Social and Cultural Aspects of Romanticism in Britain
The Romantic movement belongs to the time of the reign of George III. (1760-1820). The English industrialisation reached its peak and brought with it new social concerns to the country because of its rapid progress. So the steam engine was invented in 1769, the textile industry developed quickly by the invention of the "flying shuttle" by Kay in 1733 and the "power loom" by Cartwright in 1785. Therefore, many workers were replaced by machines. Many people moved from the country into the towns because of the new technical inventions. There were not so many possibilities of employment so a lot of them did not find work and consequently became very poor. The wages were low caused by the fact that there was an surplus of people looking for work.
In agriculture there were new improvements which resulted in the enclosures of the land which was commonly used for grazing cattle. The consequence was that many small farms were integrated into these large areas and many farmers lost their subsistence.
The world lay in ruins (Napoleon), but it turned into a new one, which was quickly industrialized and oriented on mass production. To give this world, thrown out of balance, a new orientation was a task, the Romantic poets felt obliged to, but could not really live up to.
That is why reform movements gained importance at that time. For example, there was the movement of the Chartists. They were a working class movement in Britain. The name comes from the "People’s Charta" published in May 1838. It contains six points:
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constituencies of the same size
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universal suffrage
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payment of members of Parliament
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no property qualifications
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vote by ballot
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annual Parliaments
These points expressed the workers's despair and their dream of a new social order. The Chartists were forerunners of the trade unions.
There were many social reformers and political philosophers such as:
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E. Burke, J. Bentham, T. R. Malthus (Traditionalists)
They all were concerned with the balance between society, government and the individual. They held different views, but they basically wanted the position of the individual to be strengthened.
| Romanticism was a
reaction to neo-classicism and previous literary styles.
In the neoclassical view of nature order and chaos were connected with each other in order to form the well-mixed state of nature (A. Pope). Nature and the world seemed to be in a balance. There was a political and cultural balance and a balance between reason and passion. The major poets tended to imitate (imitatio) classical models such as Horaz, Vergil and Ovid. |
Alexander Pope *21 May 1688 +30 May 1744 aus: http://members.aol.com/basfawlty/A_Pope |
| Neoclassical writers saw man as being limited and restricted by his position in the natural hierarchy or the Great Chain of Being. They asked: "What is man like?". They wanted to express something universal and philosophical about man. In contrast to them the Romantic poets were looking for the godly existence in the individual. So there was a glorification of the individual and his creative power, his liberation and entering of a world of unlimited possibilities. To the Neo-classicists poets were interpreters and imitators. To the Romantics they were creators, producers (faculty of imagination), artists, rebels and ingenious individuals. Coleridge talks in Dejection Ode of the "shaping spirit of imagination". The Poets’ personal and individual experience, however, pushed them into a spiritual loneliness. They were conscious of their social obligations, but their special kind of personal experience forced them to turn away from their fellow human beings. |
Samuel Taylor Coleridge *21 October 1772 +25 July 1834 aus: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.cu.uk/Coleridge |
Literatur:
Evans, Ifor: Geschichte der englischen Literatur. Beck’sche Elementarbücher, Verlag C. H. Beck, München 1983
Gaull, Marilyn: English Romanticism – The Human Context. W.W. Norton & Company LTD., New York & London 1988
Wimsatt, William K. & Brooks, Cleanth: Literary Criticism – A Short History, Romantic Criticism. Routledge & Kegan Paul LTD., London & Aylesbury 1957
Abrams, M.H.: A Glossary of Literary Terms. New York 1971, pp. 104 - 108
Verfasser: Daniel Spitzer, Jan Müller