Differing Ages


Extending from around 1789 until 1837, the romantic era stressed emotion over reason. The French Revolution (1789-1799) ended an older culture which seemed artificial, and began a new era which emphasized liberty, spirit, and sincere unity of the human race. The romantic age in English literature was also characterized by the change from reason to intuition and passion. The industrial revolution also marked a beginning of a new era, through its intuitive ideas and advancements in technology. However, the rapid advancements of the industrial revolution resulted in consequences such as pollution in the cities and the countryside. These effects influenced writers to convey their concerns in their works. The pioneers of this age, Worthsworth and Coleridge, served to influence many of the younger second generation poets such as Byron, Shelley, and Keats. The styles, ideals, and attitudes of these poets served as a basis for the following age, the Victorian Era. Poetry Writers of this period mainly dealt with emotion and imagination and also stressed individualism. The most prominent poets of the 1st generation of the romantic age, Wordsworth and Coleridge, stressed simple and natural things among the countryside and the people. Together, they strove for powerful effects of human nature using revealing, yet ordinary language. They also emphasized the relationship between nature and the human soul by relating humanity with God's creation. In their early years, they were characterized by revolutionary politically, yet became more conservative later on. This lead the second-generation poets to believed that the founding fathers of English Romanticism had gave into the unjust ideals of society. This caused disillusionment amongst the poets that left these poets to freely develop their artistic interests. The romantic age poets utilized their beliefs in accordance with human emotions to develop their own unique styles.
Wordsworth, William (1770-1850), English poet, one of the most accomplished and influential of England's romantic poets, whose style created a new tradition in poetry. Wordsworth was born on April 7, 1770, in Cockermouth, Cumberland, and educated at Saint John's College, University of Cambridge. He developed a keen love of nature as a youth and frequently visited places noted for their scenic beauty. After receiving his degree in 1791 he returned to France, where he became an enthusiastic convert to the ideals of the French Revolution. His lover Annette Vallon of Orleans bore him a daughter in December 1792. Disheartened by the outbreak of hostilities between France and Great Britain in 1793, Wordsworth nevertheless remained sympathetic to the French cause. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834), English poet, critic, and philosopher, who was a leader of the romantic movement. Coleridge was born in Ottery Saint Mary on October 21, 1772, the son of a clergyman. From 1791 until 1794 he attended Jesus College, University of Cambridge. At the university he absorbed political and theological ideas then considered radical, especially those of Unitarianism. He left Cambridge without a degree and joined the poet Robert Southey in a plan, soon abandoned, to found a utopian society in Pennsylvania. In 1795 the two friends married sisters; for Coleridge, the marriage proved unhappy. Southey departed for Portugal, but Coleridge remained in England to write and lecture.
	Byron, George Gordon (1788-1824), known as Lord Byron, English poet, who was one of the most important and versatile writers of the romantic movement Byron was born in London on January 22, 1788, and educated at Harrow School and the University of Cambridge. He succeeded to the title and estates of his granduncle William, 5th Baron Byron, upon William's death in 1798.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe(1792-1822), English poet, considered by many to be among the greatest, and one of the most influential leaders of the romantic movement. Throughout his life, Shelley lived by a radically nonconformist moral code. His beliefs concerning love, marriage, revolution, and politics caused him to be considered a dangerous immoralist by some. He was born on August 4, 1792, at Field Place, near Horsham, Sussex, educated at Eton College and, until his expulsion at the end of one year, the University of Oxford. Shelley was drowned in July 8, 1822 in a storm while attempting to sail from Leghorn to Le Spezia, Italy. Ten days later, his body was washed ashore.
	Keats, John (1795-1821), English poet, one of the most gifted and appealing of the 19th century and an influential figure of the romantic movement. Keats was born in London, October 31, 1795, the son of a livery-stable owner. He was educated at the Clarke School, Enfield, and at the age of 15 was apprenticed to a surgeon. Subsequently, from 1814 to 1816, Keats studied medicine in London hospitals; in 1816 he became a licensed druggist but never practiced his profession, deciding instead to be a poet.

[Some Important Works]


The Victorian era, from the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1837 until her death in 1901, was an era of several unsettling social developments that caused to take positions on the immediate issues of the period. Although romantic forms of expression in poetry and prose continued to dominate English literature throughout much of the century, the attention of many writers was directed to many issues. The growth of English democracy, the progress of industrial enterprise, materialism, and the dilemma of the newly industrialized worker were of such issues. Through these issues of the industrial revolution a powerful middle class was formed. Furthermore, new advances in science, particularly the theory of evolution and the historical study of the Bible, disrupted religious belief, and drew other writers away from the ancient subjects of literature into considerations of problems of faith and truth. Literature Many Victorian writers observed the important issues of the era and summarized the entire culture in their works. The historian Thomas Babington Macaulay, expressed the complacency of the English middle classes over their new prosperity and growing political power. John Henry Newman's main effort, unlike Macaulay's, was to draw people away from the materialism and skepticism of the age back to a purified Christian faith. Similarly alienated by the materialism and commercialism of the period, Thomas Carlyle, another of the great Victorians, expressed a vehement, distinctive style. He progressed the philosophy of work and courage by means of which life might recover its true worth. Two fine Victorian prose writers of a different perception presented other answers to social problems. The social criticism of the art critic John Ruskin looked to the curing of the ills of industrial society and capitalism as the only path to beauty and vitality in the national life. The Victorian Novel The novel gradually became the dominant form in literature during the Victorian age. A fairly constant accompaniment of this development was the yielding of romanticism to literary realism, the accurate observation of individual problems and social relationships. It was only in the Victorian novelists Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray that the new spirit of realism came to the fore. Other important figures in the mainstream of the Victorian novel were notable for a variety of reasons. Emily Brontë, for her penetrating study of passionate character; George Eliot, for her responsible idealism; George Meredith, for a sophisticated, detached, and ironical view of human nature; and Thomas Hardy, for a profoundly pessimistic sense of human subjection to fate and circumstance. Thus, in his works, naturalism and realism was created. Poetry The Victorian poets experimented vastly to arrive at answers from the poetry of their previous era. The three prominent poets of the time utilized their poetry with social issues. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the poet laureate of the time, mainly dealt with social, political, and religious issues. All the characteristic moods of his poetry, from earnest splendor to lyrical gentleness, are expressed with smooth technical mastery. His style stands in some contrast to the intellectuality and harshness of the poetry of Robert Browning. Matthew Arnold, the third of these mid-Victorian poets, stands apart from them as a more subtle and balanced thinker. His poetry displays a sorrowful, disillusioned pessimism over the human plight in rapidly changing times with a sense of duty. Two other poets that were associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement were Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William. This movement hoped to inaugurate a new period of honest craft and spiritual truth in art.
Arnold, Matthew (1822-1888), English poet, whose work is representative of Victorian intellectual concerns and who was the foremost literary critic of his age. Arnold was born in Laleham, Middlesex, the son of Thomas Arnold, famous headmaster of Rugby School. Matthew Arnold was educated at Rugby and at Balliol College, University of Oxford, where, in 1843, his poem "Cromwell" won the Newdigate prize.
	Tennyson, Alfred, Lord (1809-1892), English poet, one of the great representative figures of the Victorian age. His writing encompasses many poetic styles and includes some of the finest idyllic poetry in the language. Tennyson was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, on August 6, 1809. The boy showed an early interest and talent in poetic composition, working original poems in a variety of meters and also successfully imitating the style of such famous poets as Lord Byron, whom he greatly admired. In 1827 Tennyson entered Trinity College, University of Cambridge. In 1850 Tennyson married Emily Sarah Sellwood, whom he had been waiting to marry since 1836. He died at Aldworth House, Hazlemere, Surrey, on October 6, 1892.
Browning, Robert (1812-1889), English poet, especially noted for perfecting the dramatic monologue was born in Camberwell. He wrote "Paracelsus" in 1835, that brought him into prominence among the literary figures of the day. "Paracelsus" was the first poem in which Browning used a Renaissance setting, a familiar motif in his later work. During the next few years Browning wrote several unsuccessful plays. In 1846 Browning married the poet Elizabeth Barrett. He died December 12, 1889, in Venice.
Austen, Jane (1775-1817), major English novelist, whose brilliantly witty, elegantly structured satirical fiction marks the transition in English literature from 18th-century neoclassicism to 19th-century romanticism. Austen was born near Basingstoke, in the parish of Steventon, of which her father was rector.
	Dickens, Charles John Huffam (1812-1870) English novelist and one of the most popular writers in the history of literature. In his enormous body of works, Dickens combined masterly storytelling, humor, pathos, and irony with sharp social criticism and acute observation of people and places, both real and imagined. Dickens was born February 7, 1812, in Portsmouth and spent most of his childhood in London and Kent, both of which appear frequently in his novels. He suffered a fatal stroke on June 9, 1870, and was buried in Westminster Abbey five days later.
Brontë, name of three English novelists, also sisters, whose works, transcending Victorian conventions, have become beloved classics. Emily was born in Thornton, Yorkshire to Patrick Brontë, who had been born in Ireland, was appointed rector of Haworth, a village on the Yorkshire moors; it was with Haworth that the family was thenceforth connected. Emily caught cold at his funeral, and died December 19, 1848. Hardy, Thomas (1840-1928), English novelist and poet of the naturalist movement, who powerfully delineated characters, portrayed in his native Dorset, struggling helplessly against their passions and external circumstances. Hardy was born in Higher Bockhampton, Dorsetshire, June 2, 1840, and educated in local schools and later privately. In 1867 Hardy married his first wife, Emma Gifford. Their marriage lasted until her death in 1912. In 1914 Florence Dugdale became Hardy's second wife and she wrote his biography after he died in Dorchester, on January 11, 1928.

[Some Important Works | Overall Comparison]

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