Peterloo Revolution

As a new way to criticize the Romantic period, desperate times call for desperate measures and it did through the use of children’s point of view in Romantic poetry. A period of fifty years called Romantic period included the French Revolution, the American Revolution and wars of national independence in Europe. William Blake, one of well known Romantic poets, commented on his society by viewing it through the child’s eyes in the two sets of ‘Songs of innocence and of Experience’. It is said that ignorance is a blessing but not according to William Blake.

The French Revolution began in 1789 as an attempt, by the revolutionaries, to form a new government that would give the people more liberty, equality and value people’s rights. Between 1793 and 1794 the government used extreme ways to achieve their goals. This period of time, led by Robespierre, was called the reign of Terror because between 20,000-40,000 french people were killed by the government forces. The Reign of Terror was not justified for three reasons:The external and internal threat did not deserve it, they denied natural rights against people who opposed them and the methods of the Terror were too extreme.

Because of this, the Colored National Labor Union was created by blacks themselves but the differences did not allow them to work together. The National Labor union strongly advocated for eight hour workdays. Another union called the Knights of Labor emerged that first began as a secret society. Their purpose was to include all workers in “one big union.” They allowed everyone: blacks, whites, men, women, the skilled and unskilled. Terence V. Powderly led this union to win several strikes for an eight- hour day. Unfortunately, the Knights of Labor were involved in a violent protest called Haymarket Square. They were mistaken to be associated with anarchists and this brought them to their downfall. Finally, a successful union shows up called the American Federation of Labor (AFL), founded by Samuel Gompers, which only allowed skilled workers. In the end, usually the management won with the strikers having little improvement.

The Romantic Period centered on creative imagination, nature, mythology, symbolism, feelings and intuition, freedom from laws, impulsiveness, simplistic language, personal experiences, democracy, and liberty, significant in various art forms including poetry. The development of the self and self-awareness became a major theme as the Romantic Period was seen as an unpredictable release of artistic energy, new found confidence, and creative power found in the writings of the Romantic poets Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, and Shelley, who made a substantial impact on the world of poetry. Two of the Romantic poets, William Blake, and Percy Bysshe Shelley rebelled against convention and authority in search of personal, political and artistic freedom. Blake and Shelley attempted to liberate the subjugated people through the contrary state of human existence prevalent throughout their writings, including Blake’s “The Chimney Sweepers,” from “Songs of Innocence”, “London,” from “Songs of Experience” and Shelley’s A Song: “Men of England.”

One cause of the French Revolution was the Age of Enlightenment. The Enlightenment had many different philosophs, a well known one was John Locke(1632-1704). The philosophs would go to salons and talk about how they felt to the lower class. “The philosophs were not directly responsible for the outbreak… but they sparked that change of thought into action” Doc 5. John Locke would go to these salons and he would say how he felt about freedom and equality. “ All mankind… being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possession” John Locke. The Enlightenment also

Workers during the Industrial Revolution had hoped for benefits, such as health, cleaner working conditions, better pay, and less working hours. Industrial workers often felt overworked because of the long, stressful hours placed upon them by their employers. Labor unions began to emerge as a result of the long hours and awful working conditions. These workers were locked up all day in factories that were eight stories high. They were given absolutely no relaxation until the heavy engine stopped. After leaving work, they would go home to get refreshed for the next day. This left these industrial workers with no time for association with their families.

Romanticism was an era where the individual became more important than society. Instead of the rules and norms of society being the topics, it shifted to more of the imagination. At the time, there was uprisings, and much of this imagination stemmed from dreams that times could go back to the

Before the Romantic era, society played a huge role in how individuals were accepted, viewed, and should construct themselves. Decisions were made by society and society inputted restraints of social institutions. Everything was viewed in a mechanistic, perfectionist aspect. In reality, life is imperfect, wild, and uncontrollable. The Romantic era was a time that one focused on self instead of society’s views. This period made it feasible to break away from social restraints to express your own human values. Value is defined as things you care about and was expressed using feelings. You owned the authority to find feeling in life and emotion. Freedom was achievable and life became a reality because one was viewed as an individual instead of a majority.

During industrialization many changes took place that were difficult for American workers to adjust to and accept. Workers were replaced by machines, worked very long hours, and received little pay. Large businesses and corporations that grew out of the industrial age did not care about the individual employee and only cared about how much money they could make. Employees were no longer valued and bosses believed that any employee could easily be replaced by another body. The extremely low wages, unsafe working conditions, and long hours eventually led to many people trying to organize unions to stand up to the large corporations. Businesses did not want the workers to organize because they wanted to keep wages low and keep the workers powerless.

The French Revolution was a time of turmoil in which an uprising for equality turned into a massacre. The poor became poorer, King Louis XVI lost power, and hundreds of thousands of people would end up losing their lives. Over the course of the revolution, there were two phases of the government that occurred that each had different causes. The economic and ideological cause of the liberal phase of the government was due to the disputes over inequality among the estates and dismantling of the old regime, while the cause of the radical phase of the government was based off of the belief that the revolution did not meet the original revolutionary beliefs.

The Industrial Revolution was a heavily influential period of time filled with amazing innovations and new ways of doing things. Thanks to the Industrial Revolution, our entire way of living has been altered- and is still being altered to this day! However, all of these perks came with a major downfall for England when the IR started. Whether it was the cruel factory conditions, false sense of security in new technology, or the newfound social barriers, the Industrial Revolution was a curse for England at the time. In order for innovations to be made, there had to be people making them; producing them. That much was the job of the factory workers who withstanded much struggle.

During the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain, factory worker’s rights were violated within the capitalist system.

For as long as it has been in existence, the arts have been utilised to reflect, represent and review change and transformation within society, whether it be through art, literature, music or poetry. The ideas and expressions of the arts of the Romantic period were inspired by and formed around the Romantic’s experiences of social injustice, inequality and political turmoil. Political and economic developments and events such as the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the end of the Enlightenment period and the increased ideology of Capitalism were the primary source of inspiration for the Romantics, as they conveyed their ideas and thoughts on society through the arts. They expressed and portrayed a wide variety of things through their art, whether it be inequality in society, their feelings and thoughts on the state of politics, beauty, nature, sexuality and pleasure and animals. The Romantic movement was, in a sense, almost an act of rebellion against the typical confines and norms that society typically demands as it gave a voice and a platform to opinions that could be considered unconventional, tackled issues such as inequality and prejudice, normalised many topics that were considered to be taboo and encouraged things such as questioning dominant ideologies that dictated society, such as religion and the government. The works of art and literature produced by the Romantics portrayed somewhat of a utopian society in which inequality and exploitation ceased to

The French Revolution is one of the most important revolutions in history. Many things caused the buildup to the French Revolution, including international politics, political conflict, the time of the Enlightenment, a bad ruling class, and economic hardship. The most noteworthy part of the process of the French Revolution was the Reign of Terror. The biggest excess that came from the Revolution was the Reign of Terror. The Reign of Terror was created in order to squash both internal and foreign forces of counter revolution. After the threats of the revolution were considered under control, the Reign of Terror branched over into the direction of the Committee of Public Safety which was controlled famously by Maximilien Robespierre. The end of the Reign of Terror was aimed at destroying the political rivals of Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety. The excesses that came from the Reign of Terror caused the overthrow of Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety in

The Romantic Movement, also known as romanticism, took place in the early 1800’s. Rather than write about the lives of ordinary people, romantics dealt with the ‘romance’ of life. They appealed to sentiment and imagination rather than reality (Miller, 534). The essence of Romanticism is a belief in the power and validity of human emotions as a means of knowing and a guide to life. Instead of following the previous periods’ belief in a ruling class as the center of power, romantics believed that power existed among all people. This was due to every humans capability to learn through emotional experiences, regardless of stature (Roberts, 1032). Romantic writers not only glorified these beliefs but the past as well, so it made sense that the Romantic Movement was partly a reaction to the Enlightenment Movement of the 1700’s. The people of the Enlightenment emphasized reason and progresses the way romantics lived off of emotion and instinct (Miller, 534). In addition to reacting to the past, Romanticism undoubtedly reflected many ideas of the, then, present (Roberts, 1032).