Theenglishromanticism.pptVIP

Romanticism in England Introduction English Romanticism begins in 1798 with the publication of Wordsworth and Coleridge’s The Lyrical Ballads and ends in 1832 with Walter Scott’s death. English Romanticism is a revolt of the English imagination against the neoclassical reason. The French Revolution of 1789-1794 and the English Industrial Revolution exert great influence on English Romanticism. The romanticists express a negative attitude towards the existing social or political conditions. They place the individual at the center of art, as can be seen from Lord Byron’s Byronic Hero. The key words of English Romanticism are nature and imagination. What are the features of Romanticism? The features of Romanticism are wider outlook, imaginative spirit, sometimes symbolic Lakers or lake poets Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey were known as Lake Poets because they lived and knew one another in the last few years of the 18th century in the district of the great lakes in Northwestern England. The former two published The Lyrical Ballads together in 1798, while all three of them had radical inclinations in their youth but later turned conservative and received pensions and poet laureateships from the aristocracy. Owing to differences in political attitudes, the romanticists split into two schools. Some romantic writers reflected the thinking of classes ruined by bourgeoisie, by way of protesting against capitalists development and turned to the feudal past , i.e., the “ merry old England “, as their ideal, or, “ frightened by the coming industrialism and the nightmare towns of industry, they turning to nature for protection.” These were the elder and sometimes called passive or escapist romanticists, represented by Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey. Others expressed the aspirations of the classes created by capitalism and held out an ideal, though a vague one, of a future society free from oppression and exploitation. These were the younger and sometimes called act