Transcript The Romantic Period

1798-1832
“Poetry is the spontaneous
overflow of powerful feelings:
it takes its origin from
emotion recollected in
tranquility.”
William Wordsworth ,
Preface to Lyrical Ballads
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This political, artistic and social movement
began as a reaction to the “scientific thoughts”
of the writers of the Enlightenment and Age of
Reason.
William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor
Coleridge wrote the “Lyrical Ballads” in 1798
and most scholars believe this began the
movement.
The “Lyrical Ballads” are a set of poems
describing the personal and subjective view of
nature through connections with beauty and
the divine.
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In addition to the artists rebelling against the Age of Reason,
there was a similar movement happening in Germany called
Sturm und Drang
This movement brought about the most important
characteristic of Romanticism: the voice of the individual
The “voice” of the speakers in Romantic poetry is a person who
rebels against traditional norms, who fights for independent
thought and seeks solace with nature and the child’s
imagination
Common themes are carpe diem, innocence versus experience,
non-conformity, appreciation for beauty in nature – we’ll study
themes along with the literature.
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Questioning of authority
Values individuals who question authority
Personal liberty above all else
Glorifies the childlike imagination=innocent
Nature is omnipresent: rural landscapes and
picturesque settings
Non-conformity ; originality
Subjective rather than objective – life is more
than observations
The ordinary is described extraordinarily
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Nature has a transformational powers
Poems about nature communicate this power
nature has to alter human perception and
perspective
Specific viewpoints
 1. Nature does not die ; serves as “agent of death”
 2. Nature was created by God and is proof that he exists
 3. Nature affects the human mind
 4. Nature provides the concept of “moral freedom”
 5. Nature is beautiful and beauty is truth to the
Romantics
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The aesthetic movement that began later during the
Romantic period is also called “art for art’s sake”
“Art for art’s sake” means Romantics appreciate art
for the affects its beauty has on the individual. They
enjoy the beauty of art in various forms
Happiness to the Romantics is creating harmony
between unlimited will and limited world
Poems search for a symbolic understanding of the
world: its beauty, burdens, human instincts, pain
and eternal truth
Focus on using art (poetry) to turn chance into
design
This bad boy stereotype first
entered our English culture
in the Romantic poetry of
Lord Byron. These ill-fated
but beautifully emotional
characters are called
“Byronic Heroes.”