Romantic Period

When you hear the phrase Romantic Era, you would normally think of music or romantic things like love. The Romantic Era was a movement of music, art and literature. This movement was started in Europe in the 1850’s and became a period of enlightenment. This period of enlightenment was started by the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution as well as wars had a very large influence on the books written in the time period.

The Industrial Revolution began around the 1750’s and lasted until around the 1800’s.  This was a time where mechanical inventions took the place of humans in factories as it became cheaper and more efficient. Many of the factories of the time, if they hired you it would be for the dirty work and many of the women and children took these jobs that they gave. Often times the worker houses where the workers would live were sub-par conditions and the work would be “Living Hell”. The writers of the period saw these drastic changes, which was a big contrast between peace, nature and purity and the life of hell as factory worker.  With this they wrote of this new technology in their writings and they also had the essays that praised the machines, but criticized the work conditions of the factory worker and the jobs it took away.

            In the Romantic Period there was a sense of rational ideas and a lot of the writers looked to the past for inspiration.  The elements of the art as well as the perspectives of the narratives from the medieval time also helped to inspire many of the writings and books in that period.

            During the time of the Romanic Period there were four different wars going on, the Seven Year’s War, French and Indian War, French Revolution and the American Revolution. All of these four wars had a huge impact on the writings of the Romantic Era.  Due to the wars a lot of the works published differed greatly and because most men were out fighting in the wars, the women stayed home and wrote most of the books in the time period.

            The French Revolution was to overthrow the monarchy in France, thus spreading ideas of nationalism, the classes and democracy. In 1788 a harsh winter and a futile harvest helped add fuel to the fire and caused the rampage. The Romantics sought after the ideas of independence, worth and the radical principals and had these ideas that brought to the table that caused the writings in this time to be more a little more individual.

            The American Revolution was to escape the tyranny of King George and in the end was successful.  This also sparked the French Revolution and was based on liberty and the end of tyranny.  In the eyes of the Romantic writers in the time period this influenced freedom, which contributed to the people writing and exulted freedoms of them and their thoughts on the traditional hierarchy system with the king being the leader of the country and then the church leaders.

            The Wars also influenced the works that now started to be focused on the common people.  Everyone was fighting and everyone were equal when fighting (Nobles are the same as the Common people when fighting, as they would all be the same rank), thus the works of this time period were geared to the common people.

            In the books written during the Era showed a lot of nationalism in the pages. The authors at the time wanted to help and promote their country as they were at war.  This nationalism fueled the fire and people began to write folklore and old epics of their country in order to help boost moral.

The official religious church of the Romantic Period was the Church of England even though most people did not have contact with them in the time.  Many of the parishes ran by parsons did not even keep up with them. The people in the church were for the most part there only for their own gain.  Most of the people that were not in touch with the church were the big cities, many of which had uneducated citizens whom worked at the factories.  For the time period it was big that the romantic writers thought that the Church of England was old and not to their liking. Most of the other ways they would express the spirituality that they wanted was by writing and having their ideas of it written down. The Unitarians were a small group that did not believe Jesus as divine. This had a major effect on the writers as they listened and believed in that group.  A big part of the writings in this time were about spirituality and what most people believed in increase the influence on their writings in that time period.

With all the events and emotions running high, they really did influence authors of the time period. Even though the Era was a period of arts, music and literature the thing that was influence the most by events in the world was the literature.  This literature is now very important to us as it shows the effects the wars and movements and how it affected the citizens back then.

Sources/Citations

“Romanticism.” Literary Movements for Students: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Literary Movements. Vol. 2. 2nd ed. Detroit: Gale, 2009. 39 pp. 2 vols. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale. SALPOINTE CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL. 7 Feb. 2011

Wojtaszek, James, and Pamela Loy. “The Infinite Passion (Rimas).” World Literature and Its Times: Profiles of Notable Literary Works and the Historic Events That Influenced Them. Vol. 5: Spanish and Portugese Literatures and Their Times (The Iberian Peninsula). Detroit: Gale Group, 2002. 11 pp. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale. SALPOINTE CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL. 7 Feb. 2011 

“Smaller Movements and Schools.” Literary Movements for Students: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Literary Movements. Vol. 2. 2nd ed. Detroit: Gale, 2009. 14 pp. 2 vols. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale. SALPOINTE CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL. 7 Feb. 2011