The Lake District So Popular Today chapter the Romantic Movement and The Lake Poets

CHAPTER 2 The Romantic Movement and The Lake Poets.
The Lake Poets were part of the Romantic Movement and are best remembered for verses related to natural imagery. Despite this, they did not follow a single idea or school of thought.The primary members of the loosely defined group were William Wordsworth, and later (to an extent) his sister Dorothy Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey. But there were several other poets, mentioned below, who were also given the name. It was due to the works of poets like Wordsworth that the Lake District became as well-known and defined as it is today. His vision of the landscape, and how he wrote about it, created it. He was attracted to the region for its isolation and for the undisturbed vision of nature he could find there. Other poets, like Southey and Coleridge, were attracted to the region for different reasons. Wordsworth was the best-known of the Lake Poets. He exemplified the attitude that’s now associated with the region and with all those who were inspired by the landscape. He, along with Coleridge, is remembered by history as helping to launch the Romantic Age of English literature with their publication of Lyrical Ballads. The greatest work of his career, The Prelude, was unknown during his lifetime. He began it when he was twenty-eight years old and it was published posthumously. His broader oeuvre is noted for his veneration o nature and dislike for change that flew in the face of the natural world. He often used common language and centered the everyday person at the heart of his poems. English Literature.Romanticism, which was the leading literary movement in England for more than half a century, was caused by great social and economic changes.The Industrial Revolution, which had begun in the middle of the 18th century, was no sudden change from home manufacturing to large-scale factory production. Enclosing common land had begun in the 16th century, but in the second half of the 18thcentury it became rapid and spread all over Britain. The peasants, deprived of their lands, were forced to go to work in factories.[16.32] Mines and factories had changed the face of the country. Towns sprang up. But mechanization did not improve the life of the common people. Social evils were clearly seen by the people: the diseases of industrial towns, the misery of child labour, the crowds of underpaid workers... Human beings tad turned into parts of machines, they were desperate at the loss of personal freedom. The suffering of the new class, the proletariat, led to the first strikes, and workers took to destroying machines. Workers, who called themselves Luddites after Ned Ludd who in a fit of fury broke two textile frames, naively believed that machines were the chief cause of their sufferings.Under the influence of the French Revolution the Irish peasants plotted a rebellion against English landlordism. It broke out in 1798 but was cruelly downed in blood. The British government took the lead in the counter-revolutionary wars against France.The belief of progressive-minded people in the ideal nature of the bourgeois system was broken. As a result, a new humanist movement sprang up towards the close of the 18th century.Romanticism was a movement against the progress of bourgeois civilization, which had driven thousands of people to poverty and enslaved their personal freedom. Writers longed to depict strong individuals, endowed with grand and even demonic passions. The romanticists made emotion, and not reason, the chief force of their works. This emotion found its expression chiefly in poetry.Some poets were seized with panic and an irresistible desire to get away from the present. They wished to call back "the good old days", when people worked on "England's green and pleasant land". These poets are called the Passive Romanticists. They spoke for the English farmers and Scottish peasants who were ruined by the Industrial Revolution. They idealized the patriarchal way of life during the Middle Ages, a period that seemed to them harmonious and peaceful. Their motto was "Close to Nature and from Nature to God", because they believed that religion put man at peace with the world.The Lake District attracted the poets because industry had not yet invaded this part of the country. These poets had similar tastes in art and politics, they founded a literary circle. Its influence was felt on some other writers of the time.In 1793 Wordsworth wrote a poem "Guilt and Sorrow". It is about a homeless sailor who was driven to crime, and a lonely woman who had lost her husband and three children in the war, all suffer from the cruelty of the law, but the only comfort Wordsworth offers is religion. The Lake poets urged a return to nature. That’s why so many of their poems praise nature. Wordsworth was a great master of description. His poem "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey" arouses our admiration. We feel his love for nature and also his great alarm at nature being spoiled by the invasion of industrialism.Coleridge and Southey and four other enthusiasts wished to found a domestic republic in America, where people could enjoy a free life. Want of money prevented this Utopian scheme.In 1798 Wordsworth and Coleridge published a volume of "Lyrical Ballads".Samuel Taylor Coleridge, along with Wordsworth, is remembered as one of the progenitors of the Romantic Movement in England. He worked as a poet, literary critic, and philosopher. He is one of the most prominent members of the group referred to as the Lake Poets. He collaborated on volumes with other writers on this list, such as Robert Southey and Charles Lloyd. His work was often darker than Wordsworth’s. He used elements of the supernatural, imagination, and naturalism. 
Robert Southey is remembered today for his lyrical verse, sonnets, odes, and ballads that dealt with topics like social injustice and the supernatural. He, like Coleridge and Wordsworth, became more conservative throughout his lifetime, acquiring deep respect for British social institutions. He is remembered for his poem ‘After Blenheim.’ 
Mary Lamb is best-remembered for her collaboration with Charles Lamb, her brother, on Tales from Shakespeare. She and her brother were part of the same literary circles as the other poets on this list and she is often included as part of the group of Lake Poets. She spent most of her life, after briefly being confined to a mental facility for murdering Elizabeth Lamb, her mother, working as a seamstress in London under the care of her brother. 
The spectacular landscape of the Lake District has been a huge influence on some of England's best-known writers. In particular the Romantic poets of the late eighteenth and nineteenth century such as William Wordsworth, Samuel Coleridge, Thomas de Quincey and John Ruskin were hugely affected by their surroundings.Also many children's authors have drawn inspiration from the landscape, such as Beatrix Potter, Arthur Ransome and even the creator of Postman Pat.Another hugely influential writer on the Lake District is Alfred Wainwright, author of many walking guides to the area.
The famous children's author Beatrix Potter lived from 1866 til 1943. She is best known for her beautifully illustrated books featuring Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle-Duck and friends. She spent many childhood holidays in the Lake District and these influenced her work.With the profits from her publications, she bought Hill Top farm and other hill farms and estates in the Lake District. Brockhole was the home of Beatrix's cousin Edith who married merchant William Gaddum. Beatrix used to write to her young second cousins Jim and Molly at Brockhole, which you can visit. You can also see Peter Rabbit and her other famous animal characters at The World of Beatrix Potter in Windermere.She became an expert Herdwick sheep breeder and the first female president-designate of the Herdwick Sheepbreeders' Association. When she died in 1943 she left 14 farms, sheep and 4000 acres of land to the National Trust.
Alfred Wainwright was born in Blackburn, Lancashire in 1907, Alfred Wainwright first visited the Lake District when he was 23 and fell in love with the area. He later moved to Kendal and devoted his life to mapping the area, writing seven guidebooks.His Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells are a unique mixture of beautiful pen-and-ink sketches, maps and musings. They feature 214 fell tops, which are known as 'Wainwrights' and many walkers like to try and bag them all! Many of our guided walks take you over Wainwright summits.Wainwright died in 1991 and there is a memorial to him in the church at Buttermere. His ashes were scattered above the village on his favourite mountain, Haystacks.
John Ruskin was a renowned Victorian poet, artist and philosopher about society and conservation, who lived from 1819 til 1900.Born in London, Ruskin was profoundly affected by his childhood experiences of the Lake District. His writings on architecture and art influenced Pre-Raphaelites artists such as Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris.In the 1850s he became more interested in politics. He passionately believed in conservation, the importance of planning, smokeless zones, free schools and green belts and campaigned for their importance. In 1871 Ruskin bought Brantwood near Coniston and retired there in 1884. He is buried in Coniston’s churchyard.
Arthur Ransome was born in Leeds in 1884, He learned to sail on Coniston and went to school in Windermere. He wrote a series of 12 Swallows and Amazons books, mostly set in the Lake District. The stories follow the adventures of the Walker and Blackett children camping on islands, mining for gold, fighting fell fires and conquering mountains. Wild Cat Island is thought to be Peel Island in Coniston Water and Kanchenjunga is thought to be the Old Man of Coniston.