The Romantic Movement,

Romanticism
Assistant Lecturer Sarah Abdulrahman Khuder
Romanticism
 There are two terms which are similar in spelling, but
different in meaning: romance and romanticism. The
word ''romance'' is totally different from ''romanticism''.
 Romance is a story of love and adventure which
flourished during the middle Ages. Whereas Romanticism
is a literary movement by itself, complete in everything
which rose during the second half of the eighteenth
century and ended with the early period of the
nineteenth century. This movement did not emerge all of
a sudden. In fact, it took a lot of time to get matured
and crystallized in a gradual way. It started with a poet
called Robert Burns who was a transitional poet. Then
later highly developed with major romantic poets, the
pioneers, like William Blake, William Wordsworth,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, Percy Pesshe
Shelley, John Keats.
 Cultural Background

 The romantic movement was a result of three major

reasons took place at that time:
 A- The Industrial Revolution
 B- The French Revolution
 C- The Tendency for Change
A- The Industrial Revolution:

 The industrial revolution started first in England when

the government encouraged industrialization of
everything inside the country. As a result, great changes
took place in all the fields of life; social, economical,
political and even religious which were finally reflected in
literature and poetry in particular. The industrial
revolution materialized everything in life and man
became a slave instead of being a master. Man turned
out to be a lifeless working machine with total absence
of passions. People at that time revolted against that
boring and humiliating condition and poets as sensitive
people looked for an outlet, for a change or solution to
that state.
B- The French Revolution:

The French revolution was one of the greatest revolutions

in the world. The French people revolted against the royal
authority and changed everything fundamentally and
announced the republic rule. They raised the slogans:
liberty, fraternity and equality. The slogans were very much
influential and impressive on people, literary men in
particular.
C- The Tendency for Change:

 The majority of people at that time were fully convinced

to make some changes in order to get out of the deadly
routine of the previous age. They had been fed up with
the rigid rules of the former period. The poets in
particular made these changes.