Text only

Back to LIT 2011 Home Page

The Romantic Period (1785-1832)

Major Historical / Political / Literary Events

1. French Revolution (1789-1802)
2. Industrial Revolution (mainly 1750-1850)
3. Publication of Lyrical Ballads, by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1798)

Characteristics of Romantic Literature

1. Spirit of Revolution, heroic aspiration and defiance
2. Reverence for the imagination, feelings and emotions
3. Emphasis on the individual
4. Belief in the Ideal or the Sublime
5. Organicism
6. Emphasis on nature, primitivism, and rural life
7. Emphasis on supernaturalism: the gothic and the mystical, the strange and exotic

Poetry and the Poet

• The poet goes from being a craftsperson to being an inspired poet-prophet.
• Remember the metaphors of "the mirror and the lamp." Earlier, poetry was regarded primarily as "a mirror held up to nature." During the Romantic Period, poetry and the poet becomes a "lamp," shining with its own unique light, illuminating and shaping, not just reflecting, reality.
• A central concern of some Romantic poets is the nature of reality. Unlike the philosopher John Locke, who believed that reality is comprised of things external to the human mind and completely independent of it, Romantic poets tended to believe that "reality" was a construct formed from external objects and the mind of the individual.

This page was last updated on June 01, 2006
Copyright Randy Rambo, 2004.