The Romantic Period in British literature occurred between 1798-1870 and was marked by an emphasis on individualism, nature, and organic art forms. It began during a time of war and economic struggles but contained an optimistic and revolutionary spirit. As the Industrial Revolution took hold during the Early Victorian era from 1832-1870, Romantic feelings came into conflict with the changing world. Major authors during this period included Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Byron, Tennyson, Arnold, Austen, the Brontës, Dickens, Eliot, and Carlyle, who wrote novels, poems, and prose addressing social and political issues through new forms like the novel.

1. Romantic Period
In British Literature

2. Romantic Period
1798-1870

3. Historical Context
• The Napoleonic Wars followed by
economic recession
• Union with Ireland
• INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, CHARTISM,
REFORM BILL
• Development of democracy, sudden
urbanization, development of capitalism
• Reign of Queen Victoria

4. Description of The Age of the
Romantic Movement (1798-1832)
• The first half place emphasis on the
individual, nature, “an organic concept of
art”
• Skepticism and cynicism  “abusive
parody and satire
• Optimism mixed with revolutionary spirit

5. Description of the Early Victorian
Age (1832-1870)
• Deeper feel for Industrial Revolution
• Bigger impact of science on religion and
philosophy
• Romantic feeling came into conflict with
world around it  “a literature of doubt
and questioning”

6. Overall Description
• “Great age for the novel”
• “Serious critical and social debate in
prose”
• “Weakest period of English stage since
Elizabeth I” with “blind idolatry of
Shakespeare” and “bound by PATENT
THEATERS” and the STAR SYSTEM

7. Major Authors and Works: The
Poets
• William Wordsworth- “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”
• Samuel Coleridge- “Kubla Khan”
• Percy Shelley- married to Mary Shelley
• John Keats- “When I Have Fears I may Cease to Be”
• Lord Byron- Mary Shelley thought of Frankenstein while
at his house
• Alfred, Lord Tennyson- “The Charge of the Light
Brigade”
• Matthew Arnold- “Calm Soul of All Things”
• Pre-Raphaelites
• Robert Browning- Sordello

8. Major Authors and Works: The
Novelists
• William Godwin- Mary Shelley’s father
• Walter Scott- Ivanhoe
• Jane Austen- Pride and Prejudice
• Charlotte Brontë- Jane Eyre
• Emily Brontë- Wuthering Heights
• William Makepeace Thackeray- Vanity Fair
• Charles Dickens- A Tale of Two Cities
• Anthony Trollope- Orley Farm
• Eliot- The Mill on the Floss

9. Major Authors and Works: The
Prose Writers
• Thomas Carlyle- Worship of Yea and No
• John Ruskin- Modern Painters
• Thomas Macaulay- The History of
England from the Accession of James the
Second
• Walter Pater- Studies in Art and Poetry
• Newman- Apologia Pro Sutra

10. Terms
ROMANTICISM
VICTORIAN AGE
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
CHARTISM
REFORM BILL
UTALITARIANISM
PATENT THEATERS
STAR SYSTEM