Romanticism

Romantic Age (1790-1870)

Contrary to the Pre-Romantic age, which had substantially been the combination of different elements in literature (cf. the Graveyard School of Poetry), the Romantic age, which was born 20 years later, was an almost unitary movement of thought. Whereas the pre-romantic age had embodied a peculiar rebellion against reason, the Romantic age emphasized the concept of freedom as deriving from Rousseau’s thoughts, especially as regards the sphere of sentiment, and as originating the American (1775) and French (1789) revolutions.

Another concept closely linked to the one of freedom was equality. Indeed, as Rousseau had remarked, all men are equal by nature, that is they had been created equally or with equal rights and so they lived in the state of nature. What had corrupted and divided them were the birth and the growth of private property. This consideration was particularly felt in England at that time and also as a consequence of the fact that in England, only the people who owned a certain amount of property had the right to vote; that’s the reason why the so-called radicals or democrats, who showed sympathy with revolution in general and radical reforms in their country, began to fight in order to obtain a more extended right to vote. But members of Parliament were not prepared for this kind of radical transformation as they thought that people who didn’t possess any property could not vote responsibly, that is, they would possibly not do the interest of the ruling classes which were mainly the landed aristocracy and the high middle-classes.

In 1793, things became stricter for radicals or democrats because England, fearing a possible invasion by the French revolutionary troops (who had already invaded the Netherlands), was forced to declare war on France. That’s why the radicals, representing the revolutionary ideas of the French thought, began to be persecuted, condemned, hanged, or transported to Australia. Moreover, in this period, Parliament undertook repressive measures against the freedom of association, often attacking public meetings intended to demonstrate in favour of electoral justice (Peterloo’s massacre), the freedom of press (some radical newspapers were closed) and against