III.

ROMANTICISM IN ENGLISH POETRY

The two generations of the Romantics

1. The Conservative Trend (The Lake School)

 In 1798 William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey formed a
group called “The Lake School”- a beautiful lake in North West of England where they
had been living for a long time
 The Lake Poets underwent evolution in their political views and creative activities.
 Protest against social injustice
 Show their interest in vital social problems of their times.
 They admired the French Revolution so warmly that Wordsworth even travelled to
France to witness the great liberation of mankind. However, frightened by the blood
and fire across the water, they went over to the side of reaction and started rejecting
both economic and social progress. They regretted about and in believing that reason
was capable of creating an equal society. They turned away from the ideas of the
Enlightenment to the distrust of reason and rationalism. Therefore, they bent their pens
towards the idealization of the patriarchal feudal past and medieval attitudes.
2. The Progressive Trend (The Cockney School)
 Quite opposed to the conservative trend of Romanticism was the progressive trend
known as the Cockney School, whose representatives were Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe
Shelley, and John Keats.
 They expressed the ideas and the interests of the classes that were disappointed to see
the state of things which was a result of the capitalist development.
 They saw its negative sides and criticized about them. Their criticism was the expression
of the longing for a better present and a wonderful future. They were little interested in
the past, only mindful of the present.
 Their works, in general, embodied the dream of social justice that the broad masses of
the people cherished.

Contrasts between the two generations of Romanticism

The Conservative Trend (The Lake School)
Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey reached the
manhood in the early years of the French
Revolution.
They were bitterly disappointed when they
realized that the French Revolution deviated
from its noble aims, and that the golden age
promised by prophets and politicians.
They idealized medieval attitude, patriarchal
feudal past and mysterious religious doctrines.
They look for “paradise lost” as a refuse for their
sufferings.
The Progressive Trend (The Cockney School
Byron, Shelley and Keats came of age at the very
moment when Europe was smoking with ruins
and the Holy Alliance was dictating its orders to
exhausted peoples.
They had inherited the noble aspirations of the
elders, but felt frustrated in their very youth.
 Byron: sought for a remedy of ennui in
action, he travelled and fought, and fell
on the soil of Shelley.
 Shelley: filled with revolutionary spirit to
the core, tried to carry out his principles
of life, reaped disaster: from his misery
to the worship of intellectual beauty and

The old romantics are UNPRACTICAL
CONSERVATIVE DREAMERS
They bent their pens towards the idealization of
patriarchal feudal past and medieval attitudes.
Resource:
in the composition of poems expressing
his unshattered belief in the ultimate
triumph of justice and goodness.
 Keats: the frailest of the three, drew
aside from the turmoil of the world,
drank deep at the fountains of the beauty
and died at 26.
These young romantics were PRACTICAL
REVOLUTIONAL DREAMERS.
They did not bend their pens and have any
compromise with the bourgeoisie in their
struggle for social justice and for better future for
the common people

Activity:

1. What was the Conservative Trend firstly affected?

A. The French Revolution
B. The American Revolution
C. The Industrial Revolution
Answer: A
2. Were the Conservative Trend’s representatives PRACTICAL CONSERVATIVE DREAMERS?
A. True
B. False
Answer: B
3. How were the works of the Lake School?
A. Embody the dream of social justice.
B. Distrust of reason and rationalism.
Answer: A