The Romantic Age

 The romantic age has brought a complete revolution in criticism. In

answering the question "what is art?", the romantics regard art not as
an imitation, but as an expression of the author's feelings and
emotions.
 Poetry is a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.

A comparison between Classicism and Romanticism

Classical Age Romantic Age

1 Art is an imitation. Art is an expression.
2 External Internal
3 Objective Subjective
4 Art is a craft. Skill and practice No external knowledge is required
are required. because it spoils expression
5 Imitation requires planning, Planning, selection, and control
selection, and control. spoil poetry and obstruct the
spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings.
6 Imagination should be subjected Imagination is not subjected to
to reason, i.e. the artist should be reason.
totally conscious of his work.
7 The norm for classical critics is The norm is lyrical poetry.
tragedy, and for neo-classicists, it
is the epic.
 Romanticism

Romanticism is a movement of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

that marked the reaction in literature, philosophy, art, religion, and politics
against Neo-classicism and formal doctrines of the preceding period. The
poets of the English Romantic Period, which began in the late 18th Century
and continued well into the 19th Century, emphasized a number of ideas,
which were a reaction against the preceding "Age of Reason":

1- They believed in the power of imagination versus cold reasoning.

2- They felt that both art and literature had become artificial, and that
artists and writers should return to nature for inspiration.
3- Emotions or feelings were the source of true moral guidance. They
believed in individual liberty, and in a person being true to himself.
4- They believed that the natural goodness in people could change
society.

One aspect is reflected in Victor Hugo's phrase "liberalism in literature",

meaning especially the freeing of the artist and writer from the restraints and
rules of the classicists and also suggesting a spirit of individualism, which
led to the encouragement of revolutionary political ideas.
In England, the "Romantic Movement" was marked by such qualities as:
a) Sentimentalism:
1. An over indulgence in emotion, especially the conscious effort to
induce emotion in order to analyse or enjoy it.
2. An optimistic overemphasis on the goodness of humanity.

b) Primitivism:
Primitivism is the doctrine that primitive man, because he has
remained closer to nature and has been less subject to the corrupt
influences of society, is nobler and more nearly perfect than is civilized
man. The idea flourished in 18th Century England and France, and was an
important element in the creed of the "sentimentalists" of the Romantic
Movement. One of the primitivistic doctrines was that the best poetry is
natural or instinctive, not cultivated, (e.g. Gray's "The Bard" 1757).
c) Love of nature
d) Interest in the past (especially the medieval)
e) Individualism

These qualities were expressed by the abandonment of the heroic couplet.

Instead of writing epics, tragedies and heroic couplet, the romantics wrote
lyrical poetry, literary ballads, blank verse, sonnets, Spenserian stanzas, and
many experimental verse forms.

 Blank Verse is unrhymed verse, usually with lines of ten syllables each,
the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, and tenth syllables bearing the accents
(iambic pentameter).
 The Sonnet is a lyric poem of fourteen lines. The three characteristic
types of sonnets in English literature are the Italian (Petrarchan), the
English (Shakespearian), and the Spenserian.

- The Italian sonnet: abba, abba, cde, cde, or cdc, cdc.

- The English sonnet: abab, cdcd, efef, gg. The concluding couplet
usually comments on the preceding lines.
- The Spenserian sonnet (which was developed by Edmund Spenser):
abab, bcbc, cdcd, ee.

 Spenserian stanza: a stanzaic pattern consisting of nine verses, the first

eight in iambic pentameter, the ninth in iambic hexameter. The rhyme
scheme is ababbcbcc.

- In the Romantic Age, conventional poetic imagery was replaced by fresh,

bold expression.

Other characteristics of romanticism in literature are:

- The idealization of rural life (Goldsmith),

- Interest in human rights (Burns and Byron),
- Sentimental melancholy (Gray),
- Collection and imitation of popular ballads (Percy, Scot, Keats)
- A renewed interest in Spencer, Shakespeare, and Milton.
 The Romantic Movement in English literature had its beginnings early in
the eighteenth century (Shaftsbury, Thomson, and Dyer). It became
prominent in the middle of the century with the work of Gray, Richardson,
Sterne, Walpole, Goldsmith, and, somewhat later (Cowper, Burns, and
Blake). However, most major works of the Romantic Movement were
produced early in the 19th Century by Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott,
Southey, Byron, Shelley, and Keats.

Many Romantic poets chase death as a subject for their poems such as
Gray's "Elegy" in which he describes his thoughts as he looks at the graves
of country people buried near the church at Stake Poyes. He wonders what
they might have done in the world if they had had better opportunities.

The Lyrical Ballads:

The publication of the first edition of the Lyrical Ballads (1798) came as
a shock to the 18th Century people. The critics considered the language too
simple and the change too violent. This important book, which was a joint
work of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was the signal
of the beginning of the Romantic Age. Most of the poems in the 1798
edition were written by Wordsworth, with only four poems written by
Coleridge, including one of his most famous works, "The Rime of the
Ancient Mariner". A second edition was published in 1800, in which
Wordsworth added additional poems and a preface. Another edition was
published in 1802, in which Wordsworth added an appendix titled Poetic
Diction in which he expanded his ideas.
 The crucial document announcing their new ideas was Wordsworth's
Preface to the Lyrical Ballads (1798), which was a 'romantic' manifesto. In
part, the preface owes its particular importance to the fact that it announced
a set of ideas about the nature and criteria of poetry which were generally
adopted by Wordsworth's contemporaries.

In the preface, Wordsworth declares that "Poetry is the spontaneous

overflow of powerful feelings". Wordsworth's metaphor "overflow" suggests
the underlying physical analogy of a container – a fountain or natural spring
– from which water brims over. This container is no doubt the poet; the
materials of a poem come from within, and they consist expressly neither of
objects nor actions, but the liquid feelings of the poet himself. The
orientation is now toward the artist; the focus of attention is upon the
relation of the elements of the work to his state of mind. The suggestion,
underlined by the word "spontaneous" is that the ideas are inherent in the
poet and perhaps not within his deliberate control. Wordsworth also declared
that the emotion should be "recollected in tranquility". He also argued that
the final overflow will accomplish a "worthy purpose" in reference to the
poet's audience. Like Wordsworth, Byron introduces a volcano as a
metaphor. According to Byron, poetry "is the lava of the Imagination whose
eruption prevents an earthquake".

Wordsworth was a poet of nature, and had the special ability to throw a
charm over ordinary things. Coleridge could make mysterious events
acceptable to a reader's mind. Neither of them used the old language of
poetry much.

Wordsworth believed that the language of poetry ought to be the same as

the language of a simple farm worker (spontaneous). Yet, he could not keep
to this idea himself; his imagination led him far beyond the life and thoughts
of a countryman.
 The Nineteenth Century Romantic School of Poetry

Many critics believe that the key year for English Romanticism is 1798,
the year that saw the publication of the Lyrical Ballads by William
Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In the preface to the second
edition, Wordsworth laid down most of the basic principles of romantic
poetry. That romantic revival was in fact a revolt against the main
characteristics of the Eighteenth Century Neo-classicism.

Characteristics of Romanticism:

1) Art is an expression of powerful feelings. Emotions and feelings are

the source of true moral guidance. Art is a subjective activity. The
focus is on the poet's feelings.

2) The most suitable language for the purpose of poetry is everyday

language, which is simple, sensitive, rustic, and natural. That is why
romantic poets prefer to use the language of primitive people.

3) Romantic poets are nostalgic. In other words, there is a strong interest

in the past with its heroic and mythological world.

4) There is also a deep interest in nature, not only as a source of beautiful

scenes but also as a spiritual teacher of man. The interest in nature
grew into a faith, a kind of natural religion.

5) There is a respect for children as they are closer to whatever is natural.

Children are approached in the same way as "skylarks" and
"daffodils".

6) The "Gothic" was a prevailing aspect in Nineteenth Century

Romanticism. The "Gothic" indicates a love of all that is wild,
mysterious, and supernatural.
 William Wordsworth
(1770-1850)

Wordsworth' love of nature was boundless. It was a kind of religion, so

that he came to be known as the prophet of nature. His knowledge of nature
was equal to his love. He wrote always with his eye steadily fixed upon his
object; nothing was too small to escape his attention, and he had a keen eye
for what is deep and essential in nature. Nature was for him the embodiment
of the "Divine Spirit". Wordsworth can be best described as a "pantheist";
one who identifies the natural universe with God, thus according to
Wordsworth, God is not OVER everything but is IN everything.
Wordsworth insists that nature is the greatest of all teachers. He means that
spiritual communication is possible between the indwelling Soul of the
Universe and the soul of man. Through this communication, man can
achieve power, peace, and happiness.

Wordsworth is not only the poet of nature, but also the poet of man. His
greatness as a moralist is especially supreme in what he writes about human
nature. This greatness results largely from his sincere sense of the
supremacy of the moral law. His emphasis is everywhere thrown upon those
spiritual forces within us, which give us power over ourselves and the ability
to lift ourselves above the reach of circumstances. His did not think much of
the morality taken from books. He firmly believed that communion with
nature would refine man's character. Wordsworth says:
 One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good
Than all the sages can.

"The World is too Much with us; Late and Soon"

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

 It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.