Natural Rights and the Birth of Romanticism in the 1790s

Following the American War of Independence and the French Revolution, ideas of the ''Natural Rights of Man'' (later distinguished into particular issues like rights of association, rights of women, slaves, children and animals) were publicly debated in England. Literary figures like Wollstonecraft, Godwin, Thelwall, Blake and Wordsworth reflected these struggles in their poetry and fiction. With t...