Intersections of Economy, Politics & Culture
Romantic artists often responded critically to these dirty, crowded centers of industrial production.
factories or industrial cities
This conflict ended in 1763 and helped establish Britain as the world’s strongest naval and colonial power.
Seven Years’ War
Romantics rejected this Enlightenment emphasis on logic and reason.
rationalism
This English poet wrote about powerful emotions and nature, including in Lines Composed Above Tintern Abbey.
William Wordsworth
This major economic system expanded colonial trade by allowing nations to export finished goods and import raw materials.
mercantilism
Expanding markets created this class, which became both producers and consumers of new cultural works.
Middle class (bourgeoisie)
These early machines revolutionized British textile production and helped Britain dominate global cloth markets.
spinning jennies or power looms
This emotion-rich movement celebrated nature, imagination, and individual experience.
Romanticism
This Spanish painter depicted deep emotion and political chaos in works like The Third of May, 1808.
Francisco Goya
This triangular trade route connected Europe, Africa, and the Americas, spreading goods, people, and diseases.
the Atlantic System
While global trade expanded, many Romantics reacted by idealizing these simpler, pre-industrial communities.
rural or folk cultures
Abundant supplies of this resource helped fuel Britain’s industrial growth.
coal
Romantics argued that industrialization caused society to lose this essential human connection.
a connection to nature
This style of painting emphasized dramatic landscapes, storms, and humanity’s smallness in nature.
sublime landscape art
By the late 18th century, this Asian empire remained the world’s largest textile producer, exporting high-quality cotton.
India (Mughal → British Raj)
Political revolutions encouraged Romantics to embrace this powerful cultural identity.
nationalism
Britain’s global financial dominance grew out of this powerful institution centered in London.
Bank of England
This German writer published The Sorrows of Young Werther, a foundational Romantic text.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
This composer’s Symphonie fantastique is an example of Romantic musical storytelling.
Hector Berlioz
This commodity from the West Indies became a global staple and drove plantation economies.
sugar
Industrial-era dislocation and global capitalism contributed to this Romantic theme, emphasizing human alienation and emotional struggle.
the theme of the individual vs. society
The expansion of this British company led to control over large areas of India.
British East India Company
Romantics believed that this, rather than reason, was the most authentic guide to truth.
emotion or intuition
This British painter célèbreated the power of the sea and nature’s force in works like The Slave Ship.
J. M. W. Turner
Competition over this lucrative global commodity deepened Britain–China tensions and helped spark the Opium Wars.
tea (or opium → tea imbalance)