Romanticism was a movement emphasizing emotion, individualism, imagination, and a deep connection with nature, emerging in Europe in the late 18th century.
It is not easy to define romanticism. Like many other literary terms, this word has been used in different ages in widely different senses. Goethe placed it against Classicism: "Romanticism is disease; Classicism is health."
Stendhal described "Romanticism as art of the day (modern) and Classicism, the art of the day before (past). In fact, all good art is first Romantic, then it becomes Classical." Heine and Beers describe it as the reawakening of the Middle Ages. To some, Romanticism is an expression of emotion against reason. Surrealists and some modern scholars regard Romanticism as "a literature of the less conscious levels of the mind." According to F.L. Lucas, Romanticism results from a dominance of impulses from the Id (the primitive impulse), Classicism from our impulse of the superego (the impulse which says it is pleasant but wrong), and realism from the impulse of the Ego (it looks pleasant but it is a snare and delusion). Phrases such as "revindication of imagination", "rehabilitation of emotion", "revindication of senses," "accentuated predominance of emotional life, provoked or directed by the exercise of imaginative vision" are also used to express Romanticism. Lascelles Abercrombie says that "Romanticism is a withdrawal from outer experience to concentrate upon inner experience." Victor Hugo calls it "liberalism" (democratic spirit) in literature. Watts-Dunton observes, "Romanticism is the Renaissance of wonder." Walter Pater regards Romanticism "as strangeness added to beauty." The essential elements of romantic spirit, according to Walter Pater, are "curiosity and the love of beauty." The beauty which is to be won by strong imagination out of things likely or remote. But Pater's definition is incomplete in the sense that all poetry is the addition of strangeness to beauty.In the words of Prof. Cazamian,
"The romantic spirit can be defined as an accentuated predominance of
emotional life, provoked or directed by the exercise of imaginative vision,
and, in its turn, stimulating or directing such exercise. Intense emotion
coupled with an ir. tense display of imagery, such is the frame of mind which supports
and feeds the romantic literature." According to Compton- Rickett, "Romanticism,
generally speaking, is the expression in terms of art of sharpened
sensibilities, heightened imaginative feeling, and although we are concerned
only with its expression in literature, Romanticism is an imaginative point of
view that has influenced many art forms and has left its mark also on
philosophy and history." - In the words of W. J. Long, "the poetry of
Romanticism is characterized by the protest against the bondage of rules, the
return to nature and the human heart,
the interest in old sagas and medieval romances as suggestive of a heroic age,
the sympathy with the toilers of the world, the emphasis upon individual
genius, and the return to Milton and the Elizabethans, instead of the Pope and
Dryden for literary models."
Romanticism was also a return to
Nature. It was "glory of lakes and mountains, grace of childhood, dignity
of the untaught peasant, wonder of faery, mystery of the Gothic aisle, radiance
of attic marble." All these springs of the poet's inspiration, a joy began
to flow, not at once but in prolonged, unordered succession, and the artist's and
not within a limited area, but throughout Western Europe and preeminently in
Germany, England, and France. To quote G. H.Mair, "One notes in the
(romantic) authors an extraordinary development of imaginative sensibility; the
mind at its countless points of contact with the sensuous world, and the world
of thought seems to become more alive and alert. It is more sensitive to fine
impressions and finely graded shades of difference. Outward objects and
philosophical ideas seem to increase in content and meaning, acquiring a new
power to enrich the most intense life of the human spirit. Mountains and lakes,
the dignity of the peasant, the terror of the supernatural, scenes of history,
medieval architecture and armor, mediaeval thought and poetry, the arts and
mythology of Greece all become springs of poetic inspiration and poetic
joy."
Four Major
Meanings of "Romanticism
The term 'Romanticism' stands for
several things together. It has been associated with the word 'romances' of the
medieval period, which had a certain feeling of remoteness and a far-away
atmosphere, particularly regarding the landscape. feats of daring and bravery, chivalry,
belief in supernatural charms and magic; woman worship, etc. Hence, originally,
the word "romantic" signified the qualities in these semi-historical
cycles, such as "far-fetched and opposed to fact." In the late
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the term connoted "wild, extravagant
and improbable". The diarists, Evelyn and Pepys, use it in this sense.
Later in the eighteenth century, the term 'romantic' was used in the sense of
'Gothic', i.e., "irregular, wild and fantastic."
It is strange that the poets now
known as 'romantic poets', such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and
Keats, did not call themselves 'romantic'. This term was attached to them later
in the nineteenth century. Wordsworth considered romanticism as something
"extravagant, and even undesirable." In modern English usage,
generally four distinct meanings of the term are found: (1) As opposed to
commonplace: imaginative, remote from experience and everyday life, visionary,
expressing vague longings away from the ordinary ; (2) As opposed to probable:
fanciful, fantastic, about a dreamy fairyland ; (3) As opposed to the literal:
mystic, symbolic, unseen; and (4) As opposed to formal grand, picturesque,
passionate, irregularly beautiful.
The term 'Romanticism' has
generally been understood and interpreted in terms of its characteristics, or
in contrast to 'Classicism'. If classicism suggests objectivity, outer
experience, universal values, a feeling of broad acceptance of the existing
order, a sense of detachment, preference for quiet, poise, and conformity,
romanticism suggests subjectivity, inner experience, personal values, a feeling
of inadequacy, excessive egoism (including pessimism), impulse to adventure,
spirit of revolt, thirst for freedom, etc.
The Facts and Influences
of Romantic Poetry
The romantic poetry of the
Romantic Revival was influenced by medievalism, the Greeks, especially the
Platonists, and the monists and pantheists. But more than these, it was
influenced by German transcendentalism, the social philosophers, such as
Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, and the French Revolution. The transcendentalists,
such as Hegel and Kant, taught that Fate and Necessity governed Man. They
believed that there was a power that coordinated and gave life to the
activities of the senses and their perceptions. They emphasized the
transcendental powers of the Mind. In America, Emerson, in Germany, Kant and
Hegel, in England, Coleridge, were the chief exponents of this new
intellectualism.
The important
facts that influenced the literature of this period are:
·
After the French Revolution, it was accepted that
every individual was free and equally important.
·
Small industries disappeared, and large
industries with huge capital started.
·
Machines were widely introduced in coal and iron
mines, which multiplied production.
·
Steam engines were used in ships and trains. The
train was first introduced in 1830.
·
Industrialization created lots of slums, child labor,
and labor problems.
·
The traditional social pattern started changing.
·
Ireland was united with England in 1801.
·
In 1829 Catholic Emancipation Act was passed,
and religious equality was ensured.
·
Use of machines in fields and industries made a
large number of women jobless; some of them became either readers or writers.
·
In 1840, the Penny Post was introduced.
The history of romanticism is
quite old. Aristotle and Plato were romantic; Rousseau and Victor Hugo were
also romantic. The Medieval romances were also romantic. The Elizabethan
Literature was truly romantic. All the major qualities enumerated in the preceding
paragraphs were present in the literature of the Elizabethans.
Towards the end of the eighteenth
century, there was a new dawn. The teachings of Rousseau, Voltaire, and
Montesquieu and the French Revolution heralded a new age. Once more, a new
vista opened before imagination. A new territory of human life was discovered.
"Liberty, Fraternity and Equality" sounded like the tolling of a bell,
ushering in a golden age. Mother Earth was discovered anew. Under these new impulses,
something of that hopefulness, that sense of wonder and mystery, that
restlessness and curiosity, etc., that characterizes literature was revived.
Elizabethan literature. Not only the spirit but also the forms and subjects of
Elizabethan literature were revived between 1798 and 1824: the sonnet, the
lyric, the pastoral, the black verse drama, the Spenserian stanza, and the
ballad. The same fullness of imagination, richness of language, vastness of conception,
lyricism, and picturesqueness that pervaded the great Elizabethan works are to
be found in romantic poetry. Hence, the period began in 1798 with the first
edition of Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads and ended with the first Reform
Act in 1832. However, it is worth noting that the signs of Romantic literature
came into view around 1785 when William Blake started writing his Songs of
Innocence. This period is also called the Revival of Romanticism
because the romantic ideals of the Elizabethan Period revived during these
years. Lyrical Ballads brought about a great change in literature, both in
subject and style. Instead of urban people and grand style, rural people and
common language were preferred.
Romantic
Revolt
Historically, the Romantic
Revival in poetry was a revival of Elizabethan traditions and a revolt against
the neoclassical traditions of the eighteenth century. The classicism of the
age of Anne was of a special type. "It was more Latin than Greek, and more
French than Latin." The literary taste of Europe was fashioned by France. Malhebe
and Boileau, the French critics, insisted upon cultivating simplicity, clarity,
propriety, decorum, moderation, and, above all, good sense. They applied the
precepts of Aristotle, as codified by Horace and Longinus, to modern
conditions. Moliere, Racine, and Boileau influenced German and English
literature for over a century. English authors like Waller, Cowley, and
Etherege had come under their influence during Charles II's exile in France.
Eighteenth-century literature was
classical in its self-restraint, its objectivity, and its lack of curiosity. It
was not simply a literature of the world but of this world, of high life,
fashionable society, the court and the town, the saloons and clubs, coffee-houses
and ombre parties. "The proper study of man is mankind," said Pope.
But it was mankind in England, and in London. And in Loudon, too, this literature
confined itself to high society. and to 'my lords and ladies gay'. It was preeminently
a social and urban poetry. Its interest was centred on civilization. The
writers of Queen Anne's age believed that wit originates in intellect and its
true medium is prose. Literature became "a polished mirror in which gay
world saw its own grinning face." Pope instructed, "Follow
nature" (human nature of Londoners), and to follow nature, observe the
rules, imitate the ancients :
"Learn hence for ancient
rules a just esteem
To copy Nature is to copy
them."
The primary concern of classical
authors was with morals and manners.
But the Romantics revolted against all these. The poetic diction was the first casualty at the hands of the Romantics. Wordsworth exposed the hollowness of the classical manner and made a plea for a return to simple, unaffected, and direct speech. He and Coleridge removed the sphere of poetry from social to philosophical reflection. For moral generalizations, they substituted "introspective analysis of the impressions of the individual mind." Literature became personal instead of being social. Shelley and Byron were great revolutionaries. Literary characters are frequently solitaries: haunted like the Ancient Mariner who must tell his tale; self-exiled like Childe Harold; woe-begone like the Knight in 'La Belle Dame sans Merci'. steering strangely to death like Alastor. The Classical poet lived in the present; the Romantics looked before and after and pined for what was not. Passion and emotion were reinfused into poetry. The poet of the early nineteenth century revolted against the narrow civic sense and parochialism of the classical school. For Pope, the proper study of mankind was man in London. The Romantics' love of man embraced the whole human race. 'Liberty, equality, fraternity' was their slogan. In theory, as well as in practice, they were firm believers in cosmopolitanism. Byron died for a country to which he had no national attachment; Shelley was more at home in Italy, and Keats was of no nation whatever.
Hence, Romantic poetry is also
known as the poetry of the Romantic Revolt. All the characteristics of romantic
poetry mentioned above predominate in the works of Wordsworth, Coleridge,
Byron, Shelley, and Keats. They were contemporaries or near contemporaries.
Contribution
of Romantic Poets and the Literary Features of the Age:
The romantic poets of England
experimented with a new type of diction. They rejected the fashions of the
metaphysical poets on the one hand and of the pseudo-classical poets on the
other. In place of urbanity, artificiality, and accuracy, the poets of the Age
of Pope sought the polish and refinement of their poetry. They wanted to
express the supernatural in a natural way, and the natural in a supernatural way.
They provided music and sweetness to poetry. They developed the concept of pure
poetry, poetry free from the cumbersome didacticism and moralism. They made
poetry a thing of dreams and visions, too. They showed how poetry could be used
to express common things, particularly by adding strangeness to beauty,
enriching the imagination, and exploiting Nature as a rich source of joy and
imagery. They further made poetry a vehicle for expressing individual joy and
sorrow. They freed the Goddess of poetry from the fetters of matter-of-factness
and led her towards the hills and mountains, the fields and pastures, the
rivers and lakes, the oceans and streams.
Main literary features at a glance:
·
Creative enthusiasm reached almost the level of
Elizabethan creative force.
·
It shifts its focus from earlier ages’ faith in
reason to faith in senses, intuition, and imagination.
·
Subjective poetry replaces the objective poetry
of the neoclassical age.
·
It values common, ‘natural’ man and rejects
artificial urban life as the subject of poetry.
·
The language of common men, not the artificial
poetic diction of the previous age, becomes the choice of the time.
·
It idealizes country life, and nature becomes a
means of divine revelation.
·
Romantic poetry reflects rebellious views
against oppression, restraints, and controls. It celebrates human rights and individualism.
·
Romantic literature shows interest in the medieval
past, the supernatural, the mystical, the gothic, and the exotic.
·
It emphasizes introspection, psychology,
melancholy, and sadness.
·
Myth and symbolism get prominent.
·
In style, romantic poetry prefers spontaneity
and free experimentation to strict conventional rules of composition, genre,
and decorum. It prefers highly suggestive language to the neoclassical ideal of
clarity and precision.
·
Poetry’s lyrics dominate.
·
Women’s fiction flourishes. Mrs. Radcliffe, Jane
Porter, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Austen are female writers of the time.
·
Criticism has become an inseparable part of
literature. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Lamb, De Quincy, and Hazlitt contribute
to it.
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