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Historical Background of Romantic Age
Historical Background of Romantic Age
Introduction
ROMANTIC PHYLOSOPHY IN THE POETRY OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AND
Romantic age
Introduction
The Romantic period (1798-1837) is considered to be an influential phase in the
history of England. The word ‘Romantic’ is defined in various ways. The word was first
brought into usage in 17th century England. At that time it meant something which was
fictitious and unreal. But by the next century it had earned a distinct meaning for itself that
was associated with imagination as well as emotional pleasures. In literature, the term was
used to identify a movement. The Romantic period was not just restricted to England.
Romanticism could be experienced in most of the western countries between the late 18th
century and the early part of the 19th century. The timeline is obviously tentative; but we
take into account certain historical events to identify the time. As you have learnt, the
Romantic age in English literature was initiated as a deliberate movement with the
publication of Lyrical Ballads in the year 1798. It is fairly accepted that the Romantic
Movement came to an end with the demise of Sir Walter Scott (1832). Needless to say the
movement did not come into existence unexpectedly in 1798. It emerged slowly and
gradually and dwindled eventually after a few years. Some major authors of the Romantic
School are Byron, Wordsworth, Shelley, Coleridge, Keats et al. But many critics believe that
they are not the initiators of romanticism because even the Elizabethan literature reflected
a ‘romantic’ spirit. The poets Oliver Goldsmith, William Cowper, Thomas Gray, William Blake
et al, the pre-Romantics of the late 18th century helped pave the way for this movement by
helping people move away from the classicism of the neoclassical era.
1 . European age
England and France engaged in war at the end of 18th century. The enimity
continued till 1815. At the end, their was the extinction of French Republic ,rise
and fall of the power of Nepolean and restoration of the Burbon dynasty.
That’s how the French revolution came to an end.
2.Industrial Revolution
1 . Pollution
2 . Materialization
3. Child labour
4. Dehumanization of labour
3 . Social condition
The end of the long war between England and France resulted in law wages,
heavy taxation and unemployment. Moreover there was massacre of the
Peterloo and Riots over the Reform bill 1832 resulted in chaos.
Definitions of Romanticism
3. The Romantic Rebellion: In sync with the affinity with a lost natural existence,
the Romantics developed a strong anti-establishment stance as establishment came
to represent the much-hated mechanical civilisation. Outwardly, the chief catalyst in
the development of this rebellious world-view was the French Revolution. Beginning
in 1789 and paving the way for the rise Bonaparte, the French Revolution shook the
foundations of European civilisation and brought hitherto trivialised political and
social theories into the scope of fervent popular imagination. The older generation
of the Romantic poets lived through it and the younger generation was influenced
heavily by it. Every major Romantic poet took this anti-establishment stance, the
most notable among them being William Blake, P. B. Shelley, and Lord Byron.
William Blake portrayed in his personal mythology the character of Urizen, a deity
resembling the Judeo-Christian Jehovah in appearance and closely corresponding
with Him in an absolutely tyrannical oppression of all kinds of spontaneity. The major
motif of his mythology is a rebellion against Urizen and the eventual victory of Los,
embodiment of the poetic imagination, over the tyranny of reason. Besides, he
spoke vigorously and at length against the oppression of the common, deprived
people he saw.
In terms of poetic form, this focus on common people's language translated into a
drive to oust rhymes and traditional metrical forms in favour of blank verse.
Wordsworth's magnum opus The Prelude is completely written in blank verse, as are
the longer poems of Shelly, Keats and Byron. Prometheus Unbound, the only
remarkable dramatic contribution of the Romantic age and written by P. B. Shelley, is
written in blank verse.
*Overall, the Romantics were responsible for giving a new and more democratic
direction to English literature. Ever since, popular poetry has followed more or less in
their footsteps. The modern genres such as speculative fiction and horror owe much
to the Romantics.
The motto of the French Revolution—Liberté, égalité, fraternité (liberty, equality, and
brotherhood)—sums up an essential political preoccupation of the Romantic Period. While
some conservative voices (most notably, Edmund Burke [1729-1797]) defended the ancient
prerogatives of hereditary power (aristocracy and monarchy), the decadence and luxury of the
European aristocracy had convinced many that the truest basis for political power was the
consent of the governed. Writers like William Godwin (1756-1836), Thomas Paine (1737-
1809), and Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) were fierce apologists for democratic
government and the various social changes necessary to creating an informed and involved
citizenry.
A number of Romantic-era writers, caught up in the democratic spirit of the age took up a
variety of social causes to free oppressed groups:
Many artists during the Romantic period became fascinated with the notion of the “sublime,”
a state that such Classical authors as Plato (424-327 BCE) and Longinus (213-73 CE) defined
as physical, moral, intellectual, metaphysical, aesthetic, spiritual, or artistic “greatness.” This
greatness has such great magnified that it cannot be calculated, measured, or imitated.
Sublimity is usually associated with the power it has on the perceiver’s senses, mind, and
imagination. Classical writers tended to imagine that the sublime was a quality of great
beauty. Enlightenment philosophers such as Edmund Burke, however, insisted that sublimity
and beauty were mutually exclusive qualities. The emphasis here was on the mixture of
ecstacy and terror that an encounter with the sublime generates. An encounter with beauty, by
contrast, generates feelings of pleasure, not terror or ecstacy. This is why seeing tornado or a
tsunami—or standing on the edge of a cliff or having a vision of God—are sublime
experiences. They create in us complex feelings that mix terror with ecstacy.
Many artists and intellectuals during this time sought out sublime experiences which, in part,
explains the fascination with travel literature, mountain climbing, powerful storms, and other
sensational experiences. Wordsworth’s long biographical poem, The Prelude, recounts,
among other things, the poet’s ascent of Mount Snowdon and the powerful emotions he
experienced during that expedition. Likewise, Shelley’s “Mount Blanc” depicts and reflects
on the nature of the sublime as revealed in nature’s power and indifference to human life.
Byron depicts some of his memorable romantic heroes as standing on the edges of precipices,
or weathering ocean storms, or experiencing the vastness of a wilderness alone. Each of these
situations is based on the author’s personal experience of the sublime and his attempt to
render it in words on the page.
It was a given during the Romantic period that one had a personal genius or personality
which constituted the individual’s personality. Writers of this time not only sought to
transmit this unique “genius” into art, but were also fascinated by the nature of genius. The
Latin origin of the word genius involves belief in tutelary spirits. If someone were
particularly talented, the ancient Romans would have considered his genius to be a
particularly powerful spirit working through that individual. This quasi-spiritual explanation
for particularly creative and capable individuals pervades Romantic-era thinking about the
human mind and the individual, particularly the “man of genius.”
Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats—among others—wrote about the nature
and power of the human imagination and speculated about the source(s) of the artist’s
inspiration. We can appreciate their fascination. If the imagination is a mental faculty, what
distinguishes it from, say, reason or simple perception? Why are some people more
imaginative than others? Can the imagination be cultivated and improved—or is it a special
gift that one either does or does not possess? And what, exactly, is inspiration and where does
it come from? Why is it that one day a gifted artist struggles in his/her medium and other
days something great takes shape with seeming ease?
Blake, a deeply religious man, found it easy to conclude that inspiration is a gift of the Holy
Spirit. In this, he is little different from the ancient Greek poet Hesiod who claimed to have
received literal inspiration from the “nine daughters of Zeus” (the Muses). As a shepherd
walking the sacred mountain of Helicon, Hesiod says the Muses “breathed a sacred voice into
my mouth.” In other words, the orgins of inspiration are so mysterious they can only come
from the gods—or God. The literal meaning of the word inspiration is “to breathe in.”
Even the self-proclaimed atheist, Shelley, struggles to express the forces that impel an artist’s
creative work in anything other than supernatural terms. In his Defence of Poetry, he
reiterates a version of Plato’s eternal realm of ideas—a transcendent and eternal realm to
which, according to Shelley, the poet has occasional access through inspiration. Using words,
which merely symbolize the truths of this eternal realm, the poet does his best to capture the
essence of this vision. But where does inspiration come from? In the end, Shelley can only
reiterate Coleridge’s metaphor that an “invisible wind” blows through the poet’s soul,
causing it to “sing” much as an aeolian harp sings in a window on a breezy day.
While true psychology would not become a discipline for several decades yet, Romantic-era
artists were fascinated by madness, grief, and other extreme emotional and mental states. And
while they lacked our modern terminology for discussing the mind and its operations, many
were nevertheless quite astute. William Blake, for example, noted that repressing desire can
lead to violence and explicitly linked sexual repression to war.
Many Romantic-era writers created characters who were mad or shattered by terrible grief.
William Cowper’s The Task features “Crazy Kate,” a woman driven insane when her fiancé,
a sailor, sets out on a voyage but is lost at sea. Wordsworth depicts a woman driven to
madness and strange repetitive behaviors by the loss of an infant in his “The Thorn.” And
Blake’s notion of the Fall boils down to novel idea that the constituent elements of God’s
personality begin to disintegrate and, ultimately, to go to war with one another.
In general, Romantic-era writers rejected traditional religious belief. Coleridge was ordained
a Unitarian minister (a fringe sect in his time) but never took a pulpit. Wordsworth, while he
emphasized his identification with the Church of England later in life, styled himself a
“worshiper of nature” in his famous poem “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern
Abbey.” In these younger years, Wordsworth seems more persuaded by Transcendentalist
and pantheist notions of religion. Blake, while he called himself a Christian, might better be
characterized as a mystic. Much like a second-century Gnostic believer, Blake inverted nearly
every value and reinterpreted every story in the Bible. Shelley publicly proclaimed himself an
atheist, though his writings indicate he was not doctinaire about his rejection of traditional
doctrine. Shelley frequently thought about the possible existence of ghosts and other
supernatural entities and phenomena. Lord Byron paid the customary lip-service to the
customary pieties but was in no way religious or interested in the spiritual.
But, without a God and eternal truths upon which to rely, how does one claim authority for
such values as equality, liberty, and fraternity? Upon what does the poet’s claim of a special
status and “true” perception rest if there is nothing above us but sky and nothing operating in
this world but indifferent physical processes? One of the more influential answers during the
Romantic era was that nature was the dwelling place of God. In this view, God and the
natural universe were one and the same. Especially for the young Wordsworth, Nature taught
the humble walker in the woods moral truths and the majesty of Mont Blanc taught even
Shelley’s atheist heart a kind of humility before the vastness, power, and eternal movement of
Nature. We find that nature is frequently used as a metaphor for the sublime: the power and
mystery of forces that inspired awe, solace, and self-discovery.
Related to Romanticism’s deification of Nature was its assumption that goodness and
naturalness are synonymous, particularly when it comes to human morality and imaginative
endeavor. Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was an exceedingly influential thinker during
the Romantic era. He held the idea that humans are inherently (i.e. naturally) good, but
became corrupted by society. For Rousseau, “natural man” is close to nature and therefore
unspoiled by social institutions. This idea appears in all kinds of poetry and novels of the
period in the form of hermits living in the woods, wandering bards who sing ravishing songs
one day only to move on the next, solitary thinkers wandering the woods, and protagonists
who take journeys and make discoveries—all while feeling alone and unable to “mix with the
herd.”
Radical Romantic-era politics were exceedingly optimistic about human nature, always
assuming that human beings are essentially good and that their vices are the result of want
and a poor education. Democratic and republican movements of the time always advocated
mass education and fair wages as a means to free the human heart and mind from poverty and
ignorance—and the crimes and vices that arise from these evil conditions.
(xi, 282-7)
Wordsworth’s desire to compose a play where he could share his first hand observation that he
experienced during the French Revolution resulted in him writing his first and last play The
Borderers. This was published in the year 1796- 97. Later on, he went on to admit that he had not
originally intended this play for the stage. But for Coleridge the circumstances were different.
Coleridge along with Southey composed The Fall of Robespierre. This was published in the year
1794. This play was also inspired by the French Revolution. This was a historical drama which
focused on the horrors that the war has brought in. Even though initially he was happy with the
collaborated work, Coleridge’s enthusiasm fizzled when his solo play Osorio published in 1797 was
rejected by number of people including Sheridan. However, his interest in plays never diminished.
And he continued to either translate plays or to revise his own plays that he kept publishing at
regular intervals.
Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound (1819) and The Cenci (1819) were highly inspired by the French
Revolution. Shelley in his own way discussed about politics, liberty, tyranny as well as crime. These
were the topics which were debated during those days. Shelly, at a later date, admitted that he
never wanted Prometheus Unbound to be staged. But as far as The Cenci was concerned, he wanted
to see whether it was successful because it was meant for stage. Irrespective of its reception, just
like Coleridge.
It is believed that Byron’s unpleasant experience with plays made him disillusioned in the field of
theatre and made him compose two powerful plays under the boundary of ‘ mental theatre’ The
two plays were Manfred (published in 1817) and Cain (published in 1821). On the other hand, we
have Blake whose interest in drama and theatre was comparatively lesser than the other Romantic
poets. Blake’s King Edward the Third (1783) even though incomplete was a historical drama which
gave a deep insight into Blake’s understanding of liberty an idea that was very prominent during the
Romantic age:
These lines takes place when King Edward addresses his nobles as well as soldiers while he was in
the coast of France. He uttered these words right before the ordered the army to attack the enemy.
In the beginning of the play itself the playwright (Blake) intends to discuss the popular concerns of
his time. But soon after he lost his interest and was not in a position to finish the play. But we do not
have any evidence suggesting whether he intended his play to be performed or not.
It must be mentioned here that even though the poets of this age who composed the plays were not
dramatist in real sense, there works are surprisingly great. Again, most of these plays were not
intended for performance though theatre was wildly popular during the Romantic age. Even more
interesting is that though the poets were disillusioned or rejected, they never actually gave up
writing plays.
The Romantic perspective to drama was that theatre was the platform which symbolized national
unity. They did so by instilling patriotism or morality or sympathetic identification. If we consider the
content of the play they easily served the purpose because each served the same purpose. Between
the period 1737- 1843 we know that a Licensing Act was implemented. As part of this, England’s two
prestigious theatres - Drury Lane and Covent Garden- were allowed to showcase drama from
September till June. As far as we know, these theatres were not just politically controlled but they
were also censored as per the political situation. Even though Romantics shared their plays to these
two theatres, they were well aware that chances of having their plays performed was hardly possible
because of the strong political and social message it carried. Due to this, they thought it must be
sensible to adopt a closet drama as mode of expression. Thiswill help them retain artistic frame work
while allowing them to express themselves. Realism and Drama The authors believed that the mind
was the theatre where their plays could be staged. According to them, the act of reading was a
creative process and the processing of it in the mind makes it a stage. That is why romantics relied
on the senses of reading and relating it to the stage of performance.
Some scholars believe that the main reason for the decline of drama is that it was a neglected form.
It was neglected because during the Romantic age there was the popular belief among the masses
the Romantic dramatists were not skilled in their efforts. Instead, they were attracted towards
operas and Gothic performances. Critics of the Romantic drama insist that these plays dramas lacked
the dramatic quality that was the hallmark of Elizabethan drama. Others believe that Romantic
drama was too idealistic. Again, another school of thought believed that the emergence of
melodrama led to the decline of Romantic drama. Bust most agree that the Licensing Act created a
major blow to the Romantic drama because, as we already know, only Covent Garden and Drury
Lane, were allowed to hold ‘legitimate’ plays. But we must realize that this was an age which deified
any form of raison d’etre. That is why it must have been difficult for any kind of objective art to
grow. It cannot be denied that the Romantics lacked the objectivity that was required and the spirit
of the Elizabethan drama which meant hollow poignancy as well as lack of ability to keep the
audience charmed. This was after all, the most prominent characteristics of the Elizabethan drama.
Of course we cannot deny that the Romantic drama as an element of literature cannot be ignored as
insignificant aspect. It is important in the history of English literature. We can safely say, that the
detractors of Romantic theatre were too harsh in criticizing it. In fact some of them did not shy away
from denigrating them. After all some of the plays that were created by the Romantics are definitely
powerful as dramatic options. It must be mentioned that majority of the plays composed by the
Romantics were in the form of tragedies.
Despite the popularity of melodrama, the Romantic authors continued composing dramas. We know
Wordsworth produced The Borderers. And Coleridge had crafted Remorse and Zapolya. Again, Byron
expressed his dramatic skills through plays like Manfred and Cain while Keats authored Otho the
Great. And most famously, Shelley composed Prometheus Unbound, The Cenci and Hellas.
Interestingly, almost all the Romantic dramas were composed in blank verse. Though it might be
difficult to identify the earliest example of Romantic drama. After all, Wordsworth started
composing his play3 , in the year 1796. So ideally, he should be the pioneer of Romantic drama. Yet,
at the same time, this play was finally published in the year 1842. 1842 was not just the fag end of
Wordsworth’s writing career, but even the Romantic period was witnessing change. Even
thoughWordsworth probably came up with the idea of writing a drama first, but with the
performance of Coleridge’s Remorse at Drury Lane in 1813, that the idea finally saw the light of the
day.
Thus, we can say that it was Wordsworth who first came up with the idea of writing a drama in the
Romantic age but it was only with the enactment of Coleridge’s Remorse at Drury Lane in 1813 that
the idea got crystallized. Of course, as we know, The Borderers is a record of the problem of evil.
Even though there were some shortcomings in terms of its theatrical appeal, without a doubt one
can say that in terms of its exposition, it is one of the best. Wordsworth’s Oswald probably might not
be as vibrant as Iago but we can identify a parallel between the two. Both Remorse and Zapolya
show that Coleridge reflected similar drawbacks as dramatists. But some of Coleridge’s characters
are extremely brilliant. As far as Byron’s Manfred and Cain are concerned, they represent the spirit
and essence of the Romantic Movement. But the poor characterization in Otho the Great only adds
to the dramatic drawbacks of the Romantics. Yet, at the same time, the play is a good example of
the dramatic capability they had built.
The Cenci was composed by Shelley in the year 1819. It was supposedly inspired by the life of an
actual Italian family by the name of the Cencis. Though the play was not staged until 1922. One
major reason for this was that the play dealt with the theme of incest. Ironically, the play is now
identified as one of the most significant work that belonged to the Western canon. Needleless to
say, the critics of Romantic drama had more than enough reason to question the dramatic talent
possessed by the Romantics. Though they did not impress people in terms of plot and
characterization but they had the power to deal with powerful themes in interesting manner.
Despite its drawbacks it is because of romantic playwrights that 19th century dramatists like Shaw
and Brecht managed to create some intriguing work.
The Tyger written by William Blake was published in a collection of poems called Songs of Experience
in 1794, and the poem was composed during his radical period. The poems in Songs of Experience,
on the other hand, deal with poignant issues of what happens when that innocence is lost. The Tyger
is often read in comparison with the poem The Lamb from Songs of Innocence. The Tyger questions
that it is the same creator (God) who created the tiger and the lamb as well. The Lamb is one of the
sublime poems which asks the Lamb who made ‘thee’ (just like The Tyger), admires how soft and
cute the lamb is and then tells it about the creator God. In this unit, you will study about William
Blake’s revolutionary ideas and a critical appreciation of the poem, The Tyger.
The poet Robert Burns is considered to be the national poet of Scotland. He is regarded as a pioneer
of the Romantic Movement, and after his death, he became a great source of inspiration to the
founders of both liberalism and socialism, and a cultural icon in Scotland and among the Scottish
diaspora around the world. Burns composed Highland Mary in 1792. It is one of three works
dedicated to Mary Campbell, with whom Burns was in love in the 1780s.
William Wordsworth, like his Romantic peers, was a great lover of nature. He believed that nature
could bestow peace, sympathy, love, joy and other virtues on man. He did not like to depict nature
‘red in tooth and claw’. He believed that nature gave purity to man and ennobled his heart. He was a
great lover of the common man and the rustic and rural life. He loved childhood stage of human life
and thought that because of its innocence, purity of thought and nearness to God, childhood was
the golden period of human life. He loved all creation and all kinds of creatures, including the
smallest and most insignificant animals and insects. He believed that ‘nature never did betray the
heart that loved her.’ He himself practiced what he preached and spent most of his time in the
company of nature. The poem Ode: Intimations of Immortality was written in 1804.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge published The Rime of the Ancient Mariner for the first time in Lyrical
Ballads (in 1798, a joint effort of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge which started the
Romantic Movement in English Literature) nineteen years later, in 1817; he published an edited
version of the poem in his collection entitled Sibylline Leaves. In the 1817 version of the poem,
Coleridge added another layer to the poem in the form of marginal glosses. These explanations not
only amplify the allegorical feel of the poem, but also state directly that spirits, and not just nature,
are responsible for punishing the Ancient Mariner and his shipmates.
Shelley is considered to be the finest lyric and philosophical poet in the English language. He was not
famous during his lifetime, but gained recognition for his poetry following his death at a young age.
For Shelley, the Romantic Movement became an exploration of the poet’s desire to achieve
immortality through their work. It also became a movement where a philosophical analysis of what
people know and how they will be perceived as time passes became critical points of discussion. The
unit will discuss Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind and Ode to a Skylark.
Like Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) was a great revolutionary, who championed the cause
of liberty. He revolted against tyranny of the State, against corruption in morals and manners. His
Queen Mab was an angry protest of an Shelley NOTES Self-Instructional 158 Material idealistic youth
against a corrupt and coarse society. His The Spirit of Solitude, The Revolt of Islam, Prometheus
Unbound, Ode to Liberty, Mont Blank were poems of revolutionary ideals which made passionate
plea for the total freedom of human will and ideal social order. Romantic poetry is predominantly
known for nature, beauty, love, imagination, etc. Poets have hardly spoken about death and
desperation. In such themes, Shelley stands out as a romantic poet. His strong disapproving voice,
radicalism, revolting temperament made him one of the leading poets of his age. His close friends
were John Keats and Lord Byron. It is also said that when he died, a pocket book of Keats’s poetry
was found in his pocket.
John Keats was born on 31st October 1795 in London. After his father’s death, his mother had
started to live with his grandmother. It was here that his love for literature developed. Soon his
mother also died and his grandmother had to employ two guardians to take care of him. They pulled
him out of school and instead sent him to surgeons’ apprenticeship but he left that and after he was
introduced to the works of Edmund Spenser’s poem ‘Faerie Queen’ with which he was inspired, he
wrote his first poem Imitations of Spenser which was published by his friend Leigh Hunt in 1816. In
1817, he wrote his first volume of poetry entitled Poems, this was, however, not well received. His
epic poem Endymion received bad reviews in Blackwood magazine. Keats was labelled as being a
part of Leigh Hunt’s Cockney School of poetry. After his brother’s death Keats moved to London
where he met Fenny Brawne and fell in love. They spend beautiful days together. The following
spring and summer of 1890 he wrote some of finest poemsOde to Psyche, Grecian Urn, Nightingale,
Autumn. He left London for Italy. Here Keats suffered severe cold and tuberculosis. After publishing
his famous poems Isabella, Lamia and The Eve of Saint Agnes, he died in Rome in 1821. The epitaph
on his grave reads as ‘Here lies the One whose name was writ in Water’.
He is perhaps the greatest member of that group of second generation of romantic poets who
blossomed early and died young. He has worn better than Shelley because for all the indulgent
luxury of his imagery, Keats developed a selfdiscipline in both feelings and craftsmanship which
Shelley never attained. He is romantic in his relish of sensation, his feeling for the middle ages, his
Hellenism, his conception of the role of the poet, but the synthesis he made of these elements was
his own.
Jane Austen was a 19th century novelist whose novels depicted the life of the landed gentry in
England. The daughter of a clergyman, Austen was born in 1775 in a village called Stevenson. Austen
wrote several novels during her lifetime including Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and
Northanger Abbey. The unit will begin with a discussion on the life of Jane Austen as a novelist,
satirist and moralist. It will go on to discuss the novel Emma.