19th Century Literature
1. Introduction - Romanticism
‣ Romanticism is an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards
the end of the 18th century.
‣ Many Romantic ideals were rst articulated by German thinkers in the Sturm und Drang
movement (= a proto-Romantic movement in German literature and music that
occurred between the late 1760s and early 1780s), which elevated intuition and
emotion above Enlightenment rationalism.
‣ It was characterised by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as
glori cation of the past and nature, preferring the medieval to the classical.
‣ Romanticism was partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, and the prevailing
ideology of the Age of Enlightenment, especially the scienti c rationalisation of Nature.
‣ The events and ideologies of the French Revolution were also direct in uences on the
movement; many early Romantics throughout Europe sympathised with the ideals and
achievements of French revolutionaries.
‣ Coleridge translated a lot of German Romantic works which is how the style spread
around in English literature.
‣ The Romantics were writers of extreme emotions: in Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth wrote
about what good poetry looks like according to him: “Poetry is the spontaneous
over ow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.
‣ Romanticism came to the US quite late. The US was at that point a very young country.
Establishing new literary traditions and literature in general were not a priority. By the
time it got popularised in the US, the “hype” had already died down in Great Britain.
1.1. The “Long Nineteenth Century”:
‣ The Long Nineteenth Century is a term
for the 125-year period beginning with
the onset of the French Revolution in
1789, and ending with the outbreak of
World War I in 1914.
‣ The term refers to the notion that the
period re ects a progression of ideas
which are characteristic to an
understanding of the 19th century in
Europe.
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,‣ During this time democracy was widely implemented and fought for in Europe. People
started questioning the system of monarchy and the claim that power was a God-given
right, given to only speci c bloodlines.
‣ It could also be said that The Long Nineteenth Century started in 1776, with the
American Declaration of Independence. This is the rst time that democracy worked in
recent history. The French and the Belgians also looked to the US Constitution when
drafting their own constitutions.
1.2. Age of Revolution - Londen by William Blake
London - William Blake (1789-1794)
I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does ow.
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every Man,
In every Infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear
How the Chimney-sweeper’s cry
Every blackning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldier’s sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls
But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infant’s tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse
‣ The speaker is describing the dullness of London and how dreary it is.
‣ The use of repetition with the word ‘every’ is driving this point home: everything in
London is dull.
‣ A charter = the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognises
the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights speci ed.
‣ The speaker is describing the streets and the Thames as chartered; even the Thames
can not choose where it goes, it is regulated and ruled by man. The same goes for the
streets and the people. We impose ourselves with the rules we create.
‣ Mind-forg’d manacles: we did this to ourselves. We are trapped in a prison we made
ourselves.
‣ Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) expressed this idea before:
- “Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains.” - Le Contrat Social (1762)
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, - “Our wisdom is slavish prejudice, our customs consist in control, constraint,
compulsion. Civilised man is born and dies a slave. The infant is bound up in
swaddling clothes, the corpse is nailed down in his cof n. All his life long, man is
imprisoned by our institutions.” - Émile, ou De l’education (1762)
- Liberté, égalité, fraternité: the moto of the French revolution. In this era of
Revolutions, people are ghting more for their personal freedom. The French
Revolution was a source of inspiration for the Romantics.
LitCharts Extras:
The poem describes a walk through London, which is presented as a pained, oppressive, and impoverished
city in which all the speaker can nd is misery. It places particular emphasis on the sounds of London, with
cries coming from men, women, and children throughout the poem. The poem is in part a response to the
Industrial Revolution, but more than anything is a erce critique of humankind's failure to build a society
based on love, joy, freedom, and communion with God.
Themes: the Oppression of Urban Life, the corruption of childhood
1.3. Features of Romanticism:
‣ Emancipation of the individual
- Artistic
- Political
‣ Subjective worldview
- Insistence on personal feelings
- Exploration of the mind and soul
- Cult of Beauty
- Obsession with death
‣ Attitudes toward time
- Past
- Present
- Future
‣ Attitudes toward space
- Indoor
- Outdoor
★ Read PDF on Features of Romanticism for more info on each point.
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, 2. Romantic Poetry - The Big Six
2.1. “The Mind-forg’d Manacles I Hear”:
‣ William Blake and Jean-Jacques Rousseau were not the only ones to put this idea into
words.
Edmund Burke (1729-1797):
‣ “A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a sel sh temper and con ned views.
People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.” -
Re ections on the Revolution in France (1790)
‣ Burke was the rst to write a pamphlet on the French Revolution.
‣ Many wrote pamphlets in response to him; The French Revolution = pamphlet war.
‣ He believed that “revolutions eat their young” and that certain things were worth
conserving.
- absolutism? NO! But aren’t we going a bit too fast?
‣ A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
(Burke, 1757):
- Burke wasn’t the rst to use the word sublime, but he was the rst to theorise
what it meant.
- “Whatever is tted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger, that is to
say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or
operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is
productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling.”
- It’s so overwhelming and awe-inspiring that it’s almost impossible to put into
words.
- cf. the Romantic sublime: an experience beyond reason; it inspires terror,
wonder, and awe, and lls the mind with a “delightful horror.”
Thomas Paine (1737-1809):
‣ Common Sense (1776):
- A pamphlet he wrote advocating for independence from Great Britain to the
people of the 13 American colonies.
- He writes about how it’s common sense that the colonists want freedom and
independence.
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, ‣ Right of Man (1791):
- “The fact, therefore, must be that the individuals, themselves, each, in his own
personal and sovereign right, entered into a contract with each other to
produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a
right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist.”
- He wrote this pamphlet in response to Burke’s pamphlet.
- He writes about people’s natural rights to protest the “god-given” powers
people impose on them —> again, isn’t it common sense that people would
revolt?
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797):
‣ A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790):
- This is the pamphlet she published in response to Burke’s pamphlet.
- She attacked not only monarchy and hereditary privilege but also the language
that Burke used to defend and elevate it.
‣ A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792):
- “My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures,
instead of attering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in
a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.”
- Later she also writes a feminist pamphlet.
- In it, Wollstonecraft argues that women ought to have an
education commensurate with their position in society and then proceeds to
rede ne that position, claiming that women are essential to the nation because
they educate its children and because they could be "companions" to their
husbands rather than mere wives.
William Godwin (1756-1836):
‣ Things As They Are, or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794):
- A three-volume novel written as a call to end the abuse of power by what
Godwin saw as a tyrannical government.
‣ An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793):
- “Whenever government assumes to deliver us from the trouble of thinking for
ourselves, the only consequences it produces are those of torpor and
imbecility.”
- He outlines his political philosophy. It is the rst modern work to
elucidate anarchism.
- Godwin began thinking about Political Justice in 1791, after the publication
of Thomas Paine's Rights of Man in response to Edmund Burke's Re ections on
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, the Revolution in France (1790). However, unlike most of the works that Burke's
work spawned in the ensuing Revolution Controversy, Godwin's did not
address the speci c political events of the day; it addressed the underlying
philosophical principles
2.2. Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743-1825):
The Rights of Woman (1792-1795):
‣ An early Romantic work —> Archaically written: this is in opposition to Wordsworth’s
Romanticism where he wanted to do away with this sort of language and write in the
language of the people.
‣ The last two stanzas are quite ambiguous: it sounds like a warning and feels like she is
treading carefully.
‣ The last line is very interesting and perhaps the most ambiguous: “That separate rights
are lost in mutual love.”
‣ Can there be separate rights if there is mutual love?
Internet Extras: The Rights of Woman
The poem begins with a call to arms: rise up, women! Take a stand! Go kick out the men who have been
oppressing you for too long! The poem continues in the same way, describing how women are going to
take over and rule the world. But in the nal lines of the poem, the speaker backs off, and says that the
desire to rule the roost will disappear if men and women actually love and trust each other.
The speaker ends by saying that women should take a lesson from Nature: the ideal of having rights
separate from men doesn't mean anything if women and men love each other.
By talking about "Nature's school," it sounds like the speaker wants us to believe that this is the natural
order of things.
So, is the kind of "mutual love" that the speaker describes different from the kind of adoration and worship
that women managed to attain earlier in the poem? Totally. "Mutual love" sounds like equal love, and earlier
in the poem, women only managed to get one-sided worship. That kind of lopsided relationship isn't really
all that fun, according to the speaker, and it's certainly not natural.
2.3. William Wordsworth (1770-1850):
‣ “Poetry is the spontaneous over ow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from
emotion recollected in tranquillity.”
‣ Wordsworth is the poet of memory and recollections.
‣ He’s the poet of two consciousnesses: the poet he is now, and his past self; the poet he
re ects on.
Lines Written in Early Spring (1798):
‣ “blended notes” —> referring to songbirds; nature's natural poets (Romantics often refer
to them).
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, ‣ A sense of nostalgia is being conveyed.
‣ The language is way easier to understand compared to Anna Laetitia Barbauld.
‣ “What man has made of man”: the poem laments the changes in the world caused by
the Industrial Revolution.
Litcharts Extras: Lines Written in Early Spring
"Lines Written in Early Spring" is English Romantic poet William Wordsworth's meditation on the harmony of
nature—and on humanity's failure to follow nature's peaceful example. In the poem, written in 1798 and
published in Wordsworth's and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads, a speaker reclines in a lovely grove on a spring
morning. The joy he perceives in the natural world, and his belief that his own soul is somehow intimately
connected to that joy, leads him to mourn "what man has made of man"—in other words, the cruelty,
sel shness, and ghting that characterize humanity. The poem argues that while humans are part of nature,
they sure don't act like it.
Humanity vs. Nature:
“Lines Written in Early Spring” presents nature as the spirit that moves every living thing. Nature unites all
the creatures of the landscape in a shared sense of joy, making them part of one big, delighted entity. But
as the speaker soaks up the lovely grove around him, he nds cause not just for celebration, but for grief;
humanity, in his view, is indeed part of this natural splendor, but it sure hasn't been acting that way! Instead
of following nature's example and existing in peace and harmony, people ght each other and destroy the
natural environments in which they live. And in separating themselves from both the natural world and each
other, the poem argues that human beings have lost their connection to the joy that is their birthright.
The speaker personi es both the creatures he sees around him and nature itself, suggesting that they’re all
united in a single, joyful consciousness. In the grove where the speaker sits, twigs “spread out their fan,”
owers “enjoy the air,” and nature is a conscious force with a “holy plan.” All of these entities seem to be
feeling the same delight.
The speaker also uses images of interweaving and intertwining to suggest that everything in nature is
connected. Not only is everything in nature inherently joyful, then, but everything also shares that joy—and
that sharing is all part of the pleasure!
Humanity, meanwhile, fails to emulate nature’s model of interconnectivity and joy. Though the speaker feels
that nature has made a “link” between the human soul and the natural world, he feels that humanity has
betrayed that link. He twice laments “what man has made of man”—that is, how humans have abused and
rejected their unity with the world, breaking from “Nature’s holy plan.” That nature’s plan is “holy” also
suggests that he feels humans have severed not just an emotional connection to nature, but a spiritual one:
a profound betrayal.
Nature, in this poem’s view, provides an example of interconnected, joyful harmony, a peaceful balance that
every living thing takes part in. If human beings could just follow nature’s example, they too could share in
that harmony—though, judging by “what man has made of man,” this is much easier said than done.
Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey (1798):
‣ This poem is a fragment, it’s not nished.
‣ He is re ecting on the visit and walk through Tintern Abbey he made 5 years ago.
‣ Wordsworth now recollects and re ects on the Wordsworth he was back then.
‣ “Hermit” —> someone way more in touch with nature than him.
‣ Now that he is no longer there, in nature, he can re ect on the feeling it gave him 5
years ago —> the feeling of nature is central, more so than the memory of nature.
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,‣ The soul: our bodies will die but maybe our souls will live on and reconnect with nature.
‣ “We see into the life of things” —> once you experience that deeper joy and harmony
with nature, you will see into the life of things. You have to experience nature, not
rationalise it.
‣ “Life and food” —> nature, or the recollection of nature, will nourish and sustain you (and
the hope that you will experience it again).
‣ “I cannot paint what then I was” —> I cannot exactly tell you how it was then or how I was
then, but I can try to recollect the feeling and make you feel the same.
‣ At the end of the poem, he addresses his sister, Dorothy.
Litcharts Extras: Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey
Wordsworth had rst visited the Wye Valley when he was 23 years old. His return ve years later occasioned
this poem, which Wordsworth saw as articulating his beliefs about nature, creativity, and the human soul.
“Tintern Abbey” was included as the nal poem in Lyrical Ballads, a 1798 collection of poems by
Wordsworth and his friend and fellow poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
The Restorative Power of Nature:
Before diving in, it's worth noting some context: Wordsworth wrote “Tintern Abbey” during the Industrial
Revolution, when rural areas throughout Europe were being transformed into centers of manufacturing and
production. In the poem, the speaker visits a natural, rural place that he sees as preserved and intact, not yet
altered by industrialisation. The poem implicitly responds to the industrialisation of society by suggesting
that urban life is lonely and depleting, and that the natural world has the power to restore and nourish the
human soul. So powerful is nature, the speaker argues, that even simple memories of time spent in such
pristine landscapes can be healing.
The poem makes clear that urban life is dif cult for the speaker, who uses words such as “din,” “lonely,”
“dreary,” “evil,” and “sel sh” to describe life in “towns and cities.” These descriptions suggest that daily life in
these settings is noisy, isolating, tiring, and even immoral. Such environments—far from being nourishing or
comforting—are emotionally and morally taxing for the speaker, and, the poem implies, for everyone who
lives in them.
Despite this, the speaker suggests that time spent in nature has sustained and nourished him, and that it will
continue to do so in the future. The speaker recalls how in “hours of weariness” he has remembered the
time he spent in the poem's beautiful natural setting, and this has brought him “tranquil restoration.” This
suggests that nature is so powerfully restorative that even the memory of it has the power to calm and
nourish the human soul.
Finally, the speaker suggests that time in nature is replenishing not just for the speaker but for human
beings in general. Addressing his sister, the speaker suggests that memories of this natural place are
restorative not only for him, but for her as well. The speaker says that if, in the future, she experiences
“solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,” remembering the time they spent together in this place will bring her
“healing thoughts,” or comfort her.
Awe and the Sublime:
The Romantic poets were interested in the overwhelming awe and wonder people can experience when
encountering the boundlessness of the universe and the natural world. They believed that in experiencing
this awe and wonder, one encounters something called the "Sublime"—basically, a sense of in nity and
vastness that exceeds rationality or measurement.
This experience, the thinking goes, can be so overpowering that it can take people “beyond” themselves. In
“Tintern Abbey,” the speaker suggests that nature offers access to the Sublime. The immense awe that the
speaker feels upon being in this natural setting grants him greater insight into the connection and unity
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, between humanity, the natural world, and the universe. Such feelings, the poem argues, can even allow
people to transcend their earthly bodies altogether.
The poem also suggests that the speaker’s experience of the Sublime is transcendent: his experience of the
natural world has allowed him not just to be restored, but to move beyond his body altogether. The speaker
says that through experiencing the Sublime in nature, “we are laid asleep / In body, and become a living
soul.” This suggests that his experience of awe and wonder at the natural world is so powerful that he can
escape the con nes of his physical body!
This sense of transcendence is echoed in the poem’s ending, when the speaker imagines a time after he has
died and describes how the landscape will still be present for his sister. In a way, this section of the poem
could be read as though the speaker is in fact uttering it after he has died, when he has truly been “laid
asleep in body.”
Perception, Creativity, and the Imagination:
Wordsworth and other Romantic poets thought a lot about the nature of the imagination, and especially,
with the poetic imagination, or the ability to write and create poems. While “Tintern Abbey” celebrates
nature as generally healing and restorative in an increasingly urban world, it also celebrates nature as
inspiring and as crucial to creativity. The poem suggests that nature inspires creativity and creative
re ection, and that the imagination works actively and dynamically in tandem with the natural world.
At a larger level, the poem is something the speaker has made with his imagination, half through observing
this natural landscape, and half through creating a form through which to express his experience. The poem
as a whole, then, encompasses both the sense of the poetic imagination as inspired by nature, and the
imagination working dynamically in relationship with the natural world.
Time and Change:
“Tintern Abbey” is a poem about nature, but it is also a poem about the speaker’s past, present, and future
selves, and about time and change more broadly. Ultimately, the poem suggests that the passage of time
leads to loss, but that it also leads to greater understanding of self and of the world.
Five years have passed since the speaker rst visited this landscape, and he details how much he has
changed in this time. Some terms the speaker uses to describe his former self are positive. He compares his
younger self to a “roe” (a deer) who “bounded” through the landscape. This suggests that his younger self
had a kind of freedom, energy, and spontaneity that the older speaker has lost. At the same time, however,
the speaker suggests that his younger self had a lot of growing up to do. This suggests that the speaker’s
former self was unsophisticated and fearful, and that he lacked the self-awareness the older speaker now
possesses.
Just as the speaker experiences a sense of awe and wonder in encountering the interconnection and
vastness of the natural world, then, the poem contextualises the changes the speaker undergoes within the
broader passage of time in nature and the universe more broadly.
Finally, it is worth noting that while the poem enacts the passage of time it also, in a sense, “stops time,”
preserving a single moment—that of the speaker’s visit with his sister to this place—within the poem itself.
Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood (1807)
‣ This is the last true Romantic poem written by Wordsworth.
‣ He wrote the rst 4 stanzas and published those rst —> Coleridge published his reply
—> Wordsworth added the rest of the stanzas as his reply to the rst 4.
‣ He describes the child as something unspoilt by the mind-forg’d manacles.
‣ When growing up the child will get more and more corrupt.
‣ “It is not now as it hath been of yore” <—> “I cannot paint what then I was”.
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, - The adult Wordsworth cannot see the world in the way that a child can
anymore, he has already been corrupted by man’s mind-forg’d manacles.
- He is nostalgic for a time when he could fully experience the sublime power of
nature.
‣ “Whither is ed the visionary gleam? Where is it now, the glory and the dream?”
- These lines end the rst 4 stanzas and are the lines Coleridge responds to in
Dejection: an Ode.
- Later Wordsworth nishes the poem with his answer to these lines.
‣ “Shades of the prison-house begin to close” <—> “the mind-forg’d manacles”.
- The child is born free from this, but will be enslaved by socielty like the rest of
us.
‣ A distinction is made between the soul and the mind: the soul is immortal.
- The soul lives before the body and lives on long after the body perishes.
- The moment we are born we become distanced from our soul. A child is then
the only thing closest and most connected to the immortal soul because they
haven’t been subjected to the world for long → through this connection to
their soul they are more in touch with the sublime.
‣ The child is the closest intimation to immortality.
‣ Refers to the child as a prophet.
‣ “Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie; Thy Soul’s immensity”
- Child —> small body, immense soul.
‣ Refers to the child as a philosopher: we are the blind and the child is the philosopher.
‣ “O joy!”
- Change in mood: the previous stanza was quite gloomy.
- He is compensating: AT LEAST we can re ect and write about childhood and
relive it that way.
- Re ecting on childhood to feel closer to the divine
Litcharts Extras: Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
Often considered one of Wordsworth's greatest masterpieces, this poem explores some of the themes that
haunted Wordsworth across his whole career: childhood, memory, nature, and the human soul. The poem's
speaker remembers that, when he was a child, he saw the whole world shining with heavenly beauty, and
wonders where that beauty has gone now he's an adult. While he can never get that kind of vision back, he
concludes, he can still build his faith upon his memories of it; the way the world looks to children, he argues,
is a hint that every human soul comes from heaven, and will return there one day.
The Soul's Immortality:
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