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ENGA-P3, Group-B, Romantic Period

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ENGA-P3, Group-B, Romantic Period Significance of the boundary dates . 1789: Outbreak of the French Revolution; Blake: Songs of Innocence . 1798: Wordsworth & Coleridge: Lyrical Ballads . 1832: First Reform Act; Death of Sir Walter Scott “Unlike dates, periods are not facts. They are retrospective conceptions that we form about past events, useful to focus discussion, but very often leading historical thought astray.” – G. M. Trevelyan Remember! The Romantic Movement was not confined to England; it was a pan-European movement. The Romantic Movement was not confined to literature alone; it affected other arts as well, notably painting & music. ‘Romantic’: Two referents The word ‘romantic’ has two referents: i. a period of time ii. a set of distinctive beliefs, sentiments, norms, and themes Even among specialists a confusion prevails between ‘Romantic’ as a period term, referring to the time between 1789 and 1832 , or to a whole century between 1750 and 1850, and ‘Romantic’ as a set of norms, styles, and themes that characterize certain writers of the time but not all. Origins of the word ‘romantic’ • The word ‘romantic’ is derived from the word ‘romance’. In the early Middle Ages, ‘romance’ denoted the new vernacular languages derived from Latin (French, Italian, Spanish & Portuguese) in contradistinction to Latin itself, which had been more or less frozen & confined to the learned members of church, court & university. • The work produced in the new vernacular languages (also called ‘romance’ languages) was called romanz, roman, romanzo or romance. In Old French romaunt or roman meant ‘a courtly romance in verse’ or ‘a popular story’. Any sort of adventure story, be it of chivalry or of love, was called a romance. They were typically filled with adventurous knights, distressed damsels, evil magicians, fiery dragons & wild landscapes. • The word ‘romance’ (and the adjective ‘romantic’) still retains this old meaning in popular usage. ‘Romantic’ in the literary context • The German poet & critic Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829) introduced the term into the literary context. • It is difficult to give a single, simple definition of ‘romanticism’. “I cannot send you my explanation of the word ‘romantic’ because it would be 125 pages long.” (Friedrich to his brother Wilhelm in a 1793 letter.) • Jacques Barzun in Classic, Romantic and Modern (1961) cites examples of the word ‘romantic’ being used as a synonym for the following adjectives: attractive, bombastic, revolutionary, emotional, exuberant, fanciful, formless, heroic, irrational, mysterious, ornamental, stupid, unreal, unselfish, adventurous, daring, passionate, wild, bizarre & chimerical. • A. O. Lovejoy : “The word ‘romantic’ has come to mean so many things that, by itself, it means nothing. It has ceased to perform the functions of a verbal sign”. Characteristic features of Romanticism a deepened appreciation of the beauties of nature. a general exaltation of emotion over reason and of the senses over intellect. a turning in upon the self & a heightened examination of human personality & its moods & mental potentialities. a new view of the artist as a supremely individual creator, whose creative spirit is more important than strict adherence to formal rules & traditional procedures. Characteristic features of Romanticism (contd.) an emphasis upon imagination as a gateway to transcendent experience & spiritual truth. an obsessive interest in folk culture, national & ethnic cultural origins & the medieval era. a predilection for the exotic, the remote, the mysterious, the weird, the occult, the monstrous, & the diseased. Novalis (1772-1801), poet & philosopher of early German Romanticism. “The world must be romanticized. …By investing the commonplace with a lofty significance, the ordinary with a mysterious aspect, the familiar with the prestige of the unfamiliar, the finite with the semblance of infinity, thereby I romanticize it.” Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829), German Romantic poet & critic. “That is romantic that portrays emotional matter in an imaginative form.” Victor Hugo (1802-1885), French poet, novelist, and dramatist of the Romantic movement. “Romanticism so often ill-defined, is in the final analysis, and here is its real definition, if one considers only its militant aspect, nothing other than liberalism in literature.” Ludovic Vitet (1802-1873), French dramatist. “Romanticism is … protestantism in the arts and letters.” “Romanticism, is in practice, a lively coalition of diverse interests, but with a common goal, warfare against the rules, the rules of convention.” “Romanticism is the art of offering people the literary works which, in the present state of their customs and beliefs, can give them the greatest pleasure. Classicism, by contrast, offers them the literature which gave the greatest possible pleasure to their great-grandfathers. “ Stendhal (1783-1842), French writer. “All the great writers have been romantics in their time. A century after their death, it is those who copy them, instead of opening their eyes and imitating nature, who are classicists.” Periodization The Neoclassical Period: 1660-1745 (a) 1660-1700: Restoration Age (b) 1700-1745: Augustan Age Age of Sensibility: 1745-1789/1798 Reaction against Neoclassicism – proto-Romanticism The Romantic Period: 1789/1798-1832 Neoclassical/Neoclassicism In the arts, the terms ‘neoclassical ‘ & ‘neoclassicism’ are used to describe a work which displays a revival of interest in and veneration for the classical attitudes & styles of ancient Greece & Rome, and which is influenced by and/or imitates such models in seeking to emulate their pursuit of order, clarity, harmony, grace, humanity, self-discipline & rational beauty. Main features of Neoclassicism a tendency to be conservative in its view that contemporary culture was necessarily inferior to that of the classical past (a fierce debate between the ‘Ancients’ & the ‘Moderns’ raged throughout the 1690s & 1700s). valuing & admiring the ‘proprieties’: regularity & simplicity of form, order & proportion, elegance & polished wit. encouraging emotional restraint & rating most highly art which displayed technical mastery. notions of ‘decorum’ (the harmony of form & content) – action, character, thought & language all need to be appropriate to each other – grand & important themes should be treated in a dignified & noble style; the humble or trivial in a low style. use of stylized & stock epithets, classical references, artificial tropes, etc. to ‘heighten’ the language of poetry. NOTE: The critical tenets of Neoclassicism were (to some extent) coterminous with the worldview of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment ‘Enlightenment’ is a term used to describe an intellectual movement in Europe between c. 1660 & c. 1770. The movement was critical of traditional beliefs, superstitions & prejudices, and placed its central faith in human reason & strict scientific method. Enlightenment thinking embraced notions of human progress, the rational perfectibility of humankind, and the universe as governed by observable laws & systematic principles. Major English Enlightenment thinkers . John Locke (1632-1704) [empirical philosopher] . Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727) [scientist & mathematician] Enlightenment & Neoclassicism Aspects of the Enlightenment cast of mind are to be found in Neoclassical literature, although never comprehensively or unproblematically. The rejection of the irrational & the distrust of feelings & the imagination common to both led to a reaction at the end of the 18th cent in what has been called the ‘Age of Sensibility’. Nature and nature’s laws lay hid in night, God said, Let Newton be, and all was light. Alexander Pope’s couplet captures a sense of the wonder and respect Newton inspired in the poets of the period. Pre-Romantic Age or Age of Sensibility? For a time, literary historians called (some do even now) the middle phase (the phase between Neoclassicism & Romanticism) ‘Pre-Romanticism’. Northrop Frye objected to this label. “Not only did the ‘pre-Romantics’ not know that the Romantic movement was going to succeed them, but there has probably never been a case on record of a poet’s having regarded a later poet’s work as the fulfillment of his own.” – Northrop Frye NOTE: Modern scholarship regards Romanticism as an episode within the larger & longer movement of Sensibility. Meaning of ‘Sensibility’ In the 18th cent, the term ‘sensibility’ did not mean ‘sensibleness’ – it meant ‘sensitivity’ or ‘emotional responsiveness’, as opposed to reasonableness or detachment – a capacity to identify with & respond to the sorrows of others – it acquired the meaning of ‘susceptibility to tender feelings’ – it was part of a cluster of closely related terms: ‘sensibility’, ‘sensitivity’, ‘sympathy’ & ‘sentiment’ were often interchangeable. This quality of empathy rose as a reaction against the view expressed by the philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) in Leviathan (1651) that man is innately selfish & motivated by self- interest & the drive for power & status. Philosophers of Sensibility The third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713) [Anthony Ashley Cooper] is generally regarded as the official philosopher of the ‘Age of Sensibility’. Reacting against the views of Hobbes, Shaftesbury proclaimed in his Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, and Times (1711) that “benevolence” – wishing other persons well – is an innate human sentiment & motive, and that the central elements in morality are the feelings of sympathy & ‘sensibility’ – that is, responsiveness to another
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