This presentation is for students of English literature. This presentation contains, History(social, political and economic) and literary features of Romantic age, poets, novelists and prose writers of the age.
2. Romantic Movement
An artistic, literary, and intellectual movement partly a
reaction to the industrial revolution.
It was embodied strongly in visual arts, music and literature,
and was associated with liberalism and radicalism.
The movement was rooted in the German Strum and Drang
movement and legitimized the “individual imagination as
critical authority”
3. Historical Background
Begins with the publication of Wordsworth
and Samuel Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads in 1798
and it ends with accession of queen Victoria in
1837.
George III was the king of England.
Romanticism coincided with the revolution in
France and in America.
Hence is also known as the age of
“Revolution”
4. Social and Economical
Background
The first phase of Industrial revolution was about 1750
to 1850.
Coal and steam engines were driving force.
Major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining,
transportation and technology.
Economy dominated by industry and machines.
England emerged as the most Industrialized nation.
It led to social unrest among the working class.
Violent class conflict between employers and workers.
Luddit Riots of 1811-12
Peterloo Massacre 1819
5. French Revolution
It was a battle to achieve equality and
remove all types of oppressions.
People revolted against Monarchist
dictatorship of the catholic king Louis XVI
People of France angered by increasing taxation to
support their country’s involvement in the
American revolution.
Oppressive feudal system, crop failure and other
economic difficulties led to the out break French
revolution.
French revolution began in 1789 with meeting of
the Estates Generals.
The king was brought to trial in December of 1792
and executed on 21 Jan. 1793.
6. French revolution and
romanticism
The French revolution sowed seeds of
revolutionary fervor in England.
“It was a single most crucial influence on British
intellectual, philosophical and political life in 19th
century.”(Wikipedia)
The writer of Romantic period inspired by the ideas
of French revolution and tried to translated these
ideas into the realm of literature.
Free government by free man remained ideal of
English literature since centuries.
Poets such as Black, Wordsworth and Coleridge
supported the revolution and its ideas.
7. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity- watchwords of the
Revolution.
“ At the beginning of every revolution man
hope, for they think of all that mankind may
gain in a new world; in its next phase they fear,
for they think of what mankind may
lose”(Edward Albert, 289)
Wordsworth writes about French revolution
“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive
But to be young was very heaven !”
(Wordsworth, Prelude)
8. Literary Features of the Age
German poet Fedrich Schegel used the term
Romantic for the first time, he defined
romanticism as “Literature depicting emotional
matter in an imaginative form”
It is a shift from the structured, intellectual,
reasoned, approach of 1700s, to use of
imagination, freedom of thought and expression
and an idealization of nature.
The thinkers of Neoclassical age valued reason
and rationality, whereas romantics valued
emotions, passion, and individuality.
A shift from impersonal works to works of more
subjective and personal nature.
9. “The essence of romanticism was….that literature
must reflect all that is spontaneous and
unaffected in nature and in man and free to
follow its own fancy in its own way”.
-W.J. Long
10. 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.
Finally, the imagination enables humans to
“read “ nature as a system of symbols.
11. Nature
“Finds tongue in trees
Books in running brooks
Sermons in stones
And good in everything”
-Wordsworth
12. Nature cont..
• 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 “rationalist”
• Nature viewed as a source of refreshment and
meditation
13. 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
14. Age of Poetry
It was essentially an age of Poetry.
Most of the Romantic writers found poetry as
language of emotion and feelings.
Poetry allows free use of imagination and fancy.
As it was an age of imagination and emotion
most of the writers turned to poetry.
First generation of poets includes, Blake,
Wordsworth, Coleridge.
Second generation of poets are, Byron, Shelley
and Keats.
15. Romantic Literature
Features of Non-fiction-
Personal essays
Explored psychological states of the authors
Notion of freedom and justice inspired by
French revolution
Diaries, travelogues, were also important genre
Literary criticism in the form of review essays.
16. Features of fiction:
Epistolary, romance, didactic, gothic, historic etc.
Novels
Fiction of sensibility
Philosophical novels-”Novels of ideas”
Evangelic and moral tales
Gothic tradition explored the darker sides of
human nature
Historical fiction and historical romance
Regional novels from Ireland and Scotland
17. Features of Poetry:
Nature, landscape and beauty.
Dreams, childhood, and innocence were common
themes.
Concerns with inner things; exploration of poets
mind
Use of heavy symbolism
Influenced by theories of association and drugs
Myths and images from non-European cultures
Obsession with death and unconscious.
18. Romantic Poets
Romantic poets are divided into two groups.
Wordsworth, Coleridge
Shelley, Keats and Byron.
Romantic strain begins to be visible in English
Poetry, before Wordsworth and Coleridge.
William Blake, William Cowper and Robert
Burns exhibits several aspects which later
anticipated by ‘Lake Poets’.
19. Romanticism: A Poetic Age
• Wordsworth:-"the spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in
tranquility,“
• Hazlitt:- Poetry is the language of imagination and the
passion.
• Shelley :- Poetry redeems from decay the visitation of
the divine in man
• Keats:- if poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to
a tree it had better not come at all
20. William Blake
• William Blake (1757- 1827), Poet, Painter
Greatest English poet after Milton
Sympathizer with the forces of revolution in America and France.
Deeply interested in philosophy and theological debates of the time.
Blake’s poetry herald a whole new era.
He wrote heavily symbolic poetry which is often difficult to comprehend.
He says “the devil was the real hero of Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’
He experimented with a new method of engraving.
He developed a method of ‘ illuminated Painting’
“to sea a world in a grain of sand
and a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour”
21. Continue..
Works
Poetical Sketches-1783
There is no Natural Religion-
1788
The Songs of Innocence-
1789
The Book of Thel-1789
The French Revolution-1791
The Marriage of Heaven and
Hell-1793
The first book of Urizen-
1794
Songs of Experience- 1794
Milton a poem-1804-11
The Lamb
“Little Lamb, who make thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Gave thee life and bid thee feed
…….
Little Lamb God bless thee!
Tiger
Tiger, Tiger, burning bright
In the forest of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
22. William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Poet,
philosopher
Born at Cockermouth
His mother died when he was only 8,
and father, when he was 13.
in 1787 he published a sonnet in ‘The
European Magazine’.
In 1794 he met the poet Samuel
Coleridge at Devon/Somerset.
Both collaborated on the ‘Lyrical
Ballads’(1798)
From 1843-1850 he was Poet
Laureate.
He is also known as priest of Nature.
23. Conti..
• His works
Descriptive sketches-1793
Lyrical Ballads-1798
Preface to Lyrical Ballads-1800
The Excursion 1814
Peter Bell-1819
The Prelude-1850 (14, Books)
His well known poems
Daffodils
Ode to Duty
Lucy
Rainbow
Solitary Reaper
Ode to duty
Composed upon
Westminster bridge
24. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-
1834)
Poet and literary critic
Born at Devonshire.
Parents died early.
Left his education several times
He met Southey in Bristol in 1794,
also becomes friend with
Dorothy and Wordsworth.
He and Southey formed a
community to be called
‘Pantisocracy’
His first volume of poetry
published in 1796- Poems of
various subjects
25. Conti..
Works of Coleridge
Poems
Poems on various subjects-1796
Lyrical Ballads-1798
Christabel, Kublakhan, A Vision; The Pains of
Sleep(1816)
Poems-1803
Fears in Solitude-1798
The devil’s Walk A Poem -1830
Prose
Biographia Literaria-1817
Seven Lectures upon Shakespeare and
Milton-1856
Table Talk-1835
Zapolya A Christmas Tale-1817
Drama-
Remorse, A Tragedy, in five acts-1813
The fall of Robespierre, An Historic Drama-
1794
1. Water, water, every
where,
And all the boards did
shrink ;
Water, water, every
where,
Nor any drop to drink.
2. Ere the birth of my life, if
I wished it or no
No question was asked
me--it could not be so !
If the life was the
question, a thing sent to
try
And to live on be YES;
what can NO be ? to die.
26. George Gordon Byron
Lord Byron -1788-1824
Poet, painter, Brooding,
handsome hero.
Born in London
First collection of poetry, ‘Hours
of Idleness’-1807
Severely criticized by Henry
Brougham in Edingburgh Review
English Bards and Scotch
Reviewers-1809, satirized
Wordsworth and Coleridge.
Created a Byronic hero-
brooding, solitary man, who is
an outcast or outlaw.
27. Conti..
Works of Byron
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage-1812-1818
Bride of Abydos-1813
The prisoners of Chillon-1816
Don Juan(incomplete)
Mazeppa-1819
The Prophecy of Dante-1819
The vision of Judgement-1821
Prometheus-1816
Beppo-1818
Manfred-1817
Cain-1821
Heaven and Earth-1821
Don Juan- 16 cantos,
mock epic, Adventures of
young Spaniard Don Juan.
Epic satire novel in verse.
Childe Harold’s- semi-
autobiographical poem in
4 cantos , search for
entity, poetic travelogue,
Experience in Portugal,
Spain, Greece and
Albania.
28. Percy Bysshe Shelley
P. B. Shelley (1792-1822)
Born in England 1792
Expelled from Oxford for
writing ‘The Necessity of
Aetheism’
Married with Mary Shelley
rejected religious and
moral sanctions of the time
Influenced by radical
philosophy of William
Godwin.
Well known for shorter
poems and odes.
29. P. B. Shelley’s Work
The Necessity of Atheism- 1811
Queen Mab-1813
Alastor-1815
Mont Blanc-1816
Laon and Cynthia-1817
The Revolt of Islam-A Poem in 12canto-1817
Ozymendias-1818
The Cency, Tragedy in five acts-1819
Ode to the West wind-1819
The Masque of Anarchy- 1819
Prometheus Unbound-1820 drama in 4act.
To Skylark-1820
A Defence of Poetry- 1821 in response to
Peacock’s Four ages of Poetry
Epipsychidion-1821
30. John Keats
John Keats (1795-1821)
Born in Moorgate London.
Last of the romantic poet
Interest in mythology and love
for nature combined in poetry
Famous for odes
Introduced concept of
Negative Capability- “when
man is capable of being in
uncertainties, mysteries,
doubts, without any irritable
reaching after fact and reason”
First poem published with help
of Leigh Hunt in “Examiner”-
‘On Solitude’
31. Works of John Keats
Poems -1817
Endymion A Poetic
Romance-1818
Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of
St Agnes and other Poems-
1820
La Bell Dame Sense Merci
Ode to Nightingale
Ode to Autumns
Ode to Grecian Urn
Ode to Psyche
Ode to Melancholy
“A thing of beauty is joy
forever”- Endymion
Beauty is truth, truth
beauty-that is all ye known
on the earth, and all ye
need to know- Grecian Urn
Heard melodies are sweet,
but those unheard are
sweeter.
Here lies one whose name
was writ in water.
Nothing ever becomes real
till it is experienced.
32. Minor Poets
Robert Southey
(1734-1843)
George Crabbe(1754-
1832)
John Clare(1793-1964)
Thomas Campbell
(1777- 1844)
William Cowper(1731-
1800)-The Task
Robert Burns(1759-96)
33. Novels in Romantic Age
Gothic Novels
Took shape in the late 18th century.
The word derived from Goth- one
of the Barbaric German tribes that
invaded Roman
Stories of fear, horror and the
supernatural.
It represents the darker side of
human nature
Gothic literature includes, terror,
mystery, the supernatural, ghosts,
haunted houses, and gothic
architectures, castles, darkness
death, decay, madness, secretes
and heredity curses.
The first gothic novel was Horace
Walpole’s ‘Castle of Otranto(1765)
34. Gothic Novelists
• Ann Radcliffe(1764-1823)
• Pioneer of gothic novel
• Childless marriage, she began
to write fiction to amuse
herself.
• Her husband encouraged her
writing.
• She portrays the heroines as
the victim of a male
dominated society.
• Her most famous work is
“The Mysteries of
Udolpho”(4vol.1791)
• Her other works includes, The
Italian, The Romance of the
Forest etc.
• Matthew Gregory
Lewis(1775-1818)
• The separation of his
parents had adverse impact
on him,
• Because of the acrimony he
had seen between his
parents he never married.
• He wrote his popular gothic
novel ‘The Monk’ in 1796
• It is sensational story of
rape and incest
• Coleridge says “The Monk
is romance, which if parents
saw in the hand of son or
daughter, he might
reasonable turn pale”
35. Novelists
• William Godwin -1756-1836)
• Philosopher and novelist, atheist
• “Enquiry concerning Political
Justice”-1793
• In this book he argued that as
long people acted rationally,
they could live without laws and
institutions.
• His most successful work is
“Things as They Are or Caleb
Williams”
• It presented individual as victim
of society and condemned the
power hungry.
• Criticism of English society
• Caleb declares “is that a country
of liberty where thousands
languish in dungeons and
fetters?”
• Mary Wollstonecraft(1759-97)
• Feminist writer
• The Wrongs of Woman-1798
• Was a feminist response to
Thomas Pain’s epochal tract, The
Rights of Man
• Maria, who is forced into
asylum by her husband George,
is Wollstonecraft’s symbol of a
middleclass woman who is
wronged.
• Wollstonecraft was attempting
to show how women of all
classes are oppressed by
English patriarchal system.
• Her most famous work is
‘Vindication of the Rights of
Woman’-1792
36. Novelists
• Didactic novels
• Fanny Burney(1752-1840)
• This novel debates about
woman and property,
marriage and morals.
• Her tales are heroine-centric
and detailed moral tales
• She portrays the tribulations
of a young, virtuous girl in
society
• Evelina” A young woman’s
entrance into the world”
• Cecilia, Camilla, The
Wanderers
• Her novel influenced
Victorian domestic novels
• Local/Regional Novels
• Maria Edgeworth(1764-1849)
• Her concern is the provincial
life and gentry, a class
whose way of life was
under threat
• Her novels sets in Ireland
• Her works are index of
social criticism of her time
• Highlights, capitalism and
depraved lifestyle of
extravagant gentry.
• Castle Rackrent(1800)
• Her moral tales include,
• Belinda(1801)
• Patronage(1814)
• Helen(1834)
37. Jane Austen
• Jane Austen (1775-1817)
• Most significant novelist of the
age
• Published six novels between 1811
and 1818
• She explored themes of property,
marriage, the status of women,
English villages, and decline of the
gentry.
• In her work description of English
life is unsurpassed.
• She exposes the exploitative
nature of gender relations in
English society.
• Her novel explores the workings
of people’s minds.
• All her works published under pen
name ‘By A Lady’
38. • Her works
• Sense and Sensibility(1811)
• Pride and Prejudice(1813)
• Mansfield Park(1814)
• Emma(1816)
• Northanger Abbey(1818)
• Persuasion(1818)
39. Walter Scott
• Walter Scott (1771-1832)
• Exponent of Historical Romances
• One of the most popular authors.
• His novels revolved around Scottish
nationalism
• Wrote about the transformation of
Scottish society from feudal –agrarian
to the urban-rural.
• Fusion of realistic descriptions with
poetic representations
• Complex narratives layered with fact
and fiction
• He defines historical romance as “a
poetical imagination and strict
attention to the character and
manners of the age”.
• He exhibits his admiration for old
values that , increasingly lost or
ignored in the process towards
modernization.
• His Works
• Waverley(1814)
• Ivanhoe(1819)
• Kenilworth(1821)
• Tales of Crusaders
• Woodstock(1826)
• The Siege of Malta
• Rob Roy(1817)
• The Heart of the
Midlothian (1818)
• Poetry-
• The lady of the lake
• The field of Waterloo
• Harold Dauntless
• The Lay of the Last
Minstrel
40. Minor Novelists
• Elizabeth Inchbald
• Thomas Holcroft
• Jane Porter
• Thomas Love
Peacock(opinion
Novels)(Nightmare
Abbey)
• John Moore
• Hannah Moore
• Barbara Hofland
• Charlotte Smith
(old Manor House)
41. Prose of the Age
Romantic essay was influenced by the writings
and styles of Rousseau and Montesquieu.
Essays of Charles Lamb and Hazlitt were very
personal and autobiographical in nature.
Essays were often explorations of their own
mental states and emotional conditions.
Romantic period was the launch of numerous
literary periodicals and magazines.
Periodicals provided ground for newcomers
who later become famous
Periodicals played an important role in the
dissemination of political and literary culture
across England
42. Essayists
Charles Lamb-1775-1834
Most popular essayist of the
age.
A friend of Wordsworth and
Coleridge.
Most famous for his ‘Essays of
Elia’
‘Tales of from Shakespeare’
(Co-authored with his sister
Mary)
Elia was name of Italian Clerk, a
colleague of Lamb.
Confession of a Drunkard-1813
The Last Essays of Elia-1833
"the most lovable figure in
English literature“ E V Lucas
• William Hazlitt- 1778-1830
• Cultivated interest in literature
and painting
• An Essay on the Principles of
Human Actions(1805)-
philosophical and psychological-
psychological tract
• Characters of Shakespeare’s
Plays-1817
• The Round Table-1817
• Table Talk-1821-22
• The Spirit of the Age-1825
• Lectures on the English Poets-
1818
• Lectures on the English Comic
Writers-1819
• Lectures on the Dramatic
Literature of the Age of
Elizabeth-1820
43. • Thomas de Quincey (1785-
1859)
• Best known for his work
‘Confession of an English
Opium-Eater’-1821
• Inaugurated the tradition
of addiction literature in
the West
• “Which maps the fear, anxieties
and delirious states of a drugged
mind is perhaps one of the finest
explorations of inner self in
Romantic Literature”-Pramod k
Nayar
• William Godwin-1756-
1836
• Treated education as
the key to human
happiness
• ..believed that
government would
eventually disappear
as humans became
more perfect.
• Laws, marriage, and
property would all
become irrelevant
44. Periodicals and Magazines
• The review –carries essays on politics, science,
the arts and contemporary social concerns.
• The Magazines- restricted itself to literary
essays and carried critical pieces and reviews
of poets and their works
• Gentleman's Magazine-1731
• The Edinburgh Review-1802
• Quarterly Review -1808
• Blackwood’s Magazine- 1817
• Westminster Review- 1824
• The Spectator - 1828
45. Reference
• Bibliography
• Nayar, Pramod K. A Short History of English Literature. New Delhi:
Cambridge University Press India Pvt. Ltd., 2009.
• Albert, Edward. History Of English Literature. 5. New Delhi: OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS-NEW DELHI, 2009.
• Wikipedia contributors. "Romanticism." Wikipedia, The Free
Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 7 Dec. 2017. Web.
8 Dec. 2017.
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/romantics/poets1.shtml
• https://images.google.com/
• https://www.slideshare.net/samirbaruah/introductiontothe-
romanticageofenglishliterature?