Civil war (1642-1648) and the English Bourgeois Revolution

Laurence Sterne is considered to be the father of the European sentimentalism. Was a son of an officer, was a priest. He combined the interest to the world of feelings and irony; he was against rationalism; he tried not only reflect but analyse everything. "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman", "A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, by Mr. Yorick".
4. Romanticism, its peculiarities. 2 generations of Engl. romanticists. The Lake poets. W. Scott’s work
The late 18th c. was known as Romanticism. History: revolutions (esp. the French Rev.) GB was involved in war with Napoleon (1805—Trafalgar Battle). In GB a new liberation war flared up in Ireland. The Industrial revolution in GB
Literature: 1. the dislike and rejection of the reality 2.the extreme interest to nature it was ideal, acquired symbolic sense and was also treated as a source of inspiration, inner world 3.the typical romantic personage was an outsider, an outcast, or sometimes a rebel. Genres: In prose: a story, a long short story, a novel (historic novel) In poetry: long epic, lyric, historical or philosophical poems, a new genre combining epic & lyric
3 distinctly different groups of writers, who were in away opposed to each other by their political, social or aesthetic views:
1) The intermediate group (justified people’s desire for liberty, but didn’t share revolutionary views) Walter Scott
2) The revolutionary poets (oppose the existing order, called up to struggle for a better future, shared the people’s desire for liberty and objected to colonial oppression) George Noel Gordon Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley
3) The conservative group (they had welcomed the French revolution and its slogan of liberty, fraternity and equality, later abandoned revolutionary ideas ) William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey
Walter Scott (1771-1832) (the father of historic novel in English literature) was the son of a well-to-do Edinburgh lawyer, who wanted him to study law; the High School of Edinburgh. Walter Scott's profound interest in history and passionate love for his country changed the course of his life. He was greatly interested in the folklore of Scotland; he collected legends and popular ballads, in the works of the German romantics, Schiller and Goethe.
Literature(he sympathized with common people and justified people’s desire for liberty, but he didn’t share any revolutionary views). His novels reflected the most crucial moments of national history. He showed the progress of history through the destinies of people. Also his novel is a link between the Enlightenment novel and the novel of the new period – the Victorian novel.
“THE LAKERS” The Lake Poets are a group of English poets who all lived in the Lake District of England. William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey collaborated together in creating a collection of poems " Lуriсal Ballads "(1798).
Wordsworth stated that poetry should be simple and understandable to common people, revived the genre of the sonnet (most famous "Scorn not the Sonnet" (1827) in which the author traces the history of the sonnet as a genre. Samuel Taylor Coleridge dreamed of establishing an ideal human society. Robert Southey was the most revolutionary of all the Lakers in his youth and the most conservative in his older age. Most of his poems are dedicated to historical past or folklore (ballads'The Old Woman of Berkeley" (1799).