The Romantic Age (1776-1837) and Romanticism in Literature

Social and Historical Background of the Romantic Age

The Romantic Age covers the period dating from the American Declaration of Independence (1776) to the First Reform Bill (1832). During this period Britain was ruled by:

• George III (1760-1820);
• George IV (1820-1830), who was also Prince Regent from 1811 to 1820, when George III's mental illness got worse.
• William IV (1830-1837), George IV's brother.

Age of Revolution and American Independence

The Romantic Age is also known as the 'Age of Revolution' and it was marked by significant political and social revolutions:

• The American War of Independence (1775-1783), between the American Colonies and Britain.
• The Colonies did not accept the taxes imposed by Britain and wanted to have their own representatives in the British Parliament.
• King George refused and the representatives of the thirteen Colonies rebelled.
• They appointed George Washington commander-in-chief of the American forces and, in 1776, they signed the Declaration of Independence.
• Treaty of Paris (1783): Britain accepted the Indipendence of the United States of America.

French Revolution and its Impact

• French Revolution (1789-1794). It socially and politically transformed France from an absolute monarchy to a republic based on the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity.
• Its effects were widespread all over Europe and promoted social and political radicalism.
• In Britain, the Tories or Conservatives, mainly landowners and nobles, were afraid of the social consequences of its principles so they tried to intimidate all sympathisers of the Revolution.
• By contrast, most of the Whigs or Liberals, mainly the merchant classes and common people, greeted (accogliere) the Revolution with enthusiasm and hoped that it could speed up Parliamentary reform. However, the political effect of the Revolution was to block any reform for about thirty years.

Napoleonic Wars and Key Battles

• The Napoleonic wars (1799-1815) started in order to oppose revolutionary France and Napoleon's conquest of Europe.
• The most important battles against Napoleon's power were:

Key Napoleonic Battles

• The Battle of Trafalgar (1805): the Royal Navy of Horatio Nelson defeated Napoleon and stopped his plan to invade England.
• The Battle of Waterloo (1815): Napoleon was finally defeated by England under the command of the Duke of Wellington.

Industrial Revolution in Britain

Britain moved from an agricultural to an industrial economy. The process started around 1780 in the textile and metal industries and was favoured by:

• population growth, which provided an increasing number of consumers and workers. This guaranteed low wages and low prices, but high profits;
• new technological inventions: the most important ones were those of machinery for the spinning (filatura) and weaving (tessitura) of textiles by Hargreaves and Cartwright, and the steam engine (motore a vapore) by James Watt;
• the creation of factory industries in the coal and iron fields;
• the transport revolution: new roads and canals were built to transport raw materials. With the invention of rail-locomotives by George Stephenson communication further improved;
• increase in foreign and domestic commerce.

Agricultural Revolution and Enclosures

It is linked to the Industrial Revolution. Thanks to machines, farming became a more modernised and technologised activity. Technological innovations and the spread of enclosures* (recinzioni) led to:

• the abolition of farming based on the rotation of fields;
• the distribution of equivalent areas of land to the owners;
• a change in the size of farms. Poorer farmers couldn't survive and had to sell their land to richer landowners, becoming laborers or moving to industrial towns for jobs.

*Enclosure: surrounding land with fences or hedges. This turned common land into private property, allowing one or more owners to fully control it and exclude others;

Social Revolutions and Reforms under George III

During the reign of George III

• The shift of population from the countryside to the towns caused the formation of a new class: the working class.
• Workers' living and working conditions were terrible. Workers progressively started to form trade unions (sindacati) to ask for better working conditions and higher wages. The government made them illegal with the Combination Acts (1799).
• Luddism (1811-12): a number of textile-workers destroyed machines in factories in response to the unemployment caused by the introduction of machinery. This violent protest is known as Luddism after the name of its leader Ned Ludd.

Political Radicalism and Peterloo Massacre

• Influenced by the French Revolution, British radicals asked for reforms of the electoral system and universal suffrage (/'safrid3/) (diritto di voto).
• They believed that Parliament should represent the people and not the land-owning aristocracy, as had happened when the Corn Laws were passed.
• The first and second Corn Laws (1815, 1828) laws excluded almost all foreign (/'forin/) wheat (/'hwi:t/ - grano), in order to raise the price of domestic wheat. This starved the workers.
• However the Tories, who held power for most of the period, restricted freedom of speech and any type of association.
• Peterloo Massacre (1819): when troops charged (assalirono) a peaceful crowd, who had gathered (radunarsi) in Manchester to ask for the reform of parliamentary representation.

Reforms During George IV's Reign

During the reign of George IV

• Meeting of workers were permitted and this led to the birth of the first Trade Union (1824).
• In 1829 the Bill for Catholic Emancipation was passed, so Catholics obtained the same rights as Protestants, although with some exceptions.
• In 1829 the Civilian Metropolitan Police was also created so as to maintain order without military intervention.

William IV's Reign and the First Reform Bill

During the reign of William IV

• The First Reform Bill (1832): the Whig government promoted electoral reform which extended the right to vote to all male members of the middle class.
• Although Queen Victoria became queen in 1837, the year in which the First Reform Bill was passed is believed to mark the beginning of the Victorian Age.

Factory Act and Abolition of Slavery

• The Factory Act of 1833 tried to improve conditions for children working in factories.
• The Act forbade the employment of children under the age of 9
• The daily hours of children under 13 were limited to 8
• Children under 18 could not work more than 12 hours
• Abolition of slavery:

Slavery Abolition Milestones

• 1807 (William Wilberforce): slave trade was abolished, but this didn't free those who were already slaves.
• 1833: the Slavery Abolition Act gave freedom to all slaves in the British empire.

Amendment of the Poor Law (1834)

• The Amendment of the Poor Law (1834): ) a new Poor Law was introduced. People in need of help had to go into a workhouse where they were given, food, shelter and clothes in exchange for daily manual labour. Children who entered the workhouse would receive some schooling.

British 18th-Century Literature Phases

British 18th-century literature can be divided into two main phases:

• The first phase (1760-1801) is characterised by growing Anti-classical tendencies and by emerging Pre-Romantic trends.
• The second phase (1801-1837) is called the Romantic Age.

Origin of the Word "Romantic"

Origin of the word romantic: from the French word "roman" referred to medieval epic sagas. Initially it meant "exaggerated, unconvincing" but later it took on a positive meaning and was used to describe the expression of personal feelings ..

Enlightenment Period Characteristics

The period leading up to the Romantic period is characterised by the Enlightenment attitude which stood apart from nature and saw it as something to be studied and classified. Main features:

• remarkable progress in natural science;
• application of the scientific method to other areas of life;
• Royal Society (founded in 1622): development of art and science, meeting point for scientists;
• Isaac Newton (1642-1727): universe explained in logical terms (He formulated laws of motion and gravitation);
• rational approach even to religious matters.

Neoclassicism Main Features

• Main features:
• attempt to reproduce the formal perfection of classical writers.
• strict observation of rules in metre and rhyme
• creation of a poetic diction > an artificial language, removed from everyday language, only appropriate for poetry.
• desire for order, and rationality

Pre-Romanticism and its Traits

Pre-Romanticism is a cultural phenomenon that anticipates some of the main traits of Romanticism. Main features of pre-Romantic poetry

• Nature is the right and ideal state of man in contrast with civilisation;
• primitive life is exalted as opposed to the dehumanising effects of progress;
• rediscovery of the Middle Ages;
• beauty can be better defined in terms of 'the exotic', 'the strange' and the 'sublime' (the mix of intense feelings provoked by the view or contemplation of something dangerous and beautiful, often an immense natural phenomena, such as a storm or an abyss);
• graveyards and ruins are a source of poetic fascination.

Nature Poetry in Pre-Romanticism

• Main representative: James Thomson (1700-48)
• Nature is seen in its physical details and its observation includes wild scenery which led to reflections on the character of the primitive man who was contrasted with civilised man.

Ossianic Poetry and James Macpherson

• James Macpherson (1736-96) collected and published some of Ossian's works in Fragments of Ancient Poetry (1760). The authenticity of the work was controversial.
• It is a cycle of poems by a legendary Gaelic warrior called Ossian who lived in the 3rd century in Scotland.
• It is a kind of poetry characterised by a sense of melancholy and suffering produced by war or contrasted love, a description of a wild and gloomy (cupo) nature.

Graveyard Poetry and Thomas Gray

• Another influential group of poets is known as the 'Graveyard school' (the poetry of melancholy) because of their melancholy tone and the choice of cemeteries, tombs, ruins, desolate landscapes as the setting for their poems. The tomb is a symbol and contemplation of death and immortality.
• Main representative: Thomas Gray.
• The most important work of this school was Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard 1751. It is a reflection on death and man's mortality.