ROMANTIC LITERATURE AND THE PERIOD OF ROMANTICISM

A GENERAL PRESENTATION OF THE RISE OF ROMANTIC LITERATURE AND THE PERIOD OF ROMANTICISM: FOCUS ON REPRESENTATIVE ROMANTIC MASTERPIECES

Romanticism is an intellectual, literary and artistic movement originating in the 18^th c as a reaction to Neoclassicism. It was marked especially by sensibility and the use of autobiographical material, exaltation of the primitive and common man. It is term loosely applied to a movement in European literature (and other arts) during the last quarter of the 18th c and. It was marked by a rejection of the ideals and rules of classicism and neoclassicism streamline and by an affirmation of the need for a more subjective expression of passion and personal feelings. The Romantic period in Britain is usually taken to run between 1798, the year in which Coleridge and Wordsworth published the first edition of Lyrical Ballads, and 1832, when Sir 'Walter Scott died and the rise of Queen Elizabeth to power in 1837.The major British writers in this period were Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, John Keats, Jane Austen, and de Quincey.

THE RISE OF ROMANTIC LITERATURE

Romanticism did not just spring out of nowhere but out of something. The following events led to the rise of romanticism:

THE AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE (1776)

America was, for a long period, a British colony. George III ruled America in an unscrupulous manner and when Thomas Pain wrote Rights of Man and Common Sense the people of the thirteen colonies read eagerly, all proclaiming the dignity of common life, and all uttering the same passionate cry against every form of class or caste oppression. They realized that they needed liberty. This made them to take uproar in 1776 in the American war of Independence. This influence literature as the romantics wanted to go against all forms of Neoclassical streamlines. They sought a revolution in literature just as the Americans did for freedom.

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTIONS

The changing landscape (the industrial revolution) of Britain brought about by the steam engine. This caused cities to expand. This expansion caused the depopulation of the countryside. In effect, there was mass exodus from rural areas to cities. This movement was because the mass went in search of jobs in the newly created factories. In the factories the poor condition of workers, the new class-conflicts and the pollution of the environment caused a reaction to urbanism and industrialization prompting poets to rediscover the beauty and value of nature. This rediscovery was the birth of romanticism.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (1789)

The state of political unrest finally came to an end in France. Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated. On the fourteen of July women marched in the streets on protests against Louis IV and his rule. The frightful uprising proclaimed the natural rights of man and the abolition of class distinctions started in France. Their revolutionary watchwords were liberty, equality and fraternity. The immediate action that led to the freedom of the French was the storming of the Bastille prison in France. This was called the spirit of the age. The sentence “France stands at the top of the golden hour and human nature seems born again” is a total sum of this revolution. These revolutionary ideas spread to the rest of continental Europe and suddenly governments started facing the same issues in their countries. It affected literary production as English poets like William Wordsworth went to France to study the revolution and he realized that all the previous rules that were laid in society ended and thus man could write literature that reflected the self. He concluded that poetry in particular had to be spontaneous. With these ideas romanticism started with the publication of the Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge.

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

Literature saw a change during this period. There was a shift in genre. It was chiefly an age of poetry.  There was a shift from the use of iambic pentameter to the use of free verse. The common man was praised in poetry. The age also saw an immerse emphasis placed on individualism and an interest on the supernatural. Wordsworth defined poetry as the “spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions recollected in perfect tranquility.”   This reflected the poetry of the time. The first work that marked the peak of the time was Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads. These two were early Romantic poets but not as early as William Blake who is also considered as one of the Romantics with his “Songs of Innocence” and Songs of Experience”. Coleridge must be credited for his long and impressive “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. Coleridge and Wordsworth, however, understood romanticism in two entirely different ways: while Coleridge sought to make the supernatural real, Wordsworth sought to stir the imagination of readers through his down-to-earth characters taken from real life of the Lake District that largely inspired his production. This is reflected in "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey". But his life is reflected in his “prelude.” To Wordsworth, nature is “all in all”. He says “sweet is the lore which nature brings but our meddling intellect misshapes the beauteous forms of things.”

Also, some Romantics of the age are The "Second generation" of Romantic poets includes Lord Byron, the literary writer, who professed to despise the art that made him famous, wrote “Hours of Idle” It was a juvenile work that was ridiculed by The Edinburgh Review. Others include Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley and John Keats. Byron, however, was still influenced by 18th-century satirists and was, perhaps the least 'romantic' of the three. This movement also saw the rise of female artist like Jane Austen and Mary Anne Radcliffe. Also, Walter Scott greatly contributed to the rise of the English novel during this period.

Lastly, modern literary magazines like Edinburg Review (1802), The Quarterly review (1808) and the Westminster Review were created. It assembled the works of poets of the age.

REPRESENTATIVE MASTERPIECES OF THE AGE

In 1798, two young poets, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (then 26) and William Wordsworth (then 28), both frustrated with the subject matter and style of poetry being produced in England, published a cooperative volume of poems titled Lyrical Ballads. It consisted of 23 poems, four by Coleridge, including “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, and 19 by Wordsworth (1770-1850), the best being “Tintern Abbey.” At its publication, Lyrical Ballads was bitterly attacked in the more periodicals. However, it sold well enough to call for a second printing in 1800. The 1800 edition contains the epoch making “Preface” written by Wordsworth.

"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," which is Coleridge's masterpiece, and "Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey,"  expresses Wordsworth's poetical creed, and which  it is one of the noblest and most significant of Romantic poems. Colerige’s “Rime of The Ancient Mariner” tells the story of a tragic ballad about the survival of one sailor through a series of supernatural events on his voyage through the south seas which involves the slaying of an albatross, the death of the rest of the crew, a visit from Death and his mate, Life-in-Death, and the eventual redemption of the Mariner.

On the other hand, Wordsworth’s “ Tintern Abbey’ expresses the ideas that in nature we can find comfort and solitude. He says in “Expostulation and Reply” “One impulse from a vernal wood/ may teach you more of man of all good and bad / than that sages can.” This expresses his idea of man leaving the artificial society to return to nature that does not fail man like man. In “Titern Abbey” he reflects on the interconnectedness that exists between nature and man. He imagines how his sister will pass through the same stages that he passed through.

Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ode to The West Wind” is also one of the masterpieces of this age. In the poem Shelley invokes the wind magically, describing its power and its role as both “destroyer and preserver,” the poet then takes a remarkable turn, transforming the wind into a metaphor “dead thoughts”, “withered leaves.” Here the spring season is a metaphor for a “spring” of human consciousness, imagination, liberty, or morality. Shelley wished that all this thinks happen to man. Shelley asks the wind to be his spirit, and in the same movement, his poetic faculty, which will play him like a musical instrument, the way the wind strums the leaves of the trees.

Another significant Romantic masterpiece is John Keats’ Ode to a Grecian Urn. In this lyric the poet explores exclusive inner feelings of man. Keats creates his own rhyme scheme. The poem is made up of three stanzas. When the speaker of the poem gazes at the Grecian urn, he meditates on the nature of truth and beauty. Each of the three scenes depicted on the urn moves him in a different way, and he describes them in detail, marveling at their artistry. In the first stanza of the poem, the speaker starts describing an ancient Grecian urn. It depicts three scenes: a wild party, the playing of instruments, and a ritual slaughter. The second, third and fourth stanzas are an explanation of the scene in detail, envying all the beautiful figures. The party scene is of particular interest to the speaker. It is a scene where several amorous men chase after women. In the final stanza, the speaker states that if the urn could speak for itself, it would declare, "Beauty is truth, and truth beauty.”

Further, another masterpiece of this era is Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, a depiction of Saxon and Norman characters. It is one of the earliest novels. His immense contribution to the rise of the English novel cannot be undermined. Some rightly think that the most popular novelist of the era was Sir Walter Scott, whose grand historical romances inspired a generation of painters, composers, and writers throughout Europe. His most remembered work, Ivanhoe, continues to be studied to this day.

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility are masterpieces of the era which are written by a woman. Her novels center on the life of the landed gentry, seen from a woman's point of view. They also focus on practical social issues, especially marriage, partners in life, with love being above at the top of everything. Her most important and popular novel is Pride and Prejudice. In it Jane Austen creates 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 finally realize their love for one another . In her novels, Jane Austen brings to light the hardships women faced, who usually did not inherit money, could not work and where their only chance in life depended on the man they married. Her works generally are seen as 'realist' and not romantic in the artistic sense.

Lastly, William Blake, poet, painter and printmaker is usually included among the English romanticists, though his visionary work and masterpiece, songs of innocence and songs of experience is much different from those of the others discussed above.