Nguyễn Duy Bình

Foreign Languages Department

Vinh University
Tel: 0947 492 309
Email: duybinhdhv@gmail.com
THE ROMANTIC PERIOD
(1798-1832)

2021-2022
 Historical background

The age began in 1798 with the first edition of

Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads and ended with the first
Reformation Act in 1832, However, it is worth noting
that the signs of Romantic literature came into view
around 1785 when William Blake started writing his
Songs of Innocence.
 Historical background

This period is also called the Revival of Romanticism

because the romantic ideals of the Elizabethan Period
revived during these years. Lyrical Ballads brought
about a great change in literature, both in subject and
style. Instead of urban people and grand style, rural
people and common language were preferred.
 The important facts

✓ After the French Revolution it was accepted that

every individual was free and equally important.
✓ Small industries disappeared and large industries
with huge capital started.
✓ Machines were widely introduced in coal and iron
mines which multiplied productions.
✓ Steam-engines were used in ships and trains. The
train was first introduced in 1830.
 The important facts

✓ Industrialization created lots of slums, child labour

and labour problems.
✓ The traditional social pattern started changing.
✓ Ireland was united with England in 1801.
✓ In 1829 Catholic Emancipation Act was passed and
religious equity was ensured.
 The important facts

✓ Use of machines in fields and industries made a

large number of women jobless; of them many
became either readers or writers.
 Literary Features

Main Literary Features of the Age

✓ Creative enthusiasm reached almost the level of
Elizabethan creative force.
✓ It shifts its focus from earlier age’s faith in reason to
faith in senses, intuition, and imagination.
✓ Subjective poetry replaces the objective poetry of
the neoclassical age.
✓ It values common, “natural” man and rejects
artificial urban life as subject of poetry.
 Literary Features

✓ Creative enthusiasm reached almost the level of

Elizabethan creative force.
✓ It shifts its focus from earlier age’s faith in reason to
faith in senses, intuition, and imagination.
✓ Subjective poetry replaces the objective poetry of
the neoclassical age.
✓ It values common, “natural” man and rejects
artificial urban life as subject of poetry.
 Literary Features

✓ The language of common men, not the artificial

“poetic diction” of the previous age, becomes the
choice of the time.
✓ It idealizes country life and "nature” becomes a
means of divine revelation.
✓ Romantic poetry reflects rebellious views against
oppression, restraints, and controls. It celebrates
human rights and individualism.
 Literary Features

✓ Romantic literature shows interest in the medieval

past, the supernatural, the mystical, the “gothic,” and
the exotic.
✓ It emphasizes introspection, psychology, melancholy,
and sadness.
✓ Myth and symbolism get prominence.
 Literary Features

✓ In style, the Romantic poetry prefers spontaneity and

free experimentation to strict conventional “rules” of
composition, genre, and decorum. It prefers highly
suggestive language to the neoclassical ideal of
clarity and precision.
✓ Lyric poetry dominates.
 Literary Features

✓ Women fiction flourishes. Mrs. Anne Radcliffe, Jane

Porter, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Austen are
female writers of the time.
✓ Criticism becomes an inseparable part of literature.
Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Lamb, De Quincy
and Haztitt contribute to it.
 Age of Reason vs. Romantic Age

In the Age of Reason, In the Romantic Age ,

authors proclaimed: authors proclaimed:
• Reason and judgment • Imagination and
• Concern with the emotion
universal experience • Concern with the
• The value of society as particular experience
a whole • The value of the
• The value of rules individual human being
• The value of freedom
Daniel DeFoe
 Biography

 English writer,
journalist, and
pamphleteer
 Best known for being the
author of Robinson
Crusoe
 Wrote more than 500
books, pamphlets, and
journals
 Pioneer of economic
journalism
 Biography

 Born between 1659-1661

 Death was April 24, 1731
 Born in the parish of St.
Giles Cripplegate in
London
 Father worked as a tallow
chandler (candle maker)
 Born as Daniel Foe, and
added the de in front of his
last name to make it sound
aristocratic
 How did he survive?

 In 1665, 70,000 were killed by

The Great Plague of London
 In 1666, The Great Fire of
London hit DeFoe’s
neighborhood hard, and left
only three houses standing, one
of them being DeFoe’s
 In 1667, a Dutch fleet attacked
Chatham via the River Thames
 At the age of 13, his mother
passed away
 In 1703, he witnessed The Great
Storm, the only hurricane to
make it across the Atlantic. The
Great Storm took lives of 8,000
people.
 The Unexpected

 DeFoe’s parents were Presbyterian dissenters

(believed in separation of church and state)
 He was educated in a Dissenting Academy at
Newington Green, and also went to church there
 It was expected that he would become a dissenting
minister, but instead entered the world of business
 As an salesman, he sold hosiery, general woolen
goods, and wine
 Even though he was very good at his job, he was
always in debt
 Marriages and Poor Decisions

 1n 1684, DeFoe married Mary Tuffley and received a

dowry of £3700
 The couple had EIGHT children, but two died
 DeFoe joined the ill-fated Monmouth rebellion, but
gained a pardon
 He was arrested in 1692 for a debt of £700, but was really
in debt close to £17,000
 He left England upon release, and travelled to Europe
and Scotland
 When he came back to London, he served as a
“commissioner of the glass duty”
 Pamphleteering and Prison

 “An Essay upon Projects” – defended the right of

King William III for his participation in ending the
Nine Years War
 “The True-Born Englishman” – defended the king
against the perceived xenophobia of his enemies
 “Legion’s Memorial” – it demanded the release of
the Kentish petitioners, who asked the Parliament
to support the king in an imminent war against
France
 More Pamphleteering and Prison

 “The Shortest Way with

the Dissenters” and “Or,
Proposals for the
Establishment of the
Church” – asking for
extermination of
dissenters
 “Hymn to the Pillory” –
caused audience to throw
flowers instead of harmful
objects, but caused him to
be incarcerated for three
days
 It wasn’t all about politics…

 “A True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs. Veal the Next Day
after her Death to One Mrs. Bargrave at Canterbury the 8th of
September, 1705” – deals with interaction between the spiritual
realm and the physical realm
 “Appeal to Honour and Justice” – 1715 “The Family Instructor” -
 1715
 “Minutes of the Negotiations of Monsr. Mesnager” – 1717 A
 Continuation of the Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy” - 1718
 “Robinson Crusoe” – 1719 “Captain Singleton” – 1720 “Colonel
 Jack” – 1722
 “Religious Courtship” – 1722
 The Complete English Tradesman – 1726 The New Family
 Instructor - 1727

 More of his works

 The Great Law of Subordination Considered – 1724

 Everybody’s Business is Nobody’s Business – 1725
 The Politcal History of the Devil – 1726
 A System of Magick – 1726
 An Essay on the History and Reality of Appartions – 1727
 A General History of Discoveries and Improvements –
1727
 Atlas Maritimus and Commercialis – 1728
 A tour thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724-
1727)
 Deat
h

 Died in April 24, 1731

while hiding from
creditors
 He was buried in Bunhill
Fields, London, where
his grave can still be
visited
 At his death, he used a
minimum of 198
pseudonyms
 Robinson Crusoe

 The story of Robinson Crusoe tells of a man’s

shipwreck on a deserted island and his subsequent
adventures
 The story of Robinson Crusoe is based partly on the
true story of Scottish castaway Alexander Selkirk and
partly on a Muslim man’s fictitious story
 The Crusoe’s friend, Friday, was based off a
publicized case of a marooned Central American
 DeFoe Inspires and Sequels

 Inspired a new genre called the “Robinsonade”

 Wyss’s The Swiss Family Robinson – 1812
 J.M. Coetzee’s Foe – 1986
 Tournier’s Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique –
1967
 DeFoe’s The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
and Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe
 Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels

Group work ➔
 Robinson Crusoe

Robinson’s Desire to Travel Abroad

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe is a novel in which the

protagonist tells about his life as an adventurer making it an
autobiographical novel. Robinson Crusoe while young
desires to travel abroad but his idea is condemned by his
parents.
However, he ignores their advice and boards a ship that
takes him to London. On their way, the ship gets caught in a
fierce storm and Crusoe remembers his decision against his
parents. However, he and other men are rescued by another
ship.
 Robinson Crusoe

They depart for Yarmouth where they are warmly welcomed

by merchants. Crusoe then goes to London from where he
departs for Guinea on a ship. The captain of the ship
becomes very friendly with him and desires to help him.
Having bought some goods in London on the advice of his
friend (the captain), Crusoe sells them and earns a great
profit and gradually becomes a merchant. He goes on a
voyage which proves unlucky for him.
 Robinson Crusoe

A Tragedy and Escape

The ship is chased and all the men are enslaved by a
Turkish vessel belonging to pirates who make them slaves.
After spending two years in slavery, Crusoe succeeds in
escaping along with a young Moorish fellow namely Xury.
They are rescued by a Portuguese ship and taken to Brazil.
With the help of his friend (that captain) he starts a sugar
business which flourishes in a short span.
 Robinson Crusoe

A Tragedy and Escape

The ship is chased, and all the men are enslaved by a
Turkish vessel belonging to pirates who make them slaves.
After spending two years in slavery, Crusoe succeeds in
escaping along with a young Moorish fellow namely Xury.
They are rescued by a Portuguese ship and taken to Brazil.
With the help of his friend (that captain) he starts a sugar
business which flourishes in a short span.
 Robinson Crusoe

After spending four years as a rich and successful

businessman he desires to become richer and goes on
another voyage. This time again the ship is caught in a
storm. All the men drown and Crusoe remains as the sole
survivor.

Arrival on a New Island

He finds himself on an inhabited island. After spending some
days on the island, he visits the wretched ship and starts
bringing all the things he finds on it to his place. With the
help of tools that he gets from the ship, he builds a hut and
also digs a cave.
 Robinson Crusoe

Being in solitude he often repents over his past deeds. He

starts reading the Bible for peace. He also starts maintaining
a regular journal in which he describes all his day-to-day
activities.
He finds an abundance of animals on the island and using
his gun as he manages to kill them for food. He also makes
a canoe. He spends months on it but all his hard work goes
wasted as his canoe becomes too big and heavy for him to
move.
 Robinson Crusoe

Once he becomes very ill and prays to God. He is finally

recovered. He has a cat, a dog (that he rescued from the
ship) and a parrot whom he teaches to speak to him. All
these animals give him comfort. He considers himself to be
the monarch of the island.
After spending a number of years on the island he finds his
gunpowder decreasing. Thus he starts domesticating
animals. He visits the other side of the island and finds
ample fruits there. Later on, he makes another hut there.
 Robinson Crusoe

Once he finds a footprint and thus loses peace for years.

However, he does not find any person. After some years he
finds for the first time a group of cannibals eating human
flesh. He runs back to his hut and starts extending the
protection.
 Robinson Crusoe

Encounter with Friday, A Cannibal

The fear of being eaten by cannibals always remains in his
mind. One night he dreams of rescuing a boy. His dreams
come true. He rescues a boy from cannibals killing two of
them. He names the boy Friday as he was rescued on that
day. Friday becomes his faithful servant.
After some time, they happen to witness another wretched
ship and also two people who are brought by cannibals for
eating. Crusoe desires to save them. He and Friday kill 17
cannibals. One of them turns out to be the father of Friday
and the other a Spaniard.
 Robinson Crusoe

From the father of Friday, Crusoe comes to know that on in

their country (Friday’s) 17 Germans have been there who
are though kept as guests by the Friday’s community yet
they have difficulty as they are not cannibals and cannot eat
human flesh.
Crusoe desires to rescue them as well. They start growing
food so as to make it enough for all of them (including those
17 Germans) to survive during their voyage. When the food
becomes sufficient, Crusoe sends Friday’s father and the
Spaniard to rescue those Germans.
 Robinson Crusoe

Escape from Island

They follow Crusoe’s order and head for the mission. Once
Crusoe and his companions find an English ship on the
Island from which 3 prisoners along with their captors come
out. Crusoe helps the prisoners to liberate and help them
defeat the rebellious men.
He makes some of those (who rebelled and later accepted
their defeat) to remain on the island as a punishment.
Crusoe along with Friday and Captain and his companions
departed for England. On the way, they had to go by land.
The way proves to be very dangerous.
 Robinson Crusoe

Their guide is attacked and wounded by wolves. However,

they reach England. From there Crusoe goes to Lisbon
where he learns that his sugar business in Brazil has been
yielding a regular income and also he has acquired huge
money.
He marries and begets 3 children. He again makes a voyage
to the East Indies and on the way, he goes to the island
colonized by him. Later on, he goes to Brazil and sends
some women for the people on the island to serve them as
wives or slaves.
 Discussion Questions

1. What are the conflicts in Robinson Crusoe? What types

of conflict (physical, moral, intellectual, or emotional) did
you notice in this novel?
2. What are some themes in the story? How do they relate
to the ​plot and characters?
3. What is the central/primary purpose of Robinson
Crusoe? Is the purpose important or meaningful?
4. How important is friendship and/or camaraderie
to Robinson Crusoe?
 Group work (15’)
Represent the passage in your own words

Group 1: from the beginning to “unlucky for him”

Group 2: A tragedy and escape

Group 3: Arrival on a new Island

Group 4: Encounter with Friday

Group 5: Escape from Island

Group 6: The extract

Group 7: The main romantic themes of this novel

Thank you!

2021-2022