Wordsworth and Coleridge published their Lyrical Ballads in 1798, but the reaction against the canon of the century – insistence on form and manner and restraint – had already begun. The rise of the novel had brought the accent on the movement of life, its pathos, ribaldry, and fun. They had little in common with Pope, Swift, Cowper and Gray. Also poetry had abandoned the form of the first part of the XVIII century. William Blake published his Songs of Innocence in 1789 and Songs of Experience in 1794. The language was simple so that anyone could read. Robert Burns in Scotland was following the same way. Wordsworth and Coleridge made the return to a simple language a necessity and the expression of feelings a religion.

The revolt against the immediate past led to a cultivation of the art and culture of the Middle Ages, or rather to what the Romantics thought the Gothic and medieval was. In architecture, for example, the classical lines of Palladian forms were abandoned for a Gothic revival (cfr. Fonthill Abbey). There were also strange manifestations like the Royal Pavilion in Brighton.

In painting the Romantic was positive because it gave strength to the works of Turner and Constable (who were mainly landscape painters). This is the golden age of English landscape painters.

The revolt against aristocratic and classical style of life was more profound because it became self conscious. Men and women had lived in sin frequently enough all through the XVIII century, but they had never tried to justify their behaviour on the level of ethical principles. Godwin, Shelley, and Mary Wollstonecraft and their circle became nonconformist and justified themselves by the principle of liberal philosophy. The golden age of Romanticism became associated with wild living and anti-social behaviour, and contributed to the idea that a true artist is incapable of living in society.

Newspapers and periodicals grew and new intellectual circles were born. Dalton (1766-1844), Davy (1778-1829) brought important results in chemistry. Bentham was the heart of British philosophy (1748-1832).