Transcript THE ROMANTIC POETS

THE ROMANTIC POETS
1798-1832
CHANGE!
• Great political, economic and social
change
• American Revolution 1776-1783
• French Revolution 1789-1815
(Napoleon )
• Industrial Revolution 1750-1850
• Romanticism is a response to
the Industrial Revolution
ROMANTICISM’S RESPONSE
• emotion and imagination vs. reason and science
• reaction against the cold, rational science of the
Enlightenment
• individual experiences vs. society as a whole
• the individual, personal, emotional
• movement of protest for freedoms and reform
• civilian life and work conditions
• spontaneity vs. order
• common man vs. ruling class
“ROMANTIC”
• explored new, psychological and
mysterious aspects of human experience
• fascination with youth and innocence
(seeing the world as “new”)
• social idealism: question authority in order
to imagine better, fairer, happier ways to
live
• ability to adapt to change
ROMANTICS: “MIND POETS”
• sought a deeper understanding of the
bond between human beings and the
world of the senses
• often used natural poetic forms
CENTRAL POETS
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William Wordsworth
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
John Keats
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Mary Shelley
Lord Byron
Jane Austen
1770-1850
1772-1834
1795-1821
(1792-1822)
(1797-1851)
(1788-1824)
(1775-1817)