🌿 The Romantic Period (1798–1837)

The Romantic Period (1798–1837) marks one of the most significant and revolutionary phases in the history of English literature. It officially begins with the publication of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads (1798) and ends with the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837. Romanticism arose as a reaction against Neo-Classicism, opposing its emphasis on reason, order, rules, and imitation, and replacing them with emotion, imagination, individualism, and love for nature.

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📜 Historical and Intellectual Background

The Romantic Period was deeply shaped by powerful historical and social changes. The French Revolution (1789) played a crucial role in inspiring Romantic writers with its ideals of liberty, equality, fraternity, and human rights. Initially welcomed with enthusiasm, the Revolution symbolized freedom from tyranny and rigid authority. However, the later violence and chaos also introduced themes of disillusionment and introspection in Romantic literature.

The Industrial Revolution drastically transformed English society by promoting urbanization, mechanization, and factory life. Romantic writers reacted strongly against this mechanical civilization, criticizing materialism and celebrating nature, rural life, and simplicity. The age also coincided with political unrest, social inequality, and spiritual questioning, encouraging writers to focus on the inner world of the individual.

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🌸 Major Characteristics of Romanticism

1. Imagination over Reason
   Romantic poets regarded imagination as the highest creative power, superior to logic and rational thought.

2. Emotion and Sensibility
   Poetry became the expression of personal feelings, passions, and emotional intensity.

3. Nature as a Living Presence
   Nature is not merely decorative but a spiritual guide, healer, and moral teacher.

4. Individualism
   Emphasis on personal experience, subjectivity, and the poet’s inner self.

5. Common Man and Simple Language
   Romantic writers rejected artificial diction and used simple, everyday language.

6. Interest in the Past and Medievalism
   Revival of medieval romance, folklore, legends, and Gothic elements.

7. Supernatural and Mysticism
   Especially visible in Coleridge’s poetry, where mystery and the supernatural deepen emotional impact.

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👑 Romantic Period and Kings

The Romantic Period spans the reigns of George III (1760–1820), George IV (1820–1830), and William IV (1830–1837). Political instability, war with France, and demands for reform shaped the spirit of resistance and freedom that runs through Romantic literature.

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✍️ Major Romantic Poets

🔹 William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

• Poet of nature, memory, childhood, and the common man

• Poetry defined as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”

• Works: The Prelude, Tintern Abbey, Lyrical Ballads

🔹 Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

• Poet of imagination and supernatural

• Developed theory of Primary and Secondary Imagination

• Works: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, Biographia Literaria

🔹 Lord Byron (1788–1824)

• Rebel poet; creator of the Byronic Hero

• Works: Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Don Juan, Manfred

🔹 Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

• Revolutionary idealist poet

• Believed poets are “unacknowledged legislators of the world”

• Works: Ode to the West Wind, Prometheus Unbound, Adonais

🔹 John Keats (1795–1821)

• Poet of beauty and sensuous imagination

• Coined idea of Negative Capability

• Works: Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to a Nightingale, Endymion

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🌱 Early & Minor Romantic Poets

🔹 William Blake (1757–1827)

• Bridge between Pre-Romanticism and Romanticism

• Mystical, symbolic, visionary poet

• Works: Songs of Innocence and Experience, The Tyger, Jerusalem

🔹 Robert Southey (1774–1843)

• One of the Lake Poets

• Appointed Poet Laureate

• Works: Thalaba the Destroyer, Joan of Arc

🔹 Leigh Hunt (1784–1859)

• Essayist, critic, and poet

• Encouraged young Romantic writers

• Work: The Story of Rimini

🔹 Thomas Moore (1779–1852)

• Irish Romantic poet

• Known for lyrical melody

• Works: Irish Melodies

🔹 Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)

• Known for classical elegance and dialogues

• Work: Imaginary Conversations

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📖 Romantic Novelists

🔹 Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832)

• Founder of the historical novel in English

• Romanticized medieval history

• Works: Waverley, Ivanhoe, Rob Roy

🔹 Jane Austen (1775–1817)

• Often called a novelist of manners, not a pure Romantic

• Focused on realism, social life, and irony

• Works: Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma

🔹 Mary Shelley (1797–1851)

• Pioneer of science fiction and Gothic novel

• Work: Frankenstein

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🖋️ Romantic Prose Writers & Essayists

🔹 Charles Lamb

• Intimate, personal essays

• Work: Essays of Elia

🔹 William Hazlitt

• Literary critic and essayist

• Works: The Spirit of the Age, Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays

🔹 Thomas De Quincey

• Confessional prose

• Work: Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

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📚 Romantic Critics & Thinkers

🔹 Coleridge

• Developed Romantic literary criticism

• Biographia Literaria is a key Romantic critical text

🔹 Hazlitt

• Emphasized sincerity, imagination, and passion in literature

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📌 Romantic Poetry vs Neo-Classical Poetry

Neo-Classical Age	Romantic Period
Reason	Emotion
Rules & order	Freedom & imagination
Imitation	Originality
Urban themes	Nature & rural life
Aristocracy	Common man

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🧠 Importance of the Romantic Period

• Revolutionized poetic expression

• Established subjective poetry as central

• Expanded themes of nature, self, freedom, and beauty

• Influenced Victorian, Modern, and even contemporary literature

🌸 Romantic Age (1798–1837) – MCQs with Answers

1. The Romantic Age in English literature officially begins with the publication of:

A. Lyrical Ballads
B. Preface to Shakespeare
C. The Prelude
D. Songs of Innocence

✅ Answer: A. Lyrical Ballads

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2. Lyrical Ballads (1798) was jointly written by:

A. Wordsworth and Coleridge
B. Wordsworth and Shelley
C. Coleridge and Keats
D. Shelley and Byron

✅ Answer: A. Wordsworth and Coleridge

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3. Who wrote the Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800)?

A. Coleridge
B. Wordsworth
C. Hazlitt
D. Keats

✅ Answer: B. Wordsworth

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4. According to Wordsworth, poetry is:

A. Imitation of nature
B. Overflow of imagination
C. Spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings
D. Expression of moral ideas

✅ Answer: C. Spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings

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5. Which poem is subtitled “Growth of a Poet’s Mind”?

A. Tintern Abbey
B. The Prelude
C. The Excursion
D. Immortality Ode

✅ Answer: B. The Prelude

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6. Coleridge’s concept of “willing suspension of disbelief” appears in:

A. Kubla Khan
B. The Ancient Mariner
C. Christabel
D. Biographia Literaria

✅ Answer: D. Biographia Literaria

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7. Which poem begins with “It is an ancient Mariner”?

A. Christabel
B. Kubla Khan
C. The Ancient Mariner
D. The Prelude

✅ Answer: C. The Ancient Mariner

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8. Who among the following is a Lake Poet?

A. Byron
B. Shelley
C. Keats
D. Wordsworth

✅ Answer: D. Wordsworth

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9. Lord Byron is associated with which type of hero?

A. Classical hero
B. Epic hero
C. Byronic hero
D. Tragic hero

✅ Answer: C. Byronic hero

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10. Don Juan is written in:

A. Blank verse
B. Heroic couplet
C. Spenserian stanza
D. Ottava rima

✅ Answer: D. Ottava rima

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11. Ode to the West Wind consists of:

A. 3 stanzas
B. 4 stanzas
C. 5 stanzas
D. 7 stanzas

✅ Answer: C. 5 stanzas

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12. The line “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?” is from:

A. Ode to a Nightingale
B. Ode to the West Wind
C. Prometheus Unbound
D. Adonais

✅ Answer: B. Ode to the West Wind

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13. John Keats believed poetry should:

A. Instruct morally
B. Reform society
C. Come naturally, without effort
D. Follow classical rules

✅ Answer: C. Come naturally, without effort

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14. Keats explained Negative Capability in a letter written to:

A. Shelley
B. Leigh Hunt
C. George and Tom Keats
D. Wordsworth

✅ Answer: C. George and Tom Keats

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15. Which of the following is NOT a Romantic poet?

A. Blake
B. Gray
C. Keats
D. Shelley

✅ Answer: B. Gray

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16. William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience presents:

A. Political satire
B. Religious doctrine
C. Two contrary states of the human soul
D. Pastoral romance

✅ Answer: C. Two contrary states of the human soul

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17. Kubla Khan is best described as:

A. Epic poem
B. Narrative ballad
C. Visionary fragment
D. Satirical poem

✅ Answer: C. Visionary fragment

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18. Who wrote Adonais?

A. Byron
B. Keats
C. Shelley
D. Wordsworth

✅ Answer: C. Shelley

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19. Romantic poetry mainly emphasizes:

A. Reason and logic
B. Social realism
C. Imagination and emotion
D. Classical restraint

✅ Answer: C. Imagination and emotion

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20. Which Romantic poet is called a “poet of beauty”?

A. Wordsworth
B. Byron
C. Shelley
D. Keats

✅ Answer: D. Keats