The Romantics: Nature was the second of a BBC trilogy about the eighteenth and nineteenth century Romantic movement in Britain and Ireland. It focused on the importance of nature to writers and poets such as William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Mary Shelley and Lord Byron as the Industrial Revolution threatened their preferred existence within a free and spacious environment.
The first of The Romantics trilogy focused on the French and American revolutions, and described how the writings of Rousseau, Diderot and Paine had brought a new thirst for change and fairness around the world; including Britain and Ireland.
Romantics: Industrial Revolution Changes Lives
Peter Ackroyd narrated the documentary, and also appeared on screen several times. Ackroyd started by telling us that it was an age when science was changing the way people thought: monarchy and religion had lost some of their control and relevance, while industry was rising.
People were having their perceptions of life changed. Towns were growing into cities and people were working longer hours. This meant that people living to the rhythm of nature were now having to live by synchronised time.
William Blake Rebels Against Slavery
Children of four to seven years of age were sold into slavery during this time. Chained and working as chimney sweeps they often became deformed. Ackroyd says that William Blake rebelled against this by writing several poems and books on the subject, such as Songs of Innocence.
Blake believed that if children had the freedom to play and dream in childhood they would grow into imaginative adults.
Blake also criticised the long repetitive hours worked by factory women in the poem Visions of the Daughters and the conditions in the 'dark Satanic' Albion Flour Mills in a preface for Milton, a Poem; which was later adapted into the anthem, Jerusalem.
Coleridge and Wordsworth: Importance of Free Childhood
The documentary smoothly linked to Samuel Taylor Coleridge through the Romantics' stress on the importance of a free childhood.
Coleridge had been happiest in Somerset when young, and had not enjoyed time spent in London.
Ackroyd then told us that William Wordsworth grew up in the Lake District, and had also acquired a belief in the importance of nature; this would inspire his literary work in adulthood.
John Clare, Worker-Poet
Ackroyd then introduced John Clare, who had been born into a working-class family, but produced some of the best poetry of the period.
Clare lamented the enclosure of free land, and suffered financial problems later in life. He died in an asylum.
Later Romantics Rebelled but Believed in Core Message
Ackroyd ended the documentary with a look at the next generation of Romantics, who rebelled against the earlier ones. Lord Byron was particularly insulting to Wordsworth.
But they also believed in the same core message as the earlier Romantics: that nature should not be ruined by industry.
The Romantics: Nature is available to watch in the UK on the BBC website until Tuesday, September 13th, 2011.
Marc Latham - Doctor of Philosophy and experienced freelance writer searching for truth and meaning, and reporting it in clear and concise copy.
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