Romantic Era

The years in which the Romantic Era had its great impact -- roughly 1789 through 1832 -- were years in which there were "intense political, social, and cultural upheavals," according to Professor Shannon Heath at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville (Heath, 2009). The beginning of the Romantic Era actually is traced to the French Revolution, and though that tumultuous event was not in England, William Wordsworth and others sympathized with the French Revolution -- at least at the beginning of the Revolution.

The demands for democracy in the Era were manifested through poems that reflected solidarity with principles of "equality and individuality," Heath explains. The principles of fairness and equality were needed in England as well as in France, and Heath suggests that poets were not just responding to revolutions but rather were critiquing English government. According to Giovanni Pellegrino the struggles for democracy and the "political...
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