Romanticism in Historical Perspective Author(s): Lilian R. Furst Reviewed work(s): Source: Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Jun., 1968), pp. 115-143 Published by: Penn State University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40467744 . Accessed: 16/02/2012 09:05

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http://www.jstor.org in HistoricalPerspective

LILIAN R. FÜRST

ABSTRACT This articlegives a chronologicalsurvey of theemergence of theRoman- ticmovements in England,France, and Germany.The spreadof new ideas is tracedfrom country to countryin thesuccessive waves of Romanticwrit- ingbetween 1750 and 1830.The principalaim is to ascertainthe correct sequenceand historicalperspective; for by recognizingthat Romanticism wasnot a simultaneousoutburst, but rather a seriesof distinctupsurges, a sounderbasis is establishedfor the exploration of themaze of similarities and differenceslinking the Romantic movements in Europe.[L. R. F.]

No subject in the whole fieldof comparativeliterary studies has provokedas much criticalwriting as Romanticism.And rightlyso, for none indeed so insistentlydemands, and so richlyrewards, a broad approach embracingseveral literatures. But all the attempts to discern the salient featuresof European Romanticism,all the argumentsas to its fundamentalunity or otherwise,and all the tentativedefinitions seem to be based on the assumption that simultaneousoutbursts of Romanticismoccurred in various coun- triesabout the beginningof thenineteenth century. This was simply not the case: the spread of Romanticismis characterizedby curious time lags and unexpected spurts.In fact the movement'sexternal historysheds so much lighton its inner nature that a chronological survey,though apparently an elementaryexercise in literaryhistory, is a necessaryand potentiallyilluminating preliminary to any fur- 115 116 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

ther discussion.To establish the correctsequence and perspective not only obviatessome, at least,of the more commonmisapprehen- sionsbut also createsa sounderbase fromwhich to explore themaze of Romanticmovements in Europe. "Une arisede la conscienceeuropéenne": x thisis the succinctand telling phrase chosen by van Tieghem to describe the Romantic movementin Europe. The claim that it was far more than just another literarymovement is not based primarilyon the sheer extent,the expanse of Romanticism,though it is in fact true that no other literarymovement has ever evoked such a wide response throughoutEurope. The real significanceof Romanticism as a "crise de la conscienceeuropéenne" lies not in its mere quantity, but in the quality of the changes it implied. For Romanticism broughtnot just a greaterfreedom and a new technique; thesewere only the outer manifestationsof a complete and deep-seatedre- orientation,not to say revolution,in the mannersof thought,per- ception, and consequentlyof expressiontoo. The nature of this revolutionhas recentlybeen outlinedin vivid termsby Isaiah Berlin who definedit as a "shiftof consciousness"that "crackedthe back- 2 bone of European thought." That backbone had been the belief in the possibilityof a rational comprehensionof the universe.When the rationalisticapproach was applied to the arts as well as to the emergentphysical sciences, it resultedin thoserigid pronouncements on the immutable 'rules' of literaturethat were the bane of Neo- classicism.This dogmatismwas firstcautiously questioned and then vehementlyrejected in the course of the eighteenthcentury, and finallythe old standardswere ousted by the Romantics'new criteria and values. In place of the Neoclassicalideals of rationalism,tradi- tionalism,and formal harmony,the Romantics emphasized indi- vidualism, imagination,and emotion as their guiding principles. Hence the old 'rules' of 'good taste,'regularity, and conformitygave way to the unbridled creativeurge of the original genius, and the ideal of a smoothbeauty was scornedin favourof a dynamicout- pouring of feeling.A new mode of imaginative perceptiongave birthto a whole new vocabularyand new formsof artisticexpres- sion: this is the essenceof that "crise de la conscienceeuropéenne? which lies at the heart of the Romanticrevolution, and thisis also perhaps as near an approximationto a definitionof Romanticism as is possible.It may not have the neatnessof a snappycatchphrase (such as 'the returnto nature' or 'the cult of the extinct'),but it is ROMANTICISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 117

sufficientlycomprehensive and sufficientlyplain to serveas a viable workingbasis. This reorientationoccurred in varyingdegrees throughout Europe in the latterpart of the eighteenthand the early yearsof the nine- teenthcenturies. In thissense Romanticismcan rightlybe regarded as a European phenomenonthat can be appreciatedin all its impli- cationsonly by means of a comparativestudy. Many of the Roman- ticsthemselves were well aware of the supranationalcharacter of the movement:the brothersSchlegel consciouslycherished the notion of a specificallyEuropean Romantic literatureas part of theirstriv- ing foran all-embracing'universal poetry/ and both Coleridgeand hoped for an eventual European reintegration.Perhaps these cosmopolitantendencies of the Romantics have encouraged criticsto seekout the commondenominators of the Romanticmove- mentsand to overemphasizethe similaritiesbetween the literatures of variouscountries. The 'familylikeness' which certainly meets the eye can be traced back to the communal ancestryof Romanticism throughoutEurope, which springsfrom one and the same momen- tous spiritualand intellectualreorientation. To delve into the originsof thisrevolution is beyondthe scope of this study. The firstunmistakable signs of impending change manifestedthemselves before the middle of the eighteenthcentury, and in thisearliest phase - say 1740 to 1770- it is England thatwas to the fore.As early as 1742, Young, inspiredby personal griefat the death of his daughter and of a friend,published his Night Thoughts,which were followedin 1745 by Akenside'sPleasures of Imagination.Historically these two workshave much in commonin that theystand midwaybetween the conventionalmoralism of the age and a freshoutlook which admitsimagination to respectability in poetic practice.Imagination, according to Akenside,"diffuses its enchantment"and makes the soul "to that harmoniousmovement 8 fromwithout / Responsive": no verystartling claim as yet,but at least a firstglimmer of a recognitionof the powersof the imagina- tion. The personal melancholyand the funerealcult of the Night Thoughts were reiterated in Hervey's Meditations Among the Tombs (1746) and Gray'sElegy Writtenin a CountryChurchyard (1751) withtheir awareness of the fleetingnessand pathosof human Ufe,their preference for darkness, solitude, the evocationof solemn, somberscenes. The slightlymoralizing sensibility of the period is as apparentin these poems as in the novels of Richardsonand his 118 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

imitators.This sensibilitywas deeply affectedby Macpherson's Fingal (1762) which,together with Percy'sReliques (1765), laid the foundationsfor the subsequentpopularity of supposedlynaive folk- poetry,the natural utterancesof primitive,spontaneous genius. Macpherson'sconcoctions, purporting to be a transcriptionfrom the ancientbard , made a particularlystrong impression through- out Europe with their highly-colouredintrigues, their gloomy Northernsetting, their whole oùtlandishness,and, above all, their rhythmicprose, which seemed so muchmore poetic than the poetry of the earlyeighteenth century: Starof descendingnight! fair is thylight in thewest! thou liftest thy un- shornhead fromthy cloud: thysteps are statelyon thyhill. Whatdost thoubehold in theplain? The stormywinds are laid. The murmurof the torrentcomes from afar. Roaring waves climb the distant rock. The fliesof eveningare on theirfeeble wings; the hum of theircourse is on thefield. Whatdost thou behold, fair light? But thoudost smile and depart.The wavescome with joy aroundthee: theybathe thy lovely hair. Farewell, thousilent beam! Let thelight of Ossian'ssoul arise! * Alongside Ossian, the other decisive document of English pre- Romanticism,Young's Conjectureson Original Composition(1759), was of far-reachingimport as the herald of the new aesthetics.Some of Young's ideas were,it is true,already current in England among his contemporaries,notably in the discoursesof Burke,Thomas and Joseph Warton, and William Sharpe. But never beforehad these ideas been stated as cogentlyas in the Conjectures;by his clear- sighteddistinctions between imitation and originality,the ancients and the moderns,learning and genius,the observationof rules and the energyof the inspiredenthusiast, Young was crucial in precipi- tatingthe reorientationaway fromthe old accepted notions. Here for the firsttime, the superiorityof the new ideals was proclaimed beyond a shadow of doubt: "An Original may be said to be of a vegetablenature; it risesspontaneously from the vital rootof genius; it grows,it is not made: Imitationsare oftena sortof manufacture, wroughtby those mechanics,art and labour, out of pre-existent 5 materialsnot their own." Or again, take the contrastbetween a "genius"and a "good understanding":"A geniusdiffers from a good understanding,as a magician froma good architect;that raises his structureby means invisible; this by skilfuluse of common tools. Hence genius has ever been supposed to partake of « something divine." These two brief examples alone sufficeto illustratethe ROMANTICISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 119

incisivequality of Young's thinking.Many of the key conceptsof Romanticismare already contained in the Conjectures,in the prominencegiven to such words as "original," "genius," "grows," "magician," "divine." There is thus some justificationfor the contentionthat "this vast romanticmovement was the European reverberationof English eighteenthcentury romanticism, like the T thunderof Alpine re-echoingto a pistol-shot." Many of the essen- tial elements of Romanticism were indeed present in England towardthe middle of the eighteenthcentury: some recognitionof the role of the imagination,the emphasison the original composi- tion of the genius,the cult of sensibility,the vague religiousfeeling, themelancholy reverie, the interestin 'natural'poetry, the discovery of externalnature. But it would be prematureto call this anything other than pre-Romanticism,for these were merely trends and beginningswith the stresson the natural- no doubt in reaction against the artificialoverrefinement of Neodassicism- whereas the dominant factor in Romanticism proper was the transfiguring imagination,whose true significancewas not yet appreciated. While this reorientationwas progressingrapidly in England, France and Germanywere far behind during this initial phase. France was still sufferingfrom the backwash of its glorious Neo- classical age, which continued to overshadowcreative writing and to a large extentto stifleinnovation. A spiritof enlightenmentdoes pervadeat least the early criticismof Diderot, such as the prefaces to his plays Le filsnaturel (1757) and Le père de famille (1758), wherehe advocatesa greaterrealism; but afterthis advance towards emotionalismhe was, in his later works,to returnto the assump- tions of the Neoclassical creed. Only Rousseau broke really new ground: his disgust with the social order of the time, based on ownershipof land and goods,led him to idealize the primitivestate of mankindand to call for the famousreturn to nature.Important thoughthis was, it was by no means Rousseau's sole contributionto pre-Romanticism;his assimilationof externalnature to man's moods in Les rêveriesdu promeneursolitaire and La nouvelle Héloïse, his musical prose style,and his spotlighton his ego in his autobio- graphicalwritings all plainlyforeshadow certain later developments. Rousseau,however, was not understood,at least not in France,until later;meanwhile his mostimmediate effect was in Germanythrough the intermediaryof Herder, an enthusiasticdisciple of Rousseau's, 120 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

who transmittedhis admirationfor Rousseau to the young adher- ents of the Sturmund Drang movement. In the mid-eighteenthcentury Germany was in the literaryfield the most backward of the major European countries; politically disunited and economicallydisrupted by internal strife,Germany had in the latterhalf of the seventeenthand the earlyyears of the eighteenthcentury virtually been lyingfallow. A new era began to dawn in the 1730'swith the notoriousquarrel betweenthe doctrinal rationalistGottsched and the somewhatless narrow-mindedSwiss criticsBodmer and Breitinger,who realized that poetrycould not be made accordingto a set recipe- like a cake- as Gottschedhad assumed.Bodmer in 1740 published his KritischeAbhandlung von dem Wunderbarenin der Poesie ("Discourse Concerningthe Won- drous Element in Poetry"),the title of which alreadyindicates the progressiontowards a more fruitfulconception of art. The Enlight- enmentfound its mostvigorous and wise exponentin Lessing,who savagely attacked the 'frenchified'("französierend" he contemptu- ously calls it in the seventeenthLiteraturbrief) mode of writing favouredby Gottsched.He pleaded instead that German writers should model themselveson the freerproducts of the English,whose spiritwas more akin to theirown. Lessingwas not the firstto turn his gaze towards England; Bodmer and Breitingerhad earlier championedand translatedMilton, and Klopstock'sMessias (1748) is patentlyindebted to Paradise Lost. Although Lessing was thus not the firstto point towardsEngland, neverthelesshis position in Germanywas as crucial as, and in some respectscomparable to, that of Young in England. For it was Lessingwho in his Literaturbriefe (1759) and HamburgischeDramaturgie (1767) presenteda reasoned and compellingcase for the decisive reorientationnot only from France to England but also fromimitation to original creation, extolling Shakespeare as the supreme creative genius. Herder in his rhapsodicappraisal of Shakespeareand also of Ossian furthered the cult of genius,stimulated no doubt by the German translation of Young's Conjectureswhich appeared in 1760. The vital impetus thereforereached Germany from England, the fountainhead of European pre-Romanticism. In the second phase, between about 1770 and 1790, this position was reversed,for the ascendancywhich had been England's now passed to Germany.Both England and France were in no haste to accept new notions, perhaps because the native literarytradition ROMANTICISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 121

was firmlyestablished; in France it tended to exercisea retarding influence- the great'battle* of took place only in the year 1830- while in England the lack of resistanceto innovationspara- doxicallyled to theircomparatively slow infiltration.Germany, on the contrary,was thirstingfor a freshstart after its long period of inertia.So Germany'svery backwardness proved in factan advantage when the young writersof the movement,for lack of a strongnative tradition, eagerly seized on the stimulifrom abroad, and it was theywho popularized and propagated the new attitudesthroughout Europe. The essence of the Sturm und Drang, whose name was derived fromKlinger's drama of 1776,lay in rebellion against finiterestric- - tion in any shape or form literary,political, or social. This self- assertiverebelliousness was more than the adolescentdefiance of a fewgifted young men; it arose directlyout of the proud conviction of the limitlessrights and powers of the divinely-inspiredgenius. Thus the theoriesformulated a few years earlier by Young were activatedby the Sturm und Drang and found living examples in the youthfulGoethe and Schiller. All the favouriteideas of the Sturmund Drang pivoted on the figureof the trulygreat, excep- tional man; it was his personal experiencesand emotionswhich were to be transformedinto art throughthe creativepower of his unbridled imagination.No wonder that the Sturm und Drang is oftenand aptly termedthe Geniezeit ("Period of Genius"). Inco- herent and supremelyarrogant though it was, the credo of the Sturm und Drang foreshadowedvery many of the basic concepts of Romanticism:the beliefin the autonomyof the divinelyinspired genius, the release of the imaginationfrom the bondage of 'good taste/the primacyof spontaneous and intuitivefeeling, the com- plete freedomof artisticexpression, and, finally,the notion of organicgrowth and development,from which arose both an interest in the past, particularlythe Middle Ages, and a new pantheistic vision of natureas part of a unifiedcosmos. Nor were theseideas to remainmere theoriesany longer; in the earlyworks of Goethe and Schiller the new mode of perceptionand expressionburst upon a startledEurope. And how immeasurableis the gulf that separates Goethe'sdynamic nature poetry from the prettylyrics of the preced- ing generation! Consider the formal, pedestrian descriptionby Brockesin his "Betrachtungendes Mondscheinsin einer angeneh- 122 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

men Frühlingsnacht"in the 1721 collection Irdisches Vergnügen in Gott(note theclumsy titles): Kaumhatte sich die Nachtzu zeigenangefangen, Die nachder Hitze Last derKühlung Lust verhiess, Alssich ein neuerTag demSchein nach sehen liess: Der volleMond war aus demgrauen Duft, Der nachdes Tages schwülerLuft Mit Purpuruntermischt den Horizontbedeckte Wie rötlichGold nur eben aufgegangen, Aus dessenwandelbarem Kreise, Der alles in der Nachtmit Licht und Schimmerfüllt, MehrAnmut noch als Lichtund Schimmer quillt.8 Compare these mundane lines with the intenselyimaginative, mysteriouslyintuitive perception of die same scene in Goethe's bewitching"An den Mond": Füllestwieder Busch und Tal Stillmit Nebelglanz, Lösestendlich auch einmal MeineSeele ganz; Breitestüber mein Gefild Lindernddeinen Blick, Wie desFreundes Auge mild Übermein Geschick.9 In the face of these two texts, furtherverbal commenton the revolutionwrought by the Sturm und Drang becomes superfluous. It was at this time too, in the early 1770's,that the great Romantic prototypeswere delineated in the melancholyhero Wertherand the insatiableseeker , figuresthat were to haunt Europe. The impact of Wertheris alreadynotorious; Goethe became the idol of Europe. The successof Schiller'sDie Räuber was even more imme- diate and widespread:in England as well as in France,Schiller was acclaimed withsuch wild enthusiasmas to triggera veritablemania for the German theatre, admittedly excessive and short lived. Nevertheless,Goethe and Schillerremained in the eyes of both the English and the French the typical representativesof ,and strangethough this misconceptionmay at first seem,it is in factnot withoutsome justification.For in the Sturm und Drang, the culminationof pre-Romanticism,the firstsignificant breakthroughwas achieved, and in this Goethe and Schiller were largelyinstrumental. With the publication of Kant's three major works, the Kritik der reinen Vernunftin 1781, the Kritik der ROMANTICISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 123

praktischenVernunft in 1788, and the Kritik der Urteilskraftin 1790, the mortal blows were struckat the old rationalistsystem. F. Schlegelwas justifiedin his proud claim that the springsof the new age were risingin Germany.To suggest,however, that Roman- ticismshould really be called "Germanticism"on account of its 10 essentiallyGermanic roots and spirit is an exaggeration,not to say a distortionin view of its earlysources in England, althoughit is not withoutsome elementof (albeit poetic) truth,and the high incidenceof Germanwords used in connectionwith Romanticism (Sehnsucht,Weltschmerz, europamüde, Dies- und Jenseitigkeit)in itselfindicates Romanticism'sdeep entrenchmentin Germany. Thenceforththe overall picture of European Romanticismbe- comes increasinglycomplex as the new creed slowly spread from countryto country.For a time yet Germanywas to remain in the ascendancy,so thatthis third phase was again largelyovershadowed by Germany.This was her mostglorious age, for the 1790's witness not only the elaboration of Romanticismbut also the heydayof her Neoclassical period. These were the momentousyears of the Goethe-Schillerfriendship when the formerwrote Reineke Fuchs (1794), Römische Elegien (1795), Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795), VenezianischeEpigramme (1797), Hermann und Dorothea (1798), and many of his best-knownballads, while Schiller'swork included Über Anmut und Würde.(1793), Über naive und senti- mentalischeDichtung (1795), Briefeüber die ästhetischeErziehung des Menschen (1795),Das Ideal und das Leben (1795), Wallenstein (1798-99),Das Lied von der Glocke (1799) and otherballads, as well as theXenien (1796) on whichthe two friendscollaborated. In order to realize fully the extent to which Romantic and Neoclassical strainswere contemporaneousin Germany- a fact that is often forgottenor overlooked- it is perhaps worth enumeratingbriefly some of the other works which appeared during this period: in 1794,Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre;in 1797, the great ballad-yearof Goethe and Schiller, Schelling's Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur, Tieck's Volksmärchen,Wackenroder's Herzensergiessungen eines kunstliebendenKlosterbruders, A. W. Schlegel'sfirst transla- tionsfrom Shakespeare; in 1798,the journal of the Jena Romantic group, the Athenäum; in 1799, Schleiermacher'sReden über die Religion and F. Schlegel'sLucinde; and the new centuryopened with Novalis' Hymnenan die Nacht. In theseworks the writersof the Jena Romantic group expounded their own Weltanschauung 124 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

which was in many essential points a developmentof the earlier ideas of the Sturm und Drang, although these had never been fashionedinto a coherentaesthetic system. Like theirpredecessors, the Jena group founded their whole systemon the unquestioned primacy of the subjective imagination of the original creative genius,a doctrinewhich had been strengthenedby the powerful supportof Fichte's philosophy,so that this subjectiveimagination now became literallythe alpha and omega of the universe.The notion of organic growth and developmentand the consequent interestin historyand in living nature,the arrogationof complete artisticfreedom as the birthrightof the autonomousdivine genius, the trust in spontaneous emotion and instinct: all these were inheritedfrom the Sturm und Drang, although German Roman- ticismwas not a mere continuationof the earlier movementand there were vital shiftsof emphasis and mood which reveal the distinctcharacter of the Jena school. The later group was more complexthan the relativelystraightforward rebels of the Sturmund Drang who soughtto live and createsolely according to the dictates of feeling,while the Romantic strivesalso forknowledge, conscious- ness,a masteryof those feelingswhich in turn produced a certain self-detachment,the key to that curiousRomantic concept of irony. As its name implies, the Sturm und Drang had been youthful, forward-looking,vigorous, and realisticin its rebellion against an irksomereality, whereas with the Jena school an introvert,tran- scendentallonging came to the foreas the Romanticlooked beyond this world in his quest for an intangible,unattainable ideal in a dream sphereof his own creation.To the revolutionarynaturalism of Rousseau and the melancholy pietism of English pre-Roman- tidsmwas now added the transcendentalismof the Germanphiloso- phers,for the Jena Romanticgroup, speculative rather than creative by nature,was responsiblefor the major body of GermanRomantic philosophyand it was at this point that German Romanticism assumed its characteristichue. An all-embracingexpansiveness, coloured by a pervasivemysticism, is its hallmark,so that it is a way of living and perceivingrather than merelyof writingwhich was expounded in the theoriesof the brothersSchlegel, Schelling, Schleiermacher,and Wackenroder.The spreadin scope and breadth is vast. As poetryturns into "eine progressiveUniversalpoesie," ll it tendsnot only to mingle the various genresand media but also moreand more to lose its specificmeaning and to become confused ROMANTICISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 125

and amalgamated with philosophy, religion, history,philology, science, and politics. This cosmic extension of the meaning of poetrywas to be of the utmostimportance for the whole of the nineteenthcentury and beyondtoo. So rapidlyhad the European balance changed that in theseyears it was the turn of England and France to be comparativelyback- ward. In France, the Revolution blotted all else frommen's minds and the Reign of Terrorvirtually silenced creative writing for a time. As Mme. de Staël reported:"Les Français,depuis vingtannées, sont tellementpréoccupés par les événementspolitiques, que toutesleurs études en littératureont été suspendues."12 Or again: "Depuis quelque tempson ne lit guère en France que des mémoiresou des romans; et ce n'est pas tout à fait par frivolitéqu'on est devenu moins capable de lecturesplus sérieuses,c'est parce que les événe- mentsde la Révolution ont accoutuméà ne mettrede prix qu'à la 13 connaissancedes faitset des hommes." From the welterof argu- mentsas to whetherthe Revolutionimpeded the advance of Roman- ticismor fosteredit by breakingdown the old authoritarianorder in the social sphere, only one fact emerges with any certainty: namely,the dearth of creativewriting during the Revolutionary period. Hence that curious hiatus in French literarydevelopment in the years 1790 to 1820. The few workswhich did appear were mainlyin the Rousseauistictradition, such as the exotic novels of Bernardin de Saint-Pierrewhose Paul et Virginie (1787) and La chaumière indienne (1791) both illustratethe so-called return to nature. Chateaubriand's Alala (1801) and Reni (1805) are also indebtedto the ideas of Rousseau, and none of these,no more than the Génie du Christianisme(1802), was regardedby contemporaries as a seriousmenace to the Neoclassical traditionwhich still reigned unchallenged.French Romanticism,when it did finallyassert itself, was to be above all a revolt against this firmlyentrenched and ossifiedNeoclassidsm and it is significantthat the earliestglimmer- ings of the new orientationfirst insinuated themselvesinto the strongholdof Neoclassidsm in prose,the genre least subject to the dictatesand rulesof theNeoclassical creed. There were no such hindrancesto overcomein England, which was gradually awakening to the new tendendes. In Blake's Songs of Innocence (1787) and Songs of Experience (1794), imagerywas used in a mannertotally different from its eighteenth-century decora- tive function,and thiswas a vital breakthroughof the new typeof 126 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

poetic expression.The mid-1790'salso witnessedthe growingpopu- larityof tales of horrorwith Mrs. Radcliffe'sMysteries of Udolpho in 1794 and The Monk by Lewis in 1796. It was in 1798, the year of the Lyrical Ballads, that Wordsworthaccompanied Coleridge to Germany.Ironically, England was now to receiveits stimulusfrom Germany,from ideas which had in fact originatedon her shores and had been elaborated abroad while they were more or less ignored at home. That homecomingbegan in the 1790's with the spreadof knowledgeabout Germanliterature which had previously been dismissed,in spite of the successof Werther,as revolutionary, sensationalist,extravagently sentimental, and not quite respectable. The term'German Novel/ forinstance, was forlong a self-explana- toryexpression of opprobrium,a stigmastemming from the many worthlessSchauerromane, stories that send a shudder down the reader's spine, which had been translatedinto English to satisfy the thirstfor horrorstories. A number of original English Gothic novelsof dubious quality were at that time passed offas renderings fromGerman, thus bringingGerman literatureinto furtherdisre- pute. Gradually a truerpicture was to emerge,dating fromHenry Mackenzie'spaper on German drama read beforethe Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1788 and published in 1790. Here Schiller was mentionedfor the firsttime in Britain in a startlingeulogy of Die Räuber, the tremendousappeal of which lay in the noveltyof its subject,the atmosphereof horror,and the unbridledexpression of emotional crises.It made a vehementimpression on Coleridge whenhe read it in 1794,arousing the curiosityabout Germanlitera- ture that was to take him and Wordsworthto Germanyin 1798. While France was in the throesof the Revolution,and England was only gradually assimilatingthe new tendencies,Germany still remained the home of Romanticism.The Heidelberg group of 1805-1815differed from the earlier, more closely-knitJena circle in that it was far less philosophicallyinclined. Forsakingthe meta- physical speculations of the Jena theorists,the Heidelberg poets createdmany of the worksfor which German Romanticismearned its fame abroad, such as the tales of Hoffmann,Chamisso, Fouqué, the poems of Uhland, Körner, Brentano, Arnim. More extrovert than theirimmediate predecessors, these Heidelberg poets exploited the Jena theoriesfor practicalcreative purposes. Their demand for a spontaneousexpression of emotion led to a glorious blossoming of lyric poetry; the probing of the irrational aspects of life- the ROMANTICISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 127

so-called nocturnal sides of nature- was now precipitatedinto a host oí supernaturaland fantasticstories, such as those of Tieck and Hoffmann;and finallythe interestin history,formerly part of a compositebelief in organic growthand development,now also assumed more specificforms either in scholarlyresearch into the past, as exemplifiedby the philological enquiries of the ,or in the newlyemergent national consciousnessand pride whichevoked, under the threatof the Napoleonic wars,lyric cycles withsuch titlesas the GeharnischteSonette ("Sonnetsin Armour") by Rücken (1814), Körner'sLeyer und Schwert("Lyre and Sword") of the same year, and Arndt's Lieder für Teutsche ("Songs for Germans").This was the climatewhich fostered Arnim's and Bren- tano'sDes Knaben Wunderhorn(1806-1808) and like collectionsof folktalesin Görres'Die teutschenVolksbücher (1807) and Grimm's Märchen (1812). In these patriotic nationalistic endeavours the writersof the Heidelberg group foreshadowedthe more directly politicaland social aims of the Jung-Deutschlandmovement of the mid-nineteenthcentury. It is at this point that the time lag in European Romanticismis at its most blatant; for while Roman- ticismhas hardlystirred in France as yetand is onlyabout to unfold fullyin England,in Germanyit is alreadypast its zenithand moving steadilytowards the more sober social preoccupationsof the subse- quent period. In the face of these discrepanciesalone, who would dare to envisageEuropean Romanticismas one unifiedand consist- ententity? In this interregnumthere appeared a work that was of extraor- dinary importance in the history of Romanticism in Europe: Mme de Staël's De l'Allemagne.During her exile fromFrance, Mme de Staël travelledfairly extensively in Germany,where she met, amongothers, Goethe, Schiller, and A. W. Schlegel,who became her son's tutor. In contrast to his volatile and inventive brother Friedrich, was the most perceptiveand orderlyof the Jena group, so that his elegantlyclear formulations of German Romantic thought were more comprehensibleand accessibleto foreignersthan the perhapsprofounder, transcendental thinkingof FriedrichSchlegel, Schelling,or Schleiennacher;and with the translationsof his Vorlesungenüber dramatischeKunst und Literaturinto Frenchin 1813 and into Englishin 1815, A. W. lé Schlegeltruly became the "Herold oder Dolmetscher" of Roman- tic thought.In A. W. Schlegel,Mme de Staël thus met a man well 128 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

able to fan her enthusiasmfor Germany.The externalhistory of De l'Allemagne- the hindrancesto publication,the role of political considerations,etc. - are irrelevantin the present context except in so far as thisopposition in itselfindicates the Frenchreluctance, indeed fear,to importforeign ideas which seemed an insult and a menace to French cultural dominance. In spite, or perhaps partly because,of the violentresistance to its publication,De VAllemagne became the standardsource of knowledgeon Germany,and beyond that a manifestoof the new cosmopolitanismand a decisivestep in the renewal of French literatureafter its long subservienceto the tenetsof an emasculatedNeodassicism. In thiswork Mme de Staël soughtto delineate the concept of a poetrydifferent from the great native traditionof France, for she fully realized the need for a transfusionof new blood. In introducingcontemporary German writingto France, she constantlycontrasted its originality,vitality, « and imaginationwith the sterilerigidity, "le genre maniéré" of moribund French Neodassicism. Mudi valid critidsm can be levelled against Mme de Staël: she saw Germanyin the literaryas well as in the social and moral senseas the countryof Hermann und Dorothea, therebynurturing the strangelypersistent French picture of Germanyas "une région fabuleuse, oü les hommesgazouillent ie et chantentcomme les oiseaux" Moreover,she had littleacquaint- ance with the work of the Jena group (there is, for instance,no mention whatsoeverof Novalis) and regarded Goethe, Schiller, Bürger,and Tieck as the representativeGerman Romantic poets; nor had she much head forabstract philosophy and no more than a superfidalcomprehension of Romantidsm,distinguishing between Classical and Romanticpoetry as "celle qui a précédél'établissement du christianismeet celle qui l'a suivi."17 All her judgments are formedfrom a plainlyFrench standpoint so thatshe regardsGerman and Englishliterature as one entity,the literatureof the Romantic North,as against the Classical literatureof France and Southern Europe. Nevertheless,in spite of her undeniable weaknessesand failings,Mme de Staël was an astute, perspicaciousarbiter, whose observationsare often acute and who grasped the essence of the new orientationof German literature.In some respectsMme de Staël's position is reminiscentof that of Lessing: though more emotional and fandful in manner than the sensible exponent of the Enlightenment,basically she advocates the same emancipation from the traditionalrules in favour of a poetryfathered by the ROMANTICISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 129

enthusiasmof genius.In fact,De VAllemagne presents an admirable surveyof the Sturmund Drang phase of Germanliterature, that is, of pre-Romanticismrather than of the Romanticgroups themselves. This is a crucial factorfor the comprehensionof European Roman- ticismsince the opinions expressedby Mme de Staël and, perhaps even more important,her omissions,for long not only determined the French (and to a lesser extent the English) view of German literaturebut also shaped the course and nature of the French Romanticmovement. So the preferencefor Schiller, the conception 18 of Goethe as "le chef de l'école mélancolique" the appraisal of Faust as the supremeRomantic masterpiece,the emphasis on the picturesqueelement in poetry,and the beliefthat German literature is characterizedprimarily by 'fantasy'and 'liberty*:all thesecurious notions stem fromDe VAllemagne. And Mme de Staël's view of Germanliterature was persistentas well as potent;until after18S0 the French continuedto believe that German literatureconsisted solely of Goethe,Schiller, Bürger, Tieck, and . No good historyof Germanliterature was available in French; and while a few works,notably Werther,Faust, Die Räuber, and later, the dramasof Wernerwere read with respectand devotion,poets such as Novalis, Brentano,and Arnim were virtuallyunknown to the French Romantic poets, veryfew of whom, incidentally,had any knowledgeof German. The belief that French Romanticismwas directlyinfluenced by German Romanticism,one of the principal and most commonmisapprehensions about the historyof Roman- ticismin Europe, is thereforecontravened by the undeniable evi- dence of chronologicalfact. The truerelationship is ratherbetween the GermanSturm und Drang and French Romanticism.Once this correcthistorical perspective is established,the strikingdifferences betweenthe facesof Romanticismin Germanyand France become somewhatless puzzling. De l'Allemagne,which was originallypublished in England, also servedin some degreeas a mediatorbetween Germany and England. In the earlyyears of the nineteenthcentury, because of the political situation- the oppositionto Napoleon- the Englishtended to turn more to Germanythan to France, and many links were forged between the two lands throughboth travelersand translations.19 These links were remarkablerather for their large number than fortheir depth, there being littleto suggestany verydecisive signifi- cance. As in France,so in England actual knowledgeabout Germany 130 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

was fairlyscant; the Carlyleanimage of a land of poetsand thinkers succeededthe earlierone of a realmof the picturesqueand fantastic. As forGerman literature,it was again the Sturmund Drang which made the only real impressionthrough the early worksof Goethe and Schillerand the dramas of Kotzebue,whose popularityturned into an absolutefuror. The writingsof the Jenagroup, on the other hand, gained little or no hearing until well into the nineteenth century;Carlyle was the firstto write about Novalis in 1829, and even then Novalis was interpretedas a disciple of Kant and Fichte without any appreciation of his poetry.In her relationshipwith her European neighbours,England showed that same sturdyinde- pendencethat characterizesher own Romantic movement.England had indeed no need to be instructedin Romantic thoughtand feelingby other nations,for in Shakespeare,Milton, Young, Mac- pherson,Percy, and Richardson she exported far more than she importedin Schiller,Goethe, and Rousseau. The great floweringof English Romanticismoccurred about the middle of the second decade of the nineteenthcentury when for someten years England became the focusof European Romanticism. By then the Romantic impetushad slackenedin Germanyand was graduallybeing diluted by the beginningsof the sober of the mid-nineteenthcentury. Meanwhile France, apparentlystill stunnedby the consequencesof the Revolution,was takingstock in social and political affairswith thinkers such as Saint-Simon, Cousin, and Thierry,while artisticcreativity was relegatedto the background.England with a galaxy of finepoets in Blake, Words- worth,Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, and Byron assumed the primacy which had been Germany's.Not that there was ever a Romantic 'school*in England as there had been in Germany;there was no conscioushomogeneous program and therewere fewmanifestos or literarydiscussions compared with those in Germanyand with the violentcontroversies that were to swayFrance. Wordsworth's famous Preface to the "Lyrical Ballads" was conceived chieflyto counter criticismand to forestallfurther attacks. The second generation of English Romantic poets was even less concernedthan the first with questionsof poetic technique; Keats indeed was outspokenin his rejectionof abstracttheorizing, which he brandedas "the whims of an Egotist."In a letterto J. H. Reynolds (February3, 1818) he wrote: "Every man has his speculations,but everyman does not brood and peacock over them till he makes a false coinage and ROMANTICISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 131

deceives himself.. . . Poetry should be great and unobtrusive,a thingwhich entersinto one's soul, and does not startleit or amaze it with itself,but with its subject.- How beautifulare the retired flowers!how would theylose theirbeauty were theyto thronginto the highwaycrying out, 'admire me I am a violet!- dote upon me " 20 I am a primrose!' Informal in character,"a warm intuitive muddle," as it has rightlybeen called,21English Romanticism remained less systematic,less dogmatic,less self-consciousthan its Continental counterparts,of an independentapproach consonant with the innate individualismof the Briton.Although Jeffrey, the most vehementopponent of the , accused them in the EdinburghReview of 1802 of being "dissentersfrom the established systemsin poetry,"who had borrowed their doctrinesfrom the Germansand from"the great apostle of Geneva," this charge was far fromtrue. For the Romantic movementin England was above all of evolutionary,not revolutionary,origin; a sense of belonging to and restoringthe native traditiondistinguishes the Romantic poets in England, where therewas no incisivebreak in continuity as in Germanyand France.The English pre-Romanticsand Roman- ticslooked back with approval on Shakespeareand the pre-Restora- tion poets,nor did the Augustansrouse opposition comparable to the rebelliousnessof the German Stürmer und Dränger or the French onslaught on their tyrannicalliterary establishment. In contrastto the necessityimposed on the French and Germans to findsome way out of a kind of cul-de-sac,the Englishwere cast in a historicallymore fortunateposition. Whereas the Germans and the French Romanticshad to follow and in some way outdo their glorious immediate predecessors,the English Romantics were stronglyconscious of representinga new beginningand upsurge, not a reaction as in France or an overrefinementas in Germany. From this,perhaps, English Romanticismderives its special quality of freshness,freedom, flexibility, and grace. With the deaths of Keats in 1821, Shelleyin 1822,and Byronin 1824, the period of English ascendancy came to an abrupt and untimelyend. Now it was the turn of France in the 1820's and 1830's. But how differentwas the face and spirit of Romanticism in France fromwhat it had been in England! Whereasthe English Romantic movementhad evolved slowlyand organicallyout of the native tradition, French Romanticism was essentiallya revolt against the native tradition,an ousting of the firmlyrooted Neo- 132 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

classical attitudesand formsby alien lines of thoughtand feeling. Hence the violence and bitternessof the quarrels attendanton the emergenceof Romanticismin France, hence also the stubbornness and vehemenceof the opposition. For this was far more than a literarydebate; all mannerof political and national considerations 22 were implicatedin the complexweb of this "querelle nationale." The Revolution, though it had halted literarydevelopment for many years,can also be evaluated as an indirectlypositive factor, for with the fall of the absolute monarchythe Neoclassical dogma- tismthat had been associatedwith it was severelyundermined: "à société nouvelle, littératurenouvelle" became the popular slogan. Moreover, the revolutionaryera with its free spectacle of the guillotine created a new theatre audience avid for rapid action, melodrama,and sharp contrasts.On the other hand, Napoleon's Empire tended to have a reactionaryeffect not only throughits strictcensorship but also throughits revival of Neoclassical taste as exemplifiedby Corneille's heroic characterswho were regarded as the apotheosis of martial glory. Romanticism was therefore fearedas a tendencyassociated with revolution,violence, and for- eign domination,a threatto the national heritageof Greco-Latin origin. Even in 1825 Le Globe still reported that: "On se sert aujourd'hui en France du mot 'romantique' pour désignertoute compositioncontraire au systèmesuivi en France depuis Louis XIV." 23 This fear of the Romantic as tantamountto the revolu- tionaryexplains, in part at least,Constant's extraordinarily cautious attitudein his prefaceto Wallstein,where he comparedthe German and French dramatic systems.He deliberatelyavoided the word 'romantic' altogetherand repeatedly stressedhis support of the native tradition,which was to be strengthenedand refreshed,not ousted by innovationsfrom abroad. A similarrevival of the French heritagewas advocated in Sainte-Beuve'sTableau de la poésie au seizièmesiècle (1827) which was of vital importancein the history of Romanticismin France; here Sainte-Beuve rehabilitated the hithertoneglected French poets of the sixteenthcentury, thereby pointingto the existenceof a native traditionanterior to and dif- ferentfrom the Neoclassical one. Consideringthe strengthof this Neoclassical canon of clarity, harmony,and 'good taste,'as well as the complexityof the political and social background,it is little wonder that the new Romantic orientation was so slow to infiltrateinto France. The French ROMANTICISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 13S

Romanticshad begun to emergeas a shadowyforce in opposition to the Neoclassiciststowards the middle of the 1810's,stimulated by De l'Allemagne and also by the translationin 181S of A. W. Schlegel's Vorlesungen über dramatischeKunst und Literatur. During the years 1814-1822 an outburst of anglomania swept through France following the isolation during the Napoleonic wars;lively interest was focusedon the 'conqueror/on the workings of the constitutionalmonarchy and parliamentarygovernment, the industrialrevolution, new economicdoctrines, and, of course,new writing,although unfortunatelythere was no outstandingperson- alityto do forEngland what Mme de Staël had done for Germany. Neverthelessthe technique of the 'Lakistes/ their use of imagery, the music and innovationsof theirverse, and theirnote of mystery aroused curiosity.In fact,Scott, Byron, and Shakespeareas well as Goethe and Schillerwere alreadyknown in France, but theirreal vogue came only about 1820 onward, when Byron in particular became the object of an idolatrousenthusiasm. This growingappre- ciation of English and German poets coincidedwith the formation of a number of Romantic groups centered either on a literary journal such as the Muse française(1823-4) or the famousLe Globe (1824-32),or in the French traditionon a salon such as that of Deschamps (1820), the Société des bonnes-lettres(1821), (1823), and finallythe Cénacle of Hugo and Sainte-Beuve (1827). The French Romantics were thus unlike the English, and more like the Germans,in their preferencefor groups, and the dates of these various groups and journals help to site the real breakthroughof Romanticismin France. Opposition was, however, far fromsilenced by the early 1820's; the traditionalistscontinued to attackRomanticism as an alien, dangerouselement, branding it as a "romantismebâtard," to quote the phrase coined in 1824 by Auger,the directorof the AcadémieFrançaise, in spiteof the efforts of the movement'sdefenders, such as CharlesNodier, who soughtto distinguishbetween le frénétique(vampirism, mere sensationalism) and thegenuinely romantique. Long afterRomanticism had become more or less acceptable in lyricpoetry through the worksof Lamartine,Hugo, and Vignyin the years1822-26, the finaland mostacrimonious battle was fought in the field of drama, the "dernièrefortresse" the "bastille litté- raire"1* of the Neoclassical tradition.Several earlier attemptsto stormthis bastion had failed; a performancein 1809 of Lemerder's 134 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

ChristopheColomb, subtitleda "comédie shakespearienne/'proved an utternasco, and in his renderingof Schiller'sWallenstein trilogy, which dates fromthe same year,Constant cautiouslyfelt the need to respectthe rules of our drama, as he put it, by reducing the numberof acts to fiveand the charactersto twelve.In the winterof 1827-28a company of English actors made a deep impressionin Paris, and it was during that winter,when enthusiasmfor Shake- speare was at its zenith,that Hugo wrote Cromwellwith its epoch- making preface.Not that Hugo's ideas in themselveswere of star- tling originality;sensational though it was in its historicalcontext, Hugo's attack on the three unities is in fact very reminiscentof Lessing'sarguments in the HamburgischeDramaturgie. Indeed the whole tone and spiritof the polemicsin France in the 1820'srecalls the mood of the German Sturmund Drang of the 1770's. Thus Le Globe definesits doctrineas "la liberté,""l'imitation directe de la nature," "l'originalité"2* while the concept "romantique" is 26 equated with "vie, activité,mouvement en avant" that is, in termswhich clearlyecho the dynamismof the Sturm und Drang. There is, therefore,ample justificationfor Goethe's perspicacious comment: "Was die Franzosen bei ihrer jetzigen literarischen Richtungfür etwas Neues halten, ist im Grunde weiter nichtsals der Widerscheindesjenigen, was die deutscheLiteratur seit fünfzig 27 Jahrengewollt und geworden." Goethe's estimateof fiftyyears as the timelag betweenGermany and France is well judged, forit was only with the noisy victoryof Hernani in 1830 that French drama achieved the freedomattained in Germanyin the 1770's by Götz von Berlichingenand Die Räuber. Moreover,while theFrench Romanticswere related to the German Stürmerund Dränger, the trueheirs of the German Romanticismof 1800-1815were undoubt- edly the FrenchSymbolist poets of the latterhalf of the nineteenth century.Baudelaire, Mallarmé, and Rimbaud subscribedto a new conceptionof art and the artist,a conception which was closely akin to the theoriesof the German Jena Romantic group: poetic experience was envisaged as essentiallydifferent from ordinary experience,a magic formof intuitivespiritual activity, a mysterious expansion into the transcendentalin which the visionary poet adventuredinto a dr^am-realmto explore the hidden sourcesand 'correspondences'of life. The battle forHernani in 1830 marksthe last greatmilestone in the Romantic conquest of Europe. Although Romanticismwas to ROMANTICISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 1S5

reignin France forsome ten moreyears, other currents were increas- inglyin evidence. By the mid-18 30' s Hugo was already advancing a more utilitarianconception of art, urgingthe artistto an aware- ness of his seriousduty to furtherthe progressof mankind.In this change of outlook, Hugo was anticipatinga trendcharacteristic of the mid-nineteenthcentury throughout Europe. In England and Germanythe springsof Romanticismhad dried up much earlier than in that late-starterFrance, and in both countriesby the mid- 1830's only a diluted, rathersentimentalized form of Romanticism survived alongside some witty satire directed against Romantic attitudes,satire like Peacock's CrotchetCastle (1831),Carlyle's Sartor Resartus(1833-34), Heine's RomantischeSchule (1833), and Immer- mann's Die Epigonen (1836) with its significanttitle, as well as his comic Miinchhausen (1839). Romanticismwas increasinglyout of tune with the spiritof the age as the centuryadvanced; the new sober mood and materialisticaims of the industrialera had little sympathyfor obscure nightsof individual imaginationand no use whatsoeverfor an art that 'bakes no bread' to quote a pertinent Americanproverb. The artistwas called to cease his selfishexplora- tion of his private realm, to come out of his ivory tower,and to assumehis share of social responsibility.The disciplinedobjectivity of Realism came to replace- at least for a time- the autonomous imaginationof Romanticism. This chronologicalsurvey should dispel a number of common misconceptionsregarding Romanticism. Foremost among these is the misapprehensionthat European Romanticism is a clearly definedentity, a unifiedschool which manifesteditself in several countriessimultaneously and shared certain ideals and predilec- tions.Almost equally prevalentand mistakenis the belief that the originsof Romanticismare to be found in Germanyand that both the English and the French Romantic poets were directlyand decisivelyinfluenced by the German theories. Such notions are more than gross oversimplifications;they are false premisesthat can only breed furthererror. A historicalanalysis of the course of Romanticismin Europe revealsa far more complicatedpicture, for the Romantic manner of perceptionand expressionappeared in various literaturesat differenttimes and in differentguises. Its emergenceis an uneven, stragglingprocess of long duration,punc- tuatedby curious time lags as the ascendancypassed fromone land to another. Moreover,since the spread of new ideas was largely 136 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

dependenton thechance reports of travelersin an age whencom- municationswere still relatively poor and furtherdisrupted by war, informationon contemporarydevelopments even in neighboring countrieswas oftenso scantand belatedthat many assumptions of influencemust be discounted.The outstandingexample of such slow and fragmentaryinfiltration of ideas is to be foundin De l'Allemagne:though written by a perspicaciousand widely-traveled critic,it containsin 1810very few of the ideas of the Jena Romantics whichwere to reachFrance only some half a centurylater. The outerhistory of European Romanticism - its successive waves, its new upsurgein one countryafter another - suggestsboth the vehemenceof its impetus and thecomplexity of itsnature. Though part of thatfundamental reorientation of values that took place throughoutEurope at theturn of theeighteenth to thenineteenth century,it was not a singlebut a multiplemovement; indeed it compriseda wholeseries of movementsfrom the Sturm und Drang onward,each separateand distinctin character,yet all involvedin a profound"crise de la conscience9'as individualistic,imaginative, subjectiveattitudes replaced the old rationalisticapproach. The timingand formof thiscrisis differed from land to land becauseit was in each case determinedby theliterary background as well as by socialand politicalfactors. Hence thebewildering variety of the facesand productsof Romanticism:it is notjust a matterof genre, withthe English excelling at lyricpoetry, the French concentrating on dramain theirbattle against the stronghold of theNeoclassical theatre,while the transcendentalyearnings of the Germansfind theirmost appropriate vehicle in theMärchen-like narrative. This in itselfis only a symptonof far deeper divergences.German Romanticism,for instance,is not only the most radical and thoroughgoing,embracing all the arts and philosophy,politics, religion,science, and history,but also distinguishedfrom its English and Frenchcounterparts at firstby a strongbias towardsthe meta- physicaland laterby its patrioticcolouring. French Romanticism resemblesthe Germanbrand in its preferencefor organization in groupsand in itsdynamic thrust; on theother hand, it differsfrom the Germanmovement (and is hereincloser to the English)in remainingalmost entirely in the domainof art,and it is charac- terizedabove all byits violent revolt against the stifling dominance of the nativeNeoclassical tradition. In contrast,English Roman- ticismis thefreshest and freest,the least self-conscious and codified ROMANTICISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 137

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because it evolved not against,but organicallyout of, the native tradition. In view of the confusionsurrounding the termand the concept of Romanticism,there is surelya strongcase foran honestrecogni- tion of thesedifferences - of the factthat therehave been a number of Romantic movementsin Europe. It is only in the light of the correcthistorical perspective that a new approach can thenbe made to the Romantic movementsin England, France, and Germanyin an attemptto appreciatethe particularcharacter of each and at the same timeto understandtheir interrelationship. Lilian R. Fürst • UniversityofManchester, England

NOTES

1. P. van Tieghem,Le Romantismedans la littératureeuropéenne (París, 1948),p. 247. 2. I. Berlin,"Some Sourcesof Romanticism/'six lecturesdelivered in Wash- ington,broadcast B.B.C. "Third Programme,"August-September 1966. 3. M. Akenside,Pleasures of Imagination, Bk. 1,1. 120. 4. J. Macpherson,,The Poems of Ossian,I (London,1784), 205. 5. E. Young, Conjectureson Original Composition(Manchester, England, 1918),p. 7. 6. Young,Conjectures, p. 13. 7. L. Abercrombie,Romanticism (London, 1926), p. 28, footnote. 8. Brockes,"Considerations on the moonlightof a pleasantspring evening/' EarthlyJoy in God, reprintedin DeutscheLiteratur in Entwicklungsreihen: Das Weltbildder deutschenAufklärung (Leipzig, 1930), p. 245: Hardlyhad thenight begun to appear Whichpromised the joy of cool afterthe burden of theday's heat, Whena newday seemed to dawn: Out of thegrey mist covering the horizonwith crimson streaks Afterthe sultry atmosphere of the day The fullmoon had just risenwith a reddishgold shine, And fromits changing circle, Whichfills the night with shimmering light, Moregrace flower than shimmering light. 9. Goethe,"To theMoon": Once moreyou fillthe bushes and thevalley Silentlywith a mistyradiance, Atlast too you release Mysoul completely; Overmy fields you spread Yourgaze soothingly, like thegentle eye of a friend Watchingmy destiny. ROMANTICISMIN HISTORICALPERSPECTIVE 143

10. F. Strich,"Europe and the Romanticmovement/' German Life and Letters,Jl (1948-9),87. 11. F. Schlegel,Kritische Schriften, ed. W. Rasch (Munich,1956), p. 37: "a progressiveuniversal poetry." 12. Mme de Staël,De l'Allemagne(Oxford, 1906), p. 1: "For the past twenty yearsthe Frenchhave been so preoccupiedwith political happenings that aU literarymatters have been in abeyance." 13. Staël,De l'Allemagne,p. 171: "For sometime people in Francehave been readinghardly anything other than memoirsand novels;it is not entirelyout of frivolitythat people have becomeless equal to seriousreading, but because the happeningsof the Revolutionhave accustomedthem to attachimportance solelyto knowledge of events and men." 14. F. F. Schirmer,Kleine Schriften(Tubingen, 1950), p. 173: "herald or interpreter." 15. Staël,De l'Allemagne,p. 178: "the manneredstyle of writing." 16. X. Marmier,preface to a translationof Schillerspoems (1854), p. vi: "a fairy-taleland, where men warbleand singlike birds." 17. Staël,De l'Allemagne,p. 33: "that whichpreceded Christianity and that whichfollowed it." 18. Nodier,Débats, April 19, 1817: "the head of the schoolof melancholy." 19. F. w. Stokoe,German Influence m theEnglish Romantic rerioa, Appendix V, pp. 180-87,lists German works translated into English 1789-1803. 20. Keats,Letters (Oxford, 1934), p. 72. 21. H. N. FaiTchild,"The Romanticmovement in England,"PMLA, LV (1940), 24. 22. Nodier,Débats, January 6, 1816: "nationalcontroversy. 23. Duvicquet,Le Globe,December 6, 1825: "the word 'romantic'is used in Francenowadays to denoteany workcontrary to the systemcurrent in France sinceLouis XIV." 24. Desmarais,Le Globe, October29, 1825: "the finalbastion, the literary Bastille." 25. Anon.,Le Globe, October 29, 1825: "freedom,""imitation only from nature,""originality." 26. Duvergicrde Hauranne,Le Globe,March 24, 1825: life,activity, surging forwards." 27. Goethe,as reportedby Eckermann,Gespräche mtt Goethe (1955), p. 673, 6th March,1830: "What the Frenchnow regardas a new tendencyin their literatureis basicallynothing but a reflectionof what Germanliterature has soughtand achievedduring the last fifty yean."