French+Revolution

**Significance**
In The Prelude (1805), Wordsworth remembered the early years of the Revolution as a time when all Europe was thrilled with joy, France standing on the top of golden hours, And human nature seeming born again.


 * Human nature regenerate in a world made new**: this was the theme of many enthusiasts in England during the first four or five years after the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789. These concepts are obviously theological. They originate in the apocalyptic and millennial passages of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, and their use indicates that for a number of British idealists, the early enthusiasm for the revolution had the momentum and excitement of a religious movement.

In a letter to Byron in 1816, Percy Shelley declared that the French Revolution was "**the master theme of the epoch in which we live**" — a judgment with which many of Shelley's contemporaries concurred. Intellectuals of the age were obsessed with the concept of violent and inclusive change in the human condition, and the writings of those we now consider the major Romantic poets cannot be understood, historically, without an awareness of the extent to which their distinctive concepts, plots, forms, and imagery were shaped first by the promise, then by the tragedy, of the great events in neighbouring France. And for the young poets in the early years of 1789–93, the enthusiasm for the Revolution had the impetus and high excitement of a religious awakening, because they interpreted the events in France in accordance with the apocalyptic prophecies in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures; that is, they viewed these events as fulfilling the promise that **a short period of retributive and cleansing violence would usher in an age of universal peace and blessedness that would be the equivalent of a restored Paradise**. Even after what they considered to be the failure of the revolutionary promise, these poets did not surrender their hope for a radical reformation of humankind and its social and political world; instead, they transferred the basis of that hope from violent political revolution to a **quiet but drastic revolution in the moral and imaginative nature of the human race**.

Source: The Norton Anthology of British Literature


 * Revolutions played a central role in shaping the Romantic period and continue to shape our perception of it.
 * It was universallly accepted that the Romantic mind-set and the literary works it produced were shaped, above all, by the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution.
 * For Romanticism, the French Revolution was epoch making. When the Bastille fell on 14 July 1789 and the French National Assembly issued its democratic, anit-monarchical //Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen// on August 27, it seemed to the people of Great Britian, a dawn was on the horizon.
 * Liberals and man authoers, artists and intellectuals, the promise of not only a greater equality and better government in France but also the beginning of thoroughgoing transformation of the world.
 * Wordsworth, present in France during the early days of the Revolution, famously wrote if it later, "**Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive**!".
 * Mary Wollstonecraft, who had recently published //A Vindication of the Rights of Women,// moved to Paris in 1792, also inspired by revolutionary idealism.
 * The Revolution became a central metaphor in the works of William Blake, and central psychological influence on all the first generation Romantic writers.
 * Younger generations were stirred by revolutionary fervour.
 * What these poets hoped for, however, was a continuation of the spirit of the French Revolution.
 * In August of 1792, the leaders of the Revolution overthrew the French monarchy, and a month later a Paris mob massacred more than a thousand prisoners whom they believed to be royalist conspirators.
 * What had began as a movement for democracy, then, had become a military dictatorship under the Reign of Terror (1793-1794)
 * The Revolution's promise of freedom died in a frenzy of oppression, destruction, violence and imperialism, and many of Britain's intellectuals watched in horror.

The French monarchy gained enormous power, supported by the aristocracy. Through the measures of reform, those who were unwilling to relinquish their powers were unpopular with ordinary people. The bankruptcy of King Louis XVI led to him calling on the parliament (Estates General) to raise taxes for the first time since 1614. The Estates General refused the demand and formed a new National Assembly with the aim of establshing a new constitution on France. Uprisings across the country was following the mob in Paris which stormed the Bastille prison in July 1789, which was symbol of royal power and oppression.

On August 4th 1789, the power of the king was greatly reduced by the National Assembly, with the introduction of "Declaration of the rights of Man and the Citizen", abolishing old methods of taxation. Establishing this also lead to the rise of the basic rights each citizen were entitled to. Btween 1798 and 1792, the nobility was abolished, the king was imprisoned and the right to vote was extended to all adult males. In 1792, the new National Convention opened and declared France a Republic, with this they adopted the famous slogan "**LIBERY, EQUALITY AND FRATERNITY**" The execution of Louis XVI in 1793 marked the beginning of a year in which the Revolution became increasingly voilent. Fighting bitterly for power were the two opposing factions on the Convention, the Jacobins and the Girondins. June 1793, the Jacobins won the struggle and many leading the Girondins were arrested and killed. Under the leadership of Maximilien Robespierre, the victory of the Jacobins presided over a "Reign of Terror" in which whoever disagreed with their policies was hunted and executed. In 1794 however, the Reign of Terror came to an end with the execution of Robespierre. A new governement was formed call the Directory, but it did away with many of the revolutionary reforms which included universal male suffrage.

Around this time a young man began to rise to power. From 1792, France had been at war with many Europe countries including Britian and under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte the French army won some notable campaigns. When Napoleon siezed control over the governement, his actions brought the French Revolution to an end.

During this period in the early 1790's the first generation of Romantic poets incorporated their poems a vision of the French Revolution as the early stage of the abrupt culmination of history, in which there will emerge a new humanity on a new earth that is equivalent to a restored paradise, human nature regenerated in a world made new: this is the theme of many enthusiasts in England during the first four-five years of the French Revolution outbreak. and rosina is tired...

(Some more contextual information would be helpful - historical milestones. Also the British Government's response ... and implications for English nationalism)

Source: The Age of Romanticism

Further links to be found here: [|Norton Anthology of Literature online]

by Gloria Cho French Revolution. By Laureane Etienne-Walsh Research - The French Revolution Marilee