Study Guide Essay

Romantics 1790-1840 (may vary)
Characteristics
1. Common people rather than nobility
2. Emphasized feelings rather than facts
3. Interested in supernatural
4. Pantheistic → God was nature and nature was God

William Blake
• Most famous work – “Songs of Innocence”-The Lamb and “Songs of Experience”-The Tiger
• Born 1757 in London → lived there his entire life
• Father – James Blake → Hosier (sock salesmen)
• Mother – Catherine Wright Hermitage
• Visionary o At age 7 he saw Angels filling the tree in his front yard
• One of 5 kids/Closest brother was Robert
• He was sent to Henry Parrs Drawing School
• Met James Parker and James Flaxman @ Henry Parrs
• Became apprentice to man named James Basire for 7 years o Basire taught him copper engraving (relief etching) that was used on all his books except for “Poetical Sketches”
• Was accepted into the Royal Academy of Art → Joshua Reynolds=Famous headmaster
• Left Royal Academy and opened print shop with James Flaxman
• Falls in love with Polli Wood, but she dumps him
• He rebounds with Catherine Boucher o She was dirt poor and illiterate
• First publication “Poetical Sketches” o Compilation of poems from age 8-18
• Fell into group of rebels/Involved in garden riots and invaded prisons o Mary Wollstonecraft o Thomas Payne o Joseph Johnson
• He attacked a policeman for peeing on his roses.
• Greeted his guest naked at a party
• Was eventually arrested and got called a mad man o Got his feelings hurt and didn’t write for 10 years
• Josiah & Thomas Wedgewood (Wedgewood China)
• Lived with William Hayley (4 Years)
• Lived with John Linell (10 years)
• 10-12 students find him and request him to come back and write poetry o He does and can support himself and Catherine (Kitty)
• He dies a few years later
• Kitty moved in with John Linell again
• Buried at Bun Hill Fields Cemetery
• 5 things all books have in common o Contain movement o Contain God o Contain dichotomies o Loved the underdog o Illuminated his work
Thomas Gray
• Most famous work – “Elegy written in a Country Church Yard” – Written at Stoke Poges/Received no prophet, but received instant fame
• Born December 26, 1716
• Father – Philip Gray → Money Scribner (Broker)
• Mother – Dorothy Antrobus → Owned hat shop with sister Mary (Very odd)
• He was 1 of 12 kids/Only one that survived
• Philip beat Dorothy/Thomas sided with Dorothy
• Philip was a drunk, abusive father
• Dorothy paid for Thomas to go to the Eton College (prep school for boys) out of her own money, when he was 8/Dorothy had 2 brothers that worked there, Robert Antrobus was the Headmaster.
• Stays at Eton for 9 years and becomes close to 3 guys/They all became friends because of the way they thought alike
• Quadruple Alliance o Horace Wallpole o Richard West o Thomas Ashton
• At 17 he went to Peterhouse Cambridge o Wallpole & Ashton → Kingshouse Cambridge o West → Christ Church
• While at Cambridge he became close to Thomas Wharton
• He studies Greek, Latin, Italian, French, architecture, and philosophy and takes his time
• Leaves Peterhouse in 1738 w/o a degree goes to his fathers
• Goes on tour of Europe with Wallpole/Paid for by Wallpole/Called Grand Tour
• Wallpole and Gray fight and separate over years (Wallpole cheats on him w/ another man?)
• At age 25 he settles in London and finds out his dad has died and receives money from this
• Richard West becomes ill and they reunite through letters
• He goes to Stoke Poges; mother and aunt retire here/He writes → o “Agrippina” o “A Hymn to Ignorance” o “Ode on the Spring”
• Sent these to West, but finds out he had died of Tuberculosis
• Writes “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College”, “Ode to Adversity”, and “Sonnet on the Death of Richard West”
• Returns to Cambridge and studies history of Greece and the literature
• Spends the rest of his life at Cambridge
• Mother dies and is buried at Stoke Poges Church yard
• Gray and

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