Wordsworth, Shelley, Byron, and beyond: Romanticism in Britain 1790-1840

Aims

This course aims to:

• introduce you to Romanticism as a complex intellectual, historical, and literary movement rather than a single style or doctrine
• develop your ability to read Romantic texts closely in relation to their cultural, philosophical, and political contexts
• explore central Romantic themes including emotion, individuality, nature, and creativity
• reflect upon how these themes continue to shape modern culture

Course content

This course introduces you to Romanticism as a major movement in British literature and intellectual history, shaped by the social, political, and cultural transformations of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Rather than treating Romanticism as a single doctrine or style, the course explores it as a diverse and often internally conflicted set of responses to modernity.

You will examine Romanticism’s roots in 18th-century literary traditions such as sensibility, gothic writing, nature poetry, and folk culture, before turning to key Romantic writers including Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, and the Shelleys. Across the course, attention will be paid to recurring Romantic concerns such as childhood, emotion, imagination, selfhood, and the relationship between the human mind and the natural world. You will also consider how Romantic writers responded to the pressures of their contemporary society, and how Romantic ideas continued to shape Victorian culture through figures such as Letitia Elizabeth Landon and Thomas Carlyle.

What to expect on this course

Lectures on this course are designed to be interactive and participatory rather than purely didactic. Sessions will combine lecture segments with pauses for discussion, questions, and brief exercises, giving you regular opportunities to test ideas and reflect on the material as it unfolds.

You will be given set reading for each session - usually a small selection of poems or short prose extracts - and you will be expected to come to lectures having read the material and with some initial ideas or questions in mind. Working closely with these texts, you will develop your skills in close reading poetry and in interpreting literary works in relation to their historical contexts and underlying philosophical concerns.

Course sessions

1. What is Romanticism? In this opening session, we will explore why Romanticism is so difficult to define, examining its complexity and internal contradictions as an intellectual movement. We will introduce some of the movement’s key concerns - including emotion, individuality, nature, and creativity - by turning to the English literary contexts from which Romanticism emerged. Particular attention will be paid to 18th-century traditions of sensibility, gothic writing, nature poetry, and folk literature - including the influential work of Charlotte Smith - which together helped to shape the forms and ideas later taken up by Romantic writers.

    

2. Ballads and Writing for Children This session focuses on Romantic challenges to Enlightenment ideas of reason, progress, and education. We will explore William Blake’s radical representations of childhood, considering how his poetry critiques rationalist models of learning and moral improvement, including those of Mary Wollstonecraft. We will then turn to Lyrical Ballads, examining how Wordsworth and Coleridge’s interest in children, rural life, and folk culture reflects broader Romantic concerns. 

    

3. Wordsworth and Coleridge This session explores how Wordsworth and Coleridge reimagined the relationship between the human mind and nature, and how this relationship underpins Romantic ideas of creativity. Reading extracts from the ‘Preface’ to Lyrical Ballads will also allow us to consider Wordsworth’s reflections on modern society and the role he envisages for poetry in responding to its challenges.

    

4. Byron and The Shelleys This session turns to some of Romanticism’s most influential and controversial figures. We will explore Percy Bysshe Shelley’s idealism in relation to his political radicalism, before turning to Lord Byron’s evolving poetic career. Particular attention will be paid to the early figure of the Byronic hero - mad, bad, and dangerous to know - before considering Byron’s later, more satirical and self-conscious writing, which anticipates a recognisably modern outlook. We will also consider Mary Shelley’s engagement with central Romantic ideas, examining how her work questions some of Romanticism’s core assumptions.

    

5. Romanticism in the Victorian Era. In our final session, we will examine how Romantic ideas were reworked, extended, and contested in the Victorian period. We will explore the legacy of Wordsworth, alongside the development of the Byronic tradition in the poetry of Letitia Elizabeth Landon. We will also consider wider intellectual debates about the place of emotion, nature, and individuality in 19th-century society. Engaging with Victorian responses to these central Romantic concerns will enable us to reflect more broadly on Romanticism’s enduring influence on modern culture.

Learning outcomes

As a result of the course, you will gain a greater understanding of the subject and you should be able to:

• explain key features of Romanticism and its historical development
• analyse key Romantic texts through close reading and contextual understanding
• assess the continuing influence of Romantic ideas on Victorian and modern thought

Required reading

Please refer to the VLE for any required or supplementary reading ahead of the course.