Introduction to the Romantic Age of English Literature

Dr. Chetan Trivedi

Definition

• Contrary to what you may think, the term Romanticism is not just about romantic love (although love is sometimes the subject of romantic art).

• Romanticism is an international artistic and philosophical movement that re-defined the ways in which humans in Western civilization thought about themselves and their world.

Historical ConsiderationsEnglish Literary History

• Dates: • English Literary History begins the Romantic

Period officially in 1798, with the publication of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, and ends it in 1832, with the deaths of Sir Walter Scott and the German Romantic poet, Goethe.

Romanticism as an International Movement

• Affected all of the arts (literature, music, painting, philosophy)

• Began in the 1770s and extended through the second half of the 19th century (1870).

“The Age of Revolutions”

• Since the early Romantic period includes the American (1776) and the French (1789) revolutions, it has been called the “age of revolutions” (changes). It was a time of massive energy (intellectual, social, artistic). It set out to transform not only the theory and practice of all art, but also the ways in which human beings perceived the world. Some of its ideas survive even to our present day.

The Role of Imagination

• Imagination now replaced reason as the supreme faculty of the mind—hence the flowering of creative activity in this period. For Romantic thinkers, the imagination was the ultimate “shaping,” or creative power, the approximate human equivalent to divine creative powers.

• As the poet Wordsworth would suggest, humans not only perceive and experience the world around them; they also, in part, create it. The imagination unites reason and feeling, enabling humans to reconcile differences and opposites—this reconciliation is a central ideal for Romantics. Finally, the imagination enables humans to “read “ nature as a system of symbols.

Nature

Celebration of Nature

• Nature often presented as a work of art from the divine imagination

• Nature as a healing power• Nature as a refuge from civilization• Nature viewed as “organic,” (alive) rather

than “mechanical” or “rationalist”• Nature viewed as a source of refreshment and

meditation

Symbolism and Myth

• Valued as the human means for imitating nature in art

• Could simultaneously suggest many things in a creative way

• Based on a desire to “express the inexpressible” through the resources of language

Emotion, Lyric Poetry, and the Self

• Greater emphasis on the importance of intuition, instincts, and feelings

• Wordsworth’s definition of good poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” was a turning point in literary history.

• Ultimate source of poetry found in the individual artist and his/her traditions (present and past)

Value of Art

• Source of illumination of the world within the self• Led to a prominence for first-person lyric poetry; the

“speaker” became less a persona and more the direct person of the poet. Ex. Wordsworth’s Prelude and Whitman’s “Song of Myself”

• Also a wealth of autobiographical verse described as poetry about someone else: Byron, Childe Harold

Contrasts with Neoclassicism (the Age of Reason)

• Shift in focus from rationalism to the imagination

• Shift toward a more expressive orientation toward the literary art

• Freedom of expression• Freedom of the individual

Individualism

• Summed up in opening statement of Rousseau’s Confessions :

• “I am not made like anyone I have seen; I dare believe that I am not made like anyone in existence. If I am not superior, at least I am different.”

The Romantic Hero

• As the Romantic writers show us, our heroes were not always cowboys:

– 1. The hero as artist– 2. The hero striving beyond

the moral restrictions of society

– 3. The hero who reappears from the ancient classics

The Everyday and the Exotic

• Romantic writers embraced everyday realism (poetry of Wordsworth)

• Also sought the folk legends of the past• Promoted exotic ideas suggested by

technology and the imagination (a beautiful soul in an ugly body, as in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame).

The Romantic Artist in Society

• The Romantics were often ambivalent toward the “outside” world. On the one hand, they were socially and politically passionate—involved in worthy causes and social issues. On the other hand, they isolated themselves from the public.

Spread of the Romantic Spirit

• All of the arts—from music, to painting; from sculpture to architecture—were affected by and continue to be affected by the revolutionary energy underlying the Romantic movement. Strains of Romanticism infuse every age and every generation.

Characteristics of the Romantic Period

• (1) Imagination, Emotions, and Intuition. Exaltation of intense feelings.

• Descartes: I think, therefore I am.vs

• Rousseau: I felt before I thought.

• (2) Subjectivity of approach; the cult of the individual; the absolute uniqueness of every individual.

Characteristics of Romanticism

(3) Freedom of thought and expression.• A revolt against authority and tyranny, against the

ancien regime, whether social, political, religious, or artistic.

• Thomas Paine: “The Rights of Man.”• Mary Wolstonecraft: “A Vindication of the Rights of

Woman” (1792)

• Alienation and rebellion: Cult of Youth, Energy, and Idealism

Characteristics of Romanticism

(4) Idealization of Nature• Embracing the uncivilized, the wild, the pre-civilized.• Rousseau: “Man is born free and everywhere he is in

chains.” In other words, civilization is in part the cause of our corruption. • The “noble savage,” and James Fennimore Cooper’s

Leatherstocking novels, I.e. The Last of the Mohicans.

Characteristics of Romanticism1) Romanticism turned away from 18 century emphasis on

reason and artifice. Embraced imagination and naturalness.

2) Rejected the public, formal, and witty works of previous century. Preferred poetry that spoke of personal experiences and emotions, often in simple, unadorned language.

3) Used the lyric as the form best suited to expressions of feeling, self-revelation, and the imagination.

4) Wordsworth urged poets to adopt a democratic attitude towards their audience.

5) Many turned to a past or an inner dream world that they saw as picturesque.

6) Most believed in individual liberty and sympathized with those who had rebelled against tyranny.

7) Thought of nature as transformative; fascinated by the ways nature and the human mind “mirrored” one another.

This Nature Business

• Yes, much of the literature of this time embraced nature

• However, the Romantics prized experiences of beauty and majesty that could be found in nature.

• According to Wordsworth, he “considers man and nature as essentially adapted to each other, and the mind of man as naturally a mirror of the fairest and most interesting properties of nature.”

And Imagination?

• Most of the Romantic poems present imaginative experiences as very powerful and moving.

• They suggest that as well as being a special faculty of the mind, the imagination is also a kind of desire, a motive that drives the mind to learn and to know things it cannot learn by rational and logical thinking.

• The mind moves in mysterious ways to imitate the powers of the Maker.

• The purpose of this imitation is to create new realities in the mind.

But there were 2 views of Nature

• The first viewed nature as peaceful, calm, nurturing, a source for spiritual renewal. It often showed an innocent life of rural dwellers, a world of peace and harmondy which nurtures and comforts the human spirit. This is very much how Wordsworth viewed nature.

John Constable: The Hay Wain

But nature could also be frightening in its power, and cause a dizzying

sense of awe and wonder.

J.M.W. Turner: Avalanche

Edmund Burke defined these two views of nature as:

•The beautifuland

•The sublime

A BRIEF SERIES OF PAINTINGS FROM THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

Starting with Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was President of the Royal

Academy in England

Blake quit the Royal Academy partly because of Sir Joshua Reynolds

So, on to some of Blake works

Two Works by Henry Fuseli, a Swiss artist living in England who was

friends with Blake

One of the most interesting artists of the period is J.M.W.

TurnerStarting with an early, fairly

conventional painting

And then to end on John Constable

Who said, “I try to paint as if I had never seen a painting before.”

And then: Eugene Delacroix

And . . . Caspar David Friedrich