Romance literature in the period of Romanticism (1798-1832) uses the term in the sameway we used it in the Medieval Period: freely imaginative, idealizing fiction.
The British Romantic Movement was a reaction against the long period, The Age of Reason (1660- 1798), which came before it. In 1798, Wordsworth and Coleridge published a book of poetry, Lyrical Ballads, which began British Romanticism.
Age of Reason: stressed judgment and reason Romantic Period: stressed imagination and emotion stressed society as a whole stressed the individual
Age of Reason: stressed authority,rules,order Romantic Period: championed freedom
Imagination Intuition Key words to remember for Romanticism: Individualism Imagination Intuition (…the 19th century hippies)
Robert Burns (1759-1796) Hailed as the national poet of Scotland… “Scotish Bard” Wrote from the mindset and in the language of the common man… Strong advocate of French Revolution...
William Blake (1757-1827) Songs of Innocence and Experience ..his famous collection of poems ..points out his belief in the need for both childlike innocence and the wisdom gained from experience
William Wordsworth (1770-1850) “All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings…recollected in tranquility.” W. in Lyrical Ballads “…to reveal the romance inherent in the commonplace.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) “…a reader should come to poetry ready to participate with that willing suspension of disbelief which is poetic faith.” C. in Lyrical Ballads “…to handle the bizarre and make incredible-seem common.”
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) “…a little tumult, now and then, is an agreeable sensation…for the great object of life is sensation-- to feel that we exist, though even in pain.”
“Human nature is essentially good…and we can improve Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) “Human nature is essentially good…and we can improve ourselves and our world.” his wife Mary wrote the famous gothic romance novel Frankenstein
John Keats (1795-1821) -died at 25 of tuberculosis “Art is the highest expression of truth.” “What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth.”