Background Reading of Romantic age

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Name: Malek Hina Ibrahimbhai

Roll No. : 7(seven)

Batch: 2019-21

Email Id :hinamalek21@gmail.com

Unique ID:  2069 1084 2020 0026

Paper No. : 5 Romantic literature

Topic: Background Reading of Romantic literature

Submitted to: STM. S. B. Gardi Department of English

Question : 1 Background reading of Romantic literature:

†Introduction:

Romanticism is the name given to a dominant movement in literature and the other arts particularly music and painting. In the period from the 1970s to the mid-nineteenth century. The first half of nineteenth century records the triumph of Romanticism in literature and democracy in government and the two movements are so closely associated, in so many nations and in so many periods of history, that one must wonder if there be not some relation of cause and effect between them just as we understand the tremendous energizing influence of Puritanism in the matter of English Liberty.

†History of the The Romantic Movement:

1. The Essence of Romanticism:

If the eighteenth century is called the age of rationalism, the first half of the nineteenth century is often called the Age of Romanticism.

It is true that there were other powerful influences at work, but romanticism was the dominant one, at least in literature and fine arts.

2. The origins of Romanticism:

The origins of romanticism cannot be traced to one figure or to one specific movement. There were stirrings in various religious movements of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In the church, religion had given way to mere acceptance of certain dogmas and obedience to the authority of the church. Gradually, religion became as cold in its formality as the literature of that time.

3. Literary Romanticism:

Herder (1744-1803) was the father of German romanticism. He had a high opinion of the irrational, the spontaneous, the natural and the individual of the middle Ages. He regarded folk poetry as “the true expression of feeling.” The other romantic waters of Germany were Goethe, Schlegel, Fichte and Schleiermacher. They praised feudalism, chivalry, the crusades and the medieval folk songs.

4. Romanticism in Architecture:

As regards architecture, the romantic tendency manifested itself in a revival of the Gothic style. Previously, the term “Gothic” was considered to be one of disparagement and even of contempt. It was used as a synonym for “barbarous.” However, gradually the term “Gothic” ceased to be one of reproach and became one of admiration. In England, Horace Walpole heralded the revival by his Castle of Otranto and Strawberry Hill.

5. Romanticism in Painting:

The spirit of romanticism also asserted itself in the field of painting. In romantic paintings, more emphasis was put on spontaneity rather than restraint. For a romantic painter, beauty was not in the subject-matter, harmony or unity but in the depth of feeling. He demanded freedom not only in his choice of subject but also in his way of treating it. He expressed his own personality in his art. Goya (1746-1828), the Spanish artist, depicted Spanish life in all its picturesque diversity, with each individual work reflecting a personal reaction.

6. Romanticism in Music:

In classical music beauty of form was the primary aim and everything else was secondary. Emotional content was subordinated to form. In romantic music, emotional content comes first and form is subordinate to emotion. Untrammeled self-expression became the primary interest of the romantic composers. Each one tried to express himself in a unique manner.

It is regarded as having transformed artistic style and practices. Like many other terms applied to movements in the arts, the word covers a wide and varied range of artists and practices.It is a retrospective term, applied by later literary, art and musical historians. None of the artists we refer to as Romantics would have so described themselves. It was a European phenomenon, particularly powerful in Britain, France and Germany, but also affecting countries such as Italy, Spain and Poland. There was also, to some extent, an American version of the movement.

It English Literature, it denotes a period between 1785-1830, when the previous classical or enlightenment traditions and values were overthrown, and a freer, more individual mode of writing emerged.As we read now that brief portion of history which lies between the Declaration of Independence and the English Reform Bill of 1832, we are in the presence of such mighty political upheavals that "the age of revolution" is the only name by which we can adequately characterize it.

†Historical Summary:

The period we are considering begins in the latter half of the reign of George III and ends with the accession of Victoria in 1837. When on a foggy morning in November, 1783, King George entered the House of Lords and in a trembling Voice recognized the independence of the United States of America, he unconsciously proclaimed the triumph of that free government by free men which had been the ideal of English Literature for more than a thousand years; though it was not till 1832, when the Reform Bill became the law of the land, that England herself learned the lesson taught her by America, and became the democracy of which her writers had always dreamed. The half century between these two events is one of great turmoil, yet of steady advance in every department of English life. 

†When we see that Historical summary of The Age Of Romanticism:

‡The French Revolution:

The storm center of the political unrest was the French Revolution, that frightful uprising which proclaimed the natural rights of man and the abolition of class distinctions. It's effect on the whole civilized world is beyond computation. Patriotic clubs and societies multiplied in England, all asserting the Doctrine of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, the watchwords of the Revolution.

‡Economic Conditions:

The causes of this threatened revolution were not political but economic. By her inventions in steel and machinery, and by her monopoly of the carrying trade, England had become "the workshop of the world." Her wealth had increased beyond her wildest dreams; but the unequal distribution of that wealth was a spectacle to make angels weep. The invention of machinery at first threw thousands of skilled hand workers out of employment; in order to protect a few agriculturalists, heavy duties were imposed on corn and wheat, and bread rose to famine prices just when laboring men had the least money to pay for it. There followed a curious spectacle.

‡Reforms:

The long Continental war came to an end with Napoleon's overthrow at Waterloo, in 1815; and England, having gained enormously in prestige abroad, now turned to the work of reform at home. The destruction of the African slave trade; the mitigation of horribly unjust laws, which included poor debtors and petty criminals in the same class; the prevention of child labor; the freedom of the press; the extention of manhood suffrage; the abolition of restrictions against Catholics in parliament; the establishment of hundreds of popular schools, under the leadership of Andrew Bell and Joseph Lancaster, —these are but a few of the reforms which mark the progress of civilization in a single half century. When England, in 1833, proclaimed her final emancipation from barbarism.

†Literary Characteristics of the Age:

Romanticism saw a shift from faith in reason to faith in the senses, feelings, and imagination; a shift from interest in urban society to an interest in the rural and natural; a shift from public, impersonal poetry to subjective poetry; and from concern with the scientific and mundane to interest in the mysterious and infinite. Mainly they cared about the individual, intuition, and imagination.

1. Imagination and emotion are more important than reason and formal rules; imagination is a gateway to transcendent experience and truth.

2. Along the same lines, intuition and a reliance on “natural” feelings as a guide to conduct are valued over controlled, rationality.

3. Romantic literature tends to emphasize a love of nature, a respect for primitivism, and a valuing of the common, "natural" man; Romantics idealize country life and believe that many of the ills of society are a result of urbanization.

A. Nature for the Romantics becomes a means for divine revelation (Wordsworth)

B. It is also a metaphor for the creative process—(the river in “Kubla Khan).

4. Romantics were interested in the Medieval past, the supernatural, the mystical, the “gothic,” and the exotic;

5. Romantics were attracted to rebellion and revolution, especially concerned with human rights, individualism, freedom from oppression;

6. There was emphasis on introspection, psychology, melancholy, and sadness. The art often dealt with death, transience and mankind’s feelings about these things. The artist was an extremely individualistic creator whose creative spirit was more important than strict adherence to formal rules and traditional procedures.

A. The Byronic hero

B. Emphasis on the individual and subjectivity.

 †The Romantics poets in this age:

Some authors have been regarded as pre-Romantic:

‡William Blake (1757-1827): a visionary poet who was also an artist and engraver, with a particular interest in childhood and a strong hatred of mechanical reason and industrialization;

‡Robert Burns (1759-1796): who worked as a ploughman and farm labourer but who had received a good education and was interested in early Scots ballads and folk-song;

‡Walter Scott (1771-1832), another Scot: who developed his interest in old tales of the Border and early European poetry into a career as poet and novelist.

The first generation of Romantics is also known as the Lake Poets because of their attachment to the Lake District in the north-west of England:

‡William Wordsworth (1770-1850): who came from the Lake District and was the leading poet of the group, whose work was especially associated with the centrality of the self and the love of nature;

‡Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834): who was Wordsworth's closest colleague and collaborator, a powerful intellectual whose work was often influenced by contemporary ideas about science and philosophy;

‡Robert Southey (1774-1843): A prolific writer of poetry and prose who settled in the Lake District and became Poet Laureate in 1813; his work was later mocked by Byron;

‡Charles Lamb (1775-1834): Who was a poet but is best-known for his essays and literary criticism; a Londoner, he was especially close to Coleridge;

‡Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859): The youngest member of the group, best known as an essayist and critic, who wrote a series of memories of the Lake Poets.

The second generation of Romantic poets included:

‡George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824); 

‡Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822): who was one of the leading poets;

‡John Keats (1795-1821): who was a London poet, especially known for his odes and sonnets and for his letters, which contain many reflections on poetry and the work of the imagination.

The poets named so far are those who, for many years, dominated the Romantic canon – that group of writers whose works were most commonly republished, read, anthologised, written about and taught in schools, colleges and universities.

† Conclusion:

In the early decades of the nineteenth century European intellectual life was enriched by the works of composers, painters, poets and writers who were influenced in a variety of ways by the spirit of ‘romanticism’.. Romantic ways of thinking had deep roots in early modern culture but between about 1800 and 1850 they played a particularly significant role in theoretically framed statements on fundamental political questions. 

†Works Cited:

Kravitt, Edward F. The Lied: Mirror of late Romanticism. illustrated. London: Yale University Press, 1996.

Long, William J. English Literature, The Romantic Age. Ed. Enlarged. Delhi: AITBS, 2018.

Morrow, John. Romanticism and political thought in the early nineteenth Century. Ed. Gareth StedmanJones. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

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