The Age of
Romanticism
Romanticism
was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in Europe
toward the end of the 18th century and in most areas was at its peak
in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. It was partly a reaction to the
Industrial Revolution, the aristocratic social and political norms of the age
of Enlightenment, and the scientific rationalization of nature. It was embodied
most strongly in visual arts, music and literature but had a major impact n historiography,
education and the natural science. It had a significant and complex effect on
politics and while for much of the Romantic period it was associated with
liberalism and radicalism, its long-terms effect on the growth of nationalism
was perhaps more significant. The movement emphasized intense emotion as an
authentic source of aesthetic experience. Romanticism revived medievalism and
elements of art and narrative perceived to be authentically medieval in an
attempt to escape population growth, urban sprawl and industrialism.
Although the movement was rooted in the German Strum
and Drank movement which preferred intuition and emotion to the rationalism of
the Enlightenment, the events and ideologies of the French Revolution were also
proximate factors. Romanticism assigned a high value to the achievement of
“heroic” individualists and artists. In the second half of the 19th
century, realism was offered as a polar opposite to romanticism. The decline of
Romanism during this time was associated with multiple processes, including
social and political changes and the spread of nationalism.
Romanticism is a movement in Art and literature in
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in revolt against the Neoclassicism on
the previous centuries. The German poet Friedrich Schlegel, who is given credit
for first using the term romantic to describe literature, defined it as
“Literature depleting emotion, and freedom are the focus points of romanticism.
Any list of particular characteristics of the literature of romanticism
includes subjectivity and an emphasis on individualism, spontaneity, freedom
form rules, solitary life rather than life in society, the beliefs that
imagination is superior to reason and devotion to beauty, love of ad worship of
nature, and fascination with the past, especially the myth’s and mysticism of
the middle age.
The word Romanticism has a complex and interesting
history, the period we are considering begins in the latter half of the reign
of George III and ends with the accession of Victoria in 1837. When on a foggy
morning in November, 1783. King George entered the house of Lords and in a
trembling voice recognized the independence of the United States of America, he
unconsciously proclaimed the triumph of that free government by free mes which
had been the ideal of English literature for more than a thousand years, though
it was not till 1832 when the reform bill became the law of the land. That England
herself learned the lesson taught her by America, and became the democracy of
which her writers had always dreamed.
The American School A.O Lovejoy once observed that
the word “Romantic” has come to mean so
many things that, by itself. it means nothing at all....... The variety of its
actual and possible meanings and connotations reflects the complexity and multiplicity
of European Romanticism.
The Emergency of Romanticism and the Theme of
Nature: Romanticism is a complex artistic, literary and intellectual movement
that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western
Europe and gained strength during the Industrial Revolution. It was partly a
revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of
Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature
and was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music and literature. Romanticism
is a neo-classicism and in England it lasted from 1789 to 1832. Historians
often see the rise of Romanticism connected with the Industrial Revolution or
with the American war of Independence and the French Revolution.
The term “Industrial Revolution’ was firs
popularized by Arnold Toynbee to describe England’s Economic development from
1760 to 1840, but it is not possible to fix this period of time exactly. The
term generally means the development of improved spinning and weaving
machineries, James Walt’s steam engine, the railway locomotive and the factory
system. But there was a long series of fundamental technological, economics,
social and cultural changes which taken together. Constitute the Industrial Revolution. It must
be seen more as a process than as a period of time (not revolution but
evolution).
The Industrial Revolution brought two kinds of
changes, technological and socio-economic cultural changes. The technological
changes included the use of new raw materials, new energy sources coal. The
steam engine, electricity, petroleum and internal combustions engine the
invention of new machines (spinning jenny, power ) new organization of work
(factory system), important developments in transportation and communication
(steam locomotive, steamship, automobile, airplane, telegraph, radio). “These
technological changes made resources and mass production of manufactured goods.”
The non-industrial changed included agricultural
improvements, economics changes (wider distribution of wealth), political
changes (new political innovations corresponding to the needs of an
industrialized society), sweeping social changed (growth of cities, development
of working class movements, the emergency of new patterns of authority,
cultural transformations of brood range. The worker acquired new skills his
relationship to his work changed. He became a machine operator, subject to
factory discipline. Finally these were a psychological changer: means ability
to use resources and master nature was heightened.
French Revolution means the movement in France,
between 1787 and 1799. Which reached its first climax in 1789? The events in France
gave new hope to other revolutionaries in Europe. English political
Philosophers were deeply influence by the French Revolution. William Wordsworth
first viewed the revolution with sympathy too. But later under Robespierre and
his reign of terror he was more and more disgusted with it and its violent excesses.
Here, we can say that the ideologies and events of the French Revolution laid
the background form which Romanticism emerged. The conifers of the Industrial
Revolution also had their influence on Romanticism which was in part and escape
from modern realities: indeed in the second half of the nineteenth century. “Realism”
was offered as a polarized opposite to Romanticism.
Romanticism elevated the achievement of what it
perceived as misunderstood heroic individuals and artists that altered society.
It also legitimized the individual imagination as a critical authority which
permitted freedom from classical nations of form in art. There was a strong
recourse to historical and natural inevitability in the representation of its
ideas.
William words worth (1770-1850) are probably the
most famous of the Romantic poets and may be the best. He was born in the lake
district of United Kingdom, in what was then Cumberland his love of the wild.
Mountainous English lakes never life a major influence on all he wrote. Perhaps
above all word worth is associated in the popular mind with his vision of
nature. His poetry may contain a few surprises for the student who comes to him
armed only with a general awareness of what his work is meant to contain
Lyrical Ballads is a major work, containing ‘ Tintern Abbey’ one of words
worth’s most famous poem. Other poems are ‘Michael’ (1800). Sonnet Composed
upon Westminster Bridge; The solitary Reaper and The Daffodils (1807). The
Prelude, a long autobiographical poem not published until after his death, is
generally regarded as words worth master piece.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) was one of the
ore remarkable personalities of a remarkable movement. He had one of the most
brilliant minds of his age, and one which delved into all areas of human
learning and experience. He was arguably, among the most outstanding literary
critics that England had produced.
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” was Coleridge’s
major contribution to Lyrical ballads and is justifiably one of the most famous
poems in the English Language.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) was the son of a
Sussex aristocrat. He was sent down from the University of Oxford for
publishing a pamphlet advocating atheism. Shelly was drawn to the continent and
particularly the Mediterranean and whilisht in Europe he became friendly with
both Byron and Keats. out of all the Romantic poets Shelly has perhaps received
the most interest form modern criticism. Its first major poem was queen Mob
(1813). Shelley was a revolutionary. He was obsessed by the manner in which
society, institutions and conventional morality destroyed and corrupted
mankind. Prometheus unbound (1820) is generally regarded long poem. Shelley’s
most successful long poem. Shelley’s most famous poems are his short lyrics,
most notably ‘A donais (1821), ‘Epiprychidion’ (1821). One of his fullest
statement on love, ‘Ode to the West Wind, and to Skylark; all written in 1820. ‘ Ozy mandias’
is also well worth reading. His a Defense of poetry’ was written in 1821. But
not published until after his death. Lord Byron (1788-1824) has arguably
received rather less critical attention in recent years than some of the other
poets covered here. He was the son of a wild and lawless family. He inherited
his title unexpectedly, and was launched to instant public fame by the
publication of ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812). a partly auto biographical
long poem based on his European travels, ‘The vision of Judgment’ (1822), and
‘Don Juan’. Which began finished. ‘Don Juan’ is generally regarded as his
greatest work.
Jane Austen 1775-1817) is an anti- romantic novelist
in the romantic age. She is called so because of her stern attitude against
youthful passion. Life gives little opportunity for the biographer, unless,
perchance, he has something of her own power to show the beauty and charm of
commonplace things. Very few English writers even had so narrow a field of work
as Jane Austen. The most widely read of
her novels is ‘Pride and Prejudice but three others sense and sensibility, Emma
and Mansfield park, have slowly won their way to the front rank of fiction.
The romantic movements generally seen as starting
around 1770. It affected all the arts and culture in general. But was
essentially a reaction against the eighteenth century and the Age of Reason.
Romantic writers frequently alternate between peaks of ecstasy and depths of
intense depression. Romanticism and Romantic poetry a reaction against
industrialization, creeping across Europe in the eighteenth century and
threatening every aspect of society and the way people lived. There is a link
between the industrial revolution and Romanticism, but it cannot be taken too
far without detailed historical knowledge. The Romantic Movement predated
industriasation in many instances and reached its peak when for the majority of
people industrialsiation was a local phenomenon. The trigger for some of word
worth’s firest work was the French revolution, and to the Romantic authors
themselver this revolution had more impact than the Industrial Revolution.
Romanticism has proved very fertile ground for
modern critical theory. The period between 1790 and 1830 saw great Britain
acquire an empire as well as an industrial base, and as a result postcolonial
and maries criticism can give valuable and sometimes surprising insight into
the work of the major romantic poets. New political and social structures have
also been seen as determining factors in Romantic poetry. Challenging new views
of gender and ambivalent attitudes towards femininity have concerned a number
of authors. The romantic period saw thought that have come either to dominate
or exert a great influence on modern thought. In politics this was also the
period of Thomas Paine’s seminal Right of Man. Far from being poet locked in to
their own vision of solitary nature, modern criticism has shown the Romantic
poets to be at the heart of the development of the Romantic age, developments
which can be seen as marketing the start of the modern world. If Romanticism
has not been reinvented by modern criticism it has been subject to searching
new scrutiny in almost every one of its aspects.
The romantic period was tumultuous and largely
influenced by the French Revolution in 1789. England joined the alliance
against France in 1793. The British slave trade was outlawed in 1807. And the
king George III was declared incurably insane in 1811. George, Prince of Wales,
acted as regent until 1820. Which saw his accession as George IV? Though
feminism attained a great voice in Mary Wellstone craft with A Vindication of
the Rights of Woman, the cause of women’s rights did not gain effectual support
until the later Victorian era. Women were seen as inferior to men in all
aspects except domestic talents. The Romantic period was of course not just
politics; It had a character as well. It was largely a reaction to the
eighteenth century. Romantics tended to place high importance on the self and
introspection; they marched to their own beat. This was a charge from the
emphasis on the collective from the eighteenth century.
The Victorian Era in turn was a reaction to the
Romantic period. The Victorians had a sense of social responsibility which set
them apart from the Romantics. Landow gives the following example:
“Tennyson might go to Spain to help the insurgents
as Byron had gone to Greece and words worth’s to France: but Tennyson also
urged the necessity of educating the poor man before making him our master.”
The values of the Romantic period are evident not
only in each of these individuals and the place itself, but also in the
relationship between the individuals.
