Aquila | 2018-2019

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Romantic revolution THE BREAKING OF BOUNDARIES IN 19TH CENTURY ENGLAND: LITERATURE, HISTORY AND RELIGION.

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hen Literature students learn of the Romantic period, it is often marked with images of Wordsworth and Blake alongside descriptions of a rapidly developing society brimful of revolutions, factories and social discontent. Such negative connotations of the early 19th Century adds an ironic element to the title of the ‘Romantic Era’ in which figureheads such as Constable, Shelley, Keats and Byron pushed the budding boundaries of suffering and exploitation placed upon the lower classes. Literature was not the only medium being used to push, and create. The historical nature of Victorian Society also laid the foundations for questioning traditional beliefs and standards. Yet the still very austere society continued to shun and often ridicule many female figures and scientists for their attempts at progression. Let me take you on a whistle-stop tour of the defining

THE ‘ROMANTIC ERA’ IN WHICH FIGUREHEADS SUCH AS CONSTABLE, MARY SHELLEY, KEATS AND BYRON PUSHED THE BUDDING BOUNDARIES OF SUFFERING AND EXPLOITATION

moments of the 19th Century, those that both imposed boundaries and those that began to break them.

HISTORY The turn of the 19th Century marked the consequences of the groundbreaking American Revolution of 1775. For the first time, the looming presence of the oppressive British Empire was being threatened by revolutionaries dreaming of a better tomorrow, fighting red coats with international assistance from France; a country which would later overthrow its’ own revolution against its monarchy. With the cultivation of revolutions that altered the social and political scene internationally, the same was expected of England and the current monarchy was preparing for a rebellion from the public against the State. A revolution did occur; however, it was not in the form of riots or rampages but with the growth of factories, machines and steam engines. The Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries was one to create boundaries not to dismantle them. With the developments of urban labour there were advancements in transport, communications and production, the cost for such developments were, however, too high as the revolution encouraged the exploitation of the lower classes through extensive hours in dangerous

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conditions with meagre wages that barely covered basic costs. Children were being taken out of school and forced under machines, where they often risked their lives so as to not be thrown out onto the streets.

RELIGION The advancements of machinery and science also encouraged the questioning of the boundaries placed on society by the overriding authority and suffocating presence of the Church. Alternative approaches to the answering of existential questions on the nature of our universe and purpose began to undermine faith alone in an omnipotent and fearful presence. Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’, published in 1859, challenged the presumption that all things within our world were created by God alone, instead offering a scientific style of thinking in reaching an answer to the nature of the world around us. The controversy sparked through Darwin’s work is still reflected within our modern day world, with the book being banned in several American States until the late 1900’s. Darwin certainly did not stand in isolation with his opposing scientific view as Biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the word ‘Agnosticism’, advocating for the questioning of the Church’s authority and promoting the integration of science on the social agenda.