Romanticism in English literature

Romantic, when used about English literature and given a capital letter, refers to a period from around 1789 (the beginning of the French Revolution) to about 1832 (the death of Sir Walter Scott). An alternative starting date is the publication in 1798 of Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads. Other major Romantic writers in English included the poets Byron, Blake, Keats, Shelley and Clare and the essayists Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt.

All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings (Wordsworth: Preface to Lyrical Ballads, 1802 edition)

The Romantic Movement included all the arts and not just literature and it began first on the European mainland. The German writer Goethe is a key figure - inspired in part by Shakespeare - as are the composers Beethoven and Berlioz and artists such as J M W Turner and Caspar David Friedrich. Romanticism rejected tradition in favour of innovation and placed great emphasis on the poet's feelings, on responses to nature and on the power of the imagination - but of course it was more complicated than can be summed up in a few sentences, so make use of some of the books and websites listed here to find out more.

The Romantic Age

• Boris Ford (editor): The Cambridge Cultural History of Britain: The Romantic Age (Cambridge Cultural History, Volume 6)
• Paul Flinn: How to Study Romantic Poetry
• C M Bowra: The Romantic Imagination (first published in 1950)
• E P Thompson: The Romantics: England in a Revolutionary Age
• M H Abrams: The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (Galaxy Books) - first published in 1953, this work traces the evolution of the Romantic approach to literary criticism and compares it to the other approaches which prevailed in the early nineteenth century.

Broadcast

• The Roots of Romanticism: An audio lecture by Isaiah Berlin from The Isaiah Berlin Virtual Library: Berlin's dry delivery may be an acquired taste today but the content is invaluable.

Key texts

• Wordsworth and Coleridge: Lyrical Ballads: the first, 1798, edition (the one specified for AQA's LTA4 examination). These volumes might also be useful:
• Lyrical Ballads (Routledge Classics): all the editions of the text, the Preface to the 1800 version and Wordsworth's appendix on 'Poetic Diction' from the 1802 edition. Note that you can also view all the editions of Lyrical Ballads on the Romantic Circles site (see below).
• Wordsworth and Coleridge: Lyrical Ballads by John Blades, a commentary in the Analysing Texts series from Palgrave Macmillan
• Heather Glen: Vision and Disenchantment: Blake's Songs and Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads (Cambridge Paperback Library) - recommended by Dr Alistair Cormack of the University of East Anglia as "the best book I've ever read on Blake and also the best book I've ever read on Wordsworth". Unfortunately it seems currently to be out of print so either try a library or a second-hand seller such as Abebooks or through the Amazon link here.
• See also the Wordsworth page on this site.
• Blake: Songs of Innocence and of Experience edited by Richard Willmott: this edition contains useful notes and study material.
• See also the Blake pages on this site for further reading and many more links.
• Shelley: Ode to the West Wind and Other Poems: also known as Selected Poems (Dover Thrift Editions).

Classicism is health, romanticism is disease.
Goethe, 1829

• Byron: Byron's Collected Poems in the Wordsworth Poetry Library, which contains the complete works including all of Don Juan. Readers may find the pages rather cramped. Alternatives include:
• Lord Byron: The Major Works (Oxford World's Classics): more expensive but better print.
  
• See also the Byron page on this site.
• Clare: Selected Poems (Everyman Poetry); alternatives include
• John Clare: Major Works (Oxford World's Classics), especially for Tom Paulin's introduction and the notes.
• See also the John Clare page on this site.
• Keats: Selected Poems (Penguin Classics edition)
• See also this activity on Keats' To Autumn

Websites

• Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Period - a brief overview of some issues of the century, including the Tintern Abbey and the landscape, the Gothic, the French Revolution, etc; also some useful extracts, links, etc.
• Romanticism: an Overview from the Victorian Web - odd though it might seem, this site has a useful overview of the Romantic movement and a section on Some Earlier Authors such as Byron, Wordsworth and Keats.
• Voice of the Shuttle: Romantics: very comprehensive list of links to Web sites covering Romantic-related material: this includes many scholarly sites and is rather daunting but it's worth exploring.
• Romantic Circles: 'a refereed scholarly Website devoted to the study of Romantic-period literature and culture' - includes a valuable list of online editions, such as the section devoted to Lyrical Ballads in its many editions, with collations, page images, a bibliography, and much more.
• Romantic Literary Resources list from Jack Lynch of Rutgers University, Newark: another useful annotated list of links.
• Wordsworth Trust at Dove Cottage: "a living memorial to the life and poetry of William Wordsworth" that also provides a wider context.

Finding texts online

See the websites listed above and the usual sources of online texts listed on the literature links page, in particular:

• Representative Poetry Online from the University of Toronto: the Timeline allows you to locate poets from this period quickly.
• Project Gutenberg