Georgian Period

Reference

Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia

"Georgian society and its preoccupations were well portrayed in the novels of writers such as Henry Fielding, Mary Shelley and Jane Austen . . . The flowering of the arts was most vividly shown in the emergence of the Romantic poets, principally through Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Blake, John Keats, Lord Byron and Robert Burns. Their work ushered in a new era of poetry, characterised by vivid and colourful language, evocative of elevating ideas and themes. . . . The music of John Field, Handel, Haydn, Clementi, Johann Christian Bach, William Boyce, Mozart, Beethoven and Mendelssohn was some of the most popular in England at that time. . . . It was a time of immense social change in Britain, with the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution which began the process of intensifying class divisions . . . John Wesley (1703–1791) and his followers preached revivalist religion, trying to convert individuals to a personal relationship with Christ through Bible reading, regular prayer, and especially the revival experience. Wesley himself preached 52,000 times, calling on men and women to "redeem the time" and save their souls." [Wikipedia] "In short, very few of George’s [George I] new subjects were devoted to his person. They did not need to be. It was not what he was, but what he was not that mattered. He was not a Stuart, he was not a Catholic, and he was not a French puppet. So anyone contemplating the admittedly imperfect sovereign could reflect that he might be a lot worse." [Blanning: George I, Kindle, p. 36]