British Romanticism

British Romanticism

How do we identify it?

What did it do?

What is it?

• Attention to the effect of nature on the individual

From where did it come?

• Challenge the scientific rationalization of nature

• The Age of Enlightenment

• Challenge ideas of "British" sensibility by shifting the focus to the marginalized/oppressed

• Medieval Legacy

• Emphasize individualism, intuition and emotion (sometimes over rationalism and totalitarian absolutes )

An artistic movement occurring c. 1770 - 1850 that influenced art, music and literature.

• The French Revolution

• Contrary perspectives that privilege imagination or one's impression over reason.

• The Industrial Revolution

• Counter technological advances and encroaching urbanization with a return to medieval roots

• The Peerage System

• Inclusion of female poets

• Sought a more fair and liberal society

• Intro novels

The Sublime

This term conveys the feelings people experience when they see awesome landscapes, or find themselves in extreme situations which elicit both fear and admiration. For example, Shelley described his reaction to stunning, overwhelming scenery in his 1816 poem ‘Mont Blanc’ (via bl.uk).

Thou hast a voice, great mountain, to repeal

Large codes of fraud and woe; not understood

By all, but which the wise, and great, and good

Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel.

Poetic Conventions

• Pastoral:

portraying or expressive of the life of shepherds or country people especially in an idealized and conventionalized manner; pleasingly peaceful and innocent

• Meter:

English poetry employs five basic meters including; iambic meter (unstressed/stressed), trochaic meter (stressed/unstressed), spondaic meter, (stressed/stressed) anapestic meter (unstressed/unstressed/ stressed) and dactylic meter (stressed/unstressed/unstressed).

Iambic Tetrameter

A line consisting of four iambic feet. The word "tetrameter" simply means that there are four feet in the line; iambic tetrameter is a line comprising four iambs, or 8 unstressed/stressed syllables.

tending to depress the spirits; saddening

• Melancholic:

"London "

William Blake

I wander thro' each charter'd street,

Near where the charter'd Thames does flow.

And mark in every face I meet

Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

• Hellenism:

the national character or culture of Greece, especially ancient Greece

bold = stressed syllable

• The Supernatural:

not just for the creation of horror and awe, but rather for the pleasure of the reader

• Subjectivity:

opposed the objectivity of neoclassical poetry. Neoclassical poets avoided describing their personal emotions in their poetry, unlike the Romantics.