John Keats Treasure Hunt (Section 2): Context

Image representing the Romantic Period

This image represents the Romantic Period since it alludes to some of its characteristics, like the interest in the rural and natural, the faith in the senses and the imagination, and the interest in the imagination and intuiton.

Dates of the Romantic Period: 1785-1832

Find one historical event which shape the Romantic Period

The French Revolution helped shape the Romantic Period since it evidenced how human passion and emotion revealed the human nature in its most profound sense, and how these emotions (love, freedom, nationalism, idealism, and equality) were able to transform the preexisting norms. During this Revolution, the monarchy in France was completely abolished by the peoples who were tired of the extravagant expenses of the First and the Second estates, and of the high tax and bread prices. As seen on this painting ("La liberté guidant le peuple" by Delacroix) They took to the streets in protest and violently took control over the governing of the country. Human passions and emotion characterize this painting, and the Revolution.

Characteristics of the Romantic Period/Romanticism

• Faith in senses, feeling, imagination
• Interest in what is rural and natural (idealization of country life)
• Subjective poetry
• Interest in what is infinite, mysterious, exotic, and gothic
• Imagination and intuition over reason and formal rules
• Attraction to rebellion, revolution, human rights, freedom
• Emphasis on introspection, melancholy, sadness
• Artist = individualistic creator, his/her creative spirit is more important than the adhesion to rules
• Knowledge is gained through intuition
• Celebration of the individual (achievements of the misunderstood, heroic outcast)

Otto Scholderer "Lesendes Mädchen" (1883) and my living recreation of it

Lord Byron (Keats' rival)

Keats and Byron's rivalry was founded on the prior's jealousy. Byron was charming and handsome upper class socialite whose works were immediately regarded as successes, while Keats was a struggling middle class poet whose works were deeply criticized as soon as they were published. This led him to describe Byron's work as unoriginal and overrated.