Essay from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,7, The University of Western Australia (Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences), course: Romanticism and Revolution, language: English, abstract: The Romantic age, stretching from 1785 to 1830, can arguably be regarded as a turbulent period, rife with historical, political and cultural upheavals. Not surprisingly, echoes of these momentous events can often be found in Romantic Writing, such as in Blake s A Song of Liberty , which interrogates the French Revolution.
For England, however, it was probably the Industrial Revolution with its countless social and labour-related repercussions that played the most pivotal role. Urban manufacturing centres transformed the primarily agricultural society into a modern industrial nation. The mechanization of the working processes, numerous enclosure acts, and resultant unemployment of agricultural labourers, led to a population drift to cities as well as rural pauperization. The end result: three million labouring poor with low incomes from 6 to 15 pounds a year made up the largest section of the British population.
