Revolutions and the Romantic Spirit: American, French, Industrial

Revolutions and the Romantic Spirit

Compact Performer - Culture & Literature Marina Spiazzi, Marina Tavella, Margaret Layton @ 2015 ZANICHELLIRevolutions and the Romantic Spirit

The Romantic Age: an age of revolutions

American revolution: American War of Independence (1775-83) and Declaration of Independence from British rule (1776). French revolution (1789): new ideas of freedom and social justice spread all over Europe. Industrial (and agrarian) revolution: it brought about many social changes. Compact Performer - Culture & Literature ZANICHELLIRevolutions and the Romantic Spirit

The Industrial Revolution

Causes of the Industrial Revolution

Great increase in population towards 1750 1 Greater demand for pots, beer and clothes 1 Need for more efficient production. England changed from a farming to an industrial country Compact Performer - Culture & Literature ZANICHELLIRevolutions and the Romantic Spirit

Implications of the Industrial Revolution

The 'Revolution' implied new technologies and inventions the development of the factory system new sources of power and transport It also implied unemployment because fewer people were needed for the production of goods Compact Performer - Culture & Literature ZANICHELLIRevolutions and the Romantic Spirit

Key Inventions and Changes in Transport

FIG. 26 .- Watt's Engine, 1774. James Watt's steam engine was a very important invention factories were built on coal and iron fields of Lancashire, Yorkshire, South Scotland and South Wales cloth manufactured more cheaply Changes in transport · transport was made more efficient; . new waterways were built; . road conditions were improved. Compact Performer - Culture & Literature ZANICHELLIRevolutions and the Romantic Spirit

The Agrarian Revolution

The enclosure of 'open fields' and common land aimed at making larger, more efficient farms. · improvements in farming techniques such as crop rotation and mechanisation The English Leicester, a breed of sheep Coke introduced into Norfolk and cross-bred with the native Norfolk Horn Compact Performer - Culture & Literature ZANICHELLIRevolutions and the Romantic Spirit

Industrial Society

Mushroom Towns and Living Conditions

'Mushroom towns' > small towns built near the factories to house the workers Terrible living conditions · People lived in slums . Lack of elementary public services; · air and water pollution; · houses built in endless rows; • vercrowding. Compact Performer - Culture & Literature ZANICHELLIRevolutions and the Romantic Spirit

Working Conditions in Industrial Society

Working conditions • women and children were exploited (paid less and easier to control); · long working hours; · rational division of labour; • Mechanisation and alienation - - · Very short life expectancy. · High unemployment Compact Performer - Culture & Literature ZANICHELLIRevolutions and the Romantic Spirit

The Luddites

(see page 124) Poverty Deteriorating working conditions Mechanical looms and spinners replacing skilled craftsmen led to outbursts of machine-breaking culminating in the 'Luddites Riots' of 1811-1812. They caused so much alarm that the government made machine-breaking punishable by death. Compact Performer - Culture & Literature ZANICHELLIRevolutions and the Romantic Spirit

The Peterloo Massacre

UNIVERSA SUFFRAG LIBEKDY St DYAT UNIVERSA RELIGIALS LIBERTY In 1819, during a peaceful public meeting in Manchester, soldiers fired into a crowd and eleven people were killed the so-called Peterloo Massacre'. Compact Performer - Culture & Literature ZANICHELLIRevolutions and the Romantic Spirit

The American War of Independence

(page 102) Causes · New taxes to the American colonies. One tax was on the importation of tea. Consequences . The 'Boston Tea Party' (1773) the rebels threw tea imported from Britain into the harbour. · Their motto 'No taxation without representation'. Compact Performer - Culture & Literature ZANICHELLIRevolutions and the Romantic Spirit

American Declaration of Independence

July 4th, 1776 American Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson stated that 1 the colonies = a new nation all men have a natural right to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' governments can claim the right to rule if they have the consent of the governed' Compact Performer - Culture & Literature ZANICHELLIRevolutions and the Romantic Spirit

Treaty of Versailles and US Constitution

Treaty of Versailles 1783 Britain recognised the independence of its former colonies. The republic of the United States of America adopted a federal constitution in 1787. George Washington became the first President. Compact Performer - Culture & Literature ZANICHELLIRevolutions and the Romantic Spirit

The Word 'Romantic'

The Romantic Age (from the French Revolution to the coronation of Queen Victoria n 1837) the period in which new ideas and attitudes arose in reaction to the dominant 18th-century ideals of order, calm, harmony, balance, rationality Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, 1818 Compact Performer - Culture & Literature ZANICHELLIRevolutions and the Romantic Spirit

English Romanticism

Romanticism in England expressed itself especially in poetry. Novels were mainly of two kinds: realistic/ fantastic (the Gothic novels). No Drama. English Romanticism a revolt of the English imagination against the neoclassical reason. influenced by the French Revolution and the English Industrial Revolution. The Romantics: · expressed a negative attitude towards the existing social or political conditions; · placed the individual at the centre of art; · argued that poetry should be free from all rules. Compact Performer - Culture & Literature ZANICHELLIAugustan

Romantic vs. Augustan Characteristics

Romantic Reason and order Feeling, intuition, emotion. Control of emotion and imagination Free play of imagination, desire to go beyond human limits. Children are treated as little adults, they must be civilised. Children are sacred, close to God. Society more important than individual; poet expresses social order and follows authority. Importance of the poet's inner life (introspection); he is a rebel but also a prophet and a creator. He looks for freedom. Sophisticated, literary language Everyday language. References to Classical world Observation of nature and everyday situations; reference to the Middle-Ages. Fascination with the mysterious, the exotic.Revolutions and the Romantic Spirit

Nature for the Romantics

• Opposed to reason.
• A substitute for traditional religion.
• A way to discover the inner self.
• A source of sensations.
• An encouragement to imagination and vision.
• An expressive language: natural images are connected to human feelings and the self.

J. M. Turner, Landscape with Distant River and Bay, c. 1840-50; Musée du Louvre, Paris Compact Performer - Culture & Literature ZANICHELLIRevolutions and the Romantic Spirit

The Romantic Imagination

• A creative power superior to reason.
• A dynamic, active, rather than passive power.
• Allows human beings to 'read' nature as a system of symbols.

J.M.W. Turner, Rain, Steam, and Speed - The Great Western Railway, 1844, London, The National Gallery Compact Performer - Culture & Literature ZANICHELLI