Buchara state university m. Bakoeva, E. Muratova, M. Ochilova english literature

they also did not improve the living conditions of the common
working people. Then the belief of progressive-minded people in
the ideal natur e o f the new system fell to pieces. As a result the
Romantic Movement sprang up towards the close ofthe 18th cen­
tury.
The Romantic Age brought a more daring, individual and imagi­
native approach to both literature and life. In the late eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries, many ofthe most important English
writers turned away from the values and ideas characteristic of
the Age o f Reason. The individual, rather than society, was in the
center ofthe Romantic vision. The Romantic writers believed in
the possibility o f progress and social and human reform. As
champions o f democratic ideals, they sharply attacked all forms
o f tyranny and the spreading evils o f individualism, such as urban
blight, a polluted environment, and the alienation of people from
nature ar d one another. They all had a deep interest in nature,
not as a center of beautiful scenes but as an informing and spiri­
tual influence on life. It was as if frightened by coming industrial­
ism and the nightmare towns o f industry, they were turning to
nature for protection. Or as if, with the declining strength o f tradi­
tional religious belief, men were making a religion from the spiri­
tuality o f their own experiences.
They all valued their own experiences to a degree which was
difficult to parallel in earlier poets. Spencer, Milton and Pope made
verse out of legend or knowledge, which was common to humanity.
The romantic poets looked into themselves, seeking in their own
lives for strange sensations.
Whereas the writers o f the Age o f Reason tended to regard

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