Pre-Romanticism

The Romantic penned (1785-1830) Contrast with Neoclassicism The replacement of reason by the imagination The shift from a mimetic to an expressive orientation for poetry, and indeed all literature. Pre-romanticism & Romanticism This period marks the end of Augustan Age.

The main themes of Augustan Age were: reason rationality no feelings typical conception of the high social class The American Revolution (1775-1783) where the declaration of independence stated that America was an independent nation. The Industrial Revolution (1750-1850)transformed Britain from agricultural to industrial country In rural communities the destruction of omen industry was accompanied by a rapid growth of the process of enclosing the old open-field and communally worked farms into privately owned agricultural holdings. The peasants deprived of their lands, were forced to go to work in factories Mechanization meant a new form of slavery The economic and social ills were clearly seen by the people, suffering was largely confined to the poor: the diseases of industrial towns, the misery of child labor, and the crowds of underpaid workers.

The suffering of the new class, the proletariat, led o the first strikes The Great French Revolution (1789) which introduced the democratic ideals: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity for everybody Revolution in France took a violent course: the accession to power by Jacobin extremists; the “September Massacres” of the nobility in 1792 followed by execution of the royal family brought England into a war against France(1793) Revolutionary and Napoleonic period in France (1789-1815) Under the influence of the Revolution the Irish peasants plotted a rebellion against English landlords. It broke out in 1798 but was cruelly drowned in blood Ideals of the Romanticism As a consequence to the chaotic lifestyle they tried to find a shelter in nature The feelings are: sadness, melancholy and meditation Romanticism was a movement against the progress of bourgeois civilization It was an effort to do away with the injustice, the exploitation of man by man. The poets of this period are called graveyard poets because the countryside became place of death and contemplation The romanticists made emotion, and not reason, the chief force of their works. This emotion found its expression chiefly in poetry