___________________________________PERIOD:
1798 - 1832
1798 = Publication of the Lyrical Ballads
1832= First Reform Bill
---------> superiority of feelings over reason
___________________________________MEANING:
·The word Romantic =
-Typical of the old medieval romances;
-means: unreal, unreasonable, exaggerated, morbid;
-characterized by feelings, not by reason (loneliness, melancholy)
-first Romantic movement was born in Germany in 1770
--> Sturm- und-Drang (Shiller, Goethe)
____________________MOST IMPORTANT AUTHORS:
-Blake
He can be considered as the first Romantic Poet, for he was the first to deal with
the typically Romantic themes.
-First and Second Generation of Romantic Poets
-First Generation:
at first they followed the ideals of the French Revolution, then they abandoned them; importance of Nature and Imagination;
-Wordsworth
-Coleridge
-Second Generation:
they kept the ideals of the French Revolution; importance of Beauty, Love, Freedom, Social concern;
-Byron
-Shelley
-Keats
All of them died tragically while young.
-The Romantic poets' individualism was also reflected in their isolating themselves from society:
-Isolation in Nature -->(Lake District) Wordsworth, Coleridge;
-Revolt against the Establishment --> Blake
-Exile from England --> Byron, Shelley
-Interest in the history and folklore of the Middle Ages (magic and mistery) --> Keats
-Hellenism (Love for classical themes) --> Keats
-Exoticism (attraction for distant lands, usually more imaginary than real) -->
Byron, Coleridge
The Romantic novel - a less important genre than poetry at the time - is represented by Sir Walter Scott and Jane Austen.
___________________________________THEMES:
-The poet's mission:
-The poet was a solitary man speaking to other men of what they couldn't see.
-Role of the Imagination (Fancy, Fantasy):
-Interaction between the human mind and the physical world.
-Romantic Themes:
-Love for nature
-Glorification of the commonplace
-Tension towards the ideal
-Beauty
-Irrational dimension (Interest in the supernatural)
-Dream and hallucination
-Magic
-Madness and insanity
-Supernatural
-The dark hero
-Superiority of feelings over reason