Transcript of the Romantic

Period/Romanticism: British and

American Litera
What is Romanticism?
American Romanticism.
British Romanticism.
Differences between British and American Romanticism.

WHAT IS ROMANTICISM
Romanticism can be interpreted many different ways and historians and literary fanatics alike
have yet to agree upon a single meaning of the word or movement .The Romantic Movement
was a shift from enlightenment thinking to emphasizing, inspiration, subjectivity and
individuality. The Romantic Movement had a profound impact on both AMERICAN and
BRITISH LITERATURE.

AMERICAN ROMANTICISM
ROMANTICISM; A movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that marked the
reaction in Literature, Philosophy, Art, Religion and Politics from the Neoclassicism and
formal Orthodoxy of the preceding period.

HISTORICAL/SOCIETAL EVENTS

(AMERICA)

* Frontier promised opportunity for Expansion, Growth and Freedom.

* Spirit of optimism invoked by the promise of an uncharted frontier
* Immigration brought new cultures and perspectives.
* Growth of industry in the north that further polarized the North and the agrarian South.

* Search for new spiritual roots

BECAUSE OF THE HISTORICAL EVENTS DURING THE
ROMANTICISM PERIOD THE LITERARY THEMES WERE:* Highly Imaginative and

Subjective.

* Emotional intensity.
* Escapism.
*Common man as hero.
* Nature as refugee , source of Knowledge and/or Spirituality.
WELL KNOWN AUTHORS;
* EMERSON WORRIES in THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR about imitation/parroting. He
looks inward to find divine essence, which he claims we all share in common.

* THOREAU isolates/purifies himself at Walden Pond.

* MELVILLE invents AHAB, A CAPTAIN OF A FISHING BOAT, with a Homer like or
Shakespearean grandeur.

WHITMAN embraces the democratic masses, yet calls his major poem SONG OF
MYSELF.

BRITISH ROMANTICISM
ROMANTICISM; A movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that marked the
reaction in Literature, Philosophy, Art, Religion and Politics from the Neoclassicism and
formal Orthodoxy of the preceding period. NOTE BRITISH and AMERICAN Romanticism
can be defined the same way.

HISTORICAL/SOCIETAL EVENTS

(BRITISH)

ENGLAND at this time was transforming from a primarily agricultural nation to one
focused on Manufacture, Trade, and Industry.

Revolutions outside of ENGLANDs borders had considerable impact within those

borders, including the revolutions in AMERICA and in FRANCE.

While many English people initially supported revolutionary efforts like those in France,
just as many came to abhor the violent tyrannies, that followed the French revolution is a
primary example.

BECAUSE OF THESE HISTORICAL EVENTS DURING THE

BRITISH ROMANTICISM PERIOD THE LITERARY
THEMES WERE:* Art, as the product of individual creation, is highly prized.
* Nature, Rural life, and Pastoral imagery make common subjects for poetry.
*

Individual achievements are highly prized. This notion applies both to actual people
(ARTISTS, WRITERS, MILITARY HEROES, EXPLORERS, etc.) and also to Fictional
characters.

* Many Romantic writers, especially the Poets, believed all people, regardless of wealth or
social class, should be able to appreciate art or literature accessible to everyone.(their success
in this endeavor is debatable.)

WELL KNOWN AUTHORS;

George Gordon Byron, who is usually referred to as Lord Byron, was a prominent British
writer, most famous for the influence of his poetry on the romantic movement that originated
in the eighteenth century .Byron was indeed involved in his work in such a way that it is
often said that there was no difference between the man and his writing. Fairly early in his
career he would often show how much he despised British society, which he considered
hypocritical, as well as the English climate, which he found too rainy. He would launch the
Romantic period and school of thought of English literature with their Lyrical Ballads first
published in 1798. Wordsworths masterpiece, however, would be his largely

autobiographical poem entitled The Prelude (1850), which focused on the formative
experiences of his youth. It would appear it is a man who speaks to humans, who conveys to
them a special kind of message. In this way, for Wordsworth the poet becomes an exceptional
being, gifted with extraordinary sensitivity, with a power of enthusiasm as well as a love and
knowledge of human nature.

The Romantic Period/Romanticism: British and American

Literature
By Gabriella Dweck
Alana Morris and Ashley Mujares
Romanticism can be interpreted many different ways and historians and literary fanatics alike
have yet to agree upon a single meaning of the word or movement. The Romantic Movement
was a shift from enlightenment thinking to emphasizing inspiration, subjectivity, and
individuality. The Romantic Movement had a profound impact on both American and British
literature.
British history continued...
Early efforts to abolish slavery met with little success. Often, those in power saw the granting
of
widespread
freedoms
as
the
prelude
to
violent
uprising.
England at this time was often described in terms of Two Nations: the rich and privileged
who owned the nations burgeoning means of industrial production, and the poor and
powerless who were more and more forced from agricultural roots to life in industrial cities.
Of course, it is this latter group upon which the Industrial Revolution depended, though it is
the former group who benefitted.
The word shopping entered English vocabulary at this time, reflecting societys newfound
love for buying the goods that imperial colonization and industry could produce. Women
authors, though they did not enjoy anything like social equality with their male counterparts,
did at least enjoy greater prominence and wider readership than had previously been the case.
The term bluestocking was often used to describe a certain class of educated women
writers and intellectuals.

The Romantics tended to define and to present the imagination as our ultimate "shaping" or
creative power, the approximate human equivalent of the creative powers of nature or even
deity. It is dynamic, an active, rather than passive power, with many functions. "Nature"
meant many things to the Romantics. As suggested above, it was often presented as itself a
work of art, constructed by a divine imagination, in emblematic language. Symbolism and
myth were given great prominence in the Romantic conception of art. In the Romantic view,
symbols were the human aesthetic correlatives of nature's emblematic language.
Emphasis on the activity of the imagination was accompanied by greater emphasis on the
importance of intuition, instincts, and feelings, and Romantics generally called for greater
attention to the emotions as a necessary supplement to purely logical reason. The Romantics
asserted the importance of the individual, the unique, even the eccentric. In style, the
Romantics preferred boldness over the preceding age's desire for restraint, maximum
suggestiveness over the neoclassical ideal of clarity, free experimentation over the "rules" of
composition, genre, and decorum, and they promoted the conception of the artist as
"inspired" creator over that of the artist as "maker" or technical master.
Poetry Moment
The poem we chose to present is a piece representative of British Romanticism titled
"Jerusalem" by William Blake. This piece is a culmination of characteristics of British
Romanticism as it embodies the classic characteristics of British Romanticism and contains
countless allusions, myths, symbols, nature imagery, and bold ideas, as well as challenging
belie 1785-1830.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
ROMANTICISM:-

BRITISH

AND

AMERICAN

AMERICAN ROMANTICISM developed later than BRITISH ROMANTICISM and had a

stronger emphasis on HUMANTICISM and REFORMATION. Due to Americas democratic
government when compared to Britains Monarchical Government, AMERICAN
ROMANTICISM embodied more Egalitarian ideals than that of BRITISH ROMANTICISM.