THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

An age of transformation
THE LITERARY SCENE
The Romantic spirit
THE ROMANTIC PERIOD: an age of transformations / THE LITERARY SCENE: The Romantic spirit

FEATURES OF ROMANTIC THOUGHT

Romantic thought was highly idealistic. It was

characterised by a firm belief in democratic ideals
and in the revolutionary principles of social
equality.

Romanticism celebrated the individual as the

centre of life and experience.

Moreover, Romantic thought emphasised the

centrality of subjective experience and individual
perception. It turned away from the rationalist
attitude which had characterised the preceding
period. For the Romantics, it was through emotions
and the senses that men could unlock the John Constable, River Landscape, (1820).
mysteries of life, and experience truth.
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FEATURES OF ROMANTIC THOUGHT (2)

From the point of view of literature, this led to a

proliferation of literary works which tended to look
inward, to explore the inner places of the self and to
promote the idea of imagination as one of the most
vital and creative faculties of human perception.

Another feature of Romanticism was its fascination

with nature. Romantic poets, for instance, believed
that the physical world of nature and its beauties
could trigger strong emotions, thus allowing man to
reach a heightened awareness of the senses, and to
access the transcendent, spiritual truth enclosed in Claude Monet, View at Rouelles, 1858
nature.
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ROMANTIC POETRY

In the second half of the 18th century, new trends in

poetry emerged, which steered away from the
intellectual, refined character of Augustan poetry.
Early Romantic poetry is characterised by: a
meditative mood; a preference for melancholy images
of ruins and desolation, often associated
with the theme of death; a wish to explore Britain’s
past and rural origins; a high degree of subjectivity
and a tendency to refer to personal experience as
the starting point for poetic creation.

Johann Heinrich Fussli, The

Nightmare, (1782).
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ROMANTIC POETRY (2)

William Blake, William Wordsworth, and Samuel

Taylor Coleridge are referred to as the First
Generation of Romantic poets. Their main concern
was to bring about a change in the intellectual climate
of their age, to move away from the conventions of
Augustan poetry and to introduce a renewed,
simpler, more direct language.

The Second Generation of Romantic poets includes

Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John
Keats. Their work had great resonance all over
Europe and exercised a profound influence on the
collective imagination. In fact, their poetry contributed
to the creation and diffusion of the myth of the ideal William Blake, The Great Red
Dragon and the Woman Clothed
Romantic hero. with the Sun, (c. 1805).
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ROMANTIC PROSE

The Romantic emphasis on individualism and on

the value of personal expression triggered an
upsurge in the popularity of non‑fiction genres such
as criticism, the personal essay, and
autobiography.

Charles Lamb (1775-1834), William Hazlitt

(1778-1830) and Thomas De Quincey
(1785-1859) were famous for their letters and for
their essays in which they covered a wide range of
literary and nonliterary topics. All three contributed
to establishing the critical essay as a legitimate
literary genre, and to revolutionising the essay
form.
John Bostock, Rose Bradwardine,
Heroine of Waverley by Walter
Scott, (1854).
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ROMANTIC PROSE (2)

One of the forms which developed during the Romantic period was the so‑called novel of
manners, a label used to describe novels which depicted the social conventions and
habits of the upper and dominant classes, for the benefit of middle‑class readers who
were ambitious to move up the social ladder.

Another genre which flourished in the late 18th and early 19th century is the gothic novel,
characterised by an atmosphere of mystery and terror. The label comes from the
typical setting: medieval buildings, ruins, old castles with a vast array of hidden
dungeons, secret passages, hidden panels and trapdoors.

The beginning of the 19th century witnessed the development of the historical novel, a
genre that imaginatively reconstructs a chosen historical period by mingling fictional
narrative with historical truth, and historical with fictional characters .
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AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN ROMANTICISM

The American author Washington Irving (1783-1859), outlined the peculiar nature
of English and American Romanticism. Irving argues that English Romanticism
focused predominantly on the idealisation of the past, whereas American Romanticism
was grounded in a firm faith in the future.

Another typical feature of American Romanticism is reflected in Irving’s idealisation of

Native Americans. Irving depicts the Romantic chivalry of the Native Americans and
represents them as a heroic population which lives in harmony and unity with the
grandeur of the American landscape.
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WILLILAM BLAKE (1757-1827)

Blake turned to poetry when he was almost thirty,

and his first collection of poems, Poetical
Sketches, was published in 1783.

He developed a new technique which he called

‘illuminated printing’: instead of being printed
directly, the words of a text were first engraved on
a copper plate and later hand‑coloured together
with their accompanying pictures, thus creating a
strong link between words and images.

William Blake, Count Ugolino and His Sons in

Prison, illustration for Dante Alighieri’s Divine
Comedy, (c. 1827).
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WILLILAM BLAKE (1757-1827) (2)

Blake met many radical artists and thinkers and soon

became acquainted with the revolutionary ideas
circulating at the time. He elaborated these ideas
particularly in his so‑called ‘prophetic books’, a series of
long symbolic poems and visionary epics where he
denounced late 18th and early 19th century forms of
tyranny through unconventional language,
pseudo‑mythological characters and powerful imagery
which is often difficult to interpret. These include The
French Revolution: A Poem in Seven Books (1791),
America: A Prophecy (1793), the Book of Urizen (1794),
Milton, A Poem in Two Books (1804‑08) and Jerusalem
(1804‑20).
William Blake, The Tyger, (c.
1794)
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WILLILAM BLAKE (1757-1827) (3)

Blake was a rebel throughout his life. Living in a period

of great changes brought about by the Industrial, the
French and the American Revolutions, he embraced the
spirit of this new age and became a harsh critic of his
contemporary society in the name of freedom from all
types of tyranny. Both his poems and his paintings are
expressions of this visionary libertarianism, which led
him to reject any form of social, political and religious
oppression.

Blake’s writing style usually hides highly metaphorical

meanings behind simple lexis, syntax and rhythm, but
the visionary quality and non‑conventionality of some of
his symbols make his later works particularly elusive
and hard to understand in full.
William Blake, London, (c. 1794).
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WILLILAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850)

William Wordsworth was born in 1770 in Lockermouth,

close to the Lake District, whose landscapes were to
inspire many of his poems.

In 1775 he met Coleridge; together they would later

publish the collection of poems entitled Lyrical Ballads,
which changed the course of English literature. The
collection was first published anonymously in 1798, and
then again in the famous 1800 edition, which contains
Wordsworth’s Preface, considered to be the manifesto
of Romantic poetry.

Caspar David Friedrich, Woman in the

Sunrise, (c. 1818)
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WILLILAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850) (2)

In his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth

outlines the programmatic points of his theory of poetry.
First of all, as the title of the collection itself suggests,
Wordsworth believed that poetry should abandon the
rigid forms of poetic diction typical of the previous
period and embrace more popular forms. Indeed,
Wordsworth rejected the elaborate and largely
stereotyped forms of Augustan poetry, and claimed that
the poet’s language has to be simple and direct.

In the Lyrical Ballads, he portrayed the natural world as

source of inspiration, beauty and delight.
Josef Danhauser, The Sleeping Painter, (1841).
Memory is thus a source of poetry: a recollected
emotion, if reworked by the poet’s imagination, can be
transformed into verses.
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SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (1772-1834)

In his Biographia Literaria, Coleridge explained the dual task which he and
Wordsworth set themselves in the Lyrical Ballads. Wordsworth was to deal with
subjects from ordinary life, while Coleridge was to focus on extraordinary and
supernatural events in a credible way: his aim was to give the supernatural a
feeling of ordinary, everyday life. To achieve this, he set himself to producing in the
reader a frame of mind which he defined as “suspension of disbelief” or “poetic
faith”. Many of his poems, not only those included in the Lyrical Ballads, are
pervaded by a sense of the mysterious and the extraordinary and involve
fantastical, magical characters.

According to Coleridge, Imagination is a fundamental and vital principle of growth and

creativity which allows the poet to perceive the unity and wholeness of the universe.
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THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is one of Coleridge’s

best‑known poems. It centres on an old sailor who
narrates the terrible events that happened to him, to
his ship and to his crew after he shot an albatross and
was cursed for his offence against nature.

The poem has been defined a romantic ballad; like a

medieval ballad it is written in four‑line stanzas and
is in the form of a dialogue. However, it differs from
the ballad because of the psychological depth of
the description of the characters, the moral lesson
and the extensive use of symbols. is the poetic
embodiment of Coleridge’s conception of the Adrian Stout, Martyn Jacques and Adrian Huge of
The Tiger Lillies perform Rime of the Ancient
relationship between man and nature.
Mariner, July 18, 2013, Brooklyn, New York City.
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GEORGE GORDON BYRON (1788-1824)

From his university years onwards, George Gordon

Byron distinguished himself as a dissolute and
rebellious young man, who lived his life in the name of
extravagance and anti‑conformism and showed total
disregard for the morality of the times. His many
amorous scandals and his disdainful decision
to quit England in 1816 made him a Romantic icon.

Byron experimented with a wide variety of genres

and meters, and moved between different modes –
from the lyric to the epic – but his output was never
Joseph Turner, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Italy,
informed by the desire to reform literary language and (1832).
style. To the contrary, he never rejected classicism
nor the refined legacy of 18th‑century neoclassical
writers such as Pope and Swift.
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DON JUAN

Don Juan is a long poem in 16 cantos which

Byron composed at irregular intervals between
1819 and 1824 and left unfinished at his death.

Byron’s life‑long concern for all forms of

liberty informs also his mock‑epic masterpiece,
where Juan’s amoral libertinism obviously
symbolises the triumph of human freedom
over social and moral constraints.

Written by Byron in his maturity, Don Juan is

certainly his most modern work, where he
provocatively shook the foundations not only of
Romanticism but also of his own former poetic
efforts. Donna Julia, character of Don Juan by
Lord Byron, illustration from Hearth’s
Book of Beauty, (c. 1830-1840).
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PERCY BYSSE SHELLEY (1792-1822)

Like his predecessor William Blake, and unlike the first-generation Romantic poets
Wordsworth and Coleridge, Shelley remained a radical throughout his (brief)
existence. In his early pamphlets he had enthusiastically espoused a variety of causes
– as different as atheism, Irish nationalism, vegetarianism, republicanism and free
love – but his revolutionary idealism was later influenced by William Godwin’s
theories.

His work reflects many of the major Romantic themes (love of Nature, youthful
restlessness, rebellion against authority, sanctity of the imagination), but the way he
deals with these in his many poems is distinctively Shelleyan. In his verse, images
stem directly from precise emotional impulses and are animated by an intense lyrical
outburst.
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ODE TO THE WEST WIND

Ode to the West Wind, considered by many

as Shelley’s greatest short poem, was written in
1819 and published the following year

The ideological framework of the poem is

precisely the need for renewal in a corrupted
and unjust world, for a political, social and
moral regeneration of which Shelley’s ‘west
wind’ symbolically becomes the messenger and
the instrument at the same time.

William Powell Frith, Shelley and Mary

Godwin, (1877).
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JOHN KEATS (1795-1821)

Beauty is central in Keats’s work. Keats thought that

Beauty is the only real consolation in a life of sorrow and
privation. However, although physical Beauty produces
intense sensual pleasure, it is transient and bound to
fade. ‘Spiritual’ Beauty instead, as contemplated in Art
or felt in such human emotions as love and friendship, is
independent of a person’s immediate sensual perception.

Nature is a form of Beauty and as a consequence,

natural elements are recurrent in Keats’s poetic
universe, as is evident in To Autumn or Ode to a Joseph Mallord William Turner, Robin, from
Nightingale. Nature may reflect the moods of men; more The Farnley Book of Birds, (c.1816).
often it is portrayed as an ideal place that mirrors the
world of imagination. Nature is eternal.
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JANE AUSTEN (1775-1817)

Many of Jane Austen’s heroines have to face a conflict between their feelings and the
need to conform to social conventions. Her novels seem to support the idea that
‘appropriate’ behaviour, respectful of social rules, should prevail over romantic
enthusiasm and judgement. All in all, Jane Austen did not ignore the power of
emotions. However, she rejected the sentimental view of love, popular in her time,
and seems to suggest instead that emotions should somehow be balanced and
controlled in order not to clash with society’s expectations.

Her heroines are intelligent, active and lively; they have feelings and judgements of
their own, they are sometimes obstinate and self‑willed and often more capable and
energetic than their male counterparts. Above all they are capable of self‑scrutiny, of
recognising their mistakes and improving themselves.
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JANE AUSTEN (1775-1817) (2)

Her prose has been described as a ‘microscope’ applied

to the study of social relationships devoid of didactic or
moralistic intent, it is marked by an acute albeit gentle
irony which benevolently illustrates the frailties and
contradictions of human behaviour.

Her writing style is also characterised by skilfully

structured plots and an omniscient, unobtrusive third
person narrator. Another recognisable trait of her writing
are the beautifully constructed and witty dialogues,
which contribute to the representation of her characters’
personalities. The cottage in Chawton where Austen
lived during the last eight years of her life.
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PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Love, marriage, social class. “It is a truth

universally acknowledged, that a single man in
possession of a good fortune must be in want of
a wife”. The ironical statement that opens Pride
and Prejudice brings forth the central subject of
the novel. Mrs Bennet’s constant and often
ridiculously inappropriate obsession with her
daughters’ marriages reflects a typical concern of
Jane Austen’s time: for many families, marrying a
man with a reliable income was the only way to
ensure a daughter’s financial security.
Keira Knightley and Matthew MacFadyen in a scene
from Pride and prejudice, 2006, directed by Joe Wright
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PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (2)

In many ways Pride and Prejudice seems to

suggest that love can defy class boundaries
and social prejudices.

Pride and Prejudice is told mostly from

Elizabeth’s point of view. The reader learns about
events through her eyes and is therefore likely to
share her opinions and feelings. This effect is
achieved thanks to the use of free indirect
speech, that is to say, the reproduction of a
character’s thoughts through the third person
narrator’s voice. This technique, together with the
extensive use of dialogue, allows the writer to
create the speech of different characters.
Keira Knightley and Matthew MacFadyen in a scene from
Pride and prejudice, 2006, directed by Joe Wright.
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MARY SHELLEY (1797-1851)

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was the only daughter of

the famous proto‑feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft
and the atheist philosopher William Godwin.

In her father’s house she enjoyed the company of

radical thinkers and leading literary figures of the times,
including William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and
the 21‑year‑old poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, with whom
Mary fell in love and eloped to Europe in 1814.

Mary devoted herself to the editing and publication of

her
husband’s works and started working as a professional
writer to support her family. She wrote other novels, but
none of them ever rivalled the success of her Gothic
masterpiece Frankenstein. Famous actor Boris Karloff in the film
Frankenstein, 1931, directed by James
Whale.
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EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849)

In Poe’s works, death is a recurrent motif and a

source of Terror.

Many of Poe’s characters show sign of some sort of

mental illness. They are either haunted by fears or
obsessions, or are hypersensitive, lonely and isolated.
In Poe’s works, madness always leads to personal
disintegration.

Poe is famous also for his literary criticism. In fact,

he was one of the first American writers to dedicate
essays to aesthetic theories about the principles of
M.C. Escher, Eye, (1946).
creative writing.