The Romantic Movement

The term "Romanticism" did not come into use in England until the mid 19th Century. At about this time readers began to see six English poets as forming a single movement: William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and John Keats. The Romantic Movement spans roughly 1789 to 1824.

At the turn of the century, fired by ideas of personal and political liberty and of the energy and sublimity of the natural world, artisits and intellectuals sought to break the bonds of 18th century convention. Fundamental to romanticism is a new atitude towards the role of man in nature. Nature ceases to be an objective intellectual concept for the Romantics, as it was for the writers of the Enlightment period, and becomes instead an elusive metaphor. This period was marked by a rejection of the ideals and rules of classicism and neoclassicism and by an affirmation of the need for a freer, more subjective expression of passion, pathos and personal feelings. The French Revolution and its aftermath had the strongest impact of influence on the Romantic era literary world. In England initial support for the Revolution was primarily utopian and idealist, and when the French failed to live up to expectations, most English intellectuals renounced the Revolution. However the romantic vision had taken forms of than political, and these developed apace.

The six great poets of the Romantic Movement are in many ways extremely diverse. William Blake, the pioneer of the group, was broadly speaking a fundamentalist Christian, who felt that William Wordsworth's pantheistic 'natural piety' made him 'a Heathen Philosopher at Enmity against all true Poetry'. Lord Byron was witty and urbane (emulating Pope), whereas John Keats was contemptuous of neo-classical couplet writers who 'sway'd about upon rocking horse,/ And thought it Pegasus'. Percy Bysshe Shelley was an atheist, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge became an apologist for the Church of England. However, despite their differences, these poets show essential similarities in their response to the same historical situation, and do form a coherent group.

The Romantic era was rich in literary criticism and other non-fictional prose. Coleridge proposed a theory, that became very influential, in his Biographia Literaria(1817). William Godwin and his wife, Mary Wollstonecraft, wrote books on human and women's rights. William Hazlitt wrote astute and intellectual literary criticism. Charles Lamb is known as the master of the personal essay and Thomas De Quincey was the master of personal confession. The two major forums of controversy, political and literary were the Edinburgh Review and Blackwood's Magazine. These two periodicals were published throughout the century.

The great novelist Jane Austen wrote during this era, her work defies classification. Insight, grace and irony she delineated human relationships within the context of English country life. Other novelists of this time are: Maria Edgeworth, Edward Bulwer-Lytton and Thomas Love Peacock. Mr. Peacock was known for his novels that satirized the romantics.

References:
Encyclopedia.com
The Poetic Critic