The Romantic Movement:
Questioning Tradition and Form
Honors English 4/ Peters
Unit learning goals:
1. To define the aspects of Romanticism, including its emphasis on imagination,
spirituality, naturalism, and spontaneity in emotion.
2. To identify the political and economic changes which incite the start of the
Romantic Movement.
3. To conceptualize and classify the biography and Romantic philosophy of each of
the major six poets of the Movement.
Unit-based vocabulary:
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The Romantic Movement
Industrial Revolution
Imagination vs. Reason
Lake District
“Inward eye”
Ode
Epitaph
Poet Laureate
Stream of consciousness
The “Sublime”
Text-based vocabulary:
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Abbey
Sylvan
Wye
Exhortation
Sordid boon
Pagan
Lea
Proteus
Triton
Doth
O’er
Vales
Jocund
Pensive
Unravish’d
Sylvan
Canst
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Tempe
Arcady
Loth
Ye
Ditties
Wilt
Adieu
Cloy’d
Heifer
Citadel
Pious
Attic
Brede
Overwrought
Cold Pastoral
Gleaned
Teeming
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Charactry
Relish
Admonish
Rancor
Hoary
Sinews
Anvil
Gaudy
Raven tress
Rue
Leviathan
Arbiter
Xanadu
Sinuous rills
Athwart
Dulcimer
Mount Abora
Supplemental vocabulary:
College-Programmed Vocabulary, Unit Two: Descriptive words (see course website for word lists)
Fictional reading selections:
The Chimney Sweeper, William Blake
London, William Blake
The Tyger, William Blake
Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, William Wordsworth
I Wandered as Lonely as a Cloud, William Wordsworth
The World is Too Much With Us, William Wordsworth
To Nature, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Kubla Khan, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
When I Have Fears, John Keats
Ode on a Grecian Urn, John Keats
Bright Star, John Keats
She Walks in Beauty, Lord Byron
When We Two Parted, Lord Byron
from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Lord Byron
Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley
An Exhortation, Percy Bysshe Shelley
Non-fictional reading selections:
Grasmere Journals, Dorothy Wordsworth (selected excerpt)
A Defense of Poetry, Percy Bysshe Shelley (selected excerpt)
Letter to Fanny Brawne, John Keats (selected excerpt)
Film selections:
Pride and Prejudice (2005 version)
Bright Star (short clip)
Art/music selections:
Illuminated texts, William Blake (selections)
Illustrations: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Gustav Dore
Girl With Water Pitcher, Thomas Gainsborough
The Honorable Mrs. Thomas Graham, Thomas Gainsborough
Death of Socrates, Jacques-Louis David
Oath of Horati, Jacques-Louis David
The Voyage of Life: Childhood, Thomas Cole
The Hay Wain, John Constable
The Lady of Shalott, John William Waterhouse
Wanderer Above The Sea of Fog, Caspar David Friedrich
During this turbulent time, England changed from an agricultural society to an industrial nation; with a
large and restless working class concentrated in the teeming mill towns in central and north England.
In addition to a loss of prestige, confidence, and economic growth, the French Revolution echoed what
great fears for the ruling class in England? Specifically, why did the English ruling class fear democracy?
One of the major changes in English life during the Romantic Movement was the
________________________________ Revolution. This meant there was a shift in manufacturing, that is,
in the production of goods. Goods up until this time were made by hand, at home. Now production
switched to ______________________________, where machines worked at many times the rate human
beings could work by hand. Since these factories were located in cities, the city population increased, with
housing and working conditions that would appall even the most hardened social workers today.
How did once communal land used by small farmers change into a large homeless population? To where
did this large homeless and unemployed population migrate?
Explain the “laissez-faire” philosophy of the Romantic Movement. What is the actual translation of
“laissez-faire”? Also, what were the actual results of this philosophy?
The poets of the Romantic Movement responded to social and economic changes caused by this rapid
industrialization and to governmental policies that ignored problems of the poor.
Frustrated by England’s resistance to political and social change, the Romantic poets turned from the
formal, public verse of the eighteenth-century Augustans to more private, spontaneous, emotional poetry.
These lyrics expressed the Romantics’ belief that imagination, rather than mere intellect, was the best
response to the forces of economic, cultural, and historical change. In fact, according to William
Wordsworth, “the poet binds together the passion and knowledge of the vast empire of human society, as
poetry is spread over the whole earth and overall all time…Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge—it
is immortal as the heart of man.”
Today, the word romantic is often a derogatory label used to describe sentimental writing, particularly
those best-selling paperback “romances” about love—a subject that many people mistakenly think the
Romantic poets popularized.
As a historical term, “romantic” has at least three useful meanings, all of them relevant to the
Romantic poets:
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The Romantics are often called nature poets. This description is misleading if it suggests that their poetry
is full of charming scenes of forests, mountains, and streams—like the scenic overlooks on postcards. We
can get a sharper sense of the idea of nature by comparing three different views of nature, or the world that
is different from the human world.
First, the nature most familiar to us is ecological--a complex, interdependent system of mysterious forces at
work. Do something to one part of it, and there may be large, unforeseen results like the greenhouse effect
or global warming, which threaten us.
Second, the nature common to the Enlightenment is a beautiful, intricate system like an immense piece of
clockwork. This system was made by the Creator, and the beauty and order of what was created assures us
that the maker exists, and that the plan is still there to be understood.
The third view of nature is that of the Romantics. Romantics were skeptical about the cleverness of the
Creator, but they prized experiences of beauty and the majesty of nature. They did not think of nature as
hostile, but they had a strong sense of its mysterious forces, partly because these forces hinted at the causes
of change.
The Romantics also were intrigued by the fact that nature and the ____________________________
always act upon each other; therefore, The Romantics were not only called the “nature poets,” but they
were also called the ____________________________ poets, since they were fascinated by the “how”
problems of thought and feeling.
They also believed that human beings have a limited power to create thoughts. While most of what we
know comes from “out there,” some of it comes from “in here.” That creative power is the
________________________________.
Wordsworth said that “All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”
What is Wordsworth’s definition of the purpose of the poet?
The Romantic poets were deeply concerned with the truths of the heart and the imagination—with truth, as
Wordsworth said, “carried alive into the heart by passion.” Or, as Keats once wrote to a friend: “What the
imagination seizes as beauty must be truth whether it existed before or not.”
They sought for a new vision of the relationship of the mind and nature. They did this by turning toward
more lyric forms of poetry, where the imagination was freer to seek these visions. Through the artful
illusion of their poems, they explored new aspects of human experience.
In conclusion, Romanticism is characterized by these general features:
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Romanticism turned away from the eighteenth century emphasis on reason; instead, the Romantics
embraced free thought and idealism.
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Romantic Movement poets rejected the public, formal, and factual works of the previous century.
They preferred poetry that spoke of personal experiences and emotions, often in simple,
unadorned language.
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The Romantics each used the lyrical poem as the form best suited to expressions of feeling, selfrevelation, and the imagination.
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Wordsworth urged poets to adopt a democratic attitude toward their audiences; though endowed
with a special sensibility, the poet was always a “____________________________________.”
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Many Romantics turned to a past or an inner dream world that they felt was more picturesque and
magical that the ugly industrial age they lived in.
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Most Romantics believed in individual liberty and sympathized with those who rebelled against
authority.
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The Romantics thought of nature as transformative; they were fascinated by the ways nature and
the human mind “mirrored” the other’s creative prosperities.
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The term Romanticism related to being fascinated with human experience, to question authority
and tradition for idealistic purposes, and to develop an awareness of adapting to change.