The ministry of higher and secondary special education of uzbekistan

CHAPTER 1. ENGLISH ROMANTICISM
1.1 History of romanticism in English literature
Romanticism Definition
The term Romanticism does not stem directly from the concept of love, but rather from the French word romaunt (a romantic story told in verse). Romanticism focused on emotions and the inner life of the writer, and often used autobiographical material to inform the work or even provide a template for it, unlike traditional literature at the time.
Romanticism celebrated the primitive and elevated "regular people" as being deserving of celebration, which was an innovation at the time. Romanticism also fixated on nature as a primordial force and encouraged the concept of isolation as necessary for spiritual and artistic development.

Characteristics of Romanticism

Romantic literature is marked by six primary characteristics: celebration of nature, focus on the individual and spirituality, celebration of isolation and melancholy, interest in the common man, idealization of women, and personification and pathetic fallacy.
Historical Context
The second half of the 18th century witnessed the rise of political, economic and social forces that produced some of the most radical changes ever known in history. The age of revolution began in America and swept across Western Europe. The thirteen American colonies broke from the British Empire and formed the independent nation, the United States of America.
The American Revolution was a political upheaval that started in 1765 as the Americans rejected the authority of Parliament to tax them without elected representation. The protests culminated in the Boston Tea Party of 1773, when the entire supply of tea sent by the East India Company was destroyed by the demonstrators in Boston Harbor. In 1774 the Patriots suppressed the Loyalists and expelled all royal officials. Each colony now had a new government that took control. The British responded by sending combat troops to re-establish royal control. Through the Second Continental Congress (a convention of delegates from the 13 colonies that started meeting in the summer of 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) the Thirteen Colonies fought the British in the American Revolutionary War, or the American War of Independence, 1775–83. As a result European powers recognized the independence of the United States.
The French Revolution started on July 14, 1789, with the storming of the Bastille. The Bastille was a fortress in Paris, known formally as the Bastille Saint-Antoine. It was used as a state prison by the kings of France. It was stormed by a crowd on 14 July 1789 in the French Revolution, becoming an important symbol for the French Republican movement, and was later demolished and replaced by the Place de la Bastille (a square in Paris) It was a mass uprising against the absolute power of the king and the privileges of the upper classes. The rebellion was carried out in the name of liberty, equality and fraternity. In reality it led to the loss of liberty, dictatorship and nationalism. To crush the resistance to the new order thousands of people were executed. France was governed under a dozen of different constitutions as a republic, a dictatorship, a constitutional monarchy, and two different empires. Subsequent events caused by the revolution included the Napoleonic wars and the restoration of the monarchy.
Britain waged the war against Napoleon. Napoleon’s navy was defeated by England at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. In 1815 Napoleon’s armies were beaten by British forces at Waterloo, Belgium.
Many changes in the English life were caused by the Industrial Revolution.
By 1800 Britain was the most industrialised country in the world. Various factors contributed to this success: cheap raw materials were brought from the colonies; the Bank of England started to operate around the country; the transport system was developed; coal provided a cheap source of energy. Factories sprang up all over the country. Different cities specialised in certain goods - Manchester produced cotton, Sheffield concentrated on steel cutlery and Content Birmingham became the centre of light engineering.
The cities became overcrowded. Despite the economic improvements most people continued to live and work in dreadful conditions. The majority of workers, including women and children, slaved for long hours on miserable pay. They lived in overcrowded slums where sanitation was poor or non-existent. Diseases and epidemics became a common feature of everyday life.
The social and economic difficulties were neglected by the government. Those who were troubled by the exploitation of workers and the degradation of the cities sympathized with the ideals of the American and French Revolutions. They oftern supported the workers’ protests.
From 1811 to 1817, textile artisans came together to destroy the machines which were threatening their livelihood in what were known as the ‘Luddite’ riots. An agricultural variant of Luddism, centering on the breaking of threshing machines, occurred during the widespread Swing Riots of 1830 in southern and eastern England. Although the origin of the name Luddite ( is uncertain, a popular theory is that the movement was named after Ned Ludd, a youth who allegedly smashed two stocking frames in 1779, and whose name had become emblematic of machine destroyers. The name evolved into the imaginary General Ludd or King Ludd, a figure who, like Robin Hood, was reputed to live in Sherwood Forest. A high point in the protest movement was a demonstration at St Peter's Field, Manchester, 1819, against the rise in the price of bread, caused by a ban on the import of foreign corn. Eleven people were killed by the army in what is now known as the Peterloo Massacre (or the Battle of Peterloo to rhyme with 'Waterloo').
The ruling classes of England were afraid that the revolution would spread across the Channel. Any attempts on the part of the poor to protest were suppressed by repressive measures. The army had sometimes to be called in to keep law and order. Usually the protests took the form of ‘mob’ violence and were never sufficiently well organized to present a real threat. The conservatives in England felt they had saved their country from chaos, and the supporters of the Revolution felt betrayed and disappointed.