The Age of Romanticism Response

The Broadview overview of “The Age of Romanticism” places the movement within several fields such as political and philosophical movements. It starts by explaining the movement as one that is surrounded by revolutions happening throughout the world such as the climatic French revolution and how the different writers of the time were influenced by the exciting beginning and the gory end of it. The overview also explains how problems like slavery and the Industrial Revolution played a role in the different styles. For example, some writers preferred to talk about the daily lives of the poor where others chose to focus on nature and its importance. The literary movement was developed due to these amazing changes that were happening around the world, from colonization to the invention of machinery. It was a response to the changes that were occurring.

Many different women writers were mentioned throughout the overview, Mary Wollstonecraft and Jane Austen being two such writers as well as Mary Shelley and many others. The overview explains that originally the Romantic period was taught as a period that men controlled with the ‘Big Six’ poets being heavily represented. It was not until recently that there has been a greater understanding of the important role that women played in the era such as Wollstonecraft’s famous Vindication of Women’s Rights and how it played an important role in the feminist movement. It is also noted that women are the most famous authors from the period, noting Sense and Sensibility and Frankenstein as two of the most notable works from the entire literary movement.

            Because I have studied Romanticism and the women that prevailed in the age, I already had a pretty high opinion of the women. Wollstonecraft is one of my favorite authors, and Vindication spoke to me greatly. However, the anthology gave me a greater appreciation of the writers and drew my eyes to other names that I hadn’t really associated with Romanticism such as Anna Laetitia Barbauld and Felicia Herman who I have studied, but not as Romanticism. Overall, I love the period and am just overly excited to read and learn more.