Department of English, UU

1. Topic: The Romantic Period
(1798-1832)
Welcome
to this Class in the
Department of English
Uttara University

2. Conducted By:
Monir Hossen
Lecturer
Department of English
Uttara University
Email: monir.eng.cou@gmail.com

3. Introduction
The Romantic period begun with the publication of Lyrical Ballads,
a joint work of poetry by William Wordsworth and S.T Coleridge just
after the ten years of French Revolution in 1798. This era has a
great contribution to English literature. Romanticism was highly
influenced in the writings of this period. It is generally a reaction to
the earlier neo-classical literature. During the late 18th century and
in the beginning of 19th century many poets and artists developed
the literature of this period. Such as: William Wordsworth, S.T
Coleridge, William Blake, Loard Byron, P.B Shelley, John Keats and
so on.

4. Features of the romantic literature
 Love for nature
 Simplicity
 Humanism
 Love for beauty
 Sensuousness
 Spontaneity
 Subjectivity
 Classicism
 Glorification of nature
 Revolutionary Zeal
 Supernaturalism
 Use of common language
 Use of symbols, imageries
 Common theme
 Pantheism
 High Imagination
 Mysticism
 Lyricism
 Individualism

5. William Wordsworth
In 1798, two young English poets William
Wordsworth (1770-1850) and Samuel Taylor
Coleridge (1772-1834) published a book of
poems called Lyrical Ballads.
In 1800 an expanded edition was published,
with a preface-a kind of poetic manifesto-
by Wordsworth. This is generally regarded
as the official beginning of Romanticism in
England.

6. Definition of Poetry
“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of
powerful feelings: it takes its origin from
emotion recollected in tranquility.”
Preface to Lyrical Ballads

7. Language of Poetry
"There neither is, nor can be, any essential
difference between the language of prose and
metrical composition."
Preface to Lyrical Ballads

8. About poetry
“Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge;
it is the impassioned expression which is in the
countenance of all science.”
Preface to Lyrical Ballads

9. Major works
 Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems (1798)
 "Simon Lee"
 "We are Seven"
 "Lines Written in Early Spring"
 "Expostulation and Reply"
 "The Tables Turned"
 "The Thorn"
 "Lines Composed A Few Miles above Tintern Abbey"

10. Continued
 Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems (1800)
 Preface to the Lyrical Ballads
 Guide to the Lakes (1810)
 " To the Cuckoo "
 The Excursion (1814)
 Laodamia (1815, 1845)
 The White Doe of Rylstone (1815)
 Peter Bell (1819)
 The Prelude(1850)

11. Poems, in Two Volumes (1807)
"Resolution and Independence"
"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" Also known as "Daffodils"
"My Heart Leaps Up"
"Ode:
Intimations of Immortality"
"Ode to Duty"
"The Solitary Reaper"
"Elegiac Stanzas"
"Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802"
"London, 1802"
"The World Is Too Much with Us"

12. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (21 October 1772 – 25 July 1834)
was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher and
theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a
founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a
member of the Lake Poets. He wrote the poems The Rime
of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, as well as the
major prose work Biographia Literaria. His critical work,
especially on William Shakespeare, was highly influential,
and he helped introduce German idealist philosophy to
English-speaking culture. Coleridge coined many familiar
words and phrases, including suspension of disbelief. He had
a major influence on Ralph Waldo Emerson and on American
transcendentalism.
Coleridge’s poetry often deals with the mysterious, the
supernatural and the extraordinary. While Wordsworth looked
for the spiritual in everyday subjects, Coleridge wanted to
give the supernatural a colouring of everyday reality.
Samuel T. Coleridge

13. Continued
 Coleridge is probably best known for his long poems, The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner and Christabel. Even those who have never read the Rime have come
under its influence: its words have given the English language the metaphor of an
albatross around one's neck, the quotation of "water, water everywhere, nor any
drop to drink" (almost always rendered as "but not a drop to drink"), and the
phrase "a sadder and a wiser man" (again, usually rendered as "a sadder but wiser
man"). The phrase "All creatures great and small" may have been inspired by The
Rime: "He prayeth best, who loveth best;/ All things both great and small;/ For
the dear God who loveth us;/ He made and loveth all." Christabel is known for its
musical rhythm, language, and its Gothic tale.
 Kubla Khan, or, A Vision in a Dream, A Fragment, although shorter, is also widely
known. Both Kubla Khan and Christabel have an additional "Romantic" aura
because they were never finished. Stopford Brooke characterised both poems as
having no rival due to their "exquisite metrical movement" and "imaginative
phrasing."

14. William Blake
 William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an
English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised
during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in
the history of the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age.
What he called his prophetic works were said by 20th-century
critic Northrop Frye to form "what is in proportion to its merits
the least read body of poetry in the English language".[2] His
visual artistry led 21st-century critic Jonathan Jones to proclaim
him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced".
In 2002, Blake was placed at number 38 in the BBC's poll of the
100 Greatest Britons. Although he lived in London his entire life
(except for three years spent in Felpham), he produced a diverse
and symbolically rich œuvre, which embraced the imagination as
"the body of God" or "human existence itself".

15. Thank you