The Romantic Child - Jonathan Bate

00:00 // Introduction: Did the Romantics Invent Childhood? 02:30 // Wordsworth's "We Are Seven": A Child's View of Death 07:00 // Wise Passiveness: Nature vs. Book Learning 11:30 // William Blake's Songs of Innocence & Experience 17:00 // Rousseau's Émile: The Birth of Child-Centred Education 22:00 // Paul and Virginia: The Noble Savage & Childhood Paradise 25:30 // Victor the Feral Child & the Romantic Ideal 30:00 // Master Betty: The Child Genius on Stage 32:30 // The Idiot Boy & the Unified Consciousness of Childhood 38:00 // The Prelude: Wordsworth's Epic of Childhood Self 44:00 // The Loss of the Mother & the Loss of Childhood The Romantics invented the modern idea of childhood. In the third of his lectures on the rhetoric of Romanticism, Jonathan Bate will explore how they did so, with particular emphasis on the role of children in the poetry of Blake and Wordsworth. He will also show how Wordsworth's memory of his own childhood allowed him to invent something else as well: the art of poetic autobiography. This lecture was recorded by Helen Czerski on the 20th November 2018 Professor Bate was Gresham Professor of Rhetoric. He is a British academic, biographer, critic, broadcaster, novelist and scholar. He specialises in Shakespeare, Romanticism and Ecocriticism. The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/r... Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involve... Website: https://gresham.ac.uk X: https://x.com/GreshamCollege Facebook:   / greshamcollege   Instagram:   / greshamcollege   Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcolle... TikTok:   / greshamcollege   Support Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involve...