantic Writers
The Age of Reason was in full swing by the 1750s.
Factories were producing more goods for Britain than Thomas Gray, poet
ever before. While this meant economic prosperity for “Elegy Written in a
Country Churchyard”
thousands, it also meant horrible working conditions for
thousands more as men, women, and even children toiled
in filthy factories for up to fourteen hours a day.
Because of these conditions, writers and intellectuals
Robert Burns, Scotland’s
began questioning whether human reason alone could national bard
solve every problem. The Age of Reason, it seemed, had “My Luve is“To a Mouse”Red
Rose” and
Like a Red,
not created utopia. Writers began turning away from the
high-flown style of the neoclassicists and instead used
common, everyday language. These were the precursors
to the Romantic era, writers who challenged
Mary Wollstonecraft, the ‘hyena
Enlightenment ideals and modes. in petticoats’ and radical feminist
A Vindication of the Rights of
Woman

13. The Romantic
Movement

14. What is the meaning of Romantic?
Romanticism has very little to do with things
popularly thought of as "romantic," although
love may occasionally be the subject of
Romantic art. Rather, it is an international
artistic and philosophical movement that
redefined the fundamental ways in which
people in Western cultures thought about
themselves and about their world.

15. • Romanticism was an artistic, literary and
intellectual movement that originated in the
second half of the 18th century in Europe and
strengthened in reaction to the Industrial
Revolution
• Many scholars say that the Romantic period
began with the publication of "Lyrical Ballads"
by William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge
in 1798

16. ROMANTICISM
TERM “ROMANTICISM” IS DIFFICULT TO DEFINE
BECAUSE OF THE VARIETY OF LITERARY
ACHIEVEMENTS, AND WRITERS OF THE PERIOD
WERE ONLY LATER LABELLED “ROMANTIC.”

17. ROMANTICISM (cont.)
BUT MANY HAD A SENSE OF “THE SPIRIT OF
THE AGE”—THAT A GREAT RELEASE OF
CREATIVE ENERGY WAS OCCURING AS
ACCOMPANIMENT TO POLITICAL & SOCIAL
REVOLUTION. IT WAS SEEN AS AN AGE OF
NEW BEGININGS & LIMITLESS POSSIBILITIES.

18. Historical Background
• It was a cultural movement that stressed emotion,
imagination and individuality.
• It was partly a rebellion against the neoclassicism of the 18th
Century and the age of reason—and their dissatisfaction with
the real world.
• The movement was very diverse and complex because its aim
was to broaden horizons and encompass the totality of
human experience.
• It was international and influenced all of the arts.
• Romantic writers broke away from convention…and
emphasized freedom of expression. The term was actually
adopted from literature—and the literary romantics
themselves
• Beethoven is credited for elevating the awareness level of the
people with regard to music as a major art form—because
now music was treated with a new respect in certain
cultivated circles and was taken more seriously than it had
been in the past.

19. Enlightenment vs. Romanticism
ROMANTICISM
CLASSICISM & RATIONALISM
scientific observation of the outer examination of inner feelings,
SOURCES OF world; logic emotions; imagination
INSPIRATION
clasical Greek and Roman
literature literature of the Middle Ages
ATTITUDES AND pragmatic idealistic
INTERESTS interested in science, technology interested in the mysterious &
concerned with general, supernatural
universal experiences
believed in following standards concerned with the particular
and traditions
felt optimistic about the present sought to develop new forms of
emphasized moderation and self- expressions
restraint
Romanticized the past
appreciated elegance, refinement
tended towards excess and spontaneity
appreciated folk traditions
SOCIAL CONCERNS
valued stability and harmony
favored a social hierarchy desired radical change
interested in maintaining favored democracy
aristocracy concerned with common people
concerned with the individual
concerned with society as a felt that nature should be untamed
whole
believed nature should be
controlled by humans

20. CONCEPT OF POETRY, THE POET
POETRY WAS SEEN AS THE “SPONTANEOUS
OVERFLOW OF POWERFUL FEELINGS”; THE
ESSENCE OF POETRY WAS THE MIND,
EMOTIONS, & IMAGINATION OF THE POET
(NOT THE OUTER WORLD).

21. POETRY & THE POET (cont.)
FIRST-PERSON LYRIC POEM BECAME THE
MAJOR ROMANTIC LITERARY FORM, WITH “I”
OFTEN REFERRING DIRECTLY TO THE POET.
– THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SELF BECAME A
MAJOR TOPIC OF ROMANTIC POETRY.

22. POETRY & THE POET (cont.)
• POETS OFTEN SAW THEMSELVES AS PROPHETS
IN A TIME OF CRISIS, REVISING THE PROMISE OF
DIVINE REDEMPTION IN TERMS OF A “HEAVEN”
ON EARTH.

23. POETIC SPONTANEITY, FREEDOM
INITIAL ACT OF POETIC COMPOSITION MUST
ARISE FROM IMPULSE; BE FREE FROM THE
RULES INHERITED FROM THE PAST; AND RELY
ON INSTINCT, INTUITION, & FEELING.

24. THE SUPERNATURAL & STRANGE
MANY ROMANTIC POEMS EXPLORE THE
REALM OF MYSTERY & MAGIC; INCORPORATE
MATERIALS FROM FOLKLORE, SUPERSTITION,
ETC.; & ARE OFTEN SET IN DISTANT OR
FARAWAY PLACES.

25. THE STRANGE (cont.)
• RELATED TO THIS WAS A RENEWED INTEREST
IN THE MIDDLE AGES (AND THE BALLAD
FORM) AS A BEAUTIFUL, EXOTIC, MYSTERIOUS
BYGONE ERA.

26. THE STRANGE (cont.)
• THERE WAS ALSO GREAT INTEREST IN UNUSUAL
MODES OF EXPERIENCE, SUCH AS VISIONARY
STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS, HYPNOTISM,
DREAMS, DRUG-INDUCED STATES, AND SO
FORTH.

27. INDIVIDUALISM & STRIVING
• HUMAN BEINGS WERE SEEN AS ESSENTIALLY
NOBLE & GOOD (THOUGH CORRUPTED BY
SOCIETY), AND AS POSSESSING GREAT POWER &
POTENTIAL THAT HAD FORMERLY BEEN ASCRIBED
ONLY TO GOD.

28. INDIVIDUALISM (cont.)
• THERE WAS A GREAT BELIEF IN DEMOCRATIC
IDEALS, CONCERN FOR HUMAN LIBERTY, & A
GREAT OUTCRY AGAINST VARIOUS FORMS OF
TYRANNY.

29. INDIVIDUALISM (cont.)
• THE HUMAN MIND WAS SEEN AS CREATING (AT
LEAST IN PART) THE WORLD AROUND IT, AND
AS HAVING ACCESS TO THE INFINITE VIA THE
FACULTY OF IMAGINATION.

30. INDIVIDUALISM (cont.)
• MANY WRITERS DELIBERATELY ISOLATED
THEMSELVES FROM SOCIETY TO FOCUS ON
THEIR INDIVIDUAL VISION.
– THEME OF EXILE WAS COMMON, W/ THE
ROMANTIC NON-CONFORMIST OFTEN SEEN AS A
GREAT SINNER OR OUTLAW.

31. The Romantic Era
William Blake (1757-1827) William Wordsworth (1770-1850) Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
Painter, Poet, Visionary “Father” of Romantic Poetry Poet of the Imagination
“The Garden of Love” and “The The Prelude and “Tintern Abbey”
“Kubla Khan” and Rime of the
“First Generation”
Tyger”
Ancient Mariner
“Second Generation”
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) John Keats (1795-1821)
Scoundrel, Womanizer, Poet Romantic Revolutionary “Greatest” Romantic Poet?
“She Walks in Beauty” and “Ode to the West Wind” and “La Belle Dame sans Merci” and
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage “Ozymandias” “Ode on a Grecian Urn”