From the Napoleonic wars to the regency

From the Napoleonic wars to the regency

Even if the French revolution is a French project it involved all Europe. Some people among intellectual accepted these new political ideas while some people continued to have a conservative ideas. In England the French revolution produced the "Jacobinism" among the ruling classes; they sympathized with the French revolution. Above all the first generation of romantic intellectual accepted and shared the ideas of the French revolution, but they and the second generation were disillusioned by them. Thanks to nelson and Wellesley great Britain won France, but main problems were acquired: 1 to attach and fight against France, England spend a lot of money, so it had many economic problem; 2 the birth of machinery it means: better condition of work, but the consequence was the luddism (it was a movement that wanted the breaking of machinery because it represented a stopping for the workman); 3 these political and economical and social instability produced a period of starvation. There were many cases of bankruptcy and a period of revolt. To solve this problems Pitt and Liverpool closed the "corresponding society" ( it was the modern trade unions). The trade unions are an organization that want to protect and defend ordinary people's interests. Then every form of public and free meeting was prohibited and in Manchester the Peterloo massacre brought to death of some people who were reunited in a public and free meeting. The parliament added the "six act": it was a laws against public assembly and freedom of expression. For the Irish question the parliament added the " act of union": there is the fusion of Irish and English parliament. The last period of the French revolution in great Britain was called the " regency", because george IV acted as a monarch. He was called the gentleman because he was very charming and he spends a lot of money to create a lot of palace. He legalized the corresponding society.

Unrest and repression

This period represents the passage from an agricultural system to an industrial one. This passage had different reactions: happiness for the birth of machinery, unhappiness for the unemployment, and victory of England over france. It was introduced the theory of smith that say: people shouldn't follow the internal and external rules about trade; in this way there was freedom. Every single person could introduce his system of values, it looked the responsibility so works was not under the control of government. Of course the ruling classes wanted to defend their own interests so there was a deep gap between rich and poor. To solve this situation a part of parish promoted workhouses: poor people lived in some structures were they could work and solve the problem of unemployment. But they lived in bad condition of life: igenic condition, food. In the workhouses they worked as a slave to have some bread. This freedom produced a sense of laxity and poor remain poor above all in the city. In the country people lived around their family and some family who lives in surround. All their life regarded these families. The aim of these families was the good marriage because woman couldn't work, so the marriage is the only solution to their life. The alternative was to be a governant. To be a governant means to change family after a long or a short period, but if the governant can't find a family, she is under the control of a sister or a brother.

Woman's condition

Till that moment woman were confined to be a housewife, but the nineteen century that is the romantic age signed the passage of a revolution in women' condition. There are some alternative to the role of housewife: in the town women try to be independent working as secretary; it is important because women can life alone, without the presence of a man, but many other women lived in families working as a governant, so they hadn't a total independence from an original family. They belong to emergent class: the middle class, but the situation changed in the country, when the terrible condition of life brought people to live as a peasant.  

The egoistical sublime

We can define this period us a period of creative power because of the historical and social changes. Literary changes means willingness to discover to have new interest, new outlook. These changes happens trough the use of imagination; to give a form to emotion, in which human mind is analyzed till its subconscious trough the use of dreams. This analyze of human mind has the dipper analysis in a particular period: the childhood; because child is pure, hi is uncorrupted by the society because he isn't civilized; the child doesn't know the evil and the pride. He isn't under the influence of the problem. In this way he is near to god, because god is a symbol of pure man. This period of life is analyzed in his solitary state, in his individual mind. The poet analyzed the protagonist of his work in a personal condition, producing an atypical, producing an outcast, producing a rebel. They are outside men, they aren't ordinary people. This man doesn't share the rules of everyday life. The civilized society according to Rousseau is full of restrictions, corruption and evil. He wanted a natural behavior represented by child. He called the man that lives in a natural behavior "noble selvage", a man who know the rules, civilized with a great interest of knowledge of himself and of the world. He is also a primitive and uncontrolled slave of instinct.

The grand tour

The grand tour is a challenge to new landscape, to have a knowledge of unfamiliar people and land. Men after university travelled in Europe. During the enlightenment the " grand tour" represented the end of personal experience after university, to aid their knowledge. Now, in the romantic period, the grand tour is a challenge because it brings people to know everything is unfamiliar, new, but also picturesque and formidable ( love for the nature). The discover of this uncommon place happens trough the use of imagination. Imagination is use in poetry to express this nature, this unfamiliar place under the influence of emotion and feelings. Each vision of nature isn't represented in itself but under the emotion and feelings that this vision represents for the poet. With this system the poet goes behind the reality; the poet can reach the true and change the world of experience.

The poetic diction

The romantic poetic diction is linked to the search of a original, individual, personal style, because each author showed an aspect of romanticism. According to this project the words should be dynamic, energetic, vivid, but also familiar. The language is vivid because nature is considered a subject, because nature is described in movement, according to the emotion it produces an human mind. The language is full of vivid and dynamic words, but it is also full of images and symbols, because they represent "key" trough to analyzed personal perception. ^why personal?^ because nature is seen under the prospective of the poet so it is the poet's vision and not a universal one. The search of a personal style and language is due to the challenge that the poet promoted against the society trough the outside, rebel and outcast.

The language of sense impressions

The poetry of the period is linked to the emotion, to the search of intellectual, of the sensuous place that everyday life produce. ( reality is analyzed with emotion, feelings, intellectualism). So it isn't what nature is, but what nature appears to man trough the use of emotion and feelings. The kind of analysis bring the poet to use words, phrases, which produce visual, olfactory, tactical and auditory images, so they are images linked to the five senses.

Poetry argument: reality

Reality no what is it

Reality yes: what appears to poet

Reality is analyzed by: words/ phrases linked to five senses

So the use of words and phrases full of references of the five senses is necessary to reproduce the personal experience of the poet in his relationship with nature and to give the personal help in the contribution of meaning of the poet. These words/phrases turn around the five senses: to express the personal experience of the poet at the contact with nature; to better understand the meaning of the poem, because these words/ phrases reflect what the poet thinks on nature. Intellectual think only describing what we see, we hear and touch, it is possible put in relationship the world and its invisible powers that is the capacity to go behind reality, discovering true, behind reason using the five senses allow man to create another level of life out the world of ordinary experience. So this world can be understood and interpreted only by the poet sensibility, imagination that is more developed than ordinary people. This great sensibility can be so strong to involve man( the poet) in what he see. The romantic age is divided into two section: first and second generation. First generation is also called of the <<lake poet>>, because their description have lake. Blave and Wordsworth analyzed nature trough eyes and ears. Keats preferred touch and smell. They used synaesthesia to perceive an image through the use of one of the senses.