1. Introduction to the Romantic
Age of English Literature
Dr. Chetan Trivedi

2. Definition
• Contrary to what you may think,
the term Romanticism is not just
about romantic love (although
love is sometimes the subject of
romantic art).
• Romanticism is an international
artistic and philosophical
movement that re-defined the
ways in which humans in
Western civilization thought
about themselves and their
world.

3. Historical Considerations
English Literary History
• Dates:
• English Literary History begins the Romantic
Period officially in 1798, with the publication
of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and
Coleridge, and ends it in 1832, with the deaths
of Sir Walter Scott and the German Romantic
poet, Goethe.

4. Romanticism as an International
Movement
• Affected all of the arts (literature, music,
painting, philosophy)
• Began in the 1770s and extended through the
second half of the 19th
century (1870).

5. “The Age of Revolutions”
• Since the early Romantic period includes the
American (1776) and the French (1789) revolutions,
it has been called the “age of revolutions” (changes).
It was a time of massive energy (intellectual, social,
artistic). It set out to transform not only the theory
and practice of all art, but also the ways in which
human beings perceived the world. Some of its ideas
survive even to our present day.

6. The Role of Imagination
• Imagination now replaced reason as
the supreme faculty of the mind—
hence the flowering of creative activity
in this period. For Romantic thinkers,
the imagination was the ultimate
“shaping,” or creative power, the
approximate human equivalent to
divine creative powers.
• As the poet Wordsworth would
suggest, humans not only perceive
and experience the world around
them; they also, in part, create it. The
imagination unites reason and feeling,
enabling humans to reconcile
differences and opposites—this
reconciliation is a central ideal for
Romantics. Finally, the imagination
enables humans to “read “ nature as a
system of symbols.

7. Nature

8. Celebration of Nature
• Nature often presented as a work of art from
the divine imagination
• Nature as a healing power
• Nature as a refuge from civilization
• Nature viewed as “organic,” (alive) rather
than “mechanical” or “rationalist”
• Nature viewed as a source of refreshment and
meditation

9. Symbolism and Myth
• Valued as the human means for imitating
nature in art
• Could simultaneously suggest many things in a
creative way
• Based on a desire to “express the
inexpressible” through the resources of
language

10. Emotion, Lyric Poetry, and the Self
• Greater emphasis on the importance of intuition,
instincts, and feelings
• Wordsworth’s definition of good poetry as “the
spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” was a
turning point in literary history.
• Ultimate source of poetry found in the individual
artist and his/her traditions (present and past)

11. Value of Art
• Source of illumination of the world within the self
• Led to a prominence for first-person lyric poetry; the
“speaker” became less a persona and more the
direct person of the poet. Ex. Wordsworth’s Prelude
and Whitman’s “Song of Myself”
• Also a wealth of autobiographical verse described as
poetry about someone else: Byron, Childe Harold

12. Contrasts with Neoclassicism (the Age of
Reason)
• Shift in focus from rationalism to the
imagination
• Shift toward a more expressive orientation
toward the literary art
• Freedom of expression
• Freedom of the individual

13. Individualism
• Summed up in opening statement of
Rousseau’s Confessions :
• “I am not made like anyone I have seen; I dare
believe that I am not made like anyone in
existence. If I am not superior, at least I am
different.”

14. The Romantic Hero
• As the Romantic writers
show us, our heroes were
not always cowboys:
– 1. The hero as artist
– 2. The hero striving beyond
the moral restrictions of
society
– 3. The hero who reappears
from the ancient classics

15. The Everyday and the Exotic
• Romantic writers embraced everyday realism
(poetry of Wordsworth)
• Also sought the folk legends of the past
• Promoted exotic ideas suggested by
technology and the imagination (a beautiful
soul in an ugly body, as in Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein or Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback
of Notre Dame).

16. The Romantic Artist in Society
• The Romantics were often
ambivalent toward the
“outside” world. On the
one hand, they were
socially and politically
passionate—involved in
worthy causes and social
issues. On the other hand,
they isolated themselves
from the public.

17. Spread of the Romantic Spirit
• All of the arts—from music, to painting; from
sculpture to architecture—were affected by
and continue to be affected by the
revolutionary energy underlying the Romantic
movement. Strains of Romanticism infuse
every age and every generation.

18. Characteristics of the Romantic
Period
• (1) Imagination, Emotions, and Intuition.
Exaltation of intense feelings.
• Descartes: I think, therefore I am.
vs
• Rousseau: I felt before I thought.
• (2) Subjectivity of approach; the cult of the
individual; the absolute uniqueness of
every individual.

19. Characteristics of Romanticism
(3) Freedom of thought and expression.
• A revolt against authority and tyranny, against the
ancien regime, whether social, political, religious, or
artistic.
• Thomas Paine: “The Rights of Man.”
• Mary Wolstonecraft: “A Vindication of the Rights of
Woman” (1792)
• Alienation and rebellion: Cult of Youth, Energy, and
Idealism

20. Characteristics of Romanticism
(4) Idealization of Nature
• Embracing the uncivilized, the wild, the pre-civilized.
• Rousseau: “Man is born free and everywhere he is in
chains.” In other words, civilization is in part the cause
of our corruption.
• The “noble savage,” and James Fennimore Cooper’s
Leatherstocking novels, I.e. The Last of the Mohicans.

21. Characteristics of Romanticism
1) Romanticism turned away from 18 century emphasis on
reason and artifice. Embraced imagination and
naturalness.
2) Rejected the public, formal, and witty works of previous
century. Preferred poetry that spoke of personal
experiences and emotions, often in simple, unadorned
language.
3) Used the lyric as the form best suited to expressions of
feeling, self-revelation, and the imagination.
4) Wordsworth urged poets to adopt a democratic attitude
towards their audience.
5) Many turned to a past or an inner dream world that they
saw as picturesque.
6) Most believed in individual liberty and sympathized with
those who had rebelled against tyranny.
7) Thought of nature as transformative; fascinated by the
ways nature and the human mind “mirrored” one another.

22. This Nature Business
• Yes, much of the literature of this time
embraced nature
• However, the Romantics prized
experiences of beauty and majesty that
could be found in nature.
• According to Wordsworth, he “considers
man and nature as essentially adapted
to each other, and the mind of man as
naturally a mirror of the fairest and
most interesting properties of nature.”

23. And Imagination?
• Most of the Romantic poems present
imaginative experiences as very powerful and
moving.
• They suggest that as well as being a special
faculty of the mind, the imagination is also a
kind of desire, a motive that drives the mind to
learn and to know things it cannot learn by
rational and logical thinking.
• The mind moves in mysterious ways to imitate
the powers of the Maker.
• The purpose of this imitation is to create new
realities in the mind.

24. But there were 2 views of Nature
• The first viewed nature as peaceful, calm,
nurturing, a source for spiritual renewal. It
often showed an innocent life of rural
dwellers, a world of peace and harmondy
which nurtures and comforts the human
spirit. This is very much how Wordsworth
viewed nature.

25. John Constable: The Hay Wain

26. But nature could also be frightening
in its power, and cause a dizzying
sense of awe and wonder.

27. J.M.W. Turner: Avalanche

28. Edmund Burke defined these two
views of nature as:
•The beautiful
and
•The sublime

29. A BRIEF SERIES OF PAINTINGS
FROM THE ROMANTIC PERIOD
Starting with Sir Joshua Reynolds,
who was President of the Royal
Academy in England

32. Blake quit the Royal Academy partly
because of Sir Joshua Reynolds
So, on to some of Blake works

37. Two Works by Henry Fuseli, a Swiss
artist living in England who was
friends with Blake

40. One of the most interesting
artists of the period is J.M.W.
Turner
Starting with an early, fairly
conventional painting

51. And then to end on John
Constable
Who said, “I try to paint as if I had
never seen a painting before.”

55. And then: Eugene
Delacroix

59. And . . . Caspar David Friedrich