The Romantic Period: 1798–1832
Fast Facts
Literary Highlights
• Romanticism arises as a response to social and
economic changes caused by the Industrial
Revolution.
• Wordsworth and Coleridge publish Lyrical
Ballads in 1798. Thus starting the Romantic
Era.
• Keats, Byron, and Shelley write their greatest
poems in the early nineteenth century.
Key Concept:
Revolution Spreads
History of the Times
• Because the French king has been overthrown
by a democratic mob, the French Revolution is
radical and frightening to English ruling
classes.
• English conservatives worry that revolutionary
fever will cross the Channel to England.
• Until the violence and terror escalate, English
liberals support the French Revolution’s ideals
of “liberty, fraternity, equality.”
Key Concept:
Revolution Spreads
Literature of the Times
• In reaction to the ugliness
and turmoil of the times,
writers turn to nature, the
past, and a dream world
of imagination.
• Romantic period begins in 1798 with publication
of Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems, a
collaboration by two young poets, Samuel
Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth.
Key Concept:
Revolution Spreads
Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems
• Included both Coleridge’s long narrative The
Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Wordsworth’s
“Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern
Abbey.”
• Both poems are now among the most important
poems in English literature.
• Represented “a new kind of poetry”—
spontaneous, emotional, self-revealing poems
written in simple language about commonplace
subjects.
Key Concept:
Conservatives Clamp Down
Literature of the Times
The Romantic poets
• were dedicated to political
and social change
• believed in the power of
literature
• thought imagination—not
reason—was the best
response to forces of change
• created private, spontaneous
lyric poetry
Key Concept:
Conservatives Clamp Down
Some Romantic Poets
William
Blake
John Keats
George Gordon,
Lord Byron
Percy Bysshe Shelley
But to the eyes
of the man of
imagination nature
is imagination
itself. As a man is,
so he sees. . . .
To me this world is
all one continued
vision of fancy or
imagination.
—William Blake
Key Concept:
Conservatives Clamp Down
Literature of the Times
• Romantic literature was dominated by poetry.
• Romantics thought poets were extraordinary
people, necessary to humanity and society.
• Keats called poets “physicians,” Blake called
them teachers, and Shelley thought they were
the “unacknowledged legislators of the world.”
• The novel also thrived, however. Key novelists
included Jane Austen, Maria Edgeworth, and
Sir Walter Scott.
Key Concept:
Comprehension Check
What new values and responses to change did the
Romantic poets offer?
[End of Section]
Key Concept:
Industrialization Finds a Foothold
History of the Times
• England is the first nation to experience the
effects of the Industrial Revolution.
• Swelling urban populations
create desperate living
conditions.
• The era’s misery and poverty
are justified by an economic
policy called laissez faire.
Key Concept:
Industrialization Finds a Foothold
Industrial Revolution
• Production moves from homes to factories
in the cities.
• Machines work many times faster than
human beings.
• Communal land is taken
over by individuals.
• Landless poor migrate to
cities for work.
Key Concept:
Comprehension Check
How did Gothic literature provide readers and writers in
the Romantic period a new way to deal with the
political and social upheavals around them?
[End of Section]
The Romantic Period: 1798–1832
Introduction to the Literary Period
Your Turn
Compose a brief description of Romantic writing.
Consider using the following words in your description.
literary device
spontaneous
differentiate
inherent
form and/or function
[End of Section]
Unit 4
Literary Skills Focus Essays
Themes of Romantic Poetry
Forms of Romantic Poetry
Themes of Romantic Poetry
Influences on Romantic Poetry
• Spread of democratic ideals through the
American and French Revolutions and
disillusionment after failure of French Revolution
• Reactions against harsh living and working
conditions created for urban poor by the
Industrial Revolution
• Fascination with nature and country life, which
seemed a blissful retreat from city slums
Themes of Romantic Poetry
A New Focus in Poetry
• Invited readers to feel power and passion
• Tried to capture personal experience
Restoration Era
• Order had just been
restored.
• Poets celebrated order,
hierarchy, and enlightened
rule.
Romantic Period
• Society needed social
change.
• Poets wrote about personal
feelings, supported
individual rights, and used
everyday language.
Themes of Romantic Poetry
A New Focus in Poetry
Romantic comes from the word romance.
• A medieval romance is
a tale of high adventure
that idealizes knightly
virtues and has
supernatural elements.
• Romantic writers used
elements of romance
to go beyond Restoration Era formality and
explore psychological and mysterious aspects of
human experience.
Themes of Romantic Poetry
A New Focus in Poetry
Romantic poets
• embraced imagination and
naturalness instead of reason and
artifice
• wrote about personal experiences
and emotions, often using simple
language
• saw nature as transformative;
focused on the ways nature and
the human mind mirrored each
other’s creative properties
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Themes of Romantic Poetry
Imagination: The Inspired Guide
• Many say the Romantic
movement began in 1798 when
Wordsworth and Coleridge
published Lyrical Ballads.
• The Romantics are often
considered nature poets.
• However, they are really “mind
poets” who sought to understand
the bond between humans and
the world of the senses.
Themes of Romantic Poetry
Imagination: The Inspired Guide
The Romantics saw imagination as the link between
mind and nature.
• To them, imaginative experiences were especially moving,
perhaps superior to human
reasoning.
• The mysterious forces of
Nature inspired them.
• All six of the major Romantic poets had their own
ideas about imagination, but all believed that it
could be stimulated by nature and the mind.
Themes of Romantic Poetry
Nature: The Wise Teacher
If imagination is the Romantic poet’s guide to truth,
Nature is the wise teacher that can deliver the
lesson.
• Romantic poets considered themselves
especially sensitive.
• They wanted to help
people see the
world in all its
beauty, sadness,
and tenderness.
Themes of Romantic Poetry
Nature: The Wise Teacher
For the Romantic poets, nature was a balm
to soothe the relentless hounding of an
industrialized world.
• The poets had a strong sense of nature’s
transformative properties.
• Poets tried to translate
scenes of natural beauty
into words so that readers
might know the power of
natural forces to shape
thought and feeling.
Themes of Romantic Poetry
Nature: The Wise Teacher
The Romantics’ interest in natural images and
themes was reflected in Gothic literature.
Novels such as Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein appealed to the
imagination through
 Eerie settings
 Supernatural events
 Questions about humans’
ability to manipulate nature
Themes of Romantic Poetry
Experience: The Worthy Subject
Romantic poets favored idealized rural settings.
However, some celebrated the people who lived in
crowded cities.
They promoted rights to
Healthful living conditions
Relief from political or economic
oppression
Self-expression
Themes of Romantic Poetry
Experience: The Worthy Subject
Some Romantics dreamed that poetry could offer
an example of model behavior to improve horrific
social conditions:
 Undemocratic governments
 Dangerous factories
 Child labor
 Laissez-faire economic
policies that left
businesses unregulated
Child workers in coal mine
Themes of Romantic Poetry
EMOTIONS
RULE
Faith in Senses and Feelings
Because the Romantic poetry valued individual
experience, the rationalism previously admired was
replaced by a trust in one’s emotions. The literature in
England prior to this movement was witty, intellectual,
and social. Romanticism rejects the social ‘us’ and
embraces the ‘me’! Intuitions, feelings, and emotions
ruled. Man’s heart was a more valued guide than his
head. So, another characteristic of Romantic poetry is
this enlightenment by emotion.
Themes of Romantic Poetry
Belief in the Supernatural
Another characteristic of
Romantic literature is the
inclusion of supernatural
elements.
Perhaps, for the
Romantics, Nature was so
powerful that it could not
be contained. Nature takes
on a mysterious, sometimes
even scary quality in
literature of the Romantics.
Supernatural elements play
a large part in these works.
Themes of Romantic Poetry
Use of simple language
The Romantics searched for personal experiences and
strove to communicate their power in meaningful
ways. To achieve this, the Romantic writers employed
simple and direct language. This was another way to
reject the Neoclassical movement that hoped to
emulate the ancient writers in lofty styles and
language. Think of it this way… our most personal
conversations, our most private, do not need elevated
language to impress or ring true. This simple language
is another Romantic characteristic.
Themes of Romantic Poetry
Ask Yourself
1. Where did Romantic poets look for
inspiration? Why?
2. Why do you think Romantic poets wrote
about nature during a time of change?
[End of Section]
Forms of Romantic Poetry
Characteristics of Romantic Poetry
• Expresses the emotions and concerns of an
individual as well as of society
• Varies the structure of traditional forms to suit a
poem’s purpose
• Focuses on a poet’s personal connection to
nature
Forms of Romantic Poetry
Function over Form
The Romantics took poetry in a new direction.
18th Century Poets
Romantic Poets
• Poetry was a strictly
defined literary genre.
• Poetry was a playground
of feelings.
• Poets used formal
language and structured
traditional forms such as
odes and sonnets.
• Poets experimented with
forms and expressed
feelings in natural
language.
• Form seems more
important than function.
• Function seems more
important than form.
Forms of Romantic Poetry
Ask Yourself
1. What was more important to Romantic poets,
form or function? Why?
2. What topics did Romantic poets pursue?
Why?
[End of Section]
Early Romantic Poets
William Wordsworth
• Lyrical Ballads, with a Few
Other Poems
• “Lines Composed a Few
Miles Above Tintern Abbey
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner
• Kubla Khan
Late Romantic Poets
Percy Bysshe Shelley
• “Ozymandias”
• “Ode to the West Wind”
• “To a Skylark”
John Keats
• “On First Looking into
Chapman’s Homer”
• “Ode to a Nightingale”
• “Ode to a Grecian Urn”
Read Assigned Poems and Prepare for Literature
Group