Romantic Period

Learning Objectives:

At the end of the lesson, the students are expected to:

 Identify the characteristics of romantic period.

 Summarize the text of literary pieces.
 Appreciate the importance of literary works.

II. The Romantic Period

The Romantic Period began roughly around 1798 and lasted until 1837. The political and economic
atmosphere at the time heavily influenced this period, with many writers finding inspiration from the
French Revolution. There was a lot of social change during this period. Calls for the abolition of slavery
became louder during this time, with more writing openly about their objections. After the Agricultural
Revolution people moved away from the countryside and farmland and into the cities, where the
Industrial Revolution provided jobs and technological innovations, something that would spread to the
United States in the 19th century. Romanticism was a reaction against this spread of industrialism, as
well as a criticism of the aristocratic social and political norms and a call for more attention to nature.
Although writers of this time did not think of themselves as Romantics, Victorian writers later classified
them in this way because of their ability to capture the emotion and tenderness of man.

ROBERT BURNS

Born in 1759, in Alloway, Scotland. His poetry recorded and celebrated aspects of farm life,
regional experience, traditional culture, class culture and distinctions, and religious practice. Considered
the national poet of Scotland, who wrote lyrics and songs in Scots and in English. He was also famous
for his amours and his rebellion against orthodox religion and morality. Also called a pre-Romantic Poet
Writing style is spontaneous, direct, and sincere, marked with gentle intensity with slight touches of
humor and satire.

A Red, Red Rose So deep in luve am I;

Robert Burns And I will luve thee still, my dear,

O my Luve is like a red, red rose Till a’ the seas gang dry.

That’s newly sprung in June;

O my Luve is like the melody Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

That’s sweetly played in tune. And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;

I will love thee still, my dear,

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass, While the sands o’ life shall run.
 And I will come again, my luve,

And fare thee weel, my only luve! Though it were ten thousand mile.

And fare thee weel awhile!

Red Red Rose - is one of the most popular love poems and was first published in 1794. The poem
explores the phenomenon of love. It comprises the narrator’s attempt to express the depth of his love.
Since its publication, it has gained a lot of popularity across the globe.

- Major Theme: Love and Separation

- Simile: “O my Luve is like a red, red rose”
Here, the poet compares his beloved with a red rose.
“O my Luve is like the melody”
poet compares his love with sweet melody.
- Consonance: “And fare thee weel awhile!”.
- Symbolism: Robert has used “rose” as a symbol of love.
- Alliteration: “O my Luve is like a red, red rose”.
- Imagery: visual imagery in the poem such as, “O my Luve is like a red, red rose”,” And the rocks
melt wi’ the sun” and “While the sands o’ life shall run”.
- Hyperbole: “Till a’ the seas gang dry.”
“And the rocks melt wi’ the sun.”
- Assonance: “I will love thee still, my dear”.

SIR WALTER SCOTT – Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, August 15, 1771. His early work consisted of poetic
romances. The major elements of his style include the use of disjointed flashbacks, medieval
colloquialism, and varied structure. in most of his works, he used third person narrative. However, when
he wished to explain something from a different perspective, he used the first-person narrative.
Regarding literary devices, he often turns to metaphors, imagery, and similes to create a unique style.

Lochinvar There never was knight like the young

Lochinvar.
Sir Walter Scott

O young Lochinvar is come out of the west,

He staid not for brake, and he stopp’d not for
Through all the wide Border his steed was the
stone,
best;
He swam the Eske river where ford there was
And save his good broadsword he weapons had
none;
none,
But ere he alighted at Netherby gate,
He rode all unarm’d, and he rode all alone.
The bride had consented, the gallant came late:
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,
 For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, He took her soft hand, ere her mother could
bar,—
Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.
“Now tread we a measure!” said young
Lochinvar.
So boldly he enter’d the Netherby Hall,

Among bride’s-men, and kinsmen, and brothers

So stately his form, and so lovely her face,
and all:
That never a hall such a galliard did grace;
Then spoke the bride’s father, his hand on his
sword, While her mother did fret, and her father did
fume,
(For the poor craven bridegroom said never a
word,) And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet
and plume;
“O come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,
And the bride-maidens whisper’d, “’twere
Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord
better by far
Lochinvar?”
To have match’d our fair cousin with young
Lochinvar.”
“I long woo’d your daughter, my suit you
denied;—
One touch to her hand, and one word in her
Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide
ear,
—
When they reach’d the hall-door, and the
And now I am come, with this lost love of mine,
charger stood near;
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of
So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung,
wine.
So light to the saddle before her he sprung!
There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by
far, “She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and
scaur;
That would gladly be bride to the young
Lochinvar.” They’ll have fleet steeds that follow,” quoth
young Lochinvar.

The bride kiss’d the goblet: the knight took it

up, There was mounting ’mong Graemes of the
Netherby clan;
He quaff’d off the wine, and he threw down the
cup. Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode
and they ran:
She look’d down to blush, and she look’d up to
sigh, There was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lee,

With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye.

 But the lost bride of Netherby ne’er did they Have ye e’er heard of gallant like young
see. Lochinvar?

So daring in love, and so dauntless in war,

Lochinvar - intertwines beautifully intricacies of romance, war, relationships, and power-play. It also
celebrates the triumph of love over discord and heroic actions over grandiose statements.

- is a ballad with eight six-line stanzas. It tells the story of a Scottish knight, “young Lochinvar,”
who is described as faithful and true but who arrives at the wedding of his romantic interest to
steal her away for his own. The building of conflict in the poem involves using active and passive
language to set up Lochinvar, the archetype of bold action, as the hero of the tale. Positive
adjectives and descriptors compound this role. The poem generally describes a battle of will and
conflicting desires.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

 An English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic
Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads (an important work in the
English Romantic movement, 1798).
 He was born on April 7, 1770, at  Cockermouth, Cumberland, England. The second of five
children born to John Wordsworth and Ann Cookson.

"The spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in
tranquility"

WORDSWORTH'S POETIC PHILOSOPHY

Wordsworth wanted to invoke the basic feeling that a human heart possesses and expresses. He
had reversed philosophical stand point that S.T. Coleridge owns, ‘creating the characters in such an
environment so that the public feels them belonging to the distant place and time. And it is true that the
philosophical realization by William Wordsworth let him choose the language and structural patterning
of the poetry that a common man uses every day.

 Honorary doctorate in Civil Law from the University of Durham (1838)

 Honorary degree by the University of Oxford.
 "Poet of Humanity"

Following the death of Robert Southey in 1843 Wordsworth became Poet Laureate
 I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

William Wordsworth

The waves beside them danced; but they

I wandered lonely as a cloud Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

That floats on high o'er vales and hills, A poet could not but be gay,

When all at once I saw a crowd, In such a jocund company:

A host, of golden daffodils; I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

Beside the lake, beneath the trees, What wealth the show to me had brought:

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

For oft, when on my couch I lie

Continuous as the stars that shine In vacant or in pensive mood,

And twinkle on the milky way, They flash upon that inward eye

They stretched in never-ending line Which is the bliss of solitude;

Along the margin of a bay: And then my heart with pleasure fills,

Ten thousand saw I at a glance, And dances with the daffodils.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud - also commonly known as "Daffodils". Is one of the most famous and
best-loved poems written in the English language. It was composed by Romantic poet William
Wordsworth around 1804, though he subsequently revised it—the final and most familiar version of the
poem was published in 1815. The poem is based on one of Wordsworth's own walks in the countryside
of England's Lake District. During this walk, he and his sister encountered a long strip of daffodils. In the
poem, these daffodils have a long-lasting effect on the speaker, firstly in the immediate impression they
make and secondly in the way that the image of them comes back to the speaker's mind later on. "I
Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is a quintessentially Romantic poem, bringing together key ideas about
imagination, humanity and the natural world.

- MAJOR THEME: nature and human involvement in natural beauty.

John Keats

 An English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe
Shelley.
 He was born on October 31, 1795, at Moorgate, London, to Thomas and Frances Keats.
 His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculosis at the
age of 25.
 They were indifferently received in his lifetime, but his fame grew rapidly after his death.
  Keats had a style "heavily loaded with sensualities", notably in the series of odes. Typically, of
the Romantics, he accentuated extreme emotion through natural imagery. Today his poems and
letters remain among the most popular and analyzed in English literature – in particular "Ode to
a Nightingale", "Ode on a Grecian Urn", "Sleep and Poetry" and the sonnet "On First Looking
into Chapman's Homer".
 He had been writing poetry seriously for only about six years, from 1814 until the summer of
1820, and publishing for only four.
 His first poem, the sonnet O Solitude, appeared in the Examiner in May 1816, while his
collection Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes and other poems was published in July 1820
before his last visit to Rome.
 Keats wrote that "if poetry comes not as naturally as the Leaves to a tree it had better not come
at all,"

Ode on a Grecian Urn Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

John Keats Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, Though winning near the goal yet, do not
grieve;
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy

shape Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed

Of deities or mortals, or of both, Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? And, happy melodist, unwearied,

What men or gods are these? What maidens For ever piping songs for ever new;
loth?
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
For ever panting, and for ever young;

All breathing human passion far above,

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
leave
 Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? With forest branches and the trodden weed;

What little town by river or sea shore, Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? When old age shall this generation waste,

And, little town, thy streets for evermore Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou
say'st,
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede

Ode on a Grecian Urn- an ekphrastic poem, is one of John Keats’ “Great Odes of 1819”.

- is a romantic ode, a dignified but highly lyrical (emotional) poem in which the author speaks to a
person or thing absent or present. In this famous ode, Keats addresses the urn and the images
on it. The romantic ode was at the pinnacle of its popularity in the nineteenth century.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

 One of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and
social views.
 He was born on August 4, 1792, at Field Place, Warnham, West Sussex, England.
 He was the eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley, a Whig Member of Parliament for Horsham, and
Elizabeth Pilfold, the daughter of a successful butcher.

Politics

Shelley was a political radical who was influenced by thinkers such as Rousseau, Paine, Godwin,
Wollstonecraft, and Leigh Hunt. He advocated Catholic Emancipation, republicanism, parliamentary
reform, the extension of the franchise, freedom of speech and peaceful assembly, an end to aristocratic
and clerical privilege, and a more equal distribution of income and wealth.

Nonviolence

"I do not wish to see things changed now, because it cannot be done without violence, and we may
assure ourselves that none of us are fit for any change, however good, if we condescend to employ
force in a cause we think right.”

Shelley's work was not widely read in his lifetime outside a small circle of friends, poets and
critics. Most of his poetry, drama and fiction was published in editions of 250 copies which generally
sold poorly.
 Ode to the West Wind Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are
shed,
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and
I
Ocean,
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's
being,
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves
dead On the blue surface of thine aëry surge,

Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
fleeing,

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, verge

Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, Of the horizon to the zenith's height,

Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Of the dying year, to which this closing night

Each like a corpse within its grave, until Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,

Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere

(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear!

With living hues and odours plain and hill:

III

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams

Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear! The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,

Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams,

II

Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky's Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,
commotion,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers

Quivering within the wave's intenser day,

 As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!

So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

For whose path the Atlantic's level powers

A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and
proud.
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which
wear

The sapless foliage of the ocean, know V

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, What if my leaves are falling like its own!

And tremble and despoil themselves: oh hear! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

IV Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,

If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe

The impulse of thy strength, only less free Like wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth!

Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even And, by the incantation of this verse,

I were as in my boyhood, and could be

Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven, Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!

As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth

Scarce seem'd a vision; I would ne'er have

striven
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Ode to the West - Is an ode, written by Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1819 in Cascine wood near Florence,
Italy. It was originally published in 1820 by Charles Ollier in London as part of the collection Prometheus
Unbound, A Lyrical Drama in Four Acts, With Other Poems. The poem allegorises the role of the poet as
the voice of change and revolution.

 Major Themes - Power, human limitations and the natural world.