Romanticism

“Word” history

Originally the word Romantic meant “typical of old and medieval romances”.

Middle Ages The word Romantic comes form the French “Romance” which in the Middle Ages denoted the new vernacular languages derived from Latin and the works written in those languages. It referred to the artificial language and actions of Medieval romances (about chivalry and adventures).

18th century In the 18th century the term started to acquire a slightly different meaning, including “marked by feeling” rather than rationalism. In time, it also came to be associated with the ideas of melancholy and loneliness.

Today Today the word Romantic means both “related to love” and “capable of having a strong effect on someone’s feelings”.

In a nutshell

In Britain the literary production between 1760 and 1837 can be divided into two main phases:

-the first phase from 1760 to 1801, is characterised by growing anti-classical tendencies an by emerging pre-Romantic trends;

-the second phase from 1801 to 1837, is called the Romantic Age.

The year that represented a watershed between these two phases was 1801, the year of publication of the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth (which is considered the Manifesto of English Romanticism).

Romanticism was a complex cultural and literary phenomenon in Europe and was a reaction against the triumph of Reason of the Enlightenment and Neoclassicism. European Romantic literature re-evaluated the role of imagination and nature in the process of artistic reaction and gave voice to a growing interest in emotions, feelings, the irrational and the supernatural.

Pre-Romantic Trends

The main features of pre-Romantic poetry are:

-the use of Classical forms to express Romantic themes;

-the re-evaluation of the prominentroleofnature over civilisation;

-the exaltationofprimitivelife in contrast with the dehumanising effects of progress;

-the use of meditativetone;

-the rediscoveryof the MiddleAges;

-the treatment of unusualthemes such as “the exotic”, “the strange”, “the sublime” (the feeling provoked by the contemplation of something dangerous and beautiful), which reflect a new idea of beauty in contrast with the rational beauty of Neoclassicism;

-a certain fascinationfordeath, graveyards and ruins.

An author who anticipated many of the trends of Romanticism is William Blake (1757-1827), a rather isolated and eclectic figure (he was a poet, sculptor, visual artist and engraver) whose works do not fall easily into any of the literary categories of tradition. Blake’s works are contained in a famous collection called Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794) and are characterised by the dual opposition between “Innocence” (i.e. the destruction of purity deriving from injustice and evil). Innocence and experience represent two complementary states in reality and in human beings: one presupposes the other and vice versa. Blake’s poems have different levels of complexity and can be taken as meditations on the ages of man, as rather childlike songs or as deep philosophical inquires into the mysteries of the cosmos.

Two Generations of Romantic Poets

In Britain Romanticism took the shape of a reaction against the excess of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars and the Industrial Revolution: for this reason it gave voice to the need to re-evaluate the role of nature against progress and civilisation. The event that officially marked the birth of English Romanticism was the publication of the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads (1801) by the poet William Wordsworth. Wordsworth’s “Preface” contains the definition of the main traits of British Romanticism, which are:

-a predominant role played by nature, which is depicted as the ideal place for man to live in contrast with the dehumanising effects of industrialisation;

-a subsequent distrust in progress and factories;

-a vivid interest in humble and rustic life;

-the use of imagination as a tool to understand the beauty of the universe and to create truth;

-a rejection of all the conventions of Neoclassical poetry in favour of a more spontaneous form of poetry;

-an accent on spontaneous feelings and on the expression of emotions;

-the idea that poetry can express and create truth;

-a totally new interest in the inner world of the self.

English Romantic poets can be divided into two main groups: the First Generation of Romantics, which includes William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge who focused on “common life” and gave importance to imagination; the Second Generation of Romantics, which includes Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats, who embodied the ideal of the poet as a rebel and a bohemian.

The contrast between Classicists and Romantics

Classicists / Romantics
Focus on universal themes / The individual and his role in the universe (childhood, nature; the role of imagination)
Long poetic forms / Short, narrative poems – Romances and ballads
Fixed poetic forms (heroic couplet) / Blank verse
Highly ornate and artificial diction / Everyday language
Beauty is harmony and emerges from the balance between different parts / Beauty is associated with the sublime, the exotic, the irregular.

The First Generation of Romantic poets:

Wordsworth and Coleridge

The two main authors belonging to the First Generation of Romantic Poets were William Wordsworth (1770-1850) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834). Their poems were published in a collected volume called Lyrical Ballads, published in 1798, when the two poets lived in the Lake District.

Wordsworthwas the poet of nature, humble life, and of pure and ordinary feelings, his poems are characterised by the use of the common language of ordinary people. According to Wordsworth poetry was the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” caused by “emotions recollected in tranquillity”. First the poet feels emotions in nature and freezes them in his mind; then, after some time, he recollects them in the tranquillity of his home (purifying them from the imperfection of everyday life); finally he expresses in words his purified emotion. Thus poetry is the “re-creation” of an emotion.

Coleridge was the poet of the supernatural, of mystery and of dreams. His The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798) is a long poem suspended in a dreamlike atmosphere.

The Second Generation of Romantic poets:

Byron, Shelley, Keats

The poets of the so called “Second Generation” left their country and were attracted by Italy and its art, they all lived in Piazza di Spagna and unfortunately all died at a very young age.

Percy Bysshe Shelley embodied political and social rebellion (he criticised many of the conventions of his age: the Church, the institution of marriage, the traditional family model, etc.). He was an atheist and believed the poet was a prophet and had the power and the moral duty to change the world. His poems celebrate happiness and freedom and give voice to people’s desire to free themselves from the oppression of old institutions to create a new world. He had a peculiar kind of visionary mysticism.

George Gordon Lord of Byron became a sort of living legend, the “Byronic hero”:he was a rebel and passionate, he condemned social hypocrisy and fought for freedom. His poetry gave voice to a sense of rejection of social conventions and moral limitations, it was often characterised by a strong satirical tone and by the attempt to criticise social conventions.

John Keats focused on poetic introspection and explored the nature of sensations and beauty. His poetry reflected the troubles of its author: his life was constellated with family tragedies, financial problems and sad love affairs and culminated with the poet’s death of consumption at the age of 25. His poems represented a constant meditation on the concepts of beauty, love, death and mortality. A rather isolated figure, Keats reaffirmed the primary role of beauty in a world that was becoming more and more dominated by money, economic interest and material issues. His Ode on a Grecian Urn (1819) is one of the most famous English Romantic poems and is a praise of beauty as an eternal value and an immortal ethical value.