a deepened appreciation of the beauties of nature;
a general exaltation of emotion over reason
a turning in upon the self and a heightened examination of human personality and its moods and mental potentialities;
Women and children were employed as cheap labor;
New machines were set up, rendering many out of work;
Disparity was growing between the rich and the poor;
purpose: emotional, confessional and visionary/prophetic
"A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" (1792), Mary Wollstonecraft
Ideologically
The principle of Ration was giving way to an individualized, free, liberal, imaginative attitude towards life; a tendency to turn or escape from the tumultuous and confusing Here and Now
creative spirit over strict adherence to formal rules and traditional procedures;
an emphasis upon imagination
an obsessive interest in folk culture, national and ethnic cultural origins, and the medieval era; and a predilection for the exotic, the remote, the mysterious
The Romantic Period (1798-1832)
Historical Background
Politically: the French Revolution
"Declaration of Rights of Man" (1791-2), Thomas Paine
"Inquiry concerning Political Justice" (1793), William Godwin
a rejection of the precepts of order, calm, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality
a reaction against the Enlightenment and against 18thcentury rationalism and physical materialism in general.
New poetic features
language: simple, everyday life speech, common vocabulary and accent dialect e.g. Blake, Wordsworth
form: lyrics(sonnet, ode), narrative (ballad)
Literature
Poetry: the Age of Poetry
Differences between 18 th-century and 19 th-century ( between Neoclassicism and Romanticism)
reason vs passion reason vs imagination commercial vs natural industrial vs pastoral present vs past society vs individual order and stability vs freedom decorative expression vs simple and spontaneous expression
an attitude or intellectual orientation that characterized many works of arts in Western civilization over a period from the late 18th to the mid19th century.
Expansion abroad continued: ( America), Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India, the West Indies and other nations.
Romanticism / te individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the
Characteristic attitudes
Economically: the great Industrial Revolution
Continued fast changes took place both in the country and in the cities;
Many farmhands driven out of land rushed into the city;