Preromanticism ideological and stylistic trends in Western European literature of the second half of the 18th and early

19th centuries; in the fine arts the movement existed during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The object of this work is the features of English Preromanticism. The 18th century was a period of great literary works which focused on public and general themes, until the Preromantic era when literary works began to focus on personal expression. The Preromantic period presents the gap between the Enlightenment period and the Romantic period. The period of Enlightenment was a time of extensive change in peoples lives and ways of thinking. Economic and social advancement of the middle classes also helped to characterize the social history behind the Enlightenment movement. In England Preromanticism started with what is usually known as The Graveyard School of Poetry. The preromantics were a group of poets-Blake, Crabbe, Smart, Cowper, Gray, Collins and otherswho aims were to pay more attention at the lower class and the social problems, and to the love of nature that became typical of English romanticism. Preromantics so emphasized the ideals of originality and sincerity. Although they prepared the way for the full flowering of Romanticism for Wordsworth, Keats, Coleridge and the lot. A precursor of romanticism, preromanticism retained some motifs and ideas of the literature of sentimentalism, such as an appeal to feeling, a defense of a natural existence, and a poetization of peaceful nature. However, these were ideologically disparate schools: sentimentalism merely criticized the rationalism of the Enlightenment, while preromanticism marked the beginning of a total and uncompromising rejection of rationalism. The tentative, transitional nature of preromanticism was evident in the literary work of the preromantics, who are often identified either with romanticism (W. Blake) or sentimentalism (J. H. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre). Preromanticism emerged alongside the third estate and was permeated with an enthusiastic selfdetermination and affirmation of the individual. These traits are found in J. Cazottes The Enamored Devil and to a certain extent in the works of the Marquis de Sade. During the period preceding the French Revolution, preromanticism in France took on a civic and antifeudal tone. Preromanticism developed most characteristically and fully in England. In response to the crisis of the Enlightenment consciousness, English preromanticism

deliberately recalled former times, as can be seen in the literary fabrications of T. Chatterton and J. MacPherson, in the return to folk literature, exemplified by the songs and ballads of T. Percy and A. Ramsay, and in the creation of the Gothic novel by such writers as A. Radcliffe. Poetically revealing the emotional element and delving deeply into it, English preromanticism shifted the focus to sudden changes in individual human destiny. Akin to preromanticisms fascination with the Middle Ages was a revival of interest in the barbarous Shakespeare as a model of true poetry (E. Youngs Conjectures on Original Composition, 1759). Bourgeois progress was criticized in Youngs graveyard poetry (The Complaint, or Night Thoughts, 174245) and in T. Grays melancholy Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.. In the fine arts, preromanticisms transformation into romanticism itself was much more natural. Here the trend also strove to individualize images and was drawn to dramatic motifs and strongly expressive forms; in addition, it often had a civic tone.