Introduction to the Romantic Age

1. THE ROMANTIC
AGE
1780-1830
Semester II

2. • The most anthologized and studied poets in EL
• Wordsworth and Coleridge- founding fathers- Lyrical
Ballad(1798)
• The poets were not ‘inventing’ concepts or ideas, but
responding to events and situations around them.
• French Revolution(1789) and American war of
independence(1776) were partly a reason for the new age.

3. • Call for reform was underway in England by 1780’s
• Social movements for causes such as Abolition of slave trade,
poor relief, Education of the poor, amelioration of prison
conditions etc..
• People wanted greater representation in the parliament
• Rising social discontent
• The FR had a profound impact on English society, ideas and
politics

4. • Edmund Burke- Reflections on the Revolution in France- horror
at what he thought was an unacceptable event
• Thomas Paine- The Rights of Man- based on the concepts of LEF
• William Godwin- Political Justice-renounced sentiment and
passion in favour of reason and education
• Enlightened self-interest enabled a man to subsume his interests
to the greater needs of social order and well being
• Welfare and civic humanism, philanthropy and care for the poor
became central tenets for making laws

5. FRENCH REVOLUTION
• Empty royal coffers, poor harvests and rise in food prices had
created feelings of unrest among the poor rural and urban
populace. further worsened by the imposition of taxes that
provided no relief.
• Towards the end of 1786, a universal land tax was proposed -
no longer exempt the privileged classes like the clergy and the
nobility as had been the case for centuries
• The King summoned the Estates-General. The Estates-General
was an assembly that represented the French nobility, clergy
and the middle class. The last time the Estates-General called
was in 1614.
• The date of the meeting was fixed on May 5 1789, where
grievances of the three estates would be presented to the
king.

6. FR-CNTD
• Third estate met alone and formally adopted the title of
National assembly on June 17, 1789. They gathered in a
nearby indoor tennis court and took the oath of office. This
oath was known as the Tennis Court Oath.
• taking of Bastille fortress on July 14, 1789. This event marked
the beginning of the French Revolution

7. SOCIAL CONDITION IN
ENGLAND
• Increased mechanization- made large number of workers
redundant
• Decline in Infant mortality rate
• Increased Irish immigration to major towns
• Slums increased
• Soldiers returning from the war added to the unemployment
rate
• Acute Economic depression of 1819- repeal of Income
Tax+decreased trade+Indirect taxes- piled misery on common
Englishman.

8. • The intellectual contexts of the Wordsworth generation of
writers included political liberalism, radicalism, socialism and
notions of equality.
• A central theme in the intellectual climate of the time was the
role of instinct and emotions- a rebellion against the previous
age’s insistence on order, reason, intellectualism and logic.
• Romanticism revived an interest in and enthusiasm for the
abnormal, the quaint, the disorderly and the mystic.

9. • Experiences that could not be rationalized were central to Blake.
• Irrational and instinctive responses to scenes and emotions-wordsworth
• The workings of the mind- visions, fears, superstitions and strong passions became
keystone of romantic poetry.
• IMAGINATION – a key term for Wordsworth, Colerdige, Shelley and Keats
• Stressed the world of dreams and visions over that of reality.
• These visions are uncontaminated by the world of senses
• They provide greater pleasure than anything in reality
• Visions and dreams born out of inner workings of the mind and untouched by real
world- relied upon for creativity and pleasure
• ROMANTICS preferred to dwell on imagination and the ind as an escape from the
realities in the real world.

10. MAJOR ROMANTIC POETS

11. MAJOR NOVELISTS-ROMANTIC AGE
Jane Austen
Brontee Sisters
Thomas Love
Peacock Walter Scott

12. GOTHIC NOVELS
• Another aspect of the romantic age
• Explored the forbidden desires and violence that haunt the human soul.
• Dark Romantics
• Mathew Lewis, Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliff
• Obsessed with the evil, destructive and sinful aspects of the unconscious

13. • Poetic dream-visions considered standard components pf poet’s mental make-up.
• What was termed ‘madness’ was considered as poetic genius.
• Madness & Poetry- Melancholia & Art- romantic conception of the poet
• The return to instinct and the everyday was also accompanied by a search for the
PRIMITIVE and NATURAL.
• The concept of the ‘noble savage’ uncontaminated by education, social mores and
intellectual rationality was heroic for the Romantics.
• The peasant and the child became symbols of purity- took joy in simple things

14. • Rustic and local imagery abounds in the writings of this period.
• Children and nature are icons of Wordsworthean ‘naturalness’.
• Simple pleasures like walking through the country side, listening to farmer’s or
yeomen’s song, looking at the local ruin excite the romantic poet.

15. PROSE-ROMANTIC AGE
• Features of Non-Fiction prose writings
• Essay epcly personal essay was a dominant form
• Essays often explored the psychological state of the author
• Longer polemical works was common
• Notions of freedom and justice inspired by FR
• Diaries, memoirs and travelogues were important genres
• Much of the literary criticism of the period appeared in the form of review essays and in
letters.

16. • Romantic essay was influenced greatly by Rousseau and Montesquieu.
• Essays of Charles Lamb, William Hazzlit and others were very personal in tone and
autobiographical in nature.
• Since many of these writers interested in psychology and personality of human
beings, the essays were often exploration of their own mental states and emotional
conditions. Subjective tone even for objective essays.

17. PERIODICALS AND MAGAZINES
• Numerous literary periodicals and magazines came out in this age.
• Periodicals like ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ introduced many writers to the literary field-
Coleridge, Hazzlit, Leigh Hunt, Charles Lamb etc
• They helped in the dissemination of political and literary culture across England.
• Two kinds of periodicals
• The “Review’: carried essays on politics, science, arts and contemporary social concerns
• The ‘Magazine’: restricted to literary essays and critical pieces and reviews of poets

18. • The Edinburgh Review and Critical Journal: started by Henry Brougham, Sydney
Smith and Francis Jeffrey- first issue in 1802- politically slanted towards the Whig
party.- Walter Scott was a contributor
• Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine: By William Blackwood in 1817- successful-
• The London Magazine: short lived- John Scott was the editor-

19. CHARLES LAMB
• The most popular essayist- friend to Coleridge and Wordsworth
• “Essays of Elia” &
• “Tales of Shakespeare”(Co-authored with sister Mary)- Lamb wrote six tragedies
while Mary wrote 14 comedies
• Strain of madness(95-96)- Took care of his sister-appears as ‘Cousin Bridget’
• Started life as a poet- “The Old Familiar Faces” & “The Hester”
• Attempted a tragedy-”John Woodvill”(1802)-in the style of his fav Elizabethan
playwrights- unsuccessful on the stage

20. • Critical work- “Specimens of English Dramatic poets, who lived about the Time of
Shakespeare”(1808)- delicate insight and good literary taste.
• First of the essays appeared in “The London Magazine” in 1820- it was signed ‘Elia’-
name of the clerk at South Sea House- where he worked.
• Essays of Elia & ‘The Last Essays of Elia’
• In subject they are of the usual miscellaneous kind- ranging from shimney sweeps
to old china
• Touched with personal opinions nd recollections so oddly obtruded that interest in
the subject is nearly swamped by the reader’s delight in the author.

21. WILLIAM HAZLITT
• Met Coleridge in 1798- shared the same ideals- abandoned painting for a literary career
• Till death contributed to The Edinburgh Review and some articles seen in The Examiner, The
Times and The London Magazine.
• His reputation rests on the lectures and essays on literary and general subjects between
1817 and 1825.
• Characters of Shakespeare' s Plays (1817), The English Poets (1818), The English Comic
Writers (1819), and The Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth (1820).
• His best essays were collected in The Round Table (1817), Table Talk; or, Original Essays
on Men and Manners (1821-22), and The Spirit of the Age; or, Contemporary Portraits
(1825).
• Between 1828 and 1830 he published an unsuccessful biography of Napoleon)

22. • His writing is remarkable for its fearless expression of an honest and individual
opinion)
• he lacks the learned critical apparatus of more modern critics, he is unsurpassed in
his ability to communicate his own enjoyment, and in his gift for evoking unnoticed
beauties.
• His judgments are based on his emotional reactions rather than on objectively
applied principles.
• Consequently, they are sometimes marred by personal bias, as in some of the
portraits in The Spirit of the Age.
• His brief, abrupt sentences have the vigour and directness which his views demand.
His lectures have a manly simplicity, and something of the looseness of organization
which is typical of good conversation.

23. THOMAS DE QUINCEY