Scott and Edgeworth establish the master theme of the early-nineteenthcentury noveclass="underline" the question of how the individual consciousness intermeshes with larger social structures, of how far character is the product of history and how far it is not. Jane Austen's brilliance as a satirist of the English leisure class often prompts literary historians to compare her works to witty Restoration and eighteenth-century comedies. But she too helped bring this theme to the forefront of novel-writing, devising new ways of articulating the relationship between the psychological history of the individual and the history of society, and, with unsurpassed psychological insight, creating unforgettable heroines who live in time and change. As with other Romantics, Austen's topic is revolution�revolutions of the mind. The momentous event in her fictions, which resemble Wordsworth's poetry in finding out the extraordinary in the everyday, is the change of mind that creates the possibility of love. Contrasting his own "big bow-wow strain" with Austen's nuance, Scott wrote that Austen "had a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life, which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with." Nineteenth- century reviewers of his triumphant Waverley series were certain that Scott's example foretold the future of novel-writing. He, however, recognized the extent to which Austen had also changed the genre in which she worked, by developing a new novelistic language for the workings of the mind in flux.
Additional information about the Romantic Period, including primary texts and images, is available at Norton Literature Online (www.wwnorton.com/ literature). Online topics are
� Tintern Abbey, Tourism, and Romantic Landscape � The Satanic and Byronic Hero � The French Revolution � Romantic Orientalism
.
THE ROMANTIC PERIOD
TEXT S CONTEXT S 1773 Anna Letitia Aikin (later Barbauld), Poems 1774 J. W. von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther 1776 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations 1778 Frances Burney, Evelina 1779 Samuel Johnson, Lives of the English Poets (1779-81) 1781 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Confessions. J. C. Friedrich Schiller, The Robbers 1784 Charlotte Smith, Elegiac Sonnets 1785 William Cowper, The Task 1786 William Beckford, Vathek. Robert Burns, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect 1789 Jeremy Bentham, Principles of Morals and Legislation. William Blake, Songs of Innocence 1790 Joanna Baillie, Poems. Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France 1791 William Gilpin, Observations on the River Wye. Thomas Paine, Rights of Man. Ann Radcliffe, The Romance of the Forest 1792 Mar>' Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman 1793 William Godwin, Political Justice 1794 Blake, Songs of Experience. Godwin, Caleb Williams. Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho 1775 American War of Independence (1775� 83) 1780 Gordon Riots in London 1783 William Pitt becomes prime minister (serving until 1801 and again in 1804�06) 1784 Death of Samuel Johnson 1787 W. A. Mozart, Don Giovanni. Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade founded 1789 Fall of the Bastille (beginning of the French Revolution) 1790 J. M. W. Turner first exhibits at the Royal Academy 1791 Revolution in Santo Domingo (modern Haiti) 1792 September Massacres in Paris. First gas lights in Britain 1793 Execution of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. France declares war against Britain (and then Britain against France). The Reign of Terror 1794 The fall of Robespierre. Trials for high treason of members of the London Corresponding Society 1795 Pitt's Gagging Acts suppress freedom of speech and assembly in Britain
23
.
TEXT S CONTEXT S 1796 Matthew Gregory Lewis, The Monk 1798 Joanna Baillie, Plays on the Passions, volume 1. Bentham, Political Economy. Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population. William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads 1800 Maria Edgeworth, Castle Rackrent. Mary Robinson, Lyrical Tales 1805 Walter Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel 1807 Wordsworth, Poems in Two Volumes 1808 Goethe, Faiist, part 1 1812 Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, cantos 1 and 2. Felicia Hemans, The Domestic Affections 1813 Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice 1814 Walter Scott, Waverley. Wordsworth, The Excursion 1816 Byron, Childe Harold, cantos 3 and 4. Coleridge, Christahel, "Kubla Khan." Percy Shelley, Alastor 1817 Byron, Manfred. Coleridge, Biographia Literaria and Sibylline Leaves. John Keats, Poems 1818 Austen, Northanger Abbey. Keats, Endymion. Thomas Love Peacock, Nightmare Abbey. Mary Shelley, Frankenstein 1797 Death of complications resulting from childbirth of Mary Wollstonecraft 1798 Rebellion in Ireland 1801 Parliamentary Union of Ireland and Great Britain 1802 Treaty of Amiens. Edinburgh Review founded. John Constable first exhibits at the Royal Academy 1804 Napoleon crowned emperor. Founding of the republic of Haiti 1805 The French fleet defeated by the British at Trafalgar 1807 Abolition of the slave trade in Britain 1808 Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphonies 5 and 6 1809 Quarterly Revieiv founded 1811 The Prince of Wales becomes regent for George III, who is declared incurably insane 1812 War between Britain and the United States (1812-15) 1815 Napoleon defeated at Waterloo. Corn Laws passed, protecting economic interests of the landed aristocracy 1817 BlacJnvood's Edinburgh Magazine founded. Death of Princess Charlotte. Death of Jane Austen
24
.
TEXTS CONTEXT S 1819 Byron, Don Juan, cantos 1 and 2 1820 John Clare, Poems Descriptive of Rural Life. Keats, Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems. Percy Sheljey, Prometheus Unbound 1821 Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. Percy Shelley, Adonais 1824 Letitia Landon, The Improvisatrice 1827 Clare, The Shepherd's Calendar 1828 Hemans, Records of Woman 1830 Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology (1830-33). Alfred Tennyson, Poems, Chiefly Lyrical 1819 "Peterloo Massacre" in Manchester 1820 Death of George III; accession of George IV. London Magazine founded 1821 Deaths of Keats in Rome and Napoleon at St. Helena 1822 Franz Schubert, Unfinished Symphony. Death of Percy Shelley in the Bay of Spezia, near Lerici, Italy 1824 Death of Byron in Missolonghi 1828 Parliamentary repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts excluding Dissenters from state offices 1829 Catholic Emancipation 1830 Death of George IV; accession of William IV. Revolution in France 1832 First Reform Bill
25
.
26
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD 1743-1825
Anna Barbauld, born Anna Letitia Aikin, received an unusual education from her father, a minister and a teacher, after 1758, at the Warrington Academy in Lancashire, the great educational center for the Nonconformist community, whose religion barred them from admission to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Over the course of the eighteenth century, Dissenting academies such as Warrington had developed a modern curriculum in the natural sciences, as well as in modern languages and English literature. This progressive educational program deviated significantly from the classics-based curriculum, scarcely altered since the sixteenth century, that was supplied by the old universities. Barbauld benefited from the curriculum the Dissenters had designed with their sons in mind and mastered French and Italian, and then Latin and Greek, while still a girl.
She made her literary debut with Poems, which went through five editions between 1773 and 1777 and immediately established her as a leading poet. In 1774 she married Rochemont Barbauld, a Dissenting minister, and with him comanaged a school at Palgrave, in Suffolk. Thereafter, becoming increasingly famous and respected in literary circles as (according to the custom of the day) "Mrs. Barbauld," she divided her time between the teaching of younger pupils at Palgrave and a series of writings focused on education, politics, and literature. She published Devotional Pieces (1775), three volumes of Lessons for Children (1778�79), and Hymns in Prose for Children (1781), all of which were reprinted many times. William Hazlitt records a common experience in recalling that he read her works "before those of any other author, male or female, when I was learning to spell words of one syllable in her storybooks for children."