The Romantics - Episode Guide

Between 1760 and 1830 English Romantic poets were at the forefront of a movement inspired by the French Revolution that spawned some of the greatest works of literature in the English language.

As the Industrial Revolution overtook Britain during the late 18th century, the Romantics embraced nature and forged radical protests such as Mary Shelley 's Frankenstein - a warning that science might come to corrupt humanity.

Byron, Keats and Shelley lived short lives. But the radical way they lived them changed the world. At the age of 19, Shelley wrote The Necessity of Atheism. It was banned and burned, but it freed the Romantics from religion. Seeking meaning in a godless universe, they replaced religion with poetry, pioneering the notions of free love, celebrity and secular idolatry that are at the centre of modern Western culture.