 American Revolution 1776  French Revolution 1789  Industrial Revolution  Radical changes in human life

 Overthrow of an anointed king by a democratic mob  Some English supported at first  Napoleon Bonaparte  1815 – England defeats Napoleon

 First country  Production moved to factories  Loss of communal land leads to homelessness  Laissez faire economics  Romantic poets believed in force of literature

 A Child’s Sense of Wonder – youth and innocence, “new dawn”  Social Idealism – cyclical development of human society, question authority to imagine a happier, fairer, and healthier way to live  Adaptation to Change – acceptance vs. resistance

 New kind of poetry  “the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions”  Simple, unadorned language  Permanent, interactive bond between human mind and nature

 “mind poets” – deeper understanding of human beings and world of the senses  Desire that drives the mind to discover new things it cannot learn through logical or rational thinking  Poet is essential to society