The Romantic period is unique amongst other literary historical periods; it is neither demarcated by, or named for, the reign a monarch (like the Elizabethan or Victorian eras), nor is it defined by the century with which it coincides (like the Twentieth or Twenty-First Centuries). Instead, the Romantic period is bookended by major political and social events. Named for a literary genre recovered in the eighteenth century (the medieval romance), the Romantic period is generally agreed to have ended in 1832 at the first major reform of the British Parliament, but its beginning could be considered to coincide with a variety of events, such as the 1776 American declaration of independence, or the 1789 commencement of the French revolution. In general, the literature of this period might be characterized as reactionary; Romantic critics and artists were responding to the period’s radical social and political shifts and to the British literary tradition’s overemphasis on classical influences at the expense of other genres and modes of expression. In many ways, they were confronting their own political philosophy, artistic ancestry, and the trauma and turbulence of near-constant war.

 This course explores these confrontations through four loosely constructed units that cover the political debates and artistic innovations fomented by the French Revolution, the challenges posed to gender norms by Romantic women writers, the passionate efforts of abolitionists to raise awareness about the horrors of slavery, and the radicalism espoused by some of British literature’s more (in)famous poets.