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The Romantic Age
Romanticism is: • the consequence of the Enlightenment. • the reaction against the Enlightenment. • the development of the Enlightenment.
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During the Enlightenment there was the idea that the humans are reasoning animals so through their skills they can understand how the world works and its reasons.
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Later, in the Romantic Period there is the new idea that human beings are not just “reason” but also “emotions”: people’s lives are made both by reason and emotions. Emotions become the way people use to express themselves, because reason is considered too strict and not natural.
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Romanticism is connected by Nationalism, which is a feature of the nineteenth century (especially of 1848 all over Europe) where people were rebelling against foreigner rulers.
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In England, romantic authors were shaken by an important historical event which is the French revolution. English saw in the French the same ideals that they also had at that time.
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An age of revolutions. The last decades of the 18th century were marked by two great revolutions: - the Agrarian Revolution. - the Industrial Revolution.
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British colonies started to become independent and free nations. The French Revolution and the Napoleonic conquests started to spread ideas of freedom and equality all over Europe.
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England, at the end of the 18th century, changed from a mainly farming country to an industrial one. This change was mainly caused by the increase of the population, which means also an increase of needs and the need of a more efficient production.
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The Industrial Revolution implied: new technologies and new inventions, the development of factories, new sources of power (steam power instead of water power) and new transports.
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Also the Agrarian Revolution was connected to the use of the new technological inventions. The two forms of the Agrarian Revolution were: open fields to make larger farms, crop rotation and mechanization.
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Industrial society. During the 18th century, there was a shifting of population from the agricultural and commercial areas do the south to the north and midlands, where new factories were built because they were near to primary resources or to the new sourced of power. The the factories, small towns were built to host workers.
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Woman and children were employed as well because they could be paid less. The laborers were dealing with long working hours and terrible leaving conditions especially in big cities.
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