UNIT 3: THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

1. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

The French Revolution (1789) led to the abolition of privileges and the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
Initially, Britain supported it due to political sympathy and strategic reasons, with intellectuals like William
Wordsworth and Thomas Paine backing the revolution. However, after the execution of the French king
and the Reign of Terror (1793), Britain turned against the revolution due to fears of its spread and domestic
instability.

Napoleon's rise to power saw British opposition escalate, particularly in wars from 1793 to 1815. Britain
strengthened its colonial empire but faced economic hardship and needed reforms. The only major reform
was the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, despite continued slavery.

The Industrial Revolution transformed Britain in the 18th century with advancements in agriculture,
industry, and transportation, improving national wealth but worsening workers' conditions. Romantic poets
and artists resisted these changes, valuing nature and the rural landscape.

2. ROMANTIC POETRY

2.1. THE ROMANTIC CONCEPTION OF POETRY

English Romantic poetry has certain qualities which set it apart from the poetry written before it. Most of
them were hinted at in the Preface of William Wordsworth and Samuel T. Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads, with
a Few Other Poems (1798). In the Preface to their collection of poems they settled the ideological
fundaments of the Romantic poetry. It has been considered as a manifesto of British Romanticism.

I can have little right to the name of a Poet. For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings (1): and though this be true, Poems to which any value can be attached were never produced on
any variety of subjects but by a man who, being possessed of more than usual organic sensibility (2), had
also thought long and deeply. For our continued influxes of feeling are modified and directed by our
thoughts, which are indeed the representatives of all our past feelings (3); and, as by contemplating the
relation of these general representatives to each other, we discover what is really important to men, so, by
the repetition and continuance of this act, our feelings will be connected with important subjects (4) till at
length, if we be originally possessed of much sensibility, such habits of mind will be produced, that, by
obeying blindly and mechanically the impulses of those habits (5), we shall describe objects, and utter
sentiments, of such a nature, and in such connexion with each other, that the understanding of the Reader
must necessarily be in some degree enlightened (6), and his affections strengthened and purified.

(1) The sublimation of emotions

(2) The sublimation of Nature and sensorial experience as evocative of the poet’s emotions
(3) Sensorial experience evokes past memories and leads the poet to their recreation in the mind and
in the poem.
(4) Emotions are sublime because they are connected with universal truths.
(5) Poetry is a product of uncontrolled inspiration. Some Romantic poets practiced automatic writing.

“ I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion
recollected in tranquillity (6) (7) the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the tranquillity
gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is
gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind (7). In this mood successful composition
generally begins, and in a mood similar to this it is carried on; but the emotion, of whatever kind, and in
whatever degree, from various causes, is qualified by various pleasures, so that in describing any passions
whatsoever, which are voluntarily described, the mind will, upon the whole, be in a state of enjoyment (8).
If Nature be thus cautious to preserve in a state of enjoyment a being so employed, the Poet ought to profit
by the lesson held forth to him (6), and ought especially to take care, that, whatever passions he
communicates to his Reader, those passions, if his Reader’s mind be sound and vigorous, should always be
accompanied with an overbalance of pleasure. (...) Nor let this necessity of producing immediate pleasure
(8) be considered as a degradation of the Poet’s art. It is far otherwise. It is an acknowledgement of the
beauty of the universe (2) (8), an acknowledgement the more sincere, because not formal, but indirect; it is
a task light and easy to him who looks at the world in the spirit of love: further, it is a homage paid to the
native and naked dignity of man (4) (9), to the grand elementary principle of pleasure (8), by which he
knows, and feels, and lives, and moves.”

(6) Poetry does no longer consists in the imitation of human actions, but it means the observation of
the self (to recollect memories and recreate them in tranquility).
(7) Creative process: Imagination recreates past sensorial experience and becomes the source of new
poetic material.
(8) Poetry does not have a social function like Neoclassical poetry; it is a source of pleasure for the
poet and reader.
(9) Celebration and sublimation of the self.

“What is a Poet? to whom does he address himself? and what language is to be expected from him?—He is
a man speaking to men: a man, it is true, endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and
tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are
supposed to be common among mankind (10); a man pleased with his own passions and volitions, and who
rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him”

(10) The poet as a visionary whose duty is to transmit to the readers what only they are able to
apprehend and learn from Nature.  He is not the ‘wit’ of Neoclassicism; but a ‘genius’.

Humble and rustic life (2) (11) was generally chosen, because, in that condition, the essential passions of
the heart (9) find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a
plainer and more emphatic language; because in that condition of life our elementary feelings coexist in a
state of greater simplicity, and, consequently, may be more accurately contemplated, and more forcibly
communicated; because the manners of rural life germinate from those elementary feelings, and, from the
necessary character of rural occupations, are more easily comprehended, and are more durable; and, lastly,
because in that condition the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of
nature (2) (4).

(11) Interest in folklore, popular culture and rural life.

“The principal object, then, proposed in these Poems was to choose incidents and situations from common
life (12), and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible in a selection of language really
used by men (13), and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby
ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect. My purpose was to imitate, and, as
far as possible, to adopt the very language of men (13)”.

(12) Subjects and themes: From common and simple life.

(13) Poetic Language: In contrast to the cultivated and polished language of the Neoclassical poets like
Pope, Romantic poets use the language of common men.

2.2. THE FIRST GENERATION OF ROMAN POETS.

❖ WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827)

“Man’s perceptions are not bounded by organs of perception; he perceives more than sense (though ever
so acute) can discover.” From: There Is No Natural Religion (1788) (A collection of Philosophical aphorisms)
Blake’s view of the American and French revolutions is associated with his hatred of established forms of
government and justice. He is admired as a visionary and revolutionary. He takes nothing of the material
world for granted and does not accept certain realities. He transforms his visions of the material world into
heavenly elements. Creative power of his imagination: “Seeing through the eye, not with the eye” (‘Auguries
of Innocence’)  Where ‘with the eye’ aludes to the material world, and ‘through the eye’ to the ability of
the imagination to reveal the latent wonders in the material world.

WORKS: Songs of Innocence (1789) Songs of Innocence and Experience, Shewing the Two Contrary States
of the Human Soul (1794) America, a Prophecy (1793; pub. 1794) The French Revolution (1791)

William Blake creates his own theory of the harmonious balance of the universe: The Marriage of Heaven
and Hell (1793): “Without contraries there is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy,
love and hate, are necessary to human existence. From these contraries spring what the religious call good
and evil. Good is the passive that obeys reason. Evil is the active springing from energy. Good is Heaven. Evil
is Hell”

These contraries were depicted in Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Songs of Innocence are concerned
with the relationship of the protector and the protected (the shepherd and the lamb, the mother and the
child...) Songs of Experience: Innocence can not be fullly understood without ‘Experience’, the familiar
reality of life in a fallen world.

Themes in Songs of Innocence and of Experience:

1. Racial prejudice
2. Loss of innocence of working children (‘The Chimney Sweeper’, ‘Holy Thursday’)
3. The coexistance of good and evil (The Lamb/The Tyger)
4. The vulnerability of innocence in the present world
5. Innocence is an ideal to struggle for in a corrupt and wicked world.

Wordsworth is always known as the poet of nature, although he thought of himself as writing principally
about humanity. His two main concerns are the predicaments of human life and the beauty of the natural
world. He develops an extraordinary insight into the nature of man, both individually and in society.
Interested in the present problems of human beings in society, the problems of living in the cities, in the
way that certain pressures tend to reduce the individual to a machine. His preoccupations lie at the heart
of the human reaction to a technological, urbanized and industrialized society. (Industrial revolution)

His best-known poem is a manifesto of his individual perception of the function of poetry: “Lines written a
few miles above Tintern Abbey” (1798): He explores the effects of memory, time, and the landscape upon
the human heart. He is prophetic as he transforms experience, however painful, into instructive and
inspiring poetry. Some passages move towards the sublime: “While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things” (ll. 47-49)

❖ S.T. COLERIDGE (1772-1834)

“Language is the armoury of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons
of its future conquests.”

“No man was ever yet a good poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher”

Biographia Literaria, 1817 (Chapter XIII): He distinguishes between fancy/ imagination.

IMAGINATION: Primary and secondary: “The primary imagination I hold to be the living power and prime
agent of all human perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the external act of creation in the
infinite I AM. The secondary I consider an echo of the former, co-existing with the conscious will, yet still as
identical with the primary in the kind of its agency, and differing only in degree, and in the mode of its
operation. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to re-create”

FANCY: “The fancy is indeed no other than a mode of memory emancipated from the order of time and
space; and blended with, and modified by that empirical phenomenon of the will, which we express by the
word choice.”

His most representative poems:

A) KUBLA KHAN:

A dream-poem full of images of beauty and terror. Full of enigmatic symbols. The most imaginative of his
poems: full of magical power.

Themes:
▪ The process of poetic creation: mechanic writing caused by opium.
▪ The concept of imagination
▪ Balance between contraries
▪ The transcendence of history

Coleridge describes the process of composition of this poem thus: He had fallen asleep after taking “an
anodyne” prescribed “in consequence of a slight disposition” (this is a euphemism for opium, to which
Coleridge was known to be addicted). Before falling asleep, he had been reading a story in which Kubla
Khan commanded the building of a new palace; Coleridge claims that while he slept, he had a fantastic
vision and composed simultaneously—while sleeping—some two or three hundred lines of poetry which
he wrote when he woke up. But as he was interrupted by a visit, his poem remained unfinished.

The poet describes a mythical and legendary place where a pleasure dome is built (Xanadu), a sacred river
flows, and runs “through caverns measureless to man / Down to a sunless sea”.

B) THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

A Ballad concerned with a long journey through the sea. This poetic genre allows him to convey intense
personal feelings of suffering, loneliness, longing, horror, fear… The Mariner shoots an albatross that had
been keeping company to the ship, and the whole crew are subjected to evil forces and are condemned to
live eternally in death. Coleridge again introduces elaborate symbolism that cannot be interpreted.

It has been interpreted as an allegory of Coleridge’s own feelings of guilt and loneliness. Another
interpretation is that shooting the albatross the mariner commits a crime against the ‘one life’ that is ‘within
us and abroad’, against the created world and also against himself. The crime is part of the human
experience; the mariner’s journey is not just geographical, but also into strange worlds of the mind.

2.3. THE SECOND GENERATION OF ROMANTIC POETS.

❖ LORD BYRON (1788-1824)

“The great object of life is sensation- to feel that we exist, even though in pain.”

Byron was the most various of poets, for he tried everything in poetry and in life. Poetry was only one of
his activities: politics, a player of cricket, a swimmer, he enjoyed the company of men and women. He
created a different persona for every poem; they are all part of his shifting self, his explorations of life. He
created the popular Romantic hero (melancholic, tormented by a secret guilt)

Byron’s poetry is fundamentally Romantic, partly because in his difference with the other poets he is
asserting his individuality, and partly because of his out-of the-ordinary subject matters and characters:
 ▪ Lonely wanderers
▪ Heroes and heroines of old tales
▪ Courageous, glamourous and mysterious figures

They are unsual, deeply sensitive, outside of the normal simplicities of thinking and feeling. He invites the
reader to sympathize with those who are imprudent, exciting, sensitive and courageous.

Genres: He wrote satire, verse narrative, odes, historical tragedy, dramatic monologues…

Language and style: he was a traditionalist on this regard: He preferred the couplet and the Spenserian
stanza and was not interested in the stylistic innovations of Wordsworth and Coleridge (He did not
subscribe to the idea of the relevance of the imagination or the poet as a prophet either)

Works: Hours of Idleness (1807); Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage; The Bride of Abydos; The Corsair; The Siege of
Corinth; Don Juan.

His heroes and heroines are passionate, active. Byron depicts ways of life totally outside of the ordinary
English experience. They represent a side of Byron which was dissatisfied with the triviality of London
society. That is the reason why he wrote about pirates, buccaneers and lovers and travelled to Spain,
Greece, Albania and Turkey in search of adventures and exotic sites.

Lord Byron’s Skull Cup Lord Byron used a skull his gardener had found at Newstead Abbey as a drinking
vessel: "There had been found by the gardener, in digging, a skull that had probably belonged to some jolly
monk or friar of the Abbey, about the time it was demonasteried. Observing it to be of giant size, and in a
perfect state of preservation, a strange fancy seized me of having it set and mounted as a drinking cup. I
accordingly sent it to town, and it returned with a very high polish and of a mottled colour like tortoise shell".

Byron even wrote a darkly witty drinking poem as if inscribed upon it, “Lines Inscribed upon a Cup Formed
from a Skull”. The cup, filled with claret, was passed around "in imitation of the Goths of old", among the
Order of the Skull that Byron founded at Newstead, "whilst many a grim joke was cut at its expense", Byron
recalled Thomas Medwin.

❖ PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792-1822)

“A poet is a nightingale who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.”

Shelley was known as a radical in his poetry and in his social and political beliefs. He abhorred the political
establishment of his day and felt a deep distrust of monarchy, the church, and the law. Independent spirit
and discontent with the values of traditional education. All his poems are seeking a better world, a new life
to replace the old system and old corruptions. His best poems underpin the anti-tyranical stance with an
idealism which continually emphasizes the importance of making a new world of love.

Recurrent symbolism: The veil is a recurrent symbol in his poetry: reality is hidden from humankind by a
world of appearances, transitory and misleading (Influence of Plato’s myth of the cavern)

1. The cloud
2. The skylark
3. The wind of autumn: Frequently a symbol of a cleansing power

They are emblems of a Platonically conceived nature. The poet is capable of seeing beyond their material
shape and of enjoying the spiritual beauty that natural elements embody.

WORKS: Ozymandias, Ode to the West Wind, To a Skylark, The Cloud, The Mask of Anarchy, Queen Mab: A
Philosophical poem (1813), Prometheus Unbound (1820)
 ❖ JOHN KEATS (1795-1821)

“With a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all
consideration”

Keats’ ideas on IMAGINATION and BEAUTY: “I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart’s
affections and the truth of Imagination— What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth—whether
it existed before or not—for I have the same Idea of all our Passions as of Love [:] they are all in their sublime,
creative of essential Beauty. (…) The Imagination may be compared to Adam’s dream—he awoke and found
it truth.” (From letter to Benjamin Bailey, 22 November, 1817)

Unlike Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron and Shelley, with him poetry existed not as an instrument of social
revolt nor of philosophical doctrine but for the expression of beauty. Beauty was Keats’ great passion and
the main object of his poems. He identified Beauty with Truth; Poetry had to be the incarnation of Beauty
(not the expression of political ideals or a mode of didacticism). Keats considers that Beauty was
everywhere and, in every object, and he associates these objects with a heightened emotional appeal:
flowers, clouds, the song of a bird, old objects and legends…

WORKS: Sleep and Poetry, Endymion, The Eve of St Agnes, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, Lamia, Hyperion, Ode
to Psyche, Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on Melancholy, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode on Indolence

2.4. WOMEN ROMANTIC POETS

In conventional literary history, ’Romantic Poetry’ has been considered an all-male preserve. Women
authors during the Romantic period generally belonged to two categories:

1. Women of letters who attempted to fulfill themselves in their vocation.

o Joanna Baillie, Hannah More, Anna Seward, Elizabeth Moody.
2. Working women who sold their poetry with the help of a middle-class patron.
o Anna Barbauld, Anne Grant, Christian Milne, Charlotte Smith.

Themes: domesticity, satire on poetic conventions, verse letters, love poems.

3. ROMANTIC LITERATURE: 1789-1832. Sentimental and Gothic aesthetics and their critique

3.1. ROMANTIC FICTION: INTRODUCTION.

During the Romantic period, the fiction produced in earlier periods was respected for its literary value: Don
Quixote and the novels of Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, and Smollett were regarded as important works of
literature. These and other earlier novelists were commercialized as "classics," along with selections from
certain poets (Milton, Pope) and dramatists (Shakespeare).

On the contrary, most novels published during the period itself were condemned by critics and readers as
"the trash of the circulating library," i.e. to be rented and read quickly rather than purchased and kept. Cf.
Northanger Abbey. The Morlands read “the classics” (e.g. Richardson) while Catherine prefers the latest
releases (e.g. Radcliffe).

Between the 1790s and the 1830s, most prose fiction was considered subliterary, suitable mainly for
children, women, and the lower classes. For some critics, the low reputation of the novel is not entirely
innocent, since it also happened to be written mostly by women. Yet prose fiction was one of the most
widely consumed forms of print during the period, equalled or surpassed only by newspapers, closely
associated with a social and cultural phenomenon known as "the rise of the reading public," and recognized
as a major form of ideological communication, for better or worse, central to national cultural politics.
Prose fiction was reformed and reformulated for the unfolding political and social conflicts of the time.
There developed several recognizably dominant forms, among them: The novel of manners and
sentiments, Gothic fiction, Regional and Historical fiction

3.2. GENRES: THE NOVEL OF MANNERS AND SENTIMENTS.

This form of the novel was inspired by Richardson's novels. But women novelists such as Frances Burney,
Frances Sheridan, or Charlotte Smith developed it around the figure of a hero/ine pitted against an external
social world, controlled by aristocracy and gentry, represented as divided, relative, and hostile to authentic
selfhood. In many novels of manners, the heroine's or hero's social identity - name, family, rank - is hidden
or misrepresented until the closure.

Many other novels of manners, however, disclose the real name and rank of the protagonist from the
outset but conceal the protagonist's "true," subjective identity or merit from other characters or even the
protagonist her- or himself. By the novel's closure, the conflict between subjective merit and social status
needs to be resolved, for example in the novels of Jane Austen.

"Manners“: social conduct as codes of social differentiation and power with moral and ethical overtones.
Both applied to the culture and conduct of the nation as a whole, and treated novelistically in terms of the
moral, ethical, cultural, and social options exercised in private life by individuals.

The representation of subjectivity changes in this period: The letter form becames outdated and is
abandoned, although letters continue to play a significant role; Writers experiment with third-person
narrators and focalization in order to provide insights into the characters’ minds and emotions.

➢ Frances Burney (1752-1840): Novels of Development (Bildungsroman): virtuous heroines initially

ignorant of the world who must acquire the skills to prosper in a hostile environment.
o Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World (1778)
o Cecilia, or Memoirs of a Heiress (1782)
o Camilla; or, a Picture of Youth (1796);  TheWanderer; or, Female Difficulties (1814)
➢ Jane Austen (1755-1817) Her courtship novels portray the upper-middle class world of rural
England and the fashionable society of London and Bath. She held that “three or four families in a
country village” were the ideal subject of a novel. Her fiction insists on the merits of good conduct,
good manners, sound reason, and marriage as an admirable social institution.
o Sense and Sensibility (1811)
o Pride and Prejudice (1813)
o Mansfield Park (1814)
o Emma (1816)
o Persuasion (1818)
o Northanger Abbey (1818)

3.3. GENRES: ROMANTIC FICTION

Romantic aesthetic theories emphasized that pain and terror were able to produce delight: Edmund Burke,
A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757). The strongest
emotion was produced by the sublime, which the mind can experience either in the contemplation of
nature, particularly wild and mountainous scenery, or in the study of architecture (medieval cathedrals and
castles) because both places suggest vastness and infinity. “Delightful horror” was triggered in specific
situations and settings (historic ruins, old dungeons, torture, ghosts, prophecies, sudden or inexplicable
deaths, etc.)

• BEGINNINGS:

Horace Walpole founded the genre in The Castle of Otranto (1764): He poses as the editor and translator
of a medieval Italian manuscript describing very strange events. Clara Reeve’s short tale The Old English
Baron (1777) consolidated the main characteristics of the genre by invoking medieval settings, ghosts, and
virtuous but unfortunate characters. After them, the genre branched out into two main groups, depending
on the emotion they sought to inspire:

▪ TERROR: the strange events are eventually explained away as the result of unusual but rational
and probable causes.
▪ HORROR: the strange events are never assigned a rational cause and can only be understood as
the result of supernatural agents or forces.

• TERROR:

Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823): Her novels invoke the sublime through descriptions of wild and mountainous
landscapes. European settings, particularly Italy or France, are preferred (feudal architecture, Catholic
corruption). Her sentimental heroines, virtuous and refined, are in need of protection against sexual and
moral dangers, usually associated to a powerful male villain.
▪ The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794),
▪ The Italian (1797)

• HORROR:

Matthew G. Lewis (1775-1818)

The Monk (1796): Set in a Capuchin friary in Madrid. Describes the descent into vice and corruption of the
friar Ambrosio while he commits innumerable crimes under cover of his holy orders. Hidden chambers,
subterraneous passages, sealed vaults, replicate Ambrosio’s tortured labyrinthine soul, which, like Faustus,
he has sold to the devil.

• THE WAY TO SCIENCE FICTION

Mary Shelley (1797-1851): Composed as a “ghost story” to pass away the long hours of a rainy summer. It
probes into the meaning of life and the reach and ethics of modern science through the figure of Dr.
Frankenstein and his difficult relationship with the “creature” he has created. i.e a reinterpretation of the
Creation story of God/Adam. Complex narrative structure, with several layers (letter of a witness to some
of the events, confessions of Dr. Frankenstein and of the creature)

3.4. GENRES: REGIONAL AND HISTORICAL FICTION.

The novel also became a vehicle to explore anxieties surrounding national identity, particularly English ties
with Ireland and Scotland. The American and French revolutions fanned independentist agendas in Ireland,
which in turn would lead to the Union of 1800. Both Ireland and Scotland were undergoing swift political
and economic changes, like the Clearances.

Romanticism is the period of the rise of nationalism. It encouraged a growing interest in folklore, history,
and ancestry. Related rise of antiquarianism: collection of ballads, ancient artifacts, etc.

In fiction, this will result in regional and historical novels: Set in the Celtic peripheries (Ireland/Scotland);
Descriptive of local social customs and traditions; Often reproducing (with varying success) local dialects or
at least turns of phrase in the speech of some characters while the main narrative remains in standard
English. In the case of historical novels, the action is set in some key historical period. The most important
representatives of this novel form are Maria Edgeworth and Walter Scott.

❖ Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849): Anglo-Irish writer, born and educated in England. Although she
successfully wrote novels of manners, like Belinda (1801), she is best known for her “Irish” novels:
• Castle Rackrent (1800),
• The Absentee (1812),
 • Ormond (1817)

They depict the changing relationship of Ireland and Britain around the years of the Act of Union
(1800). They focus on issues of succession and inheritance of the Irish estates of a landowning
class that deserts Ireland for the pleasures and fashions of England.

❖ Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). Probably the most famous Scottish writer of all times, he was already
well known as a poet when he published his first novel anonymously in 1814, Waverley.

He is credited with the creation of the 19th century historical novel, and his influence over
European and North American literature was immense. Drawing on his own learning and on
private research, he reimagined key aspects of Scottish history and made it available to a wide
readership in England, who were thrilled by what was considered an exotic but basically alien
culture. His Scottish novels deal with key moments in Scotland's emergence from feudalism to
modernity, like the Union of England and Scotland in 1707 (The Bride of Lammermoor, 1819), the
1715 Jacobite uprising (Rob Roy, 1817), or the Jacobite rising of 1745 (Waverley, 1814).

4. ROMANTIC LITERATURE: 1789-1832. Jane Austen: Northanger Abbey (1818)

4.1. JANE AUSTEN

❖ BRIOGRAPHY:
Born 1775 in Steventon (Hampshire) to a rural Anglican clergyman and his wife, the latter with
aristocratic links. They were cultivated people, with a large library. Jane did not receive much of a
formal education. The family also lived in Bath for 5 years. At the death of her father, Jane, her
sister Cassandra, their mother, had to move away, and they set up house together with a close
friend in similar circumstances. When girls remained single, they were regarded as a drain on their
families, used primarily to help nurture and nurse their married relatives. They settled first in
Southampton and later in Chawton (Hampshire), where an affluent brother provided them all with
free accommodation. There she wrote her later novels: Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion

❖ WORKS:
Her period of publishing, 1811-17, coincides with the Regency period. George III’s madness was
considered permanent and his unpopular son, later George IV, had become Prince Regent. Jane
Austen entered the literary marketplace at a propitious time for women writers, whose number
had been increasing throughout the century, and who formed a majority by then. However, in
the 1820s male novelists became numerically dominant again as well as dominant in the culture.
Nevertheless, getting published was not easy, and her earlier manuscripts were turned down by
publishers 4 times, or were put in a drawer and not published.
In all, she published 6 novels and left several unfinished works: Sense and Sensibility (1811),
Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1816), Northanger Abbey (1818),
Persuasion (1818).
Jane Austen is considered as one of the great writers of English literature, on a par withWilliam
Shakespeare. Her works have achieved both academic and popular status. They have been often
reprinted, rewritten, or adapted for TV or film.

4.2. NORTHANGER ABBEY

It was first composed in the late 1790s, with the title “Susan”. In 1803 Austen sold it to the
publisher Crosby under the penname Mrs. Ashton Dennis for a modest £10. When, six years later,
it had not been published, she wrote to the publisher, who offered to sell it back to her for the
same sum of money. Austen bought it back and revised it, renaming Susan as “Catherine”. It was
published posthumously, together with Persuasion. Cf. “Advertisement, by the Authoress” on the
13 years between composition and publication.
 ❖ GENRE:
For Janet Todd, Austen’s novels are “hybrids, romance and comedy, satire and sentiment, fairy
tale and realism” (The Cambridge Introduction to Jane Austen 2006: 25).

For this critic, NA is “the comedy of fiction enriching and deforming the life of a single girl” (2006:
36). Strongly metafictional novel, showcasing the politics of reading and writing. It is a courtship
novel, that summarizes the first 17 years of the girl’s life in the opening chapter and properly starts
when she leaves for Bath (vol. 1 chapter 2) and meets the hero (vol. 1 chapter 3), ending
approximately one year later, with their marriage. Strong similarities with Frances Burney’s novels,
particularly Evelina, in situations and characterization (the heroine’s blunders and the
heromentor).

❖ READERS AND READING:

The narrator draws our attention to the politics of reading and writing from the beginning.
Catherine’s early readings (1.1.7); the narrator’s comments on the politics of the novel (1.5. 23-4)
Catherine’s conversations with Henry on reading (1.6. 26; 1.14. 82). Frequent allusions to the
mechanics of fiction and plot design (above all in Gothic fiction): “…the sleepless couch, which is
the true heroine’s portion” (1.11.64) “my heroine was most unnaturally able to fulfil her
engagement, though it was made with the hero himself” (1.14.77). The influence of Catherine’s
readings on her behaviour during her visit at the Abbey (see section on Gothic)

❖ NORTHANGER ABBEY AS NOVEL OF MANNERS

Austen and social realism: she shows the activities of everyday life instead of unlikely plots 
Kathryn Sutherland on social realism (5’20’’)
The novel describes the lifestyle of the upper-middle classes and their social interaction in public
and private spaces: the public rooms in Bath and the private homes of theAllens, the Morelands,
and theTilneys. Kathryn Sutherland on public/private spaes (3’)
Austen’s novel analyzes women’s position in the marriage market (Catherine, Isabella, Eleanor).
The circulation of power, influence, and property within these social classes. Kathryn Sutherland
on class and marriage (2’)

❖ NORTHANGER ABBEY AS A GOTHIC PARODY

NA is a Gothic parody Because it proves that the events and relations in Gothic fiction are
unrealistic. Henry Tilney’s remarks and Catherine’s thoughts (2.9.145-46).
At the same time, Austen successfully deploys many of the Gothic standard devices for suspense
and characterization. Henry Tilney’s creation of a Gothic atmosphere on the way to his home
(2.5.114-16). General Tilney as Gothic villain/Catherine as unprotected victim of his tyranny. First
description of General Tilney (1.10.57) Catherine’s final thoughts on how she was treated
(2.15.183).

4.3 CHARACTERIZATION:
❖ The heroine: Catherine Morland:

Catherine is an unsophisticated heroine of modest and ordinary achievements. See descriptions of heroine
in 1.1 & beginning of 1. 2. Cf. Pamela or Moll.

She arrives in a new society with an inadequate chaperone, Mrs. Allen, and despite her strong principles
and correct upbringing, she makes mistakes of etiquette. See 1.13. 75, Mr. Allen on improper behaviour
for young ladies.

Her mistakes are misrepresented and manipulated into indecorous behaviour until she learns how to fulfill
and use social conventions. Then she marries the hero, a man of social and intellectual skill. Vs.
IsabellaThorpe (who is too ambitious and ends up alone); Catherine’s awakening to the fact that she is “a
vain coquette” (2.12.161) Kathryn Sutherland on gender and morality (3’)
❖ The hero: Henry Tilney:

Like many other Austenesque heroes, the hero is a clergyman (1.3.18). He has no extraordinary
accomplishments or features. First description (1.3.14) but he is slightly older, more sophisticated than the
heroine, and acts as her mentor: introducing her to the rules of behaviour in Bath society, flirting with her,
and maintaining throughout an attitude of amused superiority.

He is reliable, unlike John Thorpe, who twists, exaggerates or manipulates everything for his own
advantage. Thorpe’s role in misleading General Tilney (2.15.181-82). Yet, Henry is not without faults,
passively accepting his father’s tyrannical rule. Coming as he does from a cold, repressive family
environment, he gains through his relationship with Catherine, so that he gathers the courage to fight for
what he wants and to confront his father.

4.3. CHARACTERIZATION
❖ Narrator:

Narrative point of view shifts from an omniscient narrator (objectivity) to free indirect speech (subjectivity).

Example of Omniscient Narrator: “Catherine had not read three lines before a sudden charge of
countenance, and short exclamations of sorrowing wonder, declared her to be receiving unpleasant news;
and Henry, earnestly watching her through the whole letter, saw plainly that it ended no better than it
began.” (2.10.149)

Example of Free indirect speech: “But neither the business alleged, nor the magnificent compliment, could
win Catherine from thinking that some very different object must occasion so serious a delay of proper
repose…something was to be done which could be done only while the household slept; and the probability
that Mrs. Tilney yet lived, shut up for causes unknown, and receiving from the pitiless hands of her husband
a nightly supply of coarse food, was the conclusion which necessarily followed.” (2.9.138)

❖ Irony and Humour:

The narrator often makes pointed comments about the characters’ behaviour or more in general about
social mores:

▪ (about Mrs. Allen’s vacuousness): “Every morning… they paraded up and down for an hour,
looking at every body and speaking to no one. The wish of a numerous acquaintance in Bath was
still uppermost with Mrs. Allen, and she repeated it after every fresh proof, which every morning
brought, of her knowing nobody at all.” (1.3. 14)
▪ (about the encounter of Mrs. Allen and Mrs. Thorpe, who had been schoolfellows): “Their joy on
this meeting was very great, as well it might be since they had been contented to know nothing
of each other for the last fifteen years.” (1.4.19) 
▪ (Isabella is interested in two young men but the narrator ironically suggests she is just pretending):
“… and therefore, to shew the independence of Miss Thorpe, and her resolution of humbling the
sex, they set off immediately as fast as they could walk, in pursuit of the two young men.” (1.6.28)
 About “natural folly” and “imbecility” in beautiful women being attractive to men (1.14.81)

❖ Speech and Dialogue:

Austen’s novels have a realistic approach to conversation. She is extremely perceptive about how people
speak: Henry criticizes Catherine’s fashionable turns of phrase (1.14.78).

Speech patterns are an important tool for (often negative) characterization: Mrs. Allen: constant
repetitions of the same utterance, hers or other people’s; Isabella: self-centered, often does not even listen
(2.3.105); often coaxes everybody into doing what she wishes, (1.13.70-71); uses double entendres
(2.3.105); John Thorpe: conceited, self-important exaggeration (conversation with Catherine during their
first drive in 1.9.44-6)
Most importantly, Austen points out the strong contrast between what people think and what they say.
Learning to differentiate one from the other constitutes Catherine’s most important lesson in social
interaction.