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The Hay Wain, 1821. John Constable. National Gallery, London, UK

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The Hay Wain, 1821. John Constable. National Gallery, London, UK The Hay Wain, 1821. John Constable. National Gallery, London, UK. 692 National Gallery Collection; By kind permission of the Trustees of the National Gallery, London/CORBIS 00692-0706692-0706 UOU4-845482.inddUOU4-845482.indd 692692 11/29/07/29/07 12:44:0812:44:08 PMPM UNIT FOUR The Triumh of ROMANTICISM 1750-1837 Looking Ahead Toward the end of the 1700s, industrial and political revolution overturned traditional ways of life in Europe. Bold, new ideas were beginning to challenge the belief in reason associated with the Enlightenment. In time, many of these ideas would form part of Romanticism, a broad movement in art and thought that valued feeling and imagination over reason. British Romantic writers found inspiration in nature, folk culture, the medieval past, and their own passions. Keep the following questions in mind as you read: What were the essential features of Romanticism? How did Romantic writers respond to nature? What conception of the imagination did Romanticism express? OBJECTIVES In learning about the age of English Romanticism, you will focus on the following: • analyzing the characteristics of the literary period and the issues that influenced the writers of that period • evaluating the influences of the histori cal period that shaped literary characters, plots, settings, and themes • connecting literature to historical contexts, current events, and your own experiences 693 00692-0706692-0706 UOU4-845482.inddUOU4-845482.indd 693693 11/9/07/9/07 10:59:2710:59:27 AMAM TIMELINE 1750-1837 BRITISH LITERATURE 1750 1790 1751 1765 1792 1798 Thomas Gray’s “Elegy First gothic novel, Horace Mary Wollstonecraft William Wordsworth and Written in a Country Walpole’s The Castle of publishes A Vindication Samuel Taylor Coleridge Churchyard” is published Otranto, is published of the Rights of Woman publish Lyrical Ballads anonymously 1786 1794 1799 1765 Robert Burns publishes Ann Radcliffe publishes William Wordsworth begins Bishop Percy publishes Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish The Mysteries of Udolpho The Prelude Reliques of Ancient English Dialect 1794 Poetry 1786 William Blake publishes William Beckford Songs of Innocence and publishes Vathek Experience BRITISH EVENTS 1750 1790 1753 1776 ▲ 1795 1798 Britain and its colonies American colonists declare Mungo Park explores Niger Thomas Malthus publishes celebrate January 1 as New their independence from River in Africa An Essay on the Principle Year’s Day for the first time Britain; Adam Smith publishes of Population The Wealth of Nations 1769 1802 James Watt invents modern 1781 British purchase Elgin high-pressure steam engine British surrender at Yorktown Marbles ends American Revolution 1771 1805 Sir Richard Arkwright builds 1788 British defeat Napoleon’s first water-powered cotton mill British establish first colony naval forces at Trafalgar in Australia 1807 WORLD EVENTS Britain outlaws slave trade 1750 1790 1752 1789 1793 First U.S. hospital opens in French Revolution begins Eli Whitney invents the Philadelphia with storming of the Bastille cotton gin in the U.S. prison 1752 1793 Benjamin Franklin proves French King Louis XVI that lightning is electricity executed by revolutionaries 1804 1754 1794 Napoleon Bonaparte French and Indian War Toussaint L’Ouverture proclaimed emperor begins in North America leads Haitian revolts against of France France and Spain 1755 Moscow University established in Russia Timeline Visit www.glencoe.com for an interactive timeline. 694 UNIT 4 THE TRIUMPH OF ROMANTICISM (t)The Art Archive/British Museum, (c)Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY, (br)Bettmann/CORBIS, (bl)The Art Archive/Musée du Nouveau Monde La Rochelle/Dagli Orti 00692-0706692-0706 UOU4-845482.inddUOU4-845482.indd 694694 11/29/07/29/07 12:44:3012:44:30 PMPM Frigate Macedonian captured by frigate United States, 1812. rsailles/Dagli Orti e du Château de V Archive/Musée 1810 Art The 1813 1817 1818 1824 Jane Austen publishes Pride Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s George Gordon, Lord Byron George Gordon, Lord Byron and Prejudice Biographia Literaria is publishes Childe Harold’s publishes Don Juan ▼ published Pilgrimage 1814 First historical novel, 1818 1818 Bolivar Caracas/Dagli Orti, Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley, John Keats publishes First science fiction novel, is published Endymion ▼ Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, is published 1815 Archive/Museo Art Jane Austen publishes Emma 1820 Percy Bysshe Shelley (bcr)The publishes Prometheus Unbound 1810 1811 1814 1819 1830 Prince of Wales becomes George Stephenson designs Peterloo Massacre takes First public railway line regent first steam locomotive ▼ place opens in Britain 1811 1824 Luddites destroy machinery England purchases Singapore and Malaya 1812 War between United States and Great Britain begins 1810 1810 1814–1815 1819 Father Hidalgo leads Congress of Vienna meets Simón Bolívar leads Mexican revolt against Venezuelan revolt 1817 Spain against Spain In Africa, Shaka becomes 1812 chief of Zulus 1821 1830 Grimm brothers publish Greece revolts against France occupies Algeria Children’s and Household Turkey and declares its Tales Napoleon independence 1815 Napoleon defeated at Waterloo, ending Reading Check Napoleonic Wars Analyzing Graphic Information What new types of fiction first appeared during the Romantic Period? INTRODUCTION 695 (t)Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC/ Art Resource, NY, (tcl)Private Collection/Bridgeman Art Library, (tcr)The Pierpont Morgan Library/Art Resource, NY, (bcl)Private Collection/Bridgeman Art Library 00692-0706692-0706 UOU4-845482.inddUOU4-845482.indd 695695 66/22/06/22/06 9:23:249:23:24 AMAM BY THE NUMBERS BRITISH COTTON CONSUMPTION, 1800–1900 800 790 700 775 600 610 500 400 490 480 300 275 210 200 110 100 50 Cotton Consumption (in tons) 0 10 60 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 Source Historical Statistics of the United States The Cost of Gentility In the late 1700s, the word genteel TRAVEL EXPENSES times as fast as during the referred to a well-bred person. preceding fifty years. One reason Gentility, which made a family A genteel young Englishman’s was falling mortality rates socially acceptable, was closely education was not complete from epidemic diseases such related to economic status and life- until he had experienced the as plague. style, and was reflected in the num- Grand Tour, a European trip that ber and quality of one’s servants, could last three to four years. POLICING LONDON horses, carriages, and houses. The Money went much further on the following list presents what a family Continent than in England. One In 1829 Parliament passed could afford at various income British traveler of the late 1700s the Metropolitan Police Act, and levels. estimated that a tourist could Sir Robert Peel set up a constab- live better on 100 pounds a year ulary for London. London’s first in Italy than on 500 pounds a police (called “Bobbies” or 100 pounds per year year in England. “Peelers” after Sir Robert) were • One ill-paid servant required to be younger than 35, at least 5 feet 5 inches tall, in 300 pounds per year MILITARY EXPANSION good health, and able to read Two servants Between 1793 and 1815, • and write. They were required to England spent 1,650,000,000 400 pounds per year walk a beat of twenty miles a pounds on warfare. By the time Three servants (including day, seven days a week. • of the Battle of Waterloo (1815), a cook) the British army had grown to GROWTH OF RAILROADS 500 pounds per year about 250,000 men, more than • Gentility on a tight budget six times its size at the time of The first public railway line the French Revolution (1789). opened in 1830 and extended 700–1,000 pounds The British navy had grown even 32 miles between the British cit- per year faster, from 16,000 men to more ies of Liverpool and Manchester. • A carriage than 140,000. Pulling a 40-ton train, the loco- motive sped along at 16 miles More than 4,000 pounds per hour. Within 20 years, loco- per year POPULATION BOOM motives were able to reach A second house in London Between 1760 and 1815, • 50 miles per hour, an incredible for the social season England’s population grew five speed at the time. 696 UNIT 4 THE TRIUMPH OF ROMANTICISM 00692-0706692-0706 UOU4-845482.inddUOU4-845482.indd 696696 66/22/06/22/06 9:24:359:24:35 AMAM BEING THERE In the late 1700s, manufacturing began to assume a larger role in the British economy. As a result, industrial towns began to spread over England’s landscape. To escape what they saw as a growing blight of factories and slums, many Romantic writers fled to remote areas such as the Lake District. A Hungerford Stairs, c.1810. George Shepherd. Guildhall Library, Corporation of London. 3#/4,!.$ B London’s Royal Exchange, 1809. Thomas Edinburgh Rowlandson. Glasgow ./24( Newcastle 3%! Belfast ,!+%$)342)#4 5.)4%$+).'$/- Leeds Hull Galway )2)3( Dublin 3%! )2%,!.$ Liverpool Manchester Sheffield Birmingham %.',!.$ Cork WALES # Swansea 3T'EORGEgS#HANNEL ! Bristol London " Flatford Mill, 1817. John Constable. Tate ER C Portsmouth OV $ Gallery, London. F Plymouth TO AI 3TR %NGLISH#HANNEL Maps in Motion Visit www.glencoe.com for an interactive map. Reading Check 2. At top speed, how long would it have taken the first train to travel from Liverpool to Manchester in 1830? Analyzing Graphic Information: 1. About how many times larger was the British navy 3. In what part of England is the Lake District located? in 1815 than it had been in 1789? INTRODUCTION 697 (t)George Shepherd/Guildhall Library, Corporation of London, UK/Bridgeman Art Library, (c)Historical Picture Archive/CORBIS, (b)The Art Archive/Tate Gallery London/John Webb 00692-0706692-0706 UOU4-845482.inddUOU4-845482.indd 697697 11/29/07/29/07 12:44:4412:44:44 PMPM The Triumh of ROMANTICISM 1750-1837 Historical, Social, and Cultural Forces The Industrial Revolution The American and French Beginning in Britain in the late 1700s, the Industrial Revolutions Revolution brought a shift from economies based on The late 1700s was a period of growing political farming and handmade goods to economies based on unrest that culminated in a series of revolutions.
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