Introduction to Romanticism

Romanticism has very little to do with things popularly thought of as "romantic,"

although love may occasionally be the subject of Romantic art. Rather, it is an
international artistic and philosophical movement that redefined the fundamental ways in
which people in Western cultures thought about themselves and about their world.
Historical Considerations
It is one of the curiosities of literary history that the strongholds of the Romantic
Movement were England and Germany, not the countries of the romance languages
themselves. Thus it is from the historians of English and German literature that we inherit
the convenient set of terminal dates for the Romantic period, beginning in 1798, the year
of the first edition of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge and of the
composition of Hymns to the Night by Novalis, and ending in 1832, the year which
marked the deaths of both Sir Walter Scott and Goethe. However, as an international
movement affecting all the arts, Romanticism begins at least in the 1770's and continues
into the second half of the nineteenth century, later for American literature than for
European, and later in some of the arts, like music and painting, than in literature. This
extended chronological spectrum (1770-1870) also permits recognition as Romantic the
poetry of Robert Burns and William Blake in England, the early writings of Goethe and
Schiller in Germany, and the great period of influence for Rousseau's writings throughout
Europe.
The early Romantic period thus coincides with what is often called the "age of
revolutions"--including, of course, the American (1776) and the French (1789)
revolutions--an age of upheavals in political, economic, and social traditions, the age
which witnessed the initial transformations of the Industrial Revolution. A revolutionary
energy was also at the core of Romanticism, which quite consciously set out to transform
not only the theory and practice of poetry (and all art), but the very way we perceive the
world. Some of its major precepts have survived into the twentieth century and still affect
our contemporary period.
Imagination
The imagination was elevated to a position as the supreme faculty of the
mind. This contrasted distinctly with the traditional arguments for the supremacy of
reason. The Romantics tended to define and to present the imagination as our ultimate
"shaping" or creative power, the approximate human equivalent of the creative powers of
nature or even deity. It is dynamic, an active, rather than passive power, with many
functions. Imagination is the primary faculty for creating all art. On a broader scale, it is
also the faculty that helps humans to constitute reality, for (as Wordsworth suggested), we
not only perceive the world around us, but also in part create it. Uniting both reason and
feeling (Coleridge described it with the paradoxical phrase, "intellectual intuition"),
imagination is extolled as the ultimate synthesizing faculty, enabling humans to reconcile
differences and opposites in the world of appearance. The reconciliation of opposites is a
central ideal for the Romantics. Finally, imagination is inextricably bound up with the
other two major concepts, for it is presumed to be the faculty which enables us to "read"
nature as a system of symbols.
Nature

"Nature" meant many things to the Romantics. As suggested above, it was often
presented as itself a work of art, constructed by a divine imagination, in emblematic
language. For example, throughout "Song of Myself," Whitman makes a practice of
presenting commonplace items in nature--"ants," "heap'd stones," and "poke-weed"--as
containing divine elements, and he refers to the "grass" as a natural "hieroglyphic," "the
handkerchief of the Lord." While particular perspectives with regard to nature varied
considerably--nature as a healing power, nature as a source of subject and image, nature
as a refuge from the artificial constructs of civilization, including artificial language--the
prevailing views accorded nature the status of an organically unified whole. It was
viewed as "organic," rather than, as in the scientific or rationalist view, as a system of
"mechanical" laws, for Romanticism displaced the rationalist view of the universe as a
machine (e.g., the deistic image of a clock) with the analogue of an "organic" image, a
living tree or mankind itself. At the same time, Romantics gave greater attention both to
describing natural phenomena accurately and to capturing "sensuous nuance"--and this is
as true of Romantic landscape painting as of Romantic nature poetry. Accuracy of
observation, however, was not sought for its own sake. Romantic nature poetry is
essentially a poetry of meditation.
Symbolism and Myth
Symbolism and myth were given great prominence in the Romantic conception of art.
In the Romantic view, symbols were the human aesthetic correlatives of nature's
emblematic language. They were valued too because they could simultaneously suggest
many things, and were thus thought superior to the one-to-one communications of
allegory. Partly, it may have been the desire to express the "inexpressible"--the infinite-through the available resources of language that led to symbol at one level and myth (as
symbolic narrative) at another.
Other Concepts: Emotion, Lyric Poetry, and the Self
Other aspects of Romanticism were intertwined with the above three concepts.
Emphasis on the activity of the imagination was accompanied by greater emphasis on the
importance of intuition, instincts, and feelings, and Romantics generally called for greater
attention to the emotions as a necessary supplement to purely logical reason. When this
emphasis was applied to the creation of poetry, a very important shift of focus occurred.
Wordsworth's definition of all good poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings" marks a turning point in literary history. By locating the ultimate source of
poetry in the individual artist, the tradition, stretching back to the ancients, of valuing art
primarily for its ability to imitate human life (that is, for its mimetic qualities) was
reversed. In Romantic theory, art was valuable not so much as a mirror of the external
world, but as a source of illumination of the world within. Among other things, this led to
a prominence for first-person lyric poetry never accorded it in any previous period. The
"poetic speaker" became less a persona and more the direct person of the poet.
Wordsworth's Prelude and Whitman's "Song of Myself" are both paradigms of successful
experiments to take the growth of the poet's mind (the development of self) as subject for
an "epic" enterprise made up of lyric components. Confessional prose narratives such as
Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) and Chateaubriand's Rene (1801), as well as
disguised autobiographical verse narratives such as Byron's Childe Harold (1818), are

related phenomena. The interior journey and the development of the self recurred
everywhere as subject material for the Romantic artist. The artist-as-hero is a specifically
Romantic type.
Contrasts With Neoclassicism
Consequently, the Romantics sought to define their goals through systematic contrast
with the norms of "Versailles neoclassicism." In their critical manifestoes--the 1800
"Preface" to Lyrical Ballads, the critical studies of the Schlegel brothers in Germany, the
later statements of Victor Hugo in France, and of Hawthorne, Poe, and Whitman in the
United States--they self-consciously asserted their differences from the previous age (the
literary "ancien regime"), and declared their freedom from the mechanical "rules."
Certain special features of Romanticism may still be highlighted by this contrast. We
have already noted two major differences: the replacement of reason by the imagination
for primary place among the human faculties and the shift from a mimetic to an
expressive orientation for poetry, and indeed all literature. In addition, neoclassicism had
prescribed for art the idea that the general or universal characteristics of human behavior
were more suitable subject matter than the peculiarly individual manifestations of human
activity. From at least the opening statement of Rousseau's Confessions, first published in
1781--"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."--this view was
challenged.
Individualism: The Romantic Hero
The Romantics asserted the importance of the individual, the unique, even the
eccentric. Consequently they opposed the character typology of neoclassical drama. In
another way, of course, Romanticism created its own literary types. The hero-artist has
already been mentioned; there were also heaven-storming types from Prometheus to
Captain Ahab, outcasts from Cain to the Ancient Mariner and even Hester Prynne, and
there was Faust, who wins salvation in Goethe's great drama for the very reasons--his
characteristic striving for the unattainable beyond the morally permitted and his insatiable
thirst for activity--that earlier had been viewed as the components of his tragic sin. (It was
in fact Shelley's opinion that Satan, in his noble defiance, was the real hero of Milton's
Paradise Lost.)
In style, the Romantics preferred boldness over the preceding age's desire for
restraint, maximum suggestiveness over the neoclassical ideal of clarity, free
experimentation over the "rules" of composition, genre, and decorum, and they promoted
the conception of the artist as "inspired" creator over that of the artist as "maker" or
technical master. Although in both Germany and England there was continued interest in
the ancient classics, for the most part the Romantics allied themselves with the very
periods of literature that the neoclassicists had dismissed, the Middle Ages and the
Baroque, and they embraced the writer whom Voltaire had called a barbarian,
Shakespeare. Although interest in religion and in the powers of faith were prominent
during the Romantic period, the Romantics generally rejected absolute systems, whether
of philosophy or religion, in favor of the idea that each person (and humankind
collectively) must create the system by which to live.

The Everyday and the Exotic

The attitude of many of the Romantics to the everyday, social world around them was
complex. It is true that they advanced certain realistic techniques, such as the use of
"local color" (through down-to-earth characters, like Wordsworth's rustics, or through
everyday language, as in Emily Bronte's northern dialects or Whitman's colloquialisms,
or through popular literary forms, such as folk narratives). Yet social realism was usually
subordinate to imaginative suggestion, and what was most important were the ideals
suggested by the above examples, simplicity perhaps, or innocence. Earlier, the 18thcentury cult of the noble savage had promoted similar ideals, but now artists often turned
for their symbols to domestic rather than exotic sources--to folk legends and older,
"unsophisticated" art forms, such as the ballad, to contemporary country folk who used
"the language of commen men," not an artificial "poetic diction," and to children (for the
first time presented as individuals, and often idealized as sources of greater wisdom than
adults).
Simultaneously, as opposed to everyday subjects, various forms of the exotic in time
and/or place also gained favor, for the Romantics were also fascinated with realms of
existence that were, by definition, prior to or opposed to the ordered conceptions of
"objective" reason. Often, both the everyday and the exotic appeared together in
paradoxical combinations. In the Lyrical Ballads, for example, Wordsworth and
Coleridge agreed to divide their labors according to two subject areas, the natural and the
supernatural: Wordsworth would try to exhibit the novelty in what was all too familiar,
while Coleridge would try to show in the supernatural what was psychologically real,
both aiming to dislodge vision from the "lethargy of custom." The concept of the
beautiful soul in an ugly body, as characterized in Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre
Dame and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, is another variant of the paradoxical
combination.
The Romantic Artist in Society
In another way too, the Romantics were ambivalent toward the "real" social world
around them. They were often politically and socially involved, but at the same time they
began to distance themselves from the public. As noted earlier, high Romantic artists
interpreted things through their own emotions, and these emotions included social and
political consciousness--as one would expect in a period of revolution, one that reacted so
strongly to oppression and injustice in the world. So artists sometimes took public stands,
or wrote works with socially or politically oriented subject matter. Yet at the same time,
another trend began to emerge, as they withdrew more and more from what they saw as
the confining boundaries of bourgeois life. In their private lives, they often asserted their
individuality and differences in ways that were to the middle class a subject of intense
interest, but also sometimes of horror. ("Nothing succeeds like excess," wrote Oscar
Wilde, who, as a partial inheritor of Romantic tendencies, seemed to enjoy shocking the
bourgeois, both in his literary and life styles.) Thus the gulf between "odd" artists and
their sometimes shocked, often uncomprehending audience began to widen. Some artists
may have experienced ambivalence about this situation--it was earlier pointed out how

Emily Dickinson seemed to regret that her "letters" to the world would go unanswered.
Yet a significant Romantic theme became the contrast between artist and middle-class
"Philistine." Unfortunately, in many ways, this distance between artist and public remains
with us today.
Spread of the Romantic Spirit
Finally, it should be noted that the revolutionary energy underlying the Romantic
Movement affected not just literature, but all of the arts--from music (consider the rise of
Romantic opera) to painting, from sculpture to architecture. Its reach was also
geographically significant, spreading as it did eastward to Russia, and westward to
America. For example, in America, the great landscape painters, particularly those of the
"Hudson River School," and the Utopian social colonies that thrived in the 19th century,
are manifestations of the Romantic spirit on this side of the Atlantic.
Recent Developments
Some critics have believed that the two identifiable movements that followed
Romanticism--Symbolism and Realism--were separate developments of the opposites
which Romanticism itself had managed, at its best, to unify and to reconcile. Whether or
not this is so, it is clear that Romanticism transformed Western culture in many ways that
survive into our own times. It is only very recently that any really significant turning
away from Romantic paradigms has begun to take place, and even that turning away has
taken place in a dramatic, typically Romantic way.
Today a number of literary theorists have called into question two major Romantic
perceptions: that the literary text is a separate, individuated, living "organism"; and that
the artist is a fiercely independent genius who creates original works of art. In current
theory, the separate, "living" work has been dissolved into a sea of "intertextuality,"
derived from and part of a network or "archive" of other texts--the many different kinds
of discourse that are part of any culture. In this view, too, the independently sovereign
artist has been demoted from a heroic, consciously creative agent, to a collective "voice,"
more controlled than controlling, the intersection of other voices, other texts, ultimately
dependent upon possibilities dictated by language systems, conventions, and
institutionalized power structures. It is an irony of history, however, that the explosive
appearance on the scene of these subversive ideas, delivered in what seemed to the
establishment to be radical manifestoes, and written by linguistically powerful
individuals, has recapitulated the revolutionary spirit and events of Romanticism itself.

Overview of Romanticism in Literature

In the most basic sense, Romanticism, which is loosely identified as spanning the years of
1783-1830,1 2 can be distinguished from the preceding period called the Enlightenment
by observing that the one elevated the role of spirit, soul, instinct, and emotion, while the
other advocated a cool, detached scientific approach to most human endeavors and
dilemmas.3 In short, Romanticism in literature was a rejection of many of the values
movements such as the Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution held as paramount.
Romanticism, initiated by the English poets such as Coleridge and Wordsworth, as well
as Blake, Keats, Shelley, was concentrated primarily in the creative expressions of
literature and the arts; however, the philosophy and sentiment characteristic of the
Romanticism movement would spread throughout Europe and would ultimately impact
not only the arts and humanities, but the society at large, permanently changing the ways
in which human emotions, relationships, and institutions were viewed, understood, and
artistically and otherwise reflected. As Bloom and Trilling observe, some of the most
cherished ideals of the Romantic Age have not been lost with the passage of time. On the
contrary, Romanticism [has become] an ageless and recurrent phenomenon.4

The Enlightenment was the name given to the period that preceded the Romantic Age,
and it is in understanding the key features of the Enlightenment that one can best
understand how the characteristics of Romanticism came to be, and how they differed so
radically from those of the industrialized era. The Enlightenment had developed and
championed logic and reason above all other qualities and there was little room in this
worldview for the emotion-based nature that would define Romanticism. According the
Enlightenment view, people and their relationships, roles, institutions, and indeed, their
whole societies, could be understood best if organized and approached with a scientific
perspective.5 During this time, it was believed that objectivity was not only desirable, but
also achievable. Subjective emotions, contemplation of nature, and the creative impulse
felt by individuals were all of far lesser importance than building the physical and
commercial infrastructure of a country that had new resources, techniques, and capital
with which to experiment.6 The literary products of the period reflected the priorities and
values of the time, focusing mainly on political and economic themes. Philosophical
writings similarly reflected the mechanistic preoccupations of the age and dealt more so
than ever with the individual human experience as well as personal thoughts.

Romanticism, then, emerged as a reaction against what was perceived to be a cultural

climate that had been lacking in spontaneity, creativity, and individuality. Indeed, some of
the earliest and most profound writings of the Romantic period were not the poems
themselves, but manifestos and discourses on the nature of human beings and creative
expression, such as Coleridges Biographia Literaria, Shelleys A Defence of Poetry, and
Wordsworths Preface to Lyrical Ballads. In these three exemplary prose pieces, the
Romantic poets promote their vision of what poetry, and by extension, society, should be.
Their vision was quite distinct from that of the Enlightenment, and in these pieces, the
major characteristics of Romanticism were developed and disseminated. One of these
characteristics, as articulated by Wordsworth in the Preface was the belief that ordinary
things [were worth writing about] and should be presented to the mind in an unusual
way.7 The Romantics believed that through close attention, the most ordinary, quotidian
objects, emotions, and experiences could be elevated to the extraordinary.

Another characteristic of Romanticism, as expressed by Shelley in his Defence, was the

belief that emotions and relationships were not just important, but were the very currency
of life. Rather than functioning as a cog in a wheel, mechanically and unaware of the
other parts comprising the whole machine, Shelley argued that: The great secret of
mortals is loveand an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in
thought, action, or person, not our own. A man, to be greatly good, must imagine
intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many
others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own.8 While some of the
Romantics were more inwardly focused than the kind of engagement that Shelley called
for so passionately in his Defence, they tended to agree on the major characteristics of
Romanticism: the valuation of intensely felt emotion, the importance of creative
expression, and the possibility of transcending ordinary experience, which was referred to
as achieving a state of sublimity.9 As Bloom and Trilling explain, the meaning of
sublimity changed between the Enlightenment and Romantic periods: This sublimity
[unlike that of previous eras]is not a Sublime of great conceptions, before which the
self feels small, but rather of a hoped-for potential, in which the private self turns upon
infinitude, and so is found by its own greatness.10

Romanticism was, above all, an experimental project of self and social quest, a quest for
intense experiences that were felt deeply, a quest for connection, a quest for
transcendence, and a quest to know the selfand, by extension, othersmore
profoundly. The quest did not occur, nor could it have occurred, by creating a plan to
achieve it. Rather, it was through constant observation and alertness, and the devotion of
attention to the most minute and seemingly unimportant details of daily life, that the self,
and therefore society, had the possibility of transmuting itself into something greater.
Bloom and Trilling refer to Romanticism as a health-restoring revival of the instinctual
life.11 Rather than trust in machines, industry, and scientifically-based progress,
Romanticism encouraged people to look inward, trusting themselves and their own

intuition. Romantics also directed their own and others attention to nature, where all
organic processes could be observed, celebrated, and from which lessons could be
learned. Through these shifts in focus, the Romantics argued, it would become possible
for people to know themselves and the world better and more fully.
Whereas the preceding age of Enlightenment had promised that reason, logic, and
scientific processes would lead to knowledge, success, and a better society, the
Romantics challenged that notion, and changed the equation. It was no longer necessary
to follow traditional formulae; rather, new literary forms and new modes of expression
could be created. The major Romantic questers, write Bloom and Trilling, offered
through their own examples the possibility of engage[ing] in the extraordinary enterprise
of seeking to re-beget their own selves, as though through the imagination a man might
hope to become his own father, or at least his own heroic precursor.12 Perhaps
Romanticism was adopted so quickly and on such a widespread scale across Europe and
then, not long after, to America, because it was an antidote to the hyper-accelerated
period of change that the Industrial Revolutions had ushered in during the previous
epoch. Given that the Industrial Revolution had caused such dramatic shifts in all aspects
of society, changing the ways that people thought, felt, worked, and related with one
another, it would not be unreasonable to hypothesize that such a shift in paradigm and in
practice created a sort of cognitive dissonance. Such dissonance might only have been
possible to resolve by embracing the backlash that Romanticism represented to the
Enlightenment ideas and ideals. Whereas the Enlightenment could be interpreted as
having drained the creativity and spontaneity out of life, making tasks and relationships
predictable through mechanization, Romanticism offered the hope of restoration through
small and unexpected pleasures. Romanticism invited people to dream again, to imagine,
to give in to flights of fancy, to explore the border between conscious experience and
unconscious dreams and desires.13
These ideals of Romanticism, first articulated by the English poets, spread to other
artistic genres, including music and the visual arts, as well as to other countries. For those
countries which had not yet coalesced in terms of their own national identity, the
Romanticism offered a creative framework for defining and expressing what was unique
to that region, for Romanticism was inherently creative and imaginative, inviting its
adherents to envision possibilities that might never have been entertained before. As a
result, the value of the individual, of the arts, and of emotional expression, was able to
regain a place in thought and practice, tempering the logic-bound tendencies of science
with the shifting philosophies of emotion. As Bloom and Trilling observe, the
contributions of the Romantics remain valuable and relevant in contemporary life.
Perhaps, they write, romanticism isendemic in human nature, for all men and
women are questers to some degree

One important aspect and recurring theme throughout romantic poetry is the connection
between the natural world and children. In Coleridges Frost at Midnight and
Wordsworths Ode: Intimations of Immortality childhood is a sacred time during which
the natural and human realms become intertwined. In both poems there is a clear
relationship between the elements and children and although this bond is explored in
slightly different ways, the romantic notion of the inextricable link between the human
and natural worlds is prominent. Adulthood becomes a time to consider the practical
aspects of nature and to exist within it while childhood offers the opportunity to actually
bond with and become nature itself. Because of this special time of almost magical and
pure bonding between the natural world and childhood, one gets the sense that both poets
are trying to convey an air of the supernatural associated with this theme.

Unlike those writing Victorian Poetry, the romantics consider childhood to be a time
when nature, humanity, and even God are at one with one another and this magic lasts
until the onset of adulthood. Once a child is an adult, the mysterious and powerful
connection is severed and thus the romantic ideal of a supreme unity of the universe
(through the child/nature relationship) exists no longer. Both poems at once lament this
loss of a romantic relationship between earth, children, and God, as well as rejoice at the
prospect of witnessing it occur with the children they are surrounded by.

In Coleridges poem, Frost at Midnight, in the true form of romanticism, the speaker
considers childhoodboth his own and that of the infant sleeping next to himand
discusses how nature and children are intertwined and, in many ways, dependent on one
another. Interestingly, in this poem the natural world outside of the speakers home
reflects the infants state of deep sleep and the reader is told, Tis calm indeed! So calm
that it disturbs / and vexes meditation with its strange / And extreme stillness. Sea, hill,
and wood (lines 5-10). Even before the poem and its themes have begun to unravel
the reader is offered this clear connection between childhood and the natural world as the
image of an ice-encrusted landscape deep in slumber is complimented by that of a deeply
sleeping baby. These thoughts, which come to speaker because of the stillness of the
outside world and the sleeping baby cause him to reflect about his own childhood and he
mourns that he was not able to experience the important connection to the natural world
because, as he puts it, For I was reared / In the great city, pent mid cloisters dim, / And
saw naught lovely but the sky and starts (lines 55-57). As an adult, the speaker
recognizes the importance of having an immediate and tangible connection to the natural
world and vows that his infant Shalt wander like a breeze / By lakes and sandy
shores (lines 58-59) and will be exposed to the natural elements so that he may not
experience the melancholy that speaker has when considering how he was denied this
exposure.

Romanticism & Frost at Midnight by Coleridge and Ode:

Intimations of Immortality by Wordsworth
In Frost at Midnight by Coleridge, the speaker promises his child that he will
understand nature and, So shalt thou see and hear / The lovely shapes and sounds
intelligible / Of that eternal language, which thy God / Utters, who from eternity doth
teach/ Himself in all, and all things in himself (lines 60-64). With this closing thought
the speaker relates children and the natural world to God as well and demonstrates how
seeing, hearing, and experiencing natural will allow his infant to be closer to God and
understand him better. Because of this connection of the natural world, the child, and
God, the speaker maintains that all seasons shall be sweet (67) to the young child as
long as this relationship continues. In this poem it is clear that the speaker (perhaps
because of his early lack of immediate connection to nature) realizes that there is
something sacred about a child having direct access to the natural world. He seems to
believe that this proximity will allow the infant to experience God and the concept in
romanticism literature and poetry of unity between the human and natural worlds. Even
though the speaker recognizes that there is a city outside of his quiet house that will
eventually envelop the infant as he reaches adulthood, this foreknowledge does not taint
the hopeful theme of the poem and states that the child, with access to nature, will go on
to develop an almost magical connection with the world around him.
In Wordsworths poem, Ode: Intimations of Immortality the theme of children and their
inherent link to the natural world is also explored, albeit in slightly different terms. Just as
in the case of Coleridges poem, the connection between childhood and the landscape or
setting is made immediately clear. Although the reader cannot be certain the speaker is
discussing his impressions as a child necessarily, it is clear that he is remembering a time
when he was younger. He tells us that he remembers a time when the natural world he
was surrounded by appeared to him to be apparelld in celestial light / [with] The glory
and freshness of a dream (lines 3-5). Like the speaker in Coleridges poem, however,
who recalls his own childhoods lack of connection to nature with sadness, Wordsworths
speaker claims that these memories and ways of seeing nature have gradually faded.

Consequently, in both poems Frost at Midnight by Coleridge and Ode : Intimations of

Immortality by Wordsworth, it seems that adulthood somehow brings about a severance
of the sacred connection of childhood and the natural world. Still, the speaker goes on to
look at the shepherd boy and ponders the relationship further, just as Coleridge does in
his poem with regards to his sleeping infant. Wordsworth sees youth and childhood as
being intimately connected to the natural world and as a result of this, to God as well.
Despite his somewhat melancholy state, he begins to rejoice as he says in regards to the
children, Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call / Ye to each other make; I see / The
heaven laugh with you in your jubilee (lines 36-39). Like Coleridge when he observes
the way God and nature come together to make children see and hear Wordsworth also
recognizes the sacred connection of nature and children. This realization lifts him up and

he states, O evil day! If I were sullen / While Earth herself is adorning, / This sweet
May-morning / And the children are culling (lines 43-45) and vows to rejoice in the
moment.

In the poem by Wordsworth, Ode : Intimations of Immortality the speaker sees the
children he speaks of as being like the month of May as they are in the blooming stage of
life with Mother Earth to adorn them with her surroundings. This recognition of the
almost magical connection between the children and nature prompts the speaker s tone
to change gradually throughout the poem from initially feeling as though something has
been lost about his own connection to the natural world to rejoicing in the observation of
children. By end of the poem he states, I love the brooks which down their channels fret,
/ Even more than when I trippd lightly as they (lines 198-199). In other words, by
witnessing the interaction of nature and childhood, the speaker has gained a new love for
the natural world and a deeper understanding of the connection between himself,
children, and the universe as a who Throughout the canon of romantic poetry, the
supernatural is often explored and in many senses, the connection between children and
the natural world has a quality that goes outside of normal boundaries. Childhood is a
magical time during which the romantic concept of a supreme unity between universe
and self is realized and thus it is a ripe theme for romantic poets such as Coleridge and
Wordsworth to explore. Both poets recognize that adulthood is the end of the spell that
only children fall under and as Wordsworth states, Shades of the prison-house begin to
close / Upon the growing Boy (lines 68-69). Adulthood brings about a new
understanding of nature as being merely the setting for what Coleridge defines (in his
description of the bustling town) as This populous village With all the numberless
goings-on of life that simply detract from the purity of childhood. For these romantic
poets, childhood is something that is imbued with an almost holy element as it is only
during this time that a true and pure connection can be made between the three most
important realms in existence (especially in terms of romantic thought): nature, god, and
unity with the universe.

Resistance and Rebellion as Common Themes in Romanticism, The Enlightenment,

and the Renaissance

When considering three major movements in world civilization and history;

Romanticism, the Enlightenment, and the Renaissance, one theme that runs throughout is
that of rebellion. More specifically, this rebellion in all three movements was against past
traditions and each of these periods in history was geared toward eradicating old ways of
thinking. While the reasons for rebelling against the old social and artistic order vary for
each of these movements, the fact remains that all three were successful at changing

many aspects of society and all each movement has had an enormous impact on history
and artistic expression.
Romanticism was a movement that took place in Europe throughout the latter part of the
18th century. This period in history was a direct rebellion against many of the artistic and
societal values of the previous era, which was the Enlightenment. While the
Enlightenment movement focused on ideas of reason, rationality, and empiricism,
romanticism went the complete opposite direction and explored new ideas about
emotions and beauty. The main part of this rebellion was centered around the notion that
not everything could be coldly rationalized and that beauty and aesthetics were important
parts of existence. Although it was in direct opposition to the Enlightenment, romanticism
as a movement did also build off of some of the new ideas that were part of that period
such as a renewed interest in the individual. Romanticism was a movement in history that
went one step further and began to focus on individual experience as well as the human
brainmostly as it related to feelings and personal thoughts. In general, however, it
could be easily argued that without the Enlightenment movement there would not have
been romanticism, mostly because the former had to exist for the rebellion in ideas to
take place.

The Enlightenment, a movement in Western history that came just before romanticism,
was itself a rebellious movement that developed out of a prior period that emphasized
ideas such as religion. In addition, before this period, there was more weight given to
speculations about god and the natural order of things whereas with the Enlightenment
empiricism became one of the core ideas. During the Enlightenment movement new
rebellious ideas about the nature of mans connection to the universe as well as the
concept of the individual with natural rights emerged. These were rebellious notions,
especially since before this time people viewed themselves as part of a hierarchy based
on many religious and social notions such as class. Science and observation were at the
forefront of this movement and many thinkers of the time wished to know the truth
through their own experience and process of experimentation and hypothesis. This period
in artistic history was a rebellion against the old order because before many people were
content to believe in disprovable truths, such as the nature of the heavens or of things
such as weather or medical phenomena. Although the Enlightenment sought to keep
people rational, this would not be enough for later rebellious movements such as
Romanticism, where people began to look behind facts and closer into the individual
experience.

The Renaissance was a rebellious movement as well but not in the reactionary sense that
the previous two movements in history discussed here were. This is because the
Renaissance was more like an explosion in knowledge and learning that caused a huge
intellectual shift throughout Europe, especially since it came on the heels of the advent of
printing processes. What is, however, rebellious about this period is that it saw so many

new ways of thinking and doing things. Artists, writers and philosophers were breaking
out of the dark ages and allowing themselves to experiment with new ideas. Men such
as da Vinci were engaging with topics such as art, medicine and technology just as
writers were finding new ways to tell stories or represent truths about their time period.
What is most interesting about this movement is that it is in many ways the most
rebellious since it saw so much change yet much of this change seems almost organic. It
was rebelling against anything in particular but the changes were so vast and sweeping
that it was the ultimate rebellious movement in Western civilization. Without the many
new developments that arose out the of the Renaissance the world might never have
experienced successive movements such as those discussed here.

Without rebellion there can be no history; time would just go on without anything to
mark off significant or important periods. In these three movements it is possible to detect
a string of rebellions that led to major intellectual shifts. It all started with the ultimate
rebellion in thinkingthe Renaissance. After the Renaissance, new ideas, particularly
about science and experimentation, went on to inform the events of the Enlightenment.
After this, thinkers during the era of romanticism picked and chose some of the ideas of
these previous movements and developed their own new, rebellious, and unique
understanding of the world. In sum, all intellectual movements that influence history are
part of a grand chain of rebellion and it seems that this will always be the case if history
is any teacher.
A Brief Guide to Romanticism

"In spite of difference of soil and climate, of language and manners, of laws and customs,
in spite of things silently gone out of mind and things violently destroyed, the Poet binds
together by passion and knowledge the vast empire of human society, as it is spread over
the whole earth, and over all time. The objects of the Poet's thoughts are every where;
though the eyes and senses of man are, it is true, his favorite guides, yet he will follow
wheresoever he can find an atmosphere of sensation in which to move his wings. Poetry
is the first and last of all knowledge--it is as immortal as the heart of man."
--William Wordsworth, "Preface to Lyrical Ballads"
Romanticism was arguably the largest artistic movement of the late 1700s. Its influence
was felt across continents and through every artistic discipline into the mid-nineteenth
century, and many of its values and beliefs can still be seen in contemporary poetry.
It is difficult to pinpoint the exact start of the Romantic movement, as its beginnings can
be traced to many events of the time: a surge of interest in folklore in the mid- to lateeighteenth century with the work of the brothers Grimm, reactions against neoclassicism

and the Augustan poets in England, and political events and uprisings that fostered
nationalistic pride.
Romantic poets cultivated individualism, reverence for the natural world, idealism,
physical and emotional passion, and an interest in the mystic and supernatural. Romantics
set themselves in opposition to the order and rationality of classical and neoclassical
artistic precepts to embrace freedom and revolution in their art and politics. German
romantic poets included Fredrich Schiller and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and British
poets such as William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley,
George Gordon Lord Byron, and John Keats propelled the English Romantic movement.
Victor Hugo was a noted French Romantic poet as well, and romanticism crossed the
Atlantic through the work of American poets like Walt Whitman and Edgar Allan Poe.
The Romantic era produced many of the stereotypes of poets and poetry that exist to this
day (i.e., the poet as a highly tortured and melancholy visionary).
Romantic ideals never specifically died out in poetry, but were largely absorbed into the
precepts of many other movements. Traces of romanticism lived on in French symbolism
and surrealism and in the work of prominent poets such as Charles Baudelaire and Rainer
Maria Rilke.
Romantic Literature
Romantic literature focuses on nature, emotion, love and fear. Romantic writers include
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, William Wordsworth, Mary Shelly and Emily Bronte.
Just as Romantic art was great departure from the classical style of the Enlightenment,
Romantic literature branched out from the world of natural science, mathematics and
logic, creating a new style of writing that focused on human emotion and expression. The
most notable Romantic writers include Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, William
Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, Mary Shelly,
Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats.
Poetry of the era focused on love, religion, the Ancient World and nature. Novels
explored both love and fear. With wars being waged all over Europe especially in France,
Romanticism embraced the ideas of freedom and liberty. A typical Romantic hero would
often be portrayed as a rebel against the social conventions and political tyranny.
Napoleon embodies these romantic qualities in the early years of his political career.
Romantic heroines, like Jane Eyre, overcame personal adversity to eventually find great
happiness.
Revival of Fairy Tales
In keeping with the Romantic fascination with the past, it is no wonder that stories of
days past began circulating in the early 19th Century. In Germany especially, folk lore
became all the rage. The reawakening of German folklore, brought on in part by the poet,

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, led to the rise of the Fairy Tale. Jacob and Wilhelm
Grimm, better known as the Brothers Grim, collected and recorded several old folk tales
from throughout Europe, publishing a book of their findings in 1812. These early
childrens tales were filled with violence, promiscuity and characters with generally
bad morals. (Did you know that Rapunzel was pregnant in that tower? Or that the wicked
stepmother was Hansel and Gretels real mother!) Over time the stories were made into
more child friendly versions.
Gothic Horrors in Romantic Literature
Gothic horrors (not considered very romantic nowadays) were produced by some of the
leading writers of the Romantic Movement. Mary Shelley, wrote her famous horror,
Frankenstein, while visiting the German countryside with her writer husband. She
claimed to have had vision in a dream of the creature. Frankenstein (which refers to the
mad scientist, by the way, not the monster) illustrates the romance associated with
science. Dr. Frankenstein is more tragic hero than geek in a lab coat.
Romanticism in the United States
It wasnt long before Romantic ideas began popping up in the United States. Well know
American writers including Edgar Allen Poe, Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne,
Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson helped shape the literary world of the
burgeoning United States.