English literature the book is designed to acquaint students with the main outlines

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 of Reason. The individual, rather than society, was in the center ofthe Romantic vision. The Romantic writers believed in the possibility of progress and social and human reform. As champions of democratic ideals, they sharply attacked all forms of tyranny and the spreading evils of 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 of tradi­ tional religious belief, men were making a religion from the spiri­ tuality of 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 of the Age of Reason tended to regard

evil as a basic part of human nature, the Romantic writers gener­ ally saw humanity as naturally good, but corrupted by society and its institutions of religion, education, and government.