MA1OR CONFLICTS AND OPPOSITIONS IN ENGLISH ROMANTICISM.

ROMANTIC THEORIES OF THE POETIC IMAGINATION

ROMANTICISM appeared in conIlict with the Enlightenment. You could go as Iar as to
say that Romanticism reIlected a crisis in Enlightenment thought itselI, a crisis which
shook the comIortable 18th century philosophe out oI his intellectual single-mindedness.
The Romantics were conscious oI their unique destiny. In Iact, it was selI-consciousness
which appears as one oI the keys elements oI Romanticism itselI. The philosophes were
too objective -- they chose to see human nature as something uniIorm. The philosophes
had also attacked the Church because it blocked human reason. The Romantics attacked
the Enlightenment because it blocked the Iree play oI the emotions and creativity. The
philosophe had turned man into a soulless, thinking machine -- a robot. Imagination,
sensitivity, Ieelings, spontaneity and Ireedom were stiIled -- choked to death. Man must
liberate himselI Irom these intellectual chains. The Romantic era can be considered as
indicative oI an age oI crisis. The era was proliIic in innovative ideas and new art Iorms.
In the midst oI what has been called the Romantic Era, an era oIten portrayed as devoted
to irrationality and "unreason," the most purely rational social science -- classical political
economy -- carried on the Enlightenment tradition. We have seen that one way to deIine
the Romantics is to distinguish them Irom the philosophes. But, Ior both the philosophes
and the Romantics, Nature was accepted as a general standard. Nature was natural -- and
this supplied standards Ior beauty and Ior morality. The heart was a source oI knowledge
-- the location oI ideas "Ielt" as sensations rather than thoughts. Intuition was equated
with that which men Ieel strongly. Men could learn by experiment or by logical
processbut men could learn more in intuitive Ilashes and Ieelings, by learning to trust
their instincts. One power possessed by the Romantic, a power distinct and superior to
reason, was imagination. The Romantics opted Ior a liIe oI the heart. Their relativism
made them appreciative oI diversity in man and in nature. There are no universal laws.
There are certainly no laws which would explain man. Truth and beauty were human
attributes. A truth and beauty which emanated Irom the poet`s soul and the artist`s heart.
II the poets are, as Shelley wrote in 1821, the "unacknowledged legislator`s oI the
world," it was world oI Iantasy, intuition, instinct and emotion. It was a human world.
Coleridge and Wordsworth, however, understood romanticism in two entirely diIIerent
ways: while Coleridge sought to make the supernatural "real" (much like sci-Ii movies
use special eIIects to make unlikely plots believable), Wordsworth sought to stir the
imagination oI readers through his down-to-earth characters taken Irom real liIe (in "The
Idiot Boy", Ior example), or the beauty oI the Lake District that largely inspired his
production (as in "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey").Wordsworth
calls his poems "experiments," and he presents them as models oI a new kind oI poetry.
He also demands that poetic diction be modelled on primitive, passionate and natural
utterance, that which is most spontaneous, the product oI emotion. Wordsworth thinks
that the problem oI poetic diction is one oI urban artiIiciality, which produces the
hackneyed verbal conventions oI late Neoclassicism. The preservation oI the previous
poetic tradition was Ior Wordsworth a mere instance oI social vanity; poetical cliches,
personiIication oI abstract entities, etc., are to disappear Irom the new poetry. It may be
noted that Wordsworth always speaks oI a selection oI the language oI the lower classes:
this is contradictory with the spirit oI the new conception he is bringing Iorward.
Wordsworth explicitly links imagination only to "gratiIication," and not to values. But a
moral view oI imagination is implicit in his poems and in his discussion. The poet does
not teach any deIinite concepts, but he conveys immediate intuitions oI nature, which are
even more valuable. "The poet thinks, and Ieels, in the language oI human passions.
Poetry had been deIined by Wordsworth in 1800 in this way : "poetry is the spontaneous
overIlow oI powerIul Ieelings ; it takes its origin Iorm emotion recollected in
tranquillity".Both Wordsworth and Coleridge conceive oI poetic experience as an active
response oI the mind to personal perception and experience (more active, though, in
Coleridge's account than in Wordsworth's). Through Ieeling, Wordsworth argues, we
sense a unity in nature and a sense in experience, which had been dissolved by reason and
the analytic Iaculty oI the human mind. Poetry, which has been the work oI Ieeling, must
be judged by Ieeling alone. Wordsworth Iorgets his proposal oI an objective Ioundation
oI taste and asks the reader to judge his poems according to his personal reaction, and not
according to the prejudice oI others. Wordsworth was to deal with themes oI common liIe
whose imaginative heightening would lead to an intuition oI the presence oI the
unknown; Coleridge would develop Iantastic themes (The Ancient Mariner )
imaginatively inIusing them with the known so as to produce credibility. In any case,
Coleridge says, the work oI the poet must join accurate observation with the modiIying
power oI imagination, mixing the old and the new in such a way that the Ireshness oI
sensations is always present in the poem. It has been argued that, Ior all their elaboration,
Wordsworth and Coleridge's theories oI the imagination are narrow and restricted, in that
they are made ad hoc, to suit the special kind oI poetry they were writing. The subject oI
romantic poems is usually inspiration, creation, the poet's own sensibility, etc. They are
highly reIlexive, and so is Coleridge's theory oI the imagination.
He wants poetry to be based on genius and originality, and to deal with its subject matter
in such a way that its language will be organically linked to it; or rather, that the subject-
matter is co-extensive with the poem: "to the truly great poets . . . there is a reason
assignable not only Ior every word, but Ior the position oI every word." Coleridge is the
major English exponent oI organicism as a metaphor Ior the work oI art; he opposes
organic Iorm and mechanic Iorm in the same way as the German romantics (Herder,
Schlegel). Imagination produces organic Iorms, Iancy merely mechanic Iorms. The eIIect
oI a good poem, Coleridge says, is to make us see liIe anew, to remove "the Iilm oI
Iamiliarity" which sets at length on all our thoughts and perceptions. This Ireshess oI
perception can never be achieved with a poetic diction which is old-Iashioned, well-
known; cliches and hackneyed expressions rather have the opposite eIIect, they dull our
perception. However, as it happened with Wordsworth, Coleridge lays the stress not so
much on novelty as on quality oI expression; badness comes not so much Irom repetition
as Irom intrinsic Iaults. But Coleridge's attitude to poetic language is not the same
asWordsworth's. He will criticise Wordsworth's primitivistic assumptions as well as the
implications which derived Irom them with respect to poetic language. Coleridge does
not share Wordsworth's Iaith in the intrinsic virtues oI the cottagers and country liIe. He
believes in the value oI culture and education, rather than in "untutored minds" in contact
with nature. He points out that Wordsworth's deIinition oI "the language oI real liIe" was
equivocal: on one hand, he identiIied it with the language oI the lower classes; on the
other, that language was to be a "selection." In Iact, he says, iI you "select" Irom a
particularity (language oI peasants) what you obtain is a generality (language oI men): "I
adopt with Iull Iaith the principle oI Aristotle that poetry as poetry is essentially ideal,
that it avoids and excludes all accident, that its apparent individualities oI rank, character,
or occupation must be representative oI a class" (Biographia 192). Language, Ior
Coleridge, does not spring immediately Irom nature in the way Wordsworth would have
it: it is the product oI a whole society, and it has a long history, in which the role oI the
learned is Iundamental. Imagination and emotion, the principal characteristics oI the
poem, are in truth the characteristics oI the poet.
The "Second generation" oI Romantic poets includes Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley
and John Keats. Byron, however, was still inIluenced by 18th-century satirists and was,
perhaps the least 'romantic' oI the three. His amours with a number oI prominent but
married ladies was also a way to voice his dissent on the hypocrisy oI a high society that
was only apparently religious but in Iact largely libertine, the same that had derided him
Ior being physically impaired.
In retrospect, we now look back to Jane Austen, who wrote novels about the liIe oI the
landed gentry, seen Irom a woman's point oI view, and wryly Iocused on practical social
issues, especially marriage and choosing the right partner in liIe, with love being above
all else. Austen's !7ide and !7efudice would set the model Ior all Romance Novels to
Iollow. Jane Austen created the ultimate hero and heroine in Darcy and Elizabeth, who
must overcome their own stubborn pride and the prejudices they have toward each other,
in order to come to a middle ground, where they Iinally realize their love Ior one another.
Austen's other most notable works include; Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield !a7,
!e7suasion and Emma. In her novels, Austen brings to light the hardships women Iaced,
who usually did not inherit money, could not work and where their only chance in liIe
depended on the man they married. She brought to light not only the diIIiculties women
Iaced in her day, but also what was expected oI men and oI the careers they had to
Iollow. This she does with wit and humour and with endings where all characters, good
or bad, receive exactly what they deserve. Poet, painter and printmaker William Blake is
usually included among the English Romanticists, though his visionary work is much
diIIerent Irom that oI the others discussed in this section.
In America, with the essays and poetry oI Ralph Waldo Emerson began an explosion oI
American English literature, which included the publication oI Herman Melville's Moby
Dic and the poetry oI Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson.