Module 6: Examining the World to Discover Truth

As the 18th century wound down to a close, revolutionary ideas grew momentum at the dawn of a new century. Technology brought with it new possibilities, but workers benefited little as people gradually lost touch with nature. Embracing the call for equality and liberty for all, the American colonies broke free from Britain as France overthrew her monarchy in the French Revolution. The struggle for social reform was a long and bloody battle, and people began to ponder the darker side of humanity.

These momentous changes gave rise to the movement known as Romanticism. In this module, you explored the early British Romantics, such as William Blake and the Lake poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. These poets used their verse to mourn the loss of humanity's relationship with the natural world and the animals that live in it. The late Romantics, such as John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron, used their poetry to examine simple quotidian things—an urn, the wind, the beauty of woman—to reveal a deeper truth. Romantic poets also admired exotic places and times of long ago in an effort to reach a purer state of being than the chaos of warfare occurring across the world. Mary Shelley took the exotic one step further and brought her readers into the realm of the supernatural, revealing through a science experiment gone awry just how precious life and love are.

Finally, you took another look at the draft of a research paper in a process known as revising. By looking at the "big picture" view of your formal paper and utilizing technology tools in the revision process, you were able to strengthen the organization, clarity, and flow of your writing.