The Romantic Movement (Romanticism)
- The Romantic Movement had started in late 18th Century England, but still continued throughout the 19th Century.. The movement was for literature and the arts in England and Europe, including France and Germany.
-The Romantic movement in literature was partially inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution.
- The Romantic Movement's basic idea is that reason cannot explain everything. Romantics search for deeper and often a subconscious meaning.
- Enlightenment and Romantics thinkers have a different view of things. The Enlightenment think of the "dark ages" as a time that was full of ignorance and irrationality where as Romantics think of this period as holding great spiritual meaning as it lead to the influence of Gothic novels in the 1830's.
- Romantics examples include Mary Shelly who published Frankenstein in 1818, some would argue that it is the greatest work in British Romanticism. Romanticism in English literature included Charlotte Bronte's novel, Jane Eyre and William Wordsworth.
- Romanticism emphasis individualism and self-expression and hold pure logic as the answer to everything. They were relativists
and tended to think that everything had its own value as they stated an "inner genius".
John Keats |
(1795 - 1821) In 1804, Keats father was killed in work related accident: he fell off a horse, Keats was only 8 years old . Keats mother remarried to a man she quickly regretted marrying and soon left him as well as Keats (luckily his grandmother took him and his brothers and sister in). In 1809, his mother reappeared suffering from depression and consumption (tuberculosis, which was considered to be the most 'Romantic' disease). She died in 1810 (Keats was 14 years old) and a year later his brother had died of the same disease. Keats wanted to become a surgeon he was an apprentice to a surgeon/ apothecary called Thomas Hammond. In 1813 Keats first began to read lyric poetry. 1814 Keats grandmother died and the family was split up his sisters one way and his brothers and him another. His 2 brothers were sent to work. Keats at this stage in his life almost isolated himself; he kept himself to himself and would write rather sad poetry. In 1816 he became a Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries. At this point his love of poetry became his main ambition and his surgical career was left behind. He was an English Romantic poet and his first book of poetry appeared 3rd March 1817, although the book didn't actually sell very well. John was depressed by this but kept writing. On December 1818 Tom died, during this time Keats had been looking after him and Keats had fallen in love with Fanny Brawne. During this time he wrote allot of poetry including 'The Eve of St Agnes', La Belle Dame sans Merci', Ode to a Nightingale and ' To Autumn'. His poems focused on the ideas of death and beauty as well as sensory images. later he became ill with tuberculosis and died in 1821 at the age of 25. |
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
(1772 - 1834)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born on October 21, 1772 in Devon, England. Coleridge was a founder of the English Romantic Movement. His father died in 1782. He attended Jesus college, Cambridge, but later left and instead joined the 15th Light Dragoons, which was a cavalry unit after being discharged in April 1794 he returned to Cambridge, but left again without a degree. The years from 1795 to 1802 were for Coleridge a period of fast poetic and intellectual growth. He was a friend to poet William Wordsworth, the friendship brought a joint publication with Wordsworth of the Lyrical Ballads, a collection of twenty-three poems, in September 1798. He suffered through an addiction to laudanum and opium. His most famous works 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', 'Kubla Khan' and 'Christabel' all were supernatural themed and presented exotic images, perhaps affected by his use of the drugs. But the originality of his early work, that his place and influence within the Romantic period is undisputed. |