The Age of Romanticism in 19th century England was influenced by several factors, including Methodism which emphasized passionate religious experience over rigid doctrine, Jean-Jacques Rousseau's philosophy of man's natural goodness and the importance of contemplating nature, and the Industrial Revolution which transformed England into an industrial nation and displaced many rural workers. Key figures during this period included Lord Shaftesbury who championed social reforms to help the poor and working classes, and pre-Romantic writers like William Blake and Robert Burns who emphasized imagination and personal experience in their works.

1. The Age of Romanticism (1800-1850)The Age of Romanticism (1800-1850)
• 19th-Century England19th-Century England : Romantic Period
( poetry); Victorian Period ( prose).
• RomanticismRomanticism: first fifty years of the 19th
Century.

2. The Age of Romanticism (1800-1850)The Age of Romanticism (1800-1850)
Causes of the Striking out of RomanticismCauses of the Striking out of Romanticism::
• Methodism: Evangelical movement (John
Wesley);
• Made religion less a matter of argument /
creed and more a passionate, supernatural
experience of the soul.

3. The Age of Romanticism (1800-1850)The Age of Romanticism (1800-1850)
The Earl of Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley CooperThe Earl of Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper
& Jean-Jacques Rousseau& Jean-Jacques Rousseau

4. The Age of Romanticism (1800-1850)The Age of Romanticism (1800-1850)
• Man: essentially good, happiest in a state
of nature, free from institutions and
artificial restraints of organised society.
• Contemplation of / communion with Nature
( not through reason).

5. The Age of Romanticism (1800-1850)The Age of Romanticism (1800-1850)
• Primitivism: philosophy of education in
France (Rousseau ,1712-1778).
• “Rustics” (country people):most perfect
(least corrupted by the institutions of
government ,i.e., school, marriage).
• Emile,1762.

6. The Age of Romanticism (1800-1850)The Age of Romanticism (1800-1850)
• Anthony Ashley Cooper (1801- 1885).Anthony Ashley Cooper (1801- 1885).
• Student of the Classics.
• Investigated “Pauper Lunatics” and Mental
Asylums.

7. The Age of Romanticism (1800-The Age of Romanticism (1800-
1850)1850)
• Laboured to implement the 10-hour day
( children worked 15 hours!).
• “The Climbing-boy Bill”, 1840. (Enforced in
1875 – “The Shaftesbury Act”).

8. The Age of Romanticism (1800-The Age of Romanticism (1800-
1850)1850)
• The Ragged/ ra d/ˈ ɡɪ School Union: poor
children taught on Thursday and Sunday
evenings.

9. The Age of Romanticism (1800-The Age of Romanticism (1800-
1850)1850)
The Industrial Revolution:
•Changed the pattern of English life.
•An agricultural nation that became the chief
industrial nation in the world.

10. The Age of Romanticism (1800-1850The Age of Romanticism (1800-1850))
• Old Cottage EconomyOld Cottage Economy (individual craftsman
and his hand-labour) could not compete
with the machines.
• CraftsmenCraftsmen forced to leave the countryside /
villages and live in cities, in slums, with
paltry wages.

11. The Age of Romanticism (1800-1850)The Age of Romanticism (1800-1850)
• Overproduction and overpopulation.
• Agricultural Revolution: open fields were
“enclosed” ( they had been own by the
villages since Saxon times).

12. The Age of Romanticism (1800-1850)The Age of Romanticism (1800-1850)
American (1776) and French Revolutions
(1789):
•Dramatic effect on the political, economic
and intellectual future of England.
•Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.

13. The Age of Romanticism (1800-1850)The Age of Romanticism (1800-1850)
The French revolution : influential on English
intellectuals and writers [ demand for more
democratic government and awareness of
social injustice].
•Dissapoinment for its tyranny the (gillotine).

14. The Age of Romanticism (1800-1850)The Age of Romanticism (1800-1850)
Pre-Romantic WritersPre-Romantic Writers
• Transitional poetry (late 18th-century).
• Intense feeling.
• Greater freedom in the choice of subjects.
• Genuine concern with the individual and
with personal experience.

15. The Age of Romanticism (1800-1850)The Age of Romanticism (1800-1850)
• Imagination: the central force of the
romantic prose /poetry of the 19th
Century.
• William Blake (1757- 1827).William Blake (1757- 1827).
• Robert Burns (1759- 96).Robert Burns (1759- 96).