romanticpoetry1.docVIP

Romantic Poetry （1） (1798-1832) [The Lyrical Ballads collaborated by Wordsworth and Coleridge The death of Walter Scott] Historical Background Politically the most important event is the French Revolution (1789), which at first gave British people great hope for a better future with rights and independence for all men but later brought them despair and nightmare. “Declaration of Rights of Man” (1791-2), Thomas Paine “Inquiry concerning Political Justice”(1793), William Godwin “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 Economically the great Industrial Revolution: continued fast changes both in the country and in the cities; many farmhands driven out of land into the city; women and children employed as cheap labor; new machines set up, rendering many out of work; growing disparity between the rich and the poor; expansion abroad continued: (America), Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India, the West Indies and other nations II. Literature Prose familiar essays of journals and newspapers(Charles Lamb, Lee Hunt, de Quincey) literary criticism/reviews as authority (Charles Lamb, Lee Hunt, de Quincey) novelists: Jane Austen, the realist Walter Scott, the 1st historical novelist/romantic poet Poetry the Age of (Romantic) Poetry; the voice of the age developed from sentimental and gothic literature differences between 18th-century and 19th-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 New Poetic Features language: simple, everyday life speech, common vocabul