The Romantic Period
1785-1830
The House of Hanover
George III r. 1760-1820
1st Hanoverian king born in England
American colonies lost during his reign
Good family man: 15 children Highly cultured
1768: founded Royal Academy of Arts
65,000 of his books went to British Museum
“Farmer George” – interested in botany and agriculture
Mental derangement, perhaps caused by porphyria, led to Regency under his son (later George IV) in 1811.
George III, portrait by Johann Zoffany (1733/4-1810)© Royal Collection
George IVr.1820-30
Prince Regent 1811-1820: final victory in Napoleonic Wars at Battle of Waterloo – June 1815
Known for extravagant lifestyle Illegally married a Catholic
widow, Maria Fitzherbert, 1785 Married Caroline of Brunswick,
1795 – disastrous Catholic Emancipation 1829 over
the king’s protestsPortrait of George IV of the
United Kingdom in the robes of the Order of the Garter as Prince
Regent, 1816, by Sir Thomas Laurence.
William IVr. 1830-37
Joined navy as young man, served as Lord Admiral: “the Sailor King”
His reign saw major reforms: the poor law updated municipal government
democratised child labour restricted slavery abolished
throughout the British Empire
Reform Act of 1832 refashioned the British electoral system
Queen Victoriar. 1837--1901
Portrait of Queen Victoria in her
Coronation robes and wearing the
State Diadem, by Franz Xavier Winterhalter
The Royal Collection © 2006, Her Majesty Queen
Elizabeth II
ROMANTIC REVOLUTIONS
Industrial Revolution
Power-driven machinery replaced hand labor 1765: James Watt – the steam engine
Industry moved from homes and workshops to factories
Population moved from agricultural countryside to industrial cities
Enclosure of “commons” into large farms and privately owned estates
Laissez faire economic policy – free operation of economic laws –governmental non-interference 1776: Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
Political Revolutions
American Revolution1775-1783
Colonies’ alliance with France 1776: Declaration of Independence Broad intellectual and social shifts
republican ideals: liberty and rights as central values, rejects aristocracy and inherited political power, expects citizens to be independent and calls on them to perform civic duties.
liberal democracy: representative democracy (with free and fair elections) along with the protection of minorities, the rule of law, a separation of powers, and protection of liberties (thus the name liberal) of speech, assembly, religion, and property.
1787: Constitution and Bill of Rights
Tom Paine1737-1809
Quaker Met Ben Franklin in London –
who advised him to move to America
1776: Common Sense: attacked British monarchy and argued for American independence
1787: Returned to Britain 1791: The Rights of Man: proposed
universal male suffrage, progressive taxes, family allowances, old age pensions, maternity grants and abolition of House of Lords
1792: Became a French citizen and elected to National Convention – opposed execution of Louis XVI
1794: Age of Reason: questioned truth of Old Testament and Christianity
1802: returned to America Auguste Milliere, Thomas PaineNational Portrait Gallery, London
French Revolution and Napoleon1789-1815
1789: Fall of Bastille and Declaration of the Rights of Man 1792: September Massacres of imprisoned nobility 1793: The Reign of Terror
Execution of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette France declared war against Britain
1794: Fall of Robespierre 1804: Napoleon crowned Emperor of France 1815: Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo
Edmund Burke1729-97
Anglo-Irish statesman and philosopher
1765-94: Whig member of House of Commons
Opposed absolute monarchy and supported American colonies against the king
1790: Reflections on the Revolution in France: saw French Revolution as a violent rebellion against tradition which would end in disaster. Joshua Reynolds, Edmund Burke
Scottish National Portrait Gallery
Mary Wollstonecraft
1759-97 1790: Vindication of the Rights of Men: response to Burke in defense of the ideals of the French Revolution
1792: A Vindication of the Rights of Women
1794: An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution
Official British Reaction to the French Revolution and Napoleon
Curtailment of civil liberties and harsh repression suspension of the writ of habeus corpus advocates of political change charged
with treason 1791: Rejection of a bill to abolish the
slave trade 1793: Declaration of war against France 1805-15: Napoleonic Wars
Intellectual Revolutions
Mary Wollstonecraf
t1759-97
Professional writer, philosopher and feminist
1797: married William Godwin
Died of childbirth fever – after giving birth to Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Shelley)
Writings by Mary Wollstonecraft Thoughts on the Education of
Daughters (1787) Mary: A Fiction (1788) Original Stories from Real Life
(1788) Of the Importance of Religious
Opinions (1788) (translation) The Female Reader (1789)
(anthology) Young Grandison (1790)
(translation) Elements of Morality (1790)
(translation) A Vindication of the Rights of Men
(1790) A Vindication of the Rights of
Woman (1792) An Historical and Moral View of the
French Revolution (1794)
Letters Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark (1796)
Contributions to the Analytical Review (1788-1797) (published anonymously)
The Cave of Fancy (1798, published posthumously; fragment)
Maria, or The Wrongs of Woman (1798, published posthumously; unfinished)
Letters to Imlay (1798, published posthumously)
Letters on the Management of Infants (1798, published posthumously; unfinished)
Lessons (1798, published posthumously; unfinished)
Original Stories from Real Life
1788 Children’s book by Mary Wollstonecraft
Engraved illustrations by William Blake
Original Stories is primarily about leaving the imperfections of childhood behind and becoming a rational and sympathetic adult. Throughout the text, Wollstonecraft emphasizes the balance of reason and sympathy.
Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792
Advocated equal education, egalitarian marriage, and full citizenship for women
Primary Importance of Education:“As a proof that education gives this appearance of weakness to females, we may instance the example of military men, who are, like them, sent into the world before their minds have been stored with knowledge or fortified by principles. The consequences are similar; soldiers acquire a little superficial knowledge, snatched from the muddy current of conversation, and, from continually mixing with society, they gain, what is termed a knowledge of the world; and this acquaintance with manners and customs has frequently been confounded with a knowledge of the human heart. But can the crude fruit of casual observation . . . deserve such a distinction? Soldiers, as well as women, practice the minor virtues with punctilious politeness. Where is then the sexual difference, when the education has been the same? . . . . ”
William Godwin1756-1836
Journalist, political philosopher and novelist
Founder of philosophical anarchism
1793: An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
1794: Things as They Are or the Adventures of Caleb Williams – first mystery novel
1799: Fleetwood. or The New Man of Feeling
1817: Mandeville 1797: married Mary
Wollstonecraft 1801: married Mary Jane
Clairmont Championed individual
against coercive government
The “Wollstonecraft Scandal” 1789: William Godwin published Memoirs of the
Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman and Wollstonecraft’s Letters to Imlay after Wollstonecraft’s death
The works revealed Mary Wollstonecraft’s affair with Gilbert Imlay, her suicide attempts, and her rejection of Christianity
Ruined her reputation for decades: “Wollstonecraft was now branded as a whore and an atheist, and other women who dared to show sympathy with her ideas could not expect to escape calumny.” – Margaret Kirkham, Jane Austen, Feminism and Fiction
Godwin-Wollstonecraft Family
CLASSICISM vs. ROMANTICISM
Neo-Classicism vs Romanticism
Greek/Roman influence Emphasis on Society Age of Reason
Rationality Philosophy Deism
Euro-centric Cities Enlightenment
Science
Medieval/Oriental influence Emphasis on Individual Age of Passion
Emotion Imagination Spirituality
Interest in the Exotic Nature: pastoral and wild Revolution
Social Justice
NATURENeo-Classical Romantic
Universal Subject to human
control Gardens Source of peace and
tranquillity Untamed nature:
dangerous/evil
Particular Beyond human
control Mountains, oceans,
forests Source of inspiration
and spirituality Untamed nature:
exhilarating/sublime
LOVENeo-Classical Romantic
Universal Subject to human
control Marriage
Social Contract Economic Contract Attraction between social
and intellectual equals Source of peace and
tranquillity
Particular Beyond human
control Passion
Individual choice Search for soul-mate Forbidden attractions:
social, exotic, incestual
Source of inspiration, exhilaration and despair
Neo-Classical
Artist Social Arbiter of Taste Elitist Moral Intellectual Critic
Louis Michel van Loo Portrait of Diderot
Romantic Artist
Loner Unconventional Amoral Genius Prophet
George Gordon Lord Byron
Romantic Genres
Romantic Prose Genres
Literary criticism The familiar essay The Novel
Historical novels Novels of manners Novels of sensibility Gothic novels
Literary Criticism Literary critics became
the arbiters of taste Debate over the artistic
value as well as the utilitarian value of critical literature
1802: Edinburgh Review
1809: Quarterly Review
William Hazlitt
Charles Lamb
Thomas DeQuincy
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Familiar Essay Intimate
commentaries in which the essayist reveals his/her own feelings on a wide range of subjects
Idiosyncratic and eccentric
The typical familiar essay, whatever its theme, seemed to carry the reader into a personal conversation with an intelligent and learned writer
William Hazlitt
Charles Lamb
Thomas DeQuincy
Leigh Hunt
Jane Austen and the Novel of Manners
Novels dominated by the customs, manners, conventional behavior and habits of a particular social class
Often concerned with courtship and marriage
Realistic and sometimes satiric Focus on domestic society rather
than the larger world Other novelists of manners:
Anthony Trollope, Edith Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Margaret Drabble
Historical Novels
Novels that reconstruct a past age, often when two cultures are in conflict
Fictional characters interact with with historical figures in actual events
Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) is considered the father of the historical novel: The Waverly Novels (1814-1819) and Ivanhoe (1819)
Gothic Novels
Novels characterized by magic, mystery and horror
Exotic settings – medieval, Oriental, etc.
Originated with Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto (1764)
William Beckford: Vathek, An Arabian Tale (1786)
Anne Radcliffe: 5 novels (1789-97) including The Mysteries of Udolpho
Widely popular genre throughout Europe and America: Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland (1798)
Contemporary Gothic novelists include Anne Rice and Stephen King
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
1797-1851 Inspired by a dream in reaction to a
challenge to write a ghost story
Published in 1817 (rev. ed. 1831)
A Gothic novel influenced by Promethean myth
The first science fiction novel
The BrontësCharlotte (1816-55), Emily (1818-48), Anne
(1820-49) Wuthering Heights and Jane
Eyre transcend sentiment into myth-making
Wuthering Heights plumbs the psychic unconscious in a search for wholeness, while Jane Eyre narrates the female quest for individuation
Brontë.info: website of Brontë Society and Haworth Parsonage
The Victorian Webportrait by Branwell Brontë of his sisters,
Anne, Emily, and Charlotte (c. 1834)
English Romantic Theatre
Closet drama: drama meant more to be read than performed Prominent in the early 19th c. when melodrama and burlesque
dominated the theater, and poets attempted to raise dramatic standards: Joanna Baillie: Plays on the Passions, 1798-1812 Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Remorse, 1813 George Gordon Lord Byron: Manfred, 1817 Percy Bysshe Shelley’s The Cenci and Prometheus Unbound,
1819 Robert Browning’s Strafford (1837) and Pippa Passes (1841)
Lyric Poetry Search for an authentic language of feeling rather than
artifice Wordsworth: “the spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings recollected in tranquility” 1st person voice of the poem – during this period usually
associated with the poet – sometimes biographical and confessional
Revived older poetic forms: blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter the sonnet: 14 lines of iambic pentameter the ballad: mixed narrative story with lyrical description the ode: poem of praise – new kinds of subjects occasional poem: usually political, often satirical sentimental poem: commentary on personal events, such as the
birth of a child
Female Pioneers
Anna Letitia Barbauld
Mary Robinson
Charlotte Smith
Anna Letitia Barbauld
1743-1825
Poet, Educator, Activist, Editor 1773: Poems and Pieces in Prose 1774: Married Rochemont
Barbauld – school at Palgrave Poetry:
Devotional Pieces (1775) Political and domestic poems
Children’s literature: Lessons for Children (1778-79, 4 vols) Hymns in Prose for Children (1781) Evenings at Home (1792-96, 6 vols)
Editor: The British Novelists (1810, 50 vols.) The Female Speaker (1811)
1775 Wedgewood Cameo
Charlotte Turner Smith1749-1806
Poet, Novelist, Activist Poetry:
Revived sonnet form Elegiac Sonnets (1785-1801, 9 eds.) The Emigrants (1793) Beachy Head (1807)
Novels: Emmeline (1788) Ethelinde, (1789) Celestina (1791) Desmond (1792) The Old Manor House (1793) The Emigrants (1793) The Wanderings of Warwick (1794) The Banished Man (1794) Montalbert (1795) Marchmont (1796) The Young Philosopher (1798) The Letters of a Solitary Wanderer (1800)
Mary Darby Robinson
ca. 1757-1800 Actress, poet, novelist Poetry
Poems (2 vols. 1775) Poems (1791) Sappho and Phaon (1796)
Petrarchan sonnet sequence Lyrical Tales (1800)
7 Novels, including: Vacenza (1792) The Widow (1794) Angelina (1796) Walsingham (1797)
Memoirs (1801)
Gainsborough, 1781
William Blake1757-1827
The first of the great English Romantic poets, as well as a painter and printer, and engraver.
Illuminated books: c.1788: All Religions Are One
and There Is No Natural Religion 1789: Songs of Innocence and Thel 1790–1793: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell 1793: Visions of the Daughters of Albion
and America: a Prophecy 1794: Europe: a Prophecy, The First Book of
Urizen and Songs of Experience 1795: The Book of Los The Song of Los and The Book of Ahania c.1804–c.1811: Milton: a Poem 1804–1820: Jerusalem
Non-Illuminated 1783: Poetical Sketches 1789: Tiriel 1791: The French Revolution 1797: The Four Zoas
Lyrical Ballads, 1798, 1800, 1802
Poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Heralds the beginning of the Romantic Period in England
Poetry that uses normal, everyday language
Emphasis on the voice of the living poet
“The majority of the following poems are to be considered as experiments. They were written chiefly with a view to ascertain how far the language of conversation in the middle and lower classes of society is adapted to the purpose of poetic pleasure.” Title Page of the 1st Edition
The Poet as Rock Star
Keats Coleridge
WordsworthByron
Shelley