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 political events of the period, 1800 1837, cannot be ignored. They played an important part in the development
of English literature of the time. Revolutionary France, compelled to fight to defend its very existence, badly needed a
commander capable of organizing victory. It found one in Napoleon Bonaparte, an astonishing military and organizing
genius, one of the greatest commanders of all time, though unscrupulous and the victim of un-resting ambition.
Although Emperor now, with unlimited powers, Napoleon was in some respects still a man of the French Revolution,
inheriting some of its liberating ideas. At the famous Congress of Vienna, which met to settle the political problems of
Europe, any good that Napoleon had done was soon undone. England, together with Russia and the Germans, set up a
Holly Alliance which, though it secured a long period of peace for Europe. All traces of liberating influences were
removed; the Congress was a triumph of reaction.

William Wordsworth (1770 1850), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 1834), and Robert Southey (1774 1843), were
eager revolutionaries in their youth. With many other Romantics, they believed in individual liberty and the
brotherhood of man and sympathized with those who rebelled against injustice and tyranny. William Hazlitt (1778
1830), the finest critic and essayist of the age, was a passionate anti-Troy and Radical he wrote a biography of
Napoleon. Among the younger poets, George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788 1824) was a famous throughout Europe as a
champion of liberty, and Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 1822) was an out-and-out revolutionary with a special brand of
anarchy all his own

Romanticism, 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. Similarly , Coleridges poetic development
during these years paralleled Wordsworths. Having briefly brought together images of nature and the mind in The
Eolian Harp (1796), he devoted himself to more-public concerns in poems of political and social prophecy, such as
Religious Musings and The Destiny of Nations. Becoming disillusioned in 1798 with his earlier politics, however,
and encouraged by Wordsworth, he turned back to the relationship between nature and the human mind. Poems such
as This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, The Nightingale, and Frost at Midnight (now sometimes called the
conversation poems but collected by Coleridge himself as Meditative Poems in Blank Verse) combine sensitive
descriptions of nature with subtlety of psychological comment.
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. 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. The emphasis on feelingseen perhaps at its finest in the poems of Robert Burnswas in some ways a
continuation of the earlier cult of sensibility; and it is worth remembering that Alexander Pope praised his father as
having known no language but the language of the heart. But feeling had begun to receive particular emphasis and is
found in most of the Romantic definitions of poetry. Wordsworth called poetry the spontaneous overflow of powerful
feeling, and in 1833 John Stuart Mill defined poetry as feeling itself, employing thought only as the medium of its
utterance. It followed that the best poetry was that in which the greatest intensity of feeling was expressed, and
hence a new importance was attached to the lyric. Another key quality of Romantic writing was its shift from the
mimetic, or imitative, assumptions of the Neoclassical era to a new stress on imagination.

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.
y the late 18th century in France and Germany, literary taste began to turn from classical and
neoclassical conventions. The generation of revolution and wars, of stress and upheaval had
produced doubts on the security of the age of reason. Doubts and pessimism now challenged the
hope and optimism of the 18th century. Men felt a deepened concern for the metaphysical
problems of existence, death, and eternity. It was in this setting that Romanticism was born.

Origins
Romanticism was a literary movement that swept through virtually every country of Europe, the
United States, and Latin America that lasted from about 1750 to 1870. However, the Romantic
Movement did not reach France until the1820's. Romanticism's essential spirit was one of revolt
against an established order of things-against precise rules, laws, dogmas, and formulas that
characterized Classicism in general and late18th-century Neoclassicism in particular. It praised
imagination over reason, emotions over logic, and intuition over science-making way for a vast
body of literature of great sensibility and passion. In their choice of heroes, also, the romantic
writers replaced the static universal types of classical 18th-century literature with more complex,
idiosyncratic characters. They became preoccupied with the genius, the hero, and the
exceptional figure in general, and a focus on his passions and inner struggles and there was an
emphasis on the examination of human personality and its moods and mental potentialities.

The Romantic Style

The term romantic first appeared in 18th-century English and originally meant "romancelike"-that
is, resembling the fanciful character of medieval romances. But a mood or movement whose
central characteristic is revolt, and whose stress is on self-expression and individual uniqueness,
does not lend itself to precise definition. Among the characteristic attitudes of Romanticism were
the following:

Libertarianism
Many of the libertarian and abolitionist movements of the late 18th and early 19th centuries were
engendered by the romantic philosophy-the desire to be free of convention and tyranny, and the
new emphasis on the rights and dignity of the individual. Just as the insistence on rational,
formal, and conventional subject matter that had typified neoclassicism was reversed, the
authoritarian regimes that had encouraged and sustained neoclassicism in the arts were
inevitably subjected to popular revolutions. The general romantic's dissatisfaction with the
organization of society was often channeled into specific criticism of the Bougeois society and the
feeling of oppression was frequently expressed in poetry. Political and social causes became
dominant themes in romantic poetry and prose throughout France and other parts of Europe,
producing many vital human documents that are still pertinent.

Romanticism stresses on self-expression and individual uniqueness that does not lend itself to
precise definition. Romantics believed that men and women ought to be guided by warm
emotions rather than the cold abstract rules and rituals established by Bourgeois society. The
bourgeois, who promoted, defended, and openly profited by the Revolution of 1830, brought with
them, when they rose to power, certain social customs. No doubt all the Romantics would have
furiously denied that they were bourgeois, and many of them would indignantly have repudiated
Napoleon III, rather than declare allegience to whom Victor Hugo went into exile for 18 years. In
the period of its most active fermentation, the Romantic Movement was nothing more than a
protest against bourgeois conventions, bourgeois society and morality. To be extreme and
flamboyant and unusual and violent even at the risk of becoming grotesque was the desire of
every young Romantic. The Romantics were, in fact, bourgeois origins, who were trying hard to
escape from their own shadows.

Nature
The Romantic association of nature and spirit expressed itself in one of two ways. The landscape
was, on one hand regarded as an extension of the human personality, capable of sympathy with
man's emotional state. On other hand, nature was regarded as a vehicle for spirit just as man;
the breath of God fills both man and the earth. (Shroder, 80). Delight in unspoiled scenery and in
the (presumably) innocent life of rural dwellers was a popular literary theme. Often combined with
this feeling for rural life is a generalized romantic melancholy, a sense that change is imminent
and that a way of life is being threatened.

The Lure of the Exotic

In the spirit of their new freedom, romantic writers in all cultures expanded their imaginary
horizons spatially and chronologically. They turned back to the Middle Ages (12th century to 15th
century) for themes and settings and had an obsessive interest in folk culture, national and ethnic
cultural origins. They found delightnotions of romantic love, mystery and superstition, and placed
an emphasis upon imagination as a gateway to transcendent experience and spiritual truth.

The Decline of Romanticism

By about the middle of the 19th century, romanticism began to give way to new literary
movements: the Parnassians and the symbolist movement in poetry, and realism and naturalism.