The document provides an overview of the Romantic period in literature from 1780-1830. It discusses key characteristics of Romanticism, including an emphasis on emotion, imagination, nature, and the individual. Major Romantic authors from both the first generation like William Blake, William Wordsworth, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the second generation including Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats are summarized. The document also briefly discusses Romantic themes in novels by Jane Austen and Mary Shelley and the Gothic genre. It analyzes Blake's poems "The Lamb" and "The Tiger" and their symbolic representation of innocence versus violence.

1. The Romantic Period
William Blake’s
“The Lamb” & “The Tiger”

2. The Romantic Period
(1780-1830)

4. Romantic?
 Mere love or more?
Nature
Contrast with Neo-Classicism
Imagination and the Mysterious
Emotions and the Self
Myths and symbolism

5. • “Writers and artists particularly those associated with the
Romantic Movement not only found beauty in nature; they
also perceived truth and nobility in an earlier social age- the
Medieval period- that they then contrasted to the social
disorder of their own times” (Barthel, 88).
• “I am not made like anyone I have seen; I dare believe that I
am not made like anyone in existence. If I am not superior, at
least I am different” (Rousseau, Confessions).

6. Reaction to the Age of
Reason
• Age of Reason
– Reason is primal
– Emotions are unreliable
– Classical works are the best, they must be imitated
• Romanticism
– Reason alone is not enough
– Emotions are indispensable
– Imagination cannot be stopped, no boundaries

7. Age of Revolutions
• French Revolution
– «Liberty, Equality, Fraternity»
– Nationalism
• American Revolution
– Against tyranny
• Industrial Revolution
– Away from nature
– Mechanization
– Urbanization= suffering

8. • Humanity is good, but corrupted by society and its
institutions.
• Simplicity and naturalness
• «Man speaking to men»
• Rebellious, against tyranny, authority, injustice
• Nature begign, beautiful but at the same time
frightening, awe – inspiring; sublime

9. Romanticism is characterized by the 5 “I”s
Imagination
Intuition and emotions
Idealism
Inspiration
Individuality

10. Imagination
Imagination was emphasized over
“reason.”
This was a backlash against the
rationalism characterized by the
Neoclassical period or “Age of Reason.”
Imagination was considered necessary for
creating all art.
British writer Samuel Taylor Coleridge
called it “intellectual intuition.”

11. Intuition
Romantics placed value on “intuition,” or
feeling and instincts, over reason.
Emotions were important in Romantic art.
British Romantic William Wordsworth
described poetry as “the spontaneous
overflow of powerful feelings.”
“I felt before I thought”

12. Idealism
Idealism is the concept that we can make
the world a better place.

13. Inspiration
The Romantic artist, musician, or writer,
is an “inspired creator” rather than a
“technical master.”
What this means is “going with the
moment” or being spontaneous, rather
than “getting it precise.”

14. Individuality
Romantics celebrated the individual.
During this time period, Women’s Rights
and Abolitionism were taking root as
major movements.
Walt Whitman, a later Romantic writer,
would write a poem entitled “Song of
Myself”: it begins, “I celebrate myself…”

15. Two Generations of
Romantics
First Generation
• William Blake
– 1757 - 1827
• William Wordsworth
1770 - 1850
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge
– 1772 - 1834
Second Generation
• John Keats
– 1795 - 1821
• Percy Bysshe Shelley
– 1792 - 1822
• George Gordon, Lord Byron
– 1788 - 1824

16. William Wordsworth
(1770-1850)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
(1772-1834)
The return to the original state of nature
The tragedies of society
The imagination: self consciousness and poetic imagination

18. The Scottish Poets
Robert Burns (1759-1796) Sir Walter Scott (1771-
1832)
Folk poetry
Emphasise on nature
Scottish rural life
Holy Willie’s Prayer
The Cotter’s Saturday Night
Love and Liberty
The Lay of the Last Minstrel
The Lady of the Lake

19. Lord George Gordon Byron (1788-
1824)
An embodiment of the Romantic Hero
A scandalous aristocrat criticizing the socia
norms
Defender of nationalism and liberty
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
Don Juan
“I awoke one morning and found
myself famous”

20. Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
Rebellion against all kinds of authority
Vision of liberty
The Necessity of Atheism
Prometheus Unbound
Ozymandias
The Mask of Anarchy
Ode to the West Wind

21. John Keats (1795-1821)
Absorption of love and beauty
The Eve of Saint Agnes: dream vs. reality
Lamia
Ode to a Nightingale
Negative Capability She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she gaz'd and sighed deep,
And there I shut her wild sad eyes -
So kiss'd to sleep.
La Belle Dame Sans Merci

22. The dominance of Shakespeare
Dramatic criticism
Curtain falls on Romanticism…
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) Charles Lamb (1775-1834)

23. Women: the leading role on the stage of
literature
The Novel…
Reaction to the society of the 18th century
Women and Marriage
The nature of human insight
Jane Austen (1775-1817)
Sense and Sensibility
Pride and Prejudice
Mansfield Park
Persuasion
Emma

24. The Gothic genre
Mysteries of Udolpho
Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823)
Mary Shelley (1797-1851)
Scientific Gothic: Frankenstein
A Vindication of the Right of Woman

25. Walter Scott: the novelist
Waverley
Opposition to the restricted world of Austen
Portrayal of Scottish life and culture
Historical elements

26. William Blake
• Madman
• Poet, painter, engraver, spiritual visionary
• Prophet Ezekiel on a tree, tree filled with angels
• «Without contraries is no progression»
• The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
• The Book of Urizen
• Songs of Innocence (1789)
• Songs of Experience (1794)

27. • Insane or ingenious?
• Mystical insight and the religious innocence
William Blake (1757-1827)

33. •Rythmic like a song
•Alliteration (Little Lamb)
•Assonance (Dost Thou Know Who)
•Repetition
•Imagery (Use of visuals)
•Symbol (Lamb Peace/Tiger Violence)

34. Battle in Heaven between
God and Rebel Angels
God as a blacksmith
The depths of the human soul:
An Angel & A Demon?

35. • Tiger => Powerful, proud, fearful, killer, evil
• Lamb => Ignorant, Meek, gentle, innocent, good
• Combined they represent life itself?
• Do we have free will?
Do we have freedom of choice?
• What does faith mean?
• In what ways are these poems reflective of
human nature / Existence?
• God as an artist and life/World as his creation?
• Why did God create the lamb & the tiger
together?