THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC PERIOD

During the reign of George III, there was a long war against Napoleon to save the independence of Britain and the freedom of various states in Europe. Napoleon tried a commercial blockade, cutting off British trade with the continent but it could not be enforced for long because all Europe wanted British and colonial goods. The naval power of France was humbled by Nelson, who obtained the great victory of Trafalgar in 1805. As the crown of Spain had been given to Napoleon’s brother, Britain supported the Spanish resistance for year obtaining great land victories and beginning from Spain the invasion of France, in 1814. George IV’s reign was a period of reforms. The tories were against any interference of the state in economic matters; they at once recognized the independence of Spanish colonies in South america and were in favour of the Risorgimento and the italian struggle for freedom. In 1829 the Bill of Catholic Emancipation was passed and Catholics obtained the same rights as Protestant. In the same year Sir Robert Peel created the Civilian Metropolitan Police and solved the problem of maintaining order without military control. George IV had no children so his brother William succeeded him and Wighs came to power. A reform was necessary in Parliamentary representation and a First Reform Bill was passed in 1832; about 150 seats were taken away from the so-called rotten boroughs. These boroughs were corrupt because they were easily bought and sold to the advantage of a particular faction; their seats were later given to the new industrial towns. In this way, political power passed from agricultural to manufacturing districts. Representation now corresponded to the real number of inhabitants of each district; moreover the right to vote was enlarged to most of the middle classes. Other important events of this period were:

- the abolition of slavery in the British colonies

- the introduction of a system of national education

- the Factory Acts by which the employment of children under nine was forbidden by law and Parliament began to control the working conditions of women and children.

SOCIAL BACKGROUND

The immediate result of the industrial revolution was an increase in production and in the total wealth of the country. The Napoleonic Wars began to make business uncertain and European markets, closely connected with the changing fortunes of the wars, accepted or refused British goods accordingly. Periods of over-production were followed by periods of depression and the consequent fluctuation greatly affected the workers. The wealthier farmers increased the price of corn but this meant new hardship for farm workers, they were often reduced to begging. The situation was little better in the north, where the concentration of factories offered more opportunities for work; but there were no precise regulations regarding conditions, wages and hours of work. To defend their interest, the workers initially appealed to the law, then turned to combinations as their sole defence. In 1799 the Combination Acts were passed making meetings of workers illegal; this allowed employers to keep wages low and left them free to repress any type of agitation. Workers began to attack factories and destroy machine; the worst of this episodes were the work of the “Luddites”. To protect the machines and control the mobs, the government decided to have recourse to the army: in 1819 a group of soldiers killed eleven people after charging a crowd that had gathered at St. Peter’s Field to listen a radical orator, this event, known as the Peterloo Massacre, shocked the public opinion. The problems of the lower classes were not disregarded by economist like Ricardo and social reformers like Owen, who had established a radically innovatory textile factory, where he had reduced working hours and limited child labour. When the Napoleonic Wars ended, Britain initially found itself without money and unable to carry out any social and political reforms. The number of unemployed increased and many of them were compelled to emigrate to America. However the situation improved, thanks mainly to a reduction in customs duties, which favoured foreign trade. Unemployment slowly decreased and Combinations, which were now called Trade Unions, were finally legalized in 1825. the problems of the time also affected women, who were often forced to take jobs in factories, in order to help their men-folk. In factories they competed with men and ended by gaining more and more independence. In upper and middle classes, they had no need to work; the wealthier women found themselves with even too much leisure. Some women took to writing domestic novels, while others devoted themselves to humanitarian activities. When William IV died in 1837, the Britain inherited by Queen Victoria was a country still torn by great internal conflicts and with many unsolved problems.

LITERARY PRODUCTION

The term “romanticism”, by the end of th

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Coleridge is probably best known for his long poems, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel. Even those who have never read the Rime have come under its influence: its words have given the English language the metaphor of an albatross around one's neck, the quotation of "water, water everywhere, ne any drop to drink (almost always rendered as "but not a drop to drink")", and the phrase "a sadder and a wiser man (again, usually rendered as "sadder but wiser man")". Christabel is known for its musical rhythm, language, and its Gothic tale.Coleridge's shorter, meditative "conversation poems," however, proved to be the most influential of his work. These include both quiet poems like This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison and Frost at Midnight and also strongly emotional poems like Dejection and The Pains of Sleep. Wordsworth immediately adopted the model of these poems, and used it to compose several of his major poems. Via Wordsworth, the conversation poem became a standard vehicle for English poetic expression, and perhaps the most common approach among modern poets.The Eolian Harp, Speaking symbolically in terms of harp and breeze, Coleridge's implication is that each being is but a single part of the world-soul or over-spirit that emanates from the One. It is interesting to note that Coleridge for the moment feels he has ventured too far, for he then retracts "these shapings of the unregenerate mind," and concludes the poem vowing to forsake "vain philosophy's aye-babbling spring."

It is important to understand that despite not enjoying the name recognition or popular acclaim that Wordsworth or Shelley have had, Coleridge is one of the most important figures in English poetry. His poems directly and deeply influenced all the major poets of the age. He was known by his contemporaries as a meticulous craftsman who was more rigorous in his careful reworking of his poems than any other poet, and Southey and Wordsworth were dependent on his professional advice. His influence on Wordsworth is particularly important because many critics have credited Coleridge with the very idea of "Conversational Poetry". The idea of utilizing common, everyday language to express profound poetic images and ideas for which Wordsworth became so famous may have originated almost entirely in Coleridge’s mind. It is difficult to imagine Wordsworth’s great poems, The Excursion or The Prelude, ever having been written without the direct influence of Coleridge’s originality.



Wordsworth had for years been making plans to write a long philosophical poem in three parts, which he intended to call The Recluse. He had in 1798–99 started an autobiographical poem, which he never named but called the "poem to Coleridge", which would serve as an appendix to The Recluse. In 1804 he began expanding this autobiographical work, having decided to make it a prologue rather than an appendix to the larger work he planned. By 1805, he had completed it, but refused to publish such a personal work until he had completed the whole of The Recluse. The death of his brother, John, in 1805 affected him strongly.

The source of Wordsworth's philosophical allegiances as articulated in The Prelude and in such shorter works as "Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey" has been the source of much critical debate. While it had long been supposed that Wordsworth relied chiefly on Coleridge for philosophical guidance, more recent scholarship has suggested that Wordsworth's ideas may have been formed years before he and Coleridge became friends in the mid 1790s. While in Revolutionary Paris in 1792, the twenty-two year old Wordsworth made the acquaintance of the mysterious traveller John "Walking" Stewart (1747-1822),[6] who was nearing the end of a thirty-years' peregrination from Madras, India, through Persia and Arabia, across Africa and all of Europe, and up through the fledgling United States. By the time of their association, Stewart had published an ambitious work of original materialist philosophy entitled The Apocalypse of Nature (London, 1791), to which many of Wordsworth's philosophical sentiments are likely indebted.

In 1807, his Poems in Two Volumes were published, including "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood". Up to this point Wordsworth was known publicly only for Lyrical Ballads, and he hoped this collection would cement his reputation. Its reception was lukewarm, however. For a time (starting in 1810), Wordsworth and Coleridge were estranged over the latter's opium addiction.[4] Two of his children, Thomas and Catherine, died in 1812. The following year, he received an appointment as Distributor of Stamps for Westmorland, and the £400 per year income from the post made him financially secure. His family, including Dorothy, moved to Rydal Mount, Ambleside (between Grasmere and Rydal Water) in 1813, where he spent the rest of his life.

Wordsworth received an honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree in 1838 from D

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