1.1: Introduction to the Romantic Period (2024)

The Roots of Romanticism

Tintern Abbey and the River Wye in Tintern, Wales.

Often the termRomanticliterature, particularly poetry, evokes the connotation of nature poetry. Although nature is an important component in much Romantic literature, Romanticism is much more than recording the beauties of the natural world. AndRomanticismis certainly not what modern readers usually think of when we hear the wordsromanceandromantic; Romanticism does not refer to romantic love.

Romanticismgrew from a profound change in the way people in the Western world perceived their place and purpose in life. Events such as the American Revolution in 1776, theFrench Revolutionin 1789, and theIndustrial Revolutionrestructured society and the way individuals viewed themselves and their relationship to each other and to the social order.

Democracy

In the late 18th and early 19th century, concepts such as the Great Chain of Being, which had long represented the way humans thought of themselves and their roles in society, crumbled in the wake of new ideas about democracy. Rather than placing themselves above or below other individuals in a hierarchy, people began to believe that all men are created equal. Although it took more time to be accepted, the idea that women and people of color are also created equal germinated in the fertile environment of democratic ideals.

Nature and Spirit

European philosophers such asRousseauandSpinozamaintain that innocence and the potential for human goodness are found in nature; human institutions, such as governments, produce pride, greed, and inequality. Thus nature, and people close to nature, becomes the ideal for Romantic writers.

Nature takes on additional significance with the ideas of philosophers such asSchellingwho posits an identity of mind and nature: “Nature is visible spirit.…” For poets such as Wordsworth and Coleridge, nature is a source of divine revelation, a visible veil through which God may be discerned. For others such as Shelley, nature is the means to tapping into the collective power of the human mind, what American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson refers to as the Over-Soul. Nature is the source of human innocence and goodness because nature is a manifestation of the Divine.

For Romantic writers, then, the source of poetry is not a conscious crafting of lines of a certain number of syllables in a certain metrical pattern and rhyme scheme, like the 18th-century heroic couplet. Instead, the source of literature is the inspiration that comes from connecting, through nature, with the divine or the transcendental properties of the human mind. Romantic writers use the termImaginationto refer to this connection. The power of God to create nature is parallel to the poet’s power to create through the Imagination. In hisA Defence of Poetry, Percy Bysshe Shelley states that the Imagination “strips the veil of familiarity from the world, and lays bare the naked and sleeping beauty, which is the spirit of its forms.” In his “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey,” Wordsworth writes of “A motion and a spirit, that impels / All thinking things…” that he finds in nature. In his “The Eolian Harp,” Coleridge pictures all of nature, including humans, as harps creating music when touched by the breeze of Imagination, the “One life” that is “in us and abroad.”

Sturm und Drang

One facet of Romanticism also recognizes the dark side of the human mind. Originating in Germany, theSturm und Drang(usually translated “storm and stress”) movement pictures an anti-hero, a character dark in appearance, mood, and thought, in rebellion against the restrictions of society.Ann Radcliffeand others wroteGothic novelsthat typically feature picturesque yet haunted medieval castles and ruins, supernatural elements, death, madness, and terror. Gothic elements appear in many Romantic works: Heathcliff and the ghost of Catherine in Emily Brontë’sWuthering Heights, the mad wife in Charlotte Brontë’sJane Eyre, Mary Shelley’sFrankenstein. Jane Austen’sNorthanger Abbeydelightfully parodies the Gothic novel. In poetry, Byron’s narrative poems feature dark, brooding anti-heroes called Byronic heroes, a role Byron played himself in his personal life. The Tate Britain providesan online tourthrough a previous exhibit of paintings that illustrate Romantic Gothic art.

Romanticism and Neoclassicism

Romanticism is a reaction against many facets of Neoclassicism. The following chart lists contrasting views of Neoclassicism and Romanticism.

Characteristics of Romantic Literature

• medievalism—Rather than looking for forms and subject matter from classical literature, Romantic-era writers prefer nostalgic views of the Middle Ages as a simple, less complicated time not troubled by the complexities and divisive issues of industrialization and urbanization. Often a Romantic medieval vision is not realistic, ignoring the violence and harshness of the Middle Ages with its religious persecution, political wars, poverty among the lower classes in favor of a fairy tale view of knights in shining armor rescuing beautiful damsels in distress. Or, from another perspective, the castles and mysterious aura of the so-called Dark Ages provide an ideal setting for Gothic literature.
• mysticism—Romantic mysticism is the belief that the physical world of nature is a revelation of a spiritual or transcendental presence in the universe. Mysticism is not pantheism (worshipping nature). Romantic writers would worship not the tree, but the spiritual, sublime element manifested by the tree. Romantic literature, particularly poetry, is often characterized as nature poetry; mysticism explains the evident love of nature. Romantic writers love nature not only for its beauty but primarily because it is an expression of spirituality and the Imagination.
• sensibility—When Jane Austen titled her novelSense and Sensibility, she set up the dichotomy between rationalism and the emotional enthusiasm that was a reaction, often an exaggerated reaction, to the reason and logic prized in neoclassicism. In hisPreface to Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth defined poetry as the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” The overwhelming emotional reaction to nature seen in Wordsworth’s poetry, the emotional sensitivity to other individuals and their circ*mstances, particularly those from the lower socio-economic classes, and the supernatural evocation of terror in Gothic literature all are expressions of sensibility.
• primitivism and individualism—Arising from two sources, philosophical theories that posit innocence is found in nature and the ideals of democracy, Romanticism values the primitive individual, the person who does not have the artificial manners of high society, the cultivated façade of the aristocracy. Individuals who are closer to nature are better able to recognize and exemplify goodness and spiritual discernment. Wordsworth espouses the common man and incidents from ordinary life as the appropriate subject for poetry. Romanticism places the individual in the center of life and experience.

Lyrical Ballads

Lyrical Balladsis a collection of poems written and jointly published by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1798. The volume is of such importance that its 1798 publication date is often considered the beginning of the Romantic Period. The poetry inLyrical Balladsmarks a distinct change in both subject matter and style from the poetry of the 18th century.

William Wordsworth’s Preface toLyrical Ballads

In the 1802 edition ofLyrical BalladsWordsworth includes aPreface, an introductory explanation, toLyrical Balladsto explain his theory of how poetry should be written.

The following points from the Preface delineate the characteristics that make these poems markedly different from poetry of the preceding century:

• The language of poetry should be real language spoken by common people.

  During the 18th century, many poets used what Wordsworth called “poetic diction,” flowery or ornate words for ordinary things such as feathery flock instead of birds or finny tribe instead of fish. Wordsworth protests that people don’t use such expressions; therefore poetry shouldn’t either. Notice also that much of Wordsworth’s poetry rejects the uniform stanzas and line lengths that were popular in the 18th century. Much of his poetry is free in form—lines and stanzas of varying lengths in the same poem, more like the “selection of language really used by men.”

• The subject of poetry should be events from the real lives of common people.

  Wordsworth believes that common, ordinary situations are worthy topics for poems, events such as farmers plowing their fields. He further believes that through the Imagination he could make his audience more aware of the significance of common scenes that they might otherwise take for granted.

• “All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” and “takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” Thus Wordsworth identifies sensibility rather than reason as the source of poetry.
• A poet is a “man speaking to men” but an individual who is extraordinarily perceptive.Wordsworth believes that the power of the Imagination enables poets to perceive the spiritual dimension found in the ordinary, in, as Coleridge says, all of animate nature. Sensibility allows the poet to understand and to convey the inner being of man and nature.

Forms of Literature

• Novel

  Anovel, as famously defined in the Holman/HarmonHandbook to Literature, is an “extended fictional prose narrative.” The novel flourished in the Romantic Period, encompassing novels previously listed by Anne Brontë, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Mary Shelley, and Ann Radcliffe;Sir Walter Scott‘s historical novels, known as the Waverly Novels, set in medieval times and glorifying Scottish nationalism; and Jane Austen’s novels of manners, portraying the genteel country life of the Regency era.

• Lyric Poetry

  Alyricis a brief poem, expressing emotion, imagination, and meditative thought, usually stanzaic in form.

• Romantic Ode

  As used in the Romantic Period, theodeis a lyric poem longer than usual lyrics, often on a more serious topic, usually meditative and philosophic in tone and subject.

• Ballad

  Aballadis a narrative poem or song. Ballads originated as songs that were part of an oral culture, usually simple and regular in rhythm and rhyme. The typical ballad stanza is 4 lines rhyming abab. Because of their simplicity and their role as part of folk culture, ballads were popular with many Romantic writers.

Key Takeaways

• Romanticism grew from a political and philosophical milieu which promoted democracy, equated nature and spirit, and valued sensibility over reason.
• Lyrical Ballads, published in 1798, is often considered the beginning of the Romantic period because Wordsworth’s and Coleridge’s poetry marks a distinct change in form and subject matter from neoclassical poetry.
• In his Preface to the 1802 edition ofLyrical Ballads, Wordsworth delineates the principles that define Romanticism and distinguish Romantic poetry from neoclassical poetry.
• Important forms of Romantic literature are the novel, lyric poetry, odes, and ballads.

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