Romanticism
What inspired the iconic poetry of the Romantic period, and how did the Romantic poets portray landscape, class, radicalism and the sublime?
Blake's two chimney sweepers
- Article by:
- Linda Freedman
Songs of Innocence and of Experience contains two poems about young chimney sweepers: one in 'Innocence' and one in 'Experience'. Dr Linda Freedman considers how this allows for a complex, subtle engagement with the figure of the sweep.
- Themes:
- London, Romanticism
Looking at the manuscript of William Blake’s ‘London’
- Article by:
- Linda Freedman
In his poem ‘London’ William Blake explores poverty, revolution and the power of the imagination. Dr Linda Freedman examines the original draft manuscript, to discover the meanings behind this iconic poem.
- Themes:
- Romanticism, London
William Blake's radical politics
- Article by:
- Andrew Lincoln
The French Revolution inspired London radicals and reformers to increase their demands for change. Others called for moderation and stability, while the government tried to suppress radical activity. Professor Andrew Lincoln describes the political environment in which William Blake was writing.
- Themes:
- Power and politics, Poverty and the working classes, Romanticism
The title page of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence (1789)
- Article by:
- Michael Philips
Michael Phillips compares the title page of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence to an earlier children’s book, in order to reveal Blake's progressive views on the importance and power of childhood.
- Themes:
- Romanticism, Childhood and children's literature
The music of William Blake's poetry
- Article by:
- Julian Walker
One of William Blake’s acquaintances described him singing his songs in social gatherings. Julian Walker considers how Blake intends us to understand the word ‘song’ – and why his volume of poetry is called Songs – rather than ‘Poems’ – of Innocence and Experience.
- Theme:
- Romanticism
William Blake’s Chimney Sweeper poems: a close reading
- Article by:
- George Norton
George Norton shows how William Blake’s Chimney Sweeper poems highlight the injustice and brutality suffered by child chimney sweeps in the late 18th and 19th centuries.
- Themes:
- Poverty and the working classes, London, Romanticism
An introduction to 'The Tyger'
- Article by:
- George Norton
George Norton's close reading of William Blake’s 'The Tyger' considers the poem's imagery through 18th-century industrial and political revolutions and moral literature.
- Theme:
- Romanticism
William Blake and 18th-century children’s literature
- Article by:
- Julian Walker
Julian Walker looks at William Blake’s poetry in the context of 18th-century children’s literature, considering how the poems’ attitudes towards childhood challenge traditional ideas about moral education during that period.
- Themes:
- Childhood and children's literature, Romanticism
The Romantics
- Article by:
- Stephanie Forward
Dr Stephanie Forward explains the key ideas and influences of Romanticism, and considers their place in the work of writers including Wordsworth, Blake, P B Shelley and Keats.
- Theme:
- Romanticism
The Peterloo Massacre
- Article by:
- Ruth Mather
In August 1819 dozens of peaceful protestors were killed and hundreds injured at what became known as the Peterloo Massacre. Ruth Mather examines the origins, response and aftermath of this key early 19th century political event.
- Themes:
- Power and politics, Romanticism
An introduction to ‘Ozymandias’
- Article by:
- Stephen Hebron
Stephen Hebron looks at P B Shelley’s 'Ozymandias', showing how his use of form and vocabulary produce a poem that transcends its sources.
- Theme:
- Romanticism
An introduction to 'The Masque of Anarchy'
- Article by:
- John Mullan
Professor John Mullan analyses how Shelley transformed his political passion, and a personal grudge, into poetry.
- Theme:
- Romanticism
An introduction to ‘Tintern Abbey’
- Article by:
- Philip Shaw
Professor Philip Shaw considers the composition of 'Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey', and explains how Wordsworth uses nature to explore ideas of connection and unity.
- Theme:
- Romanticism
‘Proved upon our pulses’: Keats in context
- Article by:
- Andrew Motion
Keats is often seen as a purely sensual poet, isolated from the social and political concerns of his day. Andrew Motion challenges this view, exploring how Keats translated political, philosophical and medical questions into physical, immediate language.
- Theme:
- Romanticism
John Keats and ‘negative capability’
- Article by:
- Stephen Hebron
Stephen Hebron explores Keats’s understanding of negative capability, a concept which prizes intuition and uncertainty above reason and knowledge.
- Theme:
- Romanticism
An introduction to Don Juan
- Article by:
- Stephanie Forward
What does Don Juan tell us about Byron’s view of society and his fellow authors? Dr Stephanie Forward explains what we can learn from the poem’s form, narrator and reception.
- Theme:
- Romanticism
An introduction to ‘To a Skylark’
- Article by:
- Stephen Hebron
P B Shelley's 'To a Skylark' was inspired by the song of a real skylark, heard in Italy in 1820. Stephen Hebron considers how Shelley transforms ordinary experience into a plea to move beyond that experience to a deeper poetic understanding.
- Theme:
- Romanticism
Perceptions of childhood
- Article by:
- Kimberley Reynolds
In the mid-18th century, childhood began to be viewed in a positive light, as a state of freedom and innocence. Professor Kimberley Reynolds explores how this new approach influenced 18th and 19th-century writers, some of whom wished they could preserve childhood indefinitely.
- Themes:
- Romanticism, Childhood and children's literature
John Keats, poet-physician
- Article by:
- Sharon Ruston
Keats trained as an apothecary and a surgeon before deciding to dedicate himself to poetry. Professor Sharon Ruston considers how his medical background influenced his writing.
- Themes:
- Romanticism, Technology and science
Representations of drugs in 19th-century literature
- Article by:
- Sharon Ruston
Opium was widely available in the 19th century, sold by barbers, tobacconists and stationers. Writers including Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Charles Dickens all used the drug, for pleasure or as medicine. Professor Sharon Ruston explores how drugs provided both inspiration and subject matter for the literature of the period.
- Themes:
- Romanticism, Fin de siècle, Technology and science
Looking at the manuscript of William Blake’s ‘London’
- Article by:
- Linda Freedman
In his poem ‘London’ William Blake explores poverty, revolution and the power of the imagination. Dr Linda Freedman examines the original draft manuscript, to discover the meanings behind this iconic poem.
- Themes:
- Romanticism, London
‘To Autumn’: a city dweller’s perspective
- Article by:
- Daljit Nagra
Poet Daljit Nagra explores Keats’s personification of nature in his final poem, ‘To Autumn’, and how it was influenced by the poet’s experience of suffering and loss.
- Theme:
- Romanticism
Landscape and the Sublime
- Article by:
- Philip Shaw
Professor Philip Shaw considers how Romantic writers thought about the grandest and most terrifying aspects of nature, and the ways in which their writing responded to and influenced theories of the sublime.
- Theme:
- Romanticism
An introduction to 'Ode on Melancholy'
- Article by:
- Stephen Hebron
What is melancholy? Stephen Hebron examines changing ideas about the emotion, considering Keats’s suggestion that we embrace melancholy as inextricable from pleasure.
- Theme:
- Romanticism
An introduction to ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’: time, mortality and beauty
- Article by:
- Stephen Hebron
Stephen Hebron explains how a classical object inspired Keats’s consideration of human experience.
- Theme:
- Romanticism
An introduction to 'Ode to a Nightingale'
- Article by:
- Stephen Hebron
The nightingale has longstanding literary associations, but Keats’s famous ode was inspired by a real-life nightingale as much as by previous poetry. Stephen Hebron considers how Keats uses the bird to position poetic imagination between the mortal and the immortal.
- Theme:
- Romanticism
The Romantics and Italy
- Article by:
- Stephen Hebron
Stephen Hebron examines how both the idea and the reality of Italy shaped Romantic writing.
- Theme:
- Romanticism
The Romantics and Classical Greece
- Article by:
- Stephen Hebron
The Romantic period was one of growing interest in ancient Greece. Stephen Hebron explores how this shaped the subject matter and forms of the era’s poets.
- Theme:
- Romanticism
Lord Byron, 19th-century bad boy
- Article by:
- Clara Drummond
Clara Drummond explains how Lord Byron’s politics, relationships and views on other poets led to his reputation of 19th-century bad boy.
- Theme:
- Romanticism
An introduction to Kubla Khan: or A Vision in a Dream
- Article by:
- Seamus Perry
Dr Seamus Perry considers the composition and publication history of Kubla Khan, and explores how Coleridge transforms language into both image and music.
- Theme:
- Romanticism
Kubla Khan and Coleridge's exotic language
- Article by:
- Daljit Nagra
Poet Daljit Nagra explains how Coleridge uses language, form and imagery to create the heady exoticism of Kubla Khan.
- Theme:
- Romanticism
An introduction to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
- Article by:
- Seamus Perry
Dr Seamus Perry describes the origins of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and considers how Coleridge uses the poem to explore ideas of sin, suffering and salvation.
- Theme:
- Romanticism
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: Lord Byron and the Battle of Waterloo
- Article by:
- Philip Shaw
Professor Philip Shaw traces the influence of the Battle of Waterloo on the third canto of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, considering how Byron uses it to explore ideas of violence and sacrifice.
- Theme:
- Romanticism
Wordsworth and the sublime
- Article by:
- Philip Shaw
Professor Philip Shaw explores the role of the sublime in Wordsworth's autobiographical Prelude, explaining how the poet uses the concept to investigate nature, imagination and the divine.
- Theme:
- Romanticism
A ‘cargo of Songs’: Robert Burns, the Hastie manuscript and The Scots Musical Museum
- Article by:
- Robert Irvine
Dr Robert Irvine examines the Hastie manuscript, a collection of manuscript songs by Robert Burns, and The Scots Musical Museum, where they were ultimately published.
- Theme:
- Romanticism
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein and the Villa Diodati
- Article by:
- Greg Buzwell
Greg Buzwell describes the bizarre circumstances that gave rise to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and the other works that emerged from the ‘ghost story challenge’ at the Villa Diodati in the summer of 1816.
- Themes:
- The novel 1780–1832, Romanticism, The Gothic
'Composed upon Westminster Bridge'
- Article by:
- John Mullan
Wordsworth’s vision of London’s serene beauty was composed on the roof of a coach – the poet was en route to France to meet his illegitimate daughter Caroline for the first time. Professor John Mullan explores the background to the poem.
- Themes:
- London, Romanticism
Robert Burns: a career in verse
- Article by:
- Robert Irvine
Dr Robert Irvine considers the career of Robert Burns as a writer driven more by the excitement of writing and collecting verse than the desire for outward success, despite achieving long-term fame as Scotland’s ‘national bard’.
- Theme:
- Romanticism
Further themes
Romanticism
How did the Romantic poets explore landscape, class, radicalism and the sublime?
The Gothic
What are the key motifs of Gothic literature and how do these works reflect the contexts in which the genre emerged and evolved?
Childhood and children's literature
Was children’s literature intended to entertain or instruct?
Crime and crime fiction
Why was crime such a popular subject in 19th-century fiction?
London
How did the writers of this period portray our iconic capital city?
The novel 1780–1832
From the origins of the Gothic to depictions of the emerging middle classes, what are the key characteristics of late 18th- and early 19th-century literature?
The novel 1832–1880
How did the writers of this period incorporate fantasy, realism, sensationalism, and social commentary into their work?
Fin de siècle
How did the literature of this period reflect attitudes to gender, sexuality, immigration, class and scientific discovery?
Victorian poetry
How did the Victorian poets approach composition, form and language, and what inspired their subjects?
Popular culture
From music hall to pleasure gardens, explore the extraordinary range of entertainments on offer in Georgian and Victorian Britain.
Poverty and the working classes
How did writers respond to the social inequalities of Victorian society?
Power and politics
How did writers respond to the tumultuous political events of this period?
Reading and print culture
How did rising literacy rates, libraries and new technologies influence literature and reading habits during this period?
Technology and science
How did 19th-century authors respond to the new possibilities afforded by technology and science?
The middle classes
How were the tensions surrounding social mobility explored in the literature of the period?
Visions of the future
How did 19th-century depictions of the future reflect contemporary fears of social, political and technological change?
Gender and sexuality
How did the literature of this period portray and challenge traditional gender roles?
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