Women Romantics, 1785-1832 - Jennifer Breen

The Romantic Movement is frequently personified by the image of a young poet suffering for his art. However, the Romantics` sense of Liberty also hailed the emergence of an influential generation of women writers, including Dorothy Wordsworth, Mary Shelley, Mary Lamb, Catherine Macaulay, Sarah Hazlitt, Joanna Baillie and Hannah More. Whilst some of the pieces by Women Romantics evolve around themes central to the Movement, such as the reaction to the Industrial Revolution and Revolution in France, much of their prose writing reflects upon women`s rights and suffrage, education, social and domestic life, slavery and race, radical dissent and religion. The reading of Romantic prose writing by women adds an exhilarating new dimension to Romantic studies in particular and to women`s studies in general.