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What Made Romanticism so Revolutionary? Being born under the influence of two historical and social revolutions - namely the American and the French Revolution - and of the Napoleonic Wars, the birth of European Romanticism was one of the most important cultural revolutions of all time. Romanticism marked a watershed in the history of European as well as English literature. Anticipated by the works of pre-Romantic poets such as William Blake or Thomas Gray, who rejected the values of Classicism and introduced new themes and motifs in their poems, Romanticism emerged as a reaction to what began to be felt as the impersonality of 1 8th-century literature and was characterised by the central role played by a series of recurring elements and concepts that were overtly in contrast with the values of Neoclassicism (such as the primary role of reason, order, balance, and the rational). The elements that made Romanticism a revolutionary phenomenon were: • a re-evaluation of the role of subjectivity: in contrast with Neoclassicism, who preferred universality to subjectivity, Romantic intellectuals turned to their inner self, whose feelings and emotions became a source of inspiration and creativity; WORKS TIMELINE Elegy in a Country Churchyard Songs of Innocence and Experience (The Tyger, The Lamb, The Chimney Sweeper) Christabel Lyrical Ballads including Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner WORKS FIRST PUBLISHED 1751 1794 1797 1798 POET W. Blake T. Gray S.T. Coleridge W. Wordsworth S.T. Coleridge 322 TACKLING THE TOPIC I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud (Daffodils); My Heart Leaps Up; Ode: Intimations of Immortality 1807 W. Wordsworth • a new idea of Nature: as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, Romantic intellectuals and artists idealised the role of nature as a benign and consoling entity; • a new concept of beauty: for Romantic intellectuals and artists beauty was no longer a synonym of symmetry and harmony. Romantic artists gave importance to new ideas of beauty, such as the exotic, the irregular, the wild, the supernatural and the strange; • a new value given to imagination: in contrast with the faith in the power of reason that was typical of Neoclassicism, Romantic artists unfolded the different layers of reality through imagination. By doing so they explicitly declared that reality is much more than what we can experience with our senses; • a new concept of art: for Romantic artists art was the expression of the supreme creative power of the artist, who used his/her imagination, inspiration and sensitivity to get to the 'meaning' of things and re-create the external world. A New Sensitivity towards Nature A new interest in Nature was initially promoted by pre-Romantic intellectuals and artists, who give voice to their attempt to distance themselves from the Augustan values of order, harmony, and proportion by focusing on the representation of Nature in its most extreme, primitive and often uncontrolled aspects (eg. rugged mountains, stormy seas, and profound abysses, wild and mysterious animals). In pre-Romantic poetry, Nature is often depicted both as the right place for man and as the primordial force that can contrast the dehumanising effects of the Industrial Revolution. The poets belonging to the First Generation of Romantic poets - often referred to as the 'Lake Poets' - add new perspectives on Nature: Wordsworth feels a nostalgic appreciation for Nature, which he sees not just as his primary source of poetic inspiration, but also as a divine healing force that permeates the universe, offers consolation and spiritual guidance, and allows man to regain his original purity. Coleridge, on the other hand, is more interested in uncovering the supernatural, the sublime' and the fantastic in Nature and uses natural images to describe dream-like landscapes. More specifically, Coleridge interpreted Nature in Neo-Platonic terms as the visible translation of hidden spiritual truths that stand at the core of what is real. For the poets of the Second Generation of Romantic poets, Nature acquires a whole new set of connotations. Like Wordsworth, Shelley exalts Nature as a majestic unifying force that can reveal what he calls 'the spirit of beauty' and inspire humans to act heroically for a better world. Unlike Wordsworth, however, Shelley recognises that Nature is not only a benign entity but also an often uncontrolled and disruptive force that can destroy indiscriminately and is often indifferent to human requests. Also Keats drew much inspiration from the natural world, which he described with great precision and celebrated mainly as a source of sensuous stimuli: Keats believes that the contemplation of natural beauty and its forms is the primary way for humans to get close to the ideal world of Beauty and Truth and an escape from the narrowness, dryness and spiritual sterillity of the ordinary world. What is the Legacy of Romanticism? The poetic and cultural legacy of Romanticism is immense. The most interesting concepts and ideas • A meaningful and highly versatile adjective such as the word 'romantic; • The idea that the artist is a prophet-like figure who uses his/her own imagination to create original things; • The idea that there is an entire world beyond the world we can perceive with our own eyes: the world of emotions and feelings, which are worth exploring; • The idea that solitude is not just a synonym of loneliness, but also a condition in which people can get in touch with their inner self; • The concept of the artist as a 'rebel or as an individual who does not follow moral rules or conventions easily. Songs of Innocence and Experience (1794) Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience Showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul, set the innocent, pastoral world of childhood in contrast with the adult world of corruption and repression. The collection as a whole explored the value and limitations of two different perspectives on the world. Many of the poems fell into pairs, so that the same situation or problem was seen through the lens of innocence first and then experience. The Lamb, for example, represents a meek virtue, whereas The Tyger shows the opposing, darker forces. Some of the Songs of Innocence were written from the perspective of children, while others were about children seen from an adult perspective. Many of the poems drew attention to the positive aspects of natural human understanding prior to the corruption and distortion of experience. The Songs of Experience describe the way in which the harsh experiences of adult life can destroy what is good in innocence, but also point out the weakness of the innocent perspective. Blake's own beliefs emerged clearly in these works. He was critical of both State and Church, which he saw as symbols of reason and repression. He proposed a revolutionary new social, intellectual and ethical order. He was a bitter critic of the Industrial Revolution, which had led he Lamb م to poverty, exploitation of child labour and prostitution. He was also a convinced supporter of the French Revolution and of the campaign to abolish slavery. Although he was a deeply religious man, influenced in his writings by the Bible and Milton, he accused the Church as an institution of favouring the fragmentation of man's consciousness and the dualism that affects existence. In Blake's view, man held within himself both love and hate, reason and energy, but these were not seen as mutually exclusive, but rather as 'complementary opposites without which there could be no progress. As a visionary, Blake believed that man could know the world fully only through imagination, and this afforded a special role for the poet. Only God, children and the poet had this power of imagination which offered a deeper, truer understanding of reality. Imagination allowed men to see beyond physical reality. He didn't believe in reason &th amb Is thee amb God blets thei and sensorial experience. The external world could be experienced and understood only through the internal mind of imagination. The style of the Songs of Innocence and Experience is simple and direct, but the language and the rhythms are carefully handled and the ideas often very complex, expressed through symbolism. The poems use familiar meters of ballads, nursery rhymes and hymns and thus combine the traditional with the unfamiliar found in Blake's unorthodox, visionary ideas and his inspiration from Biblical texts. BLAKE AND THE AMBIVALENCE OF NATURE Much of Blake's poetry is permeated by an intense fascination with the natural world, which Blake observes and describes from a variety of different angles. The spiritualism that characterises Blake's poetic vision allows him to represent Nature in a powerfully ambivalent way, both as a magnificent, benign entity and as a powerful, disruptive force. The Lamb shows the perfect balance between Man and Nature: Nature can protect Man only if Man preserves Nature's existence by accepting its primordial rules. The Tyger, on the other hand, shows Nature as a powerful source of energy, a repository of primordial forces that are reflected in the power of creatures. Blake also represents the rupture of the perfect balance between Man and Nature caused by man's hybris (i.e. arrogance or excessive pride): this is particularly visible in Blake's Songs of Experience, in which Blake reflects on what he calls the 'satanic' effects of industrialisation on the landscape and on its inhabitants. Exploring the ambivalence of Nature allows Blake to acknowledge the intrinsic ambivalence of human beings, natural creatures who are dominated by contrasting instincts and opposing elements (order vs chaos; purity vs contamination). The elements of Nature Blakes focuses his attention on transcend their literary meaning to acquire the status of universal symbols and tools to understand the real essence of the human being. The British literary production between 1760 and 1837 can ...