The French Revolution in Romanticism
We're talking about British Romanticism, so what does the French Revolution have to do with it? A lot, actually. The French Revolution had huge repercussions not only in France, but all over Europe. It was the first time that the aristocracy had been brought down, and Marie-Antoinette and her husband Louis the XVI had their heads guillotined off. People were talking about liberté, égalité and fraternité (sounds so much better in French, doesn't it?).
In other words, it was a time of huge social and political transformation, which was pretty inspiring to the Romantics, who, as we might remember, valued individuality and freedom and rebelled against social and literary conventions of their day.
Chew on This
Just like the French revolutionaries, William Blake was really against injustice and inequality. He shows us just how terrible inequality is in his poem "London."
And here's another poem by William Blake describing more of the terrible conditions that the French Revolution reacted against. It's about a little boy who's a chimney sweeper and it's called "The Chimney Sweeper."