The British Romantic period was a historical period that lasted approximately from the 1770s to 1837. Key Romantic values include:
-
Imagination
-
Childhood innocence
-
Emotion over reason
-
Individual self-expression
-
Celebration of nature and the natural world
-
Rights and freedom
-
Urged social change
-
Against industrialization and technological advancement
The Romantics innovated the literary genre as they resisted approaching literature the same way as their predecessors, thus, leading a literary revolution. The Romantics also questioned authority and revolted against social institutions and customs. Key social movements that resulted from the Romantics’ revolt are nascent feminism, abolitionism, and Chartism.
Important Romantic literary figures include:
-
William Blake
-
Willaim Wordsworth
-
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
-
Charlotte Dacre
-
Jane Austen
-
Mary Prince
-
Lord Byron
-
Percy Bysshe Shelley
-
Mary Wollstonecraft
-
John Keats
Romanticism and the Gothic
The Gothic genre emerged and flourished during the Romantic period for several reasons:
-
The Romantics emphasized the imagination. This notion is favourable for the Gothic genre that relied on fantastical elements and figures that readers can only imagine (ghosts, vampires, etc.)
-
The Romantics rejected rationality and reason. This Romantic notion also allowed the Gothic genre to flourish since one needs to incorporate the suspension of disbelief to immerse in the Gothic world and enjoy the genre. This notion encouraged readers to reject the idea that it is not rational to have ghostly encounters or other encounters with the supernatural.
-
The Romantics favoured emotion over reason. This notion allows readers to value the emotions they feel (terror) while reading Gothic fiction, rather than contemplating whether the supernatural occurrences are reasonable.
The Gothic genre has since remained heavily popularized because it allows readers to experience the suspense, anxiety, and tensions that the characters are feeling through the safety of their homes.
Women During the Romantic Period
In British law during the Romantic period, women gave up legal and property rights, were seen as dependent upon their husbands, and were unable to manage their own money. The legal term for this is feme covert. Married women did not have any legal rights distinct from their husbands; therefore, they could not own property or own legal documents. Mary Wollstonecraft, a radical thinker in England and a pioneering feminist, wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), where she addressed this issue. Wollstonecraft argued for the enlargement of women’s legal rights and greater civic rights for women. An essential theme in her work is the education of women and expanding women’s education. Wollstonecraft also critiques the idea of women’s dependency on men, the sexist nature of the institution of marriage, and the double standards when it comes to the education for men and women (Neill Lecture 13). With Wollstonecraft’s important proto-feminist work, the audience was beginning to rethink women’s roles, which soon the Romantics began to reflect in their literary texts.