Please get out your Romantic Poetry packet (green).
Take notes in your AP Lit. binder under the “journal”
section.
This week:
Membean quiz next class
Romanticism quiz Friday
Where it all began…
The Enlightenment (philosophical movement in 18th century)
• Writings = elite only!
• Man in natural state = trouble
• Science and reason explains everything
• If every man uses reason and knows his rightful place,
world will work perfectly, like a machine
Diderot
• Didn’t believe there was a place for God in society
• Wrote an encyclopedia that had him arrested by
French government
• BFF with Rousseau
Rousseau
Rousseau
• Emotional
• Believed man in his natural state was GOOD and PURE
• Emotions lead to creativity!
• “Man was born free, yet everywhere he is in chains…”
• Eventually jailed by French police as well
These ideas could only exist in a new world…
American Revolution
Thomas Paine  Common Sense
Meanwhile…. In France and Britain
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.”
Romantic Era
• 1770s  late 1800s
• Coincides with American/French
Revolution
• Unite reason and feeling!
• Reaction to science (The
Enlightenment)
The Romantics
• Hugged and kissed all the time
– Not
• Imagination
• Gothic elements
• Nature
• Individual
• Creativity
• Written for all social classes / easy to
understand
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.
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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
Poets that should come to mind when you think of
ROMANTICISM
• WILLIAM
WORDSWORTH
• SAMUEL
COLERIDGE
• PERCY SHELLEY
• LORD
BYRON
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:
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.
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
• 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
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.
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”
William Blake (1757-1827)
• Rebelled against teacher (art cannot be taught,
it must be felt)
• Married illiterate woman; taught her to read
• Disgusted with society / rules / oppression
• Wrote poems about the cruelties of child labor