Romanticism

[ForrestJG]

Does anyone out there understand Romanticism and what the main ideals of Romanticism was? I know there are a lot of monumental literature works involved in the Romantic movement; Keats, Blake, Byron, are authors that come to mind, and some of the best poetry and works of literature were begot during this movement, by Romantics. But what were their main ideals? I know they were interested in emotion, and nature, but how specifically did they live? I'm getting quite fascinated by it, but I can't seem to find a descent overview anywhere.

[Charles Darnay]

I'm surprised you were not able to find a good overview of Romanticism. A Google search would turn up a wealth of knowledge I'm sure.

One reason you may not be able to find a single good overview is because Romanticism was such a varied movement. First, nationally, there was a Romantic movement in: Germany, England, France, Russia, America..... you seem however, to be referring to the English movement (ie: Wordsworth, Blake, Shelley, Coleridge, Keats, Byron). Even among these six (often called the major six poets of Romanticism) their lives and the way they were lived were so different. So when prodding into Romanticism, you have to focus on a specific area - you will not be able to get a simple general overview....

It's great that you are taking an interest in English Romanticism. I would start with Wordsworth, he really started much of the movement.

[ForrestJG]

Yeah, I've heard about the English poets leading very different lives. I think it was Byron who hated Wordsworth's poetry, so really, I guess they belonged to Romanticism, but in very different ways. Didn't really share absolute ideals. I've got a collection of Keats' poetry, but I haven't read it yet, so I think that'd be the best place to start I guess. Or with Wordsworth like you say. I'm just fascinated by it; there's so much of it to take in. I know this is the English movement, but I've heard it was first coined by Rousseau, so I guess that's another couple of days of my time learning about that side of it as well :D

[JBI]

Almost all Romantic figures, and English major Romantics in general come at a time when the idea of the neo-classical world was thrown open by a new counter thought. In general it is an answer, often radical to this frame of mind. Therefore, to understand Romanticism, one must understand neo-classicism, and for English, Milton in particular.

Of the six most of them did not get along, given their contrary opinions, however they all seemed to accept that traditional notions of the world were for questioning, and that a new world view was about to rise - the revolutions in the US and France helped this, though the moment was short lived accordingly, given the backlash and problems that Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic Europe faced.

In many ways the romantic vision held strongest in the US, particularly after the civil war, but the resonance remains in literature and in culture today, however the moment of romanticism always seemed to be short lived.

If one is confused, they could do worse than reading Lovejoy's The Great Chain of being, or almost anything by Abrams.

[Charles Darnay]

You're right, Romanticism is fascinating, and there is so much to it. Keats' poetry is great, as are his letters. If your collection has some of his his letters, I highly recommend them.

As for the Romantic movement starting with Rousseau - this is partially correct (although personally I attribute Kant with the origins). As I said, Romanticism existed in different forms in different countries, but you also have to consider that Romanticism describes philosophy, literature, art, and music - and there are differences to all of these.

Rousseau and other Romantic philosophers were reacting against the Enlightenment and the thought that everything that everything can be ascertained through reason. The Romantics sought to bring emotion and Nature back into human thought.

The French Revolution was also a great catalyst for the Romantic movement. Before "The Reign of Terror", when the Revolution was still an ideal notion of the people rising up and overthrowing corruption to create a world based on a common understanding of "humanity" - poets and philosophers looked at the French Revolution for inspiration. Emotion, not logic, drove humanity, and there was more to life than what our senses could tell us. This is the heart of Romanticism - sort of.

Anyway, good luck with your Romantic travels!

[kiki1982]

Yes, the movement in itself is very diverse and all countries bring something else into it.Though for the very first Romantics, it's probably good to look to the Germans like Goethe and Schiller to have an idea of just how twisted some of the very first could be. So very over-occupied with emotion that it sometiems puts you off.

Classicism was indeed over-regulated. Both in conditions for genres and ways of writing about things. Novels were moralising, were for broadening the mind in some way. If they weren't moralising, they would at least offer you 'more' for your mind.

The French Revolution was probably a catalyst as well as a symptom of Romanticism, actually. Idealism, and 'man' as something free and good was one of the things that triggered the revolution. Class systems were against the fundamental idea of all men are equal and so it had to go. It was fuelled by the question whether a king should have compelte power on his own or not. Voltaire was pro, but that required intelligence in a king and interest. France's king wasn't really interested or badly advised so didn't do his despotic job well, unlike some of those despots.

Romanticism, in my view, investigates how people deal with situations. Not how the writer thinks people should deal with situations. Writers may opt to put two opposites in a novel (like Jean Valjean and Javert or Jane and Rochester) to show just how varied man can be, or he may just let a character do his thing, however sad or bad it may be (like Goethe's Werther). It occupies itself with nature because it believes that man should have access to nature in order to become really 'man' again, to become what God intended him to be.

You are right that many novels have turned classic from this period, but they are probably the very first 'novels' in the strictest sense of the word. Short enough to be enjoyed and more interesting than moralising or at least not as blatant as The Pilgrim's Progress.

[Drkshadow03]

You could try Romanticism: A Very Short Introduction (http://www.amazon.com/Romanticism-Very-Short-Introduction-Introductions/dp/019956891X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318714661&sr=1-1). I haven't read it, but I have read other books in the Very Short Introduction series. Be forewarned: some of in the series are really good, some really suck.

[mal4mac]

Isaiah Berlin, The Roots of Romanticism - read the superb paragraph on page 8.

[YW1990]

The main thing that i derived from my literature unit in uni was this quote

" The eye turns inward "

Romanticism is all about the subject themselves. It is strongly linked to subjective experience and emotions and is a revolt against the logical scientific nature of the enlightenment as someone said before. There is also a great focus on the concept of ' genius ' as well. It's one of my favorite movements along side realism which is its polar opposite.

[mal4mac]

In England, the key romantic figure is Byron, followed by Coleridge. Wordsworth was too wrapped up in nature and Toryism, a backslider who should have died early (unlike the ones that did!), not involved in the "the town" or the battle of ideas - a powerful nature poet certainly, but not enough to found a movement on.

For the romantics the ideal of life was integrity, sincerity, readiness to sacrifice one's life to an inner light or an idea. Not primarily interested in knowledge, science, political power. Not interested in: happiness, adjustment to life, finding a place in society, living at peace with the government, being loyal to the King or republic.

Common sense & moderation is far from their thoughts. They fight for their beliefs to the last breath, martyrdom is a key value to them. For them, minorities are more holy than majorities, and failure is nobler than success - a shoddy, vulgar thing.

Wholeheartedness, sincerity, purity of soul, dedication to an ideal - all these were relatively new with the romantic movement.

[kiki1982]

I don't quite agree. I agree that Byron is one of the first, but that extreme sensibility was short-lived, certainly in English. The Germans held out a little longer, because they had been the first, but in English it hadn't really arrived or it went. The idea that failure is better if it is martyrdom than success, hence that the idealist hero must and shall fail, is only very short.

Look at all the great romantic novellists in English, their heroes mostly do not go under and perish, on the contrary, they triumph. Jane Austen's novels always 'hasten to a happy conclusion', Scott's don't always, but there is success in some way or other, Jane Eyre ends blissful, Wuthering Heights too, Far from the Madding Crowd also, Little Dorrit too, not mentioning Oliver Twist.

Romanticism became quickly something of the middle classes and certainly in Great Britain the middle classes were ruled by this common sense and moderation idea. Byron, who brought the whole thing, not, of course, but then he was a rich arrogant pr*ck and extremely selfish and strange into the bargain. That is not to say his poetry is not brilliant, though, but modest he was certainly not. As the middle classes got more money they started to buy books and hence their views were supposed to be considered. Middle class was about improvement, not only societal but also personal. Hence the great success of physiognomy and phrenology. You could improve on the tendencies, try to keep them under control if you knew you had them. Victorians were obsessed with improving society.

The Bildungsroman is also a very romantic thing and its heroes mostly get to a happy end. Otherwise, the whole purpose of becoming a good person makes no sense. Man is flexible and can be formed, if only he encounters the right people and is given the right principles.

It was only after all that tireless optimism prooved pretty ineffective that Realism and finally Naturalism (influenced by the wrong interpretation of Darwin) started.

Therefore we now have the 'romantic film' notion. The film or story where things happen but everything will be alright in the end. Essentially also nearly all fairy tales we know are like that because they were written down and spread in the early 19th century by the middle classes, obsessed with their children. Some of them were modified like Cinderella because they were too gruesome; some of them were only slightly modified (the difference between the Grimms' Little Mermaid and Andersen's version for example).

Peace with politics, society and the like was actually one of the great subects, because it offered an unlimited string of inner conflicts which was interesting to explore for the Romantics.

[osho]

I have read some of the great romantic poets starting from William Blake. I like all of their poems. I often think that romantic poetry is real poetry. I recall when I read Wordsworth and he was indeed a gifted poet and after him some other great poets I never can forget like Shelley, Arnold, Keats and the like. In fact Romanticism is really a great movement that birthed so many great poets and unfortunately after the romantic era fewer poems were written.

To be honest I found those poets in this era as the best poets ever born. They are deeply natural or writing about nature and not only that nature was personified into human forms and there was a close and intimate relation between romantic poets and nature. Rural or pastoral scenes always found primacy in their poems.

[AjaxAscendant]

The best intro to Romanticism is in Jostein Gaarder's excellent Sophie's World, IMO. He deals with the movement sympathetically yet judiciously.

[mal4mac]

I don't quite agree. I agree that Byron is one of the first, but that extreme sensibility was short-lived, certainly in English. The Germans held out a little longer, because they had been the first, but in English it hadn't really arrived or it went. The idea that failure is better if it is martyrdom than success, hence that the idealist hero must and shall fail, is only very short.

Look at all the great romantic novellists in English, their heroes mostly do not go under and perish, on the contrary, they triumph. Jane Austen's novels always 'hasten to a happy conclusion', Scott's don't always, but there is success in some way or other, Jane Eyre ends blissful, Wuthering Heights too, Far from the Madding Crowd also, Little Dorrit too, not mentioning Oliver Twist.

There are several examples where the hero doesn't end well - 'A Tale of Two Cities', Dr Frankenstein, Dr Jekyll, Jude, Return of the Native, Tess , Victory, ...

'Rob Roy' had to end well for Rob 'cause in reality he was pardoned, and died in his house... but the strongest elements in that novel are extremely romantic - the hints of the great tragedy in his life (outlawing, house burned down, eviction of family...) and, especially, the response of his wife are pure romanticism.

You surely can't disallow 'success in some way or other' along the way! In Frankenstein the success was great, but that made the failure, and the whole tale, more Romantic. Can you give an example of a romantic hero who had it all bad?



Romanticism became quickly something of the middle classes and certainly in Great Britain the middle classes were ruled by this common sense and moderation idea.


Yes the ruling power will always try and assimilate anything that opposes it. This is why Wordsworth has grown to be the key figure taught in schools - he started out as a rebel, but quickly became a poster boy for the middle class, living quietly in the Lake District, writing poems about daffodils, and supporting the establishment to the hilt. The middle class could say, "see he was Byronic, which is OK for a few years for a young lad - just a bit of a lark - if it doesn't go too far, but he quickly settled down to a life of moderation and common sense, just like the rest of us."

That Wordsworth happened to write some of the most beautiful Romantic poetry helped support the middle classes and destroy the real impact of Romanticism, or at least slammed on the brakes.

[mal4mac]

The best intro to Romanticism is in Jostein Gaarder's excellent Sophie's World, IMO. He deals with the movement sympathetically yet judiciously.

Found the Sparks notes to this:

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/sophie/section11.rhtml

I'd question much of it.

Did the romantics *really* feel that art was humanity's greatest expression of freedom?

Is this not a middle class definition of romanticism? Byron & chums lived their romanticism. If romanticism is just shovelled into 'art appreciation classes' then the middle class have it nicely under control.

Pointing to a girl named Sophie who died four days after her 15th birthday, is trying to make the middle class point that 'romanticism is dangerous', trying to scare the nice, middle class, little girl, readers into remaining moderate and middle class.

Few of the Romantics saw nature as a 'world spirit', Shelley was an atheists. This is the middle class trying to show that Romanticism is a vapid, wooly, overly-spiritual thing, not like the hard, scientific, understandable 'gradgrind' philosophy of the middle-classes.

So all in all this looks like an awful introduction to Romanticism designed to keep nice little middle class girls in their place (Sophie - a very middle class name...)

Read Berlin!!!! That gets to the the true roots of Romanticism - at least far better than a kid's book or a book you haven't read :out:

[wessexgirl]

In England, the key romantic figure is Byron, followed by Coleridge. Wordsworth was too wrapped up in nature and Toryism, a backslider who should have died early (unlike the ones that did!), not involved in the "the town" or the battle of ideas - a powerful nature poet certainly, but not enough to found a movement on.

For the romantics the ideal of life was integrity, sincerity, readiness to sacrifice one's life to an inner light or an idea. Not primarily interested in knowledge, science, political power. Not interested in: happiness, adjustment to life, finding a place in society, living at peace with the government, being loyal to the King or republic.

Common sense & moderation is far from their thoughts. They fight for their beliefs to the last breath, martyrdom is a key value to them. For them, minorities are more holy than majorities, and failure is nobler than success - a shoddy, vulgar thing.

Wholeheartedness, sincerity, purity of soul, dedication to an ideal - all these were relatively new with the romantic movement.

I disagree with you about a few things here Mal. Byron was an infamous, even notorius figure of the movement, but you are playing down Wordsworth's role excessively. I agree he turned into an establishment figure, but what he was doing in his early years, with Coleridge in particular was groundbreaking stuff. You seem to be putting Coleridge above him, but doesn't Wordsworth deserve his place for his input into Lyrical Ballads, and then the sublime and pioneering The Prelude? I see you say in a later post that he has only become the status he has because of his backsliding into the Establishment, which is why he's taught in schools. I think this is a serious misreading of him. He was not just some fey poet wandering the Lake District babbling about daffodils. He started out as a revolutionary too, and yes, he disappointed many by turning into an elder statesman for the Establishment, but you can't take away the importance of his role in his early days.

I would also challenge your use of the word integrity. In what sense? And do you really believe the "true" Romantics were not interested in knowledge, science or political power? Just an example off the top of my head would be the creation of Frankenstein. The experiments in galvanism were almost certainly seen or at least known about by the group. Shelley's poem The Mask of Anarchy, (which I've just been listening to coincidentally and it's wonderful), does not suggest that he had no interest in political power. He most certainly did, as did Byron with his sympathetic maiden speech in the House of Lords in support of the Luddites. They had no interest in supporting the Establishment, but they would certainly have had an interest in helping things become better for other sectors of society.

I adore the Romantics, particularly the later trio of Byron, Keats and Shelley, but we have to wonder whether if they had have lived as long as Wordsworth whether they too would have mellowed. It happens to most people, they move more to the right as they get older, and/or become more comfortable. I have to admire the younger three though as they will be forever remembered not only for their work, but for their dying young and in the manner they did. A drowning (Shelley), a consumptive death, (Keats) and dying from the consequences of fighting for a noble cause (Byron). Could a poet have a better death than that to be remembered by future generations?

My questioning of the word integrity was just that, much as I love them, integrity isn't the first word that springs to my mind when I think of Byron or Shelley. I imagine if you were involved personally with them, particularly in a sexual relationship, that description would be way down your list of adjectives. Byron's disgusting behaviour with regards to his daughter by Clair Clairmont for example, or Shelley's treatment of his first wife and child. I don't want to look too closely at their personal behaviour, as it somehow takes the shine off their otherwise admirable qualities. Only Keats seems to have behaved admirably with regards to his personal relationships, perhaps another reason Byron could mock him with his sneering towards "the Cockney School".

[mal4mac]

I disagree with you about a few things here Mal. Byron was an infamous, even notorius figure of the movement, but you are playing down Wordsworth's role excessively. I agree he turned into an establishment figure, but what he was doing in his early years, with Coleridge in particular was groundbreaking stuff. You seem to be putting Coleridge above him, but doesn't Wordsworth deserve his place for his input into Lyrical Ballads, and then the sublime and pioneering The Prelude? I see you say in a later post that he has only become the status he has because of his backsliding into the Establishment, which is why he's taught in schools. I think this is a serious misreading of him. He was not just some fey poet wandering the Lake District babbling about daffodils.


I didn't say he was "babbling about daffodils"!

His lines on the French Revolution - "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!..." - are certainly enthralling, but he all too quickly felling into being an establishment figure.

Isaiah Berlin makes very little mention of Wordsworth.



I would also challenge your use of the word integrity. In what sense?


Byron might have treated women badly, but perhaps in doing this he was being true to his main ideal of freedom. I'm not trying to argue that integrity = sainthood.



And do you really believe the "true" Romantics were not interested in knowledge, science or political power? Just an example off the top of my head would be the creation of Frankenstein. The experiments in galvanism were almost certainly seen or at least known about by the group.


Galvanic experiments in Frankenstein were used to show how science 'mis-shapes the beauteous form of things' - but of course they needed to know enough about science to 'take on' science - but no more than could have been gleaned form reading the best popular accounts of the day.

Here's Wordsworth:
-----------------------
UP! up! my Friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you'll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?

...

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:--
We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science...
--------------------------

Did any of the romantics actually stand for parliament? The flirtation that Byron had with politics is hardly evidence of an all-consuming interest in establishment politics - such pursuits would be totally deadening to a true romantic. Will Self had a wonderful 'short' on 'radio 4' recently about the deadening effect of joining political parties -worth seeking out...

And, of course, the romantics were interested in the freedom of their fellow man and the sad lot of the poverty ridden masses of that time - but if that amounts to being political then *everything* is political.

You could argue that they could have done more to to do something about the conditions in society, especially Byron as he was a Lord ... but they were hounded out of the UK... difficult to work for the masses in London when you can't leave Switzerland...

[kiki1982]

There are several examples where the hero doesn't end well - 'A Tale of Two Cities', Dr Frankenstein, Dr Jekyll, Jude, Return of the Native, Tess , Victory, ...

Uhm, most of Hardy's work is much too negative to be Romantic. He is mostly Naturalis, Realist at best. Tess is tragedy from beginning to end, Jude is even worse, The mayor of Casterbridge is pretty sad too, although that still ends well for some. Romanticism is not negative at all.

Dr Jekyll is also not really Romantic it's a bit odd.

Romantic is something like Jane Eyre: it shows that man is essentially good and that man, if he puts his mind to it, can overcome problems in his life, no matter how long they last.


'Rob Roy' had to end well for Rob 'cause in reality he was pardoned, and died in his house... but the strongest elements in that novel are extremely romantic - the hints of the great tragedy in his life (outlawing, house burned down, eviction of family...) and, especially, the response of his wife are pure romanticism.

Ivanhoe and Waverley also ended well, despite all the obstacles. Do I hear some Brontë similarities?


You surely can't disallow 'success in some way or other' along the way! In Frankenstein the success was great, but that made the failure, and the whole tale, more Romantic. Can you give an example of a romantic hero who had it all bad?

The problem about that example is that, firstly, it is gothic which makes it a lot more scary than later Romanticism was and, secondly, that it is very early so that it is really fish nor meat as they say in Dutch. Frankenstein is a man, so is his monster, but the monster is much more fundamentally man than the scientist. The mysteriousness of man in general and science in particular by which he tries to understand himself and to understand his environment is quite daunting, but I would not consider that a very typical example of anything.


Yes the ruling power will always try and assimilate anything that opposes it. This is why Wordsworth has grown to be the key figure taught in schools - he started out as a rebel, but quickly became a poster boy for the middle class, living quietly in the Lake District, writing poems about daffodils, and supporting the establishment to the hilt. The middle class could say, "see he was Byronic, which is OK for a few years for a young lad - just a bit of a lark - if it doesn't go too far, but he quickly settled down to a life of moderation and common sense, just like the rest of us."

And is a writer a better writer per definition because he is rebel?

Byron was maybe a key figure in bringing the whole thing to the English language, but he was already outdated when he started, almost. Wordsworth is probably closer to real Romanticism and further away from the Sturm und Drang from Byron. I don't suppose that it was by accident that the Germans devised another term for the Byron side of things, to be a brief period to come before the Romantik which is Biedermeier and similar things.


That Wordsworth happened to write some of the most beautiful Romantic poetry helped support the middle classes and destroy the real impact of Romanticism, or at least slammed on the brakes.

The development of Romanticism as we know it does not depend on the middle classes at all, or not primarily. The earlier way of romanticism is highly improbable and sometimes even ridiculous. Think of that great work Young Werther. Who in his right mind would talk like that! He only observes the girl for God's sake and then commits suicide because she doesn't answer to his love?? I mean, please, how unmanly can you get?

In the book I am reading now (Erzählungen - Shortstories by Kleist) I have Die Verlobung in St Domingo. In Haiti there is this uprising from the negro slaves against their French masters. Fine, so this negro has kicked his masters out and commissioned the ex-mistress/slave of his master and her daughter to come and serve him. If any whites pass, they are to take them in, keep them under false pretences until he is back when he can kill them. This white man comes to the door one night and to cut a long story short, he has sex with the young 15-year old daughter before having a really emotional conversation about the fact that his fiancée was guillotined during the revolution in France. And she looks like her.
:confused: :eek: So you mean that a man has his lusts and that he will have sex with a 15-year old girl, depsite his mood? Not thinking about the age, but in that frame of mind, would an average man really have done this? I find that highly improbable.
Die Marquise von O is also somthing similarly strange. During a siege in a fort, a young woman feels unwell, she is taken care of by a Russian officer who quickly disappears, doesn't know what the bloody hell is up and then she feels 'strange'. Turns out of course she is pregnant... Her family blames her (:confused:), but haleluja praise the lord, the Russian officer turns up and proposes. But it is not finished! She refuses 3 times! Until the couple finally get together because she left the latch of her garden open and then, when he asks her why she didn't accept him the first time, says that she had done so if he hadn't seemed so odious to her. God knows how her mind has changed now...

The plays made in those days were so difficult to play (too much time elapses, too many locations etc) that that concept quickly went, because it was too difficult for the public.

That kind of exaggerated stuff does not speak to a public all the time. They don't want to see agony, they want to see solutions. If everyone did like the Sturm und Drang characters, the world would be very pessimistic place. After a brief step away from rigid and over-regulated Classicism, the public didn't like this over-exaggerated emotion anymore, because they couldn't identify with it.

[OrphanPip]

I'm not sure I would consider Dickens a Romantic either, although he is influenced by the Romantics. The mature Dickens is on the cusp between the realists and the Romantics, the Romantic comes through in his Victorian idealism and emotional sentimentality. Although, I think the sentimental movement in literature is a parallel development to Romanticism, rather than a vital element of Romanticism. So, you get the emergence of sentimentalism in 18th century theatre, as a sign of a moral core in individuals, of some objective good in people that is discernible if you know what to look for, it is essentially an Enlightenment ideal but you can see the relationship to the Rousseau/Goethe ideas circulating at the time. Austen reacts against this sentimentality with a turn towards a certain psychological realism, which is not really Romantic, but she is in that moment and commenting on her Romantic peers. Dickens embraces certain elements of that sentimentalism while also embracing the emerging realist movement in prose.

Romanticism in theatre never really resonated much with audiences in English. There is a reason we never see Byron's play revived on the stage. English theatre is essentially a dead zone between Henry Fielding and Bernard Shaw.

[mal4mac]

Uhm, most of Hardy's work is much too negative to be Romantic... Tess is tragedy from beginning to end, Jude is even worse, The mayor of Casterbridge is pretty sad too, although that still ends well for some. Romanticism is not negative at all.

Berlin puts Schopenhauer, and Wagner, at the centre of the Romantic Movement - and you don't get more negative than Schopenhauer, who directly influenced Hardy. The defining ideas of romanticism, for Berlin, are centrality of 'the will' and an absence to the structure of things.

How can romanticism encompass rosy-cheeked peasants and Nerval tugging his lobster down a Paris street? The both wish to break up the nature of the given - anything , positive or negative, that destroys this is welcome. That is the essence of romanticism.

Dr Jekyll is a romantic because he is breaking up the order of things, of his own mind, by allowing himself to become Hyde. And surely being a bit odd is not anti-romantic!

Schopenhauer does not think that man is essentially good, i don't see how that can be a defining Romantic principle.

[kiki1982]

Oh, yes, I forgot to mention Dickens! He is far too sad in some places to be a truly Romantic novelist.

Austen maybe considered the very idea of Byronesk exaggerated idealism and unrestrained passion ridiculous because of the Darcies in real life who actually read that kind of stuff. That is actually a pretty ridiculous idea. :smilielol5: You have really restrained peple who are going to read about other people who are the most unrestrained for centuries. There is something weird about that... :banghead:

However, being a satirist she also reacted against that restrained ridicule. It's double really. Isn't she wonderful :ladysman:. Fore and against :ciappa:.

That about the English public... I can't actually imagine people during the Regency going to a play like that... The public in Britain is decadent, but I don't think emotionally so, unlike in France and on the continent where everything went... Somehow I think maybe even finding an actor to play real Byronic heroes may have been difficult.

[Charles Darnay]

Dr Jekyll is also not really Romantic it's a bit odd.



This is exactly why it is Romantic (as well as Gothic): the grotesque, and what that says about the human condition was part of the Romantic idea.

I also disagree with your idea that Dickens cannot be Romantic because he is too sad. That is not to say I think Dickens is a Romantic novelist (I don't) but Romanticism is not defined by any state of happiness. Many of Wordsworth's poems and Keats' are quite "sad".

[OrphanPip]

This is exactly why it is Romantic (as well as Gothic): the grotesque, and what that says about the human condition was part of the Romantic idea.

I also disagree with your idea that Dickens cannot be Romantic because he is too sad. That is not to say I think Dickens is a Romantic novelist (I don't) but Romanticism is not defined by any state of happiness. Many of Wordsworth's poems and Keats' are quite "sad".

There is a difference in how Stevenson's Jekyll is bizarre though. Where you have unexplained supernaturalism in the works of many gothic novelist, with Stevenson you get this sort of naturalized extraordinary circumstances. The Jekyll figure is tied up with contemporary concerns about devolution and the brutal animal nature of man. At the core it's a morality tale which is strongly Victorian in character, rather than Romantic. The rationalizing tendency in Stevenson is distinctly un-Romantic. Stevenson is a difficult author to place relative to major movements, as he is more closely linked to genre, horror and adventure stories, than he is to larger philosophical movements.

[kiki1982]

Berlin puts Schopenhauer, and Wagner, at the centre of the Romantic Movement - and you don't get more negative than Schopenhauer, who directly influenced Hardy. The defining ideas of romanticism, for Berlin, are centrality of 'the will' and an absence to the structure of things.

How can romanticism encompass rosy-cheeked peasants and Nerval tugging his lobster down a Paris street? The both wish to break up the nature of the given - anything , positive or negative, that destroys this is welcome. That is the essence of romanticism.

Dr Jekyll is a romantic because he is breaking up the order of things, of his own mind, by allowing himself to become Hyde. And surely being a bit odd is not anti-romantic!

Schopenhauer does not think that man is essentially good, i don't see how that can be a defining Romantic principle.

Well, if Berlin was a liberal literary critic he will have focussed on the idea of no structure and 'the will' (personal liberty). What does that say? That he was motivated by the liberal ideal, otherwise nothing.

Wagner and Schopenhauer were two Germans. How are they supposed to be relevant at all to Dickens? And yes, Schopenhauer influenced Hardy. Why does that not surprise me? Anyone will tell you that Hardy is not Romantic. More like Zola, only more simplistic (thank God).

Dr Jekyll is, as I said, not romantic because he evokes the raw passions of man. He is already influenced by a faulty interpretation of Darwin. He is not quite Realist yet, nor Naturalistic, but he's on the boundary between all of them. It is not because there is a little occult science, a little emotion in there (not really actually) and a little strangeness that it is Romantic.

If the purpose is not structure, how, may I ask, would you define Far from the Madding Crowd? Surely that is about a man who struggles to find his place in the existing world. He does not try to break up any structures, nor does he actually
succeed in any way. No, he finds his place and marries the woman of his dreams, quietly. He quietly perseveres in the face of two love-rivals, but triumphs.
How does Heathcliff break any structures and is rewarded for it? He does not even perish in dishonour, although some people may think so.
How does Brian de Bois-Guilbert succeed to break down the structures around him? He perishes because of them, or maybe not, is granted mercy. Though the world will still remain the same after he has perished.

If you do consider Dickens a Romantic, how does Scrooge defy societal structures? Surely not by being kind to the poor? Dickens is Victorian to the finest fibre of his bones. he does not want to break structures down, but build them up because without structure man is nothing. Although some structures may be savage, they should be improved, not broken down altogether. What happens to Little Dorrit's father when he has no structure? What happens to Oliver Twist if he has no longer anyone to keep him on the straight and narrow...

Romanticism came out of the Enlightenment and that presumed, as OrphanPip said, that man is essentially good. Whether Shopenhauer agreed or not, is of no consequence, counter-Enlightenment Berlin called it.

[kiki1982]

There is a difference in how Stevenson's Jekyll is bizarre though. Where you have unexplained supernaturalism in the works of many gothic novelist, with Stevenson you get this sort of naturalized extraordinary circumstances. The Jekyll figure is tied up with contemporary concerns about devolution and the brutal animal nature of man. At the core it's a morality tale which is strongly Victorian in character, rather than Romantic. The rationalizing tendency in Stevenson is distinctly un-Romantic. Stevenson is a difficult author to place relative to major movements, as he is more closely linked to genre, horror and adventure stories, than he is to larger philosophical movements.

Just my thoughts, I couldn't have said it better. I couldn't have said it at all, in fact... Too rational, that was what was bugging me about him.

[mal4mac]

This is exactly why it is Romantic (as well as Gothic): the grotesque, and what that says about the human condition was part of the Romantic idea.

The grotesque is part of many romantic texts, but not all of them. You can't call Wordsworth's daffodils grotesque!

Wordsworth's concentration on nature, like Rousseau's pursuit of 'natural man', are both ways of 'breaking up the given' *without* being grotesque. They both moved away from many of the deas that were typical of the enlightenment - science, the modern city, progress, commercial reality, mundane happiness...

I don't think Dr Jekyll is too rational - [spoiler warning] the substance he takes was discovered by accident and contains an important impurity that he knows nothing about and cannot find again in similar supplies of the substance. The world he inhabits - London, the world of lawyers & doctors, is very rational, but that just helps highlight the irrationality of Hyde and many of Jekylls actions.[spoilers off]

Jekll's quest is a bit like Rousseau's - he's trying to get away from 'the given' by retreating into 'the primitive' - although it does have the grotesque/gothic aspects - the mysterious, spiritual substance, the monstrous aspects of Hyde.

Isaiah Berlin's "Roots of Romanticism" work is admired by non-liberal intellectuals, for instance Michael Foot praises it to the heights.

Do a Google search for "Hardy romantic" and you don't find everyone telling you Hardy is not a romantic. For instance, the first page tells you "Hardy is often characterized as a disappointed Romantic." This seems a very apt description - think of Angel Clare or Jude - romantic pursuers of ideals, but losing contact with those ideals through their own lack, and through the weight of the world upon them.

I don't think you can take Hardy's least romantic novel and say he was not a romantic author - you have to show that of all of them.

The defying of societal structures can be largely internal. Scrooge, through a grotesque epiphany, was turned into recognising and avidly campaigning for the needs of the poor - from a normal, expected position of hoarding his money & acting in a selfish manner. So I think he is romantic figure - though drawn in broad outline as it's only a novella and the 'romantic epiphany' comes near the end. I think Nicholas Nickleby is a better drawn example of a romantic hero - though too young & raw to be the finished article... not quite yet Rob Roy...

[Charles Darnay]

[QUOTE=mal4mac;1084053]The grotesque is part of many romantic texts, but not all of them. You can't call Wordsworth's daffodils grotesque!

I never said Romantic = Grotesque, I only said that Jekyll was both.....for reasons that you go on to point out.

[kiki1982]

The grotesque is part of many romantic texts, but not all of them. You can't call Wordsworth's daffodils grotesque!

Wordsworth's concentration on nature, like Rousseau's pursuit of 'natural man', are both ways of 'breaking up the given' *without* being grotesque. They both moved away from many of the deas that were typical of the enlightenment - science, the modern city, progress, commercial reality, mundane happiness...

So what are you arguing here? That Wordworth is a Romantic or not?

It is not because there is only one element that seems to be consistent with Romanticism that the whole thing is so.

You can find boundaries broken down everywhere, but I fail to see how that is relevant at all. Like this you can actually put all of literature inside the same 'style' as it were. No significance at all.


I don't think Dr Jekyll is too rational - [spoiler warning] the substance he takes was discovered by accident and contains an important impurity that he knows nothing about and cannot find again in similar supplies of the substance. The world he inhabits - London, the world of lawyers & doctors, is very rational, but that just helps highlight the irrationality of Hyde and many of Jekylls actions.[spoilers off]

Jekll's quest is a bit like Rousseau's - he's trying to get away from 'the given' by retreating into 'the primitive' - although it does have the grotesque/gothic aspects - the mysterious, spiritual substance, the monstrous aspects of Hyde.

Dr Jekyll is too rational. There is no outburst of passion, no nothing. At best it is something that is faintly uncomfortable, at best. That doesn't make it Romantic at all.


Isaiah Berlin's "Roots of Romanticism" work is admired by non-liberal intellectuals, for instance Michael Foot praises it to the heights.

That may be and still I do not agree and find that it is too narrow. Although that may be due to someone's interpretation of it...


Do a Google search for "Hardy romantic" and you don't find everyone telling you Hardy is not a romantic. For instance, the first page tells you "Hardy is often characterized as a disappointed Romantic." This seems a very apt description - think of Angel Clare or Jude - romantic pursuers of ideals, but losing contact with those ideals through their own lack, and through the weight of the world upon them.

I don't think you can take Hardy's least romantic novel and say he was not a romantic author - you have to show that of all of them.

Look, there is a clear move in Hardy's work from Romantic (Far from the Madding Crowd) to pessimism (The Mayor of Casterbridge) to Naturalism (Tess of the d'Urbervilles and even worse Jude the Obscure). Angel Clare and Jude may be pursuers of ideals, but that doesn't make them Romantic! Seriously! Clare is no Waverley. Waverley is Romantic, Clare is a sad sod. You see the difference? Even Brian de Bois-Guilbert is more noble in his pursuits than Clare! His ideals may be a bit unorthodox, but still he believes in them, until his death. Clare doesn't believe in his ideals, he leaves his wife to return later because she is no virgin. As far as Jude goes, he is not ruled by his own inadequacy (like Angel, who is really too much a Victorian man), no, he is ruled by the inadequacy of the rest of the world. He tries and tries, but the rest of the world doesn't want to see. That is so sad. And then he even starts believing it himself. That is the worst of it. Tell me, is that so Romantic? Compare it to Waverley and Bois-Guilbert. They did not doubt. Maybe they perished (at least in the last case) but they did not give up. That is the difference between the two. Naturalism leaves you with an empty feeling. Romanticism leaves you maybe with a sad feeling, but not empty.


The defying of societal structures can be largely internal. Scrooge, through a grotesque epiphany, was turned into recognising and avidly campaigning for the needs of the poor - from a normal, expected position of hoarding his money & acting in a selfish manner. So I think he is romantic figure - though drawn in broad outline as it's only a novella and the 'romantic epiphany' comes near the end. I think Nicholas Nickleby is a better drawn example of a romantic hero - though too young & raw to be the finished article... not quite yet Rob Roy...

Excuse me, it was a Victorian rich person's duty to give to the poor. That was what Dickens was on about with his epiphany. A rich person had got his riches from God (as that was still the case then) and had a duty to give it back to God (i.e. society). Scrooge does not and that is what makes him a bad man. So keeping his money was not normal. Victorians tirelessly worked to try and make the world a better place. Indeed, Dickens himself wished to make the world a better place by his writings. That's why he gave lectures, did public readings of his books in theatres and made his novels so melodramatic, so that a moment of catharsis (I believe it's called) and people would actually do something about it, like when those engravings were published of the London slums in the 1830s. Where do you think philanthropy comes from? So breaking down barriers, nope. Normality, that's what Scrooge's epiphany was about.

Rousseau's idea of natural man was not as you put it 'primitive', that is an often misunderstood concept. Rousseau meant man in his true state, like a child. Where a child was previously thought inadequate (so it must be taught, beaten and disciplined because it knows no better; it needs to be shaped by society and rules to become a proper adult), it can learn by itself and guided by itself because it essentially wishes to learn and also wishes to be good. I.e. criminals are victims, they have not chosen to steal, they are poor people who have somehow lost the way. By returning to nature, Rousseau thought (like Austen) that man would find back himself, behind all the societal pomp. Dr Jekyll has therefore nothing to do with Rousseau, in fact it expresses something that is totally the opposite from it: man and his passions are essentially dangerous and nasty.

You also see that back in prison sentences: the idea of prison sentences for stealing for example is a relatively new concept. Before, they tried to numb the spirit (move a mount of bricks to the other side of the court and back, all day, no use really) so that a criminal might move from his bad mindset to a good one. Thy branded people because they did not want to take them out of society but shock them into goodness. Of course this is not true, but that's how they thought. That is absolutely a very far far distant cry from Hardy's Tess.

[Charles Darnay]

Dr Jekyll is too rational. There is no outburst of passion, no nothing. At best it is something that is faintly uncomfortable, at best. That doesn't make it Romantic at all.



Dr. Jekyll can be said to be too rational because Utterson is too rational. He doesnt not permit outbursts of passion in his story - he is not a Romantic. But the situation is, the themes present in the story can be said to be those that we use to define Romanticism as a movement.

[kiki1982]

As I said, the fact that there is something along those lines present doesn't make it an example of it.

Does the fact that Van Gogh painted landscapes and painted in something like stripes instead of clearly defined lines make him an impressionist? He also found light very important. Another thing that is impressionist. He has been called a lot, but by no means a pure impressionist. That's not difficult to see, is it.

[mal4mac]

So what are you arguing here? That Wordworth is a Romantic or not?

Yes he is a Romantic - he retreats into admiring nature. For enlightenment thinkers nature is an irrational thing, best ignored or tamed to improve agriculture.



It is not because there is only one element that seems to be consistent with Romanticism that the whole thing is so.

You can find boundaries broken down everywhere, but I fail to see how that is relevant at all.


I think it needs to be a radical, obsessive attempt to break down boundaries and back one's idealism to the hilt. Like Shelley pushing his booklet on Atheism throughout Oxford at a time when he could only get into serious trouble for doing so - and he knew it - and he did.

For me, Dr Jekyll's struggle with the Hyde side of his nature was very passionate.



Angel Clare and Jude may be pursuers of ideals, but that doesn't make them Romantic! Seriously! Clare is no Waverley. Waverley is Romantic, Clare is a sad sod. You see the difference?


I haven't, to my shame, read the Waverley novels or Ivanhoe.

I certainly agree that Clare is a sad sod, Jude as well, and whatshisname in Return of the Native. But I think they can be looked at as *failed* romantics, and if a novel contains failed romantics I think it can be classified as (partly) a romantic novel.

As society, and their natures, drives them on to become sad sods I guess that make Hardy somewhat of a naturalist - and as we see these types in everyday society - also a realist. But he's too much of a Schopenhaurian to be just that - the idea of a remorseless, fateful will is not Naturalist.

I agree Jude is mostly ruled by the inadequacy of the rest of the world, but he has many flaws - he drinks too much, he lets himself be too much under the thumb of his wife, he doesn't see he already has a better job than being an Oxford scholar.

Still the case you make for the successful romantics is very interesting - I must read more Scott! Any other 'successful romantics' out there?

[kiki1982]

Yes he is a Romantic - he retreats into admiring nature. For enlightenment thinkers nature is an irrational thing, best ignored or tamed to improve agriculture.

That is manifestly untrue. How could Wordsworth be a Romantic if he retreats in nature and at the same time that is scary? That does not add up. Even Austen makes a case for nature. Scott too. That is just a total misconception


I think it needs to be a radical, obsessive attempt to break down boundaries and back one's idealism to the hilt. Like Shelley pushing his booklet on Atheism throughout Oxford at a time when he could only get into serious trouble for doing so - and he knew it - and he did.

For me, Dr Jekyll's struggle with the Hyde side of his nature was very passionate.

Rochester had a passionate struggle inside him, even Darcy somewhat (although it was difficult to spot), but Jekyll... That was an occult fancy, not the product of a struggle.


I haven't, to my shame, read the Waverley novels or Ivanhoe.

I certainly agree that Clare is a sad sod, Jude as well, and whatshisname in Return of the Native. But I think they can be looked at as *failed* romantics, and if a novel contains failed romantics I think it can be classified as (partly) a romantic novel.

As society, and their natures, drives them on to become sad sods I guess that make Hardy somewhat of a naturalist - and as we see these types in everyday society - also a realist. But he's too much of a Schopenhaurian to be just that - the idea of a remorseless, fateful will is not Naturalist.

I agree Jude is mostly ruled by the inadequacy of the rest of the world, but he has many flaws - he drinks too much, he lets himself be too much under the thumb of his wife, he doesn't see he already has a better job than being an Oxford scholar.

What else is Naturalism apart from man being ruled by will and fate? The really sad thing is that characters mostly bring it upon themselves, that is what leaves a reader with an empty feeling; the feeling that man is not worth a life really. That is not romantic at all.

Failed romantics are essentially either realist or naturalist. Mostly naturalist, as realist sometimes still contains extenuating circumstances. Like Tom Tulliver. He is a domineering twit for his sister and unfortunate things happen, but it's not really down to himself that he fails, nor is their father to blame for anything but his goodness to his sister (not claiming back his money they can't pay back and thus make them poor peple heading for the work house...).

Surely, even without reading any Scott you can see the diference between Dickens's characters and Hardy's? Or you can see the difference between Clare/Jude or even Tess and Gabriel. Gabriel succeeds, through hardship, his actions are maybe not directly fruitful, but they will proove fruitful in the end. Clare's actions, Jude's actions and Tess's will all proove fatal. Jude doesn't drink in the beginning. He begins to drink after he has lost his 'wife' in spirit. He has this mind he wants to satisfy and although you may presume he should be happy because he's good at his job and he is valued, why should he be satisfied? He wants to study, he is not allowed to, that is the point. Maybe if he had got there, it wouldn't have been worthwhile (like Philotson), but who knows? The sadness is two ways, really, on the one side that he has the inadequacy to realy sesign to his fate and is still aspiring (although he knows it's going to come to nothing) and on the other that he is not allowed to do anything else with his life. Even the stone mason he is is under threat at some point because of his relationship with the woman of his dreams. What does she have to do with the quality of his work.


Still the case you make for the successful romantics is very interesting - I must read more Scott! Any other 'successful romantics' out there?

Millions and millions, I expect. Romantics, for short.

You're going to really laugh, but Heathcliffe is a succeeding romantic and Cathy too (eventually).

Rochester is a succeeding romantic and so is Jane.

Huntington's wife is one, together with her gentleman farmer lover.

Little Dorrit, Scrooge, Oliver Twist, etc.

Cyrano is a succeeding romantic. That's quite odd because he is very very late, but it's kind of a tribute to the age of d'Artagnan who is referenced in it.

D'Artagnan and his friends, Jean Valjean eventually, The Count of Monte Cristo...

[mal4mac]

Rochester had a passionate struggle inside him, even Darcy somewhat (although it was difficult to spot), but Jekyll... That was an occult fancy, not the product of a struggle.


Have you read it recently? I read it last month and it was *not* just an occult fancy, partly that maybe, but Stevenson makes a lot of Jekyll's struggles between being the eminent Victorian scientist, and his tendencies to go debauching in the evenings (typical medical student :). The main attraction for becoming Hyde is that he could, for an evening, let go this internal tension between his "ideal" self and his "debauched" self.



You're going to really laugh, but Heathcliffe is a succeeding romantic and Cathy too (eventually).

Rochester is a succeeding romantic and so is Jane.


I can vaguely see this - I need to reread these works



Little Dorrit, Scrooge, Oliver Twist, etc.


So you admit Dickens is a romantic! Not just an old fogy Victorian. Actually, his end was very romantic - working himself to death by playing his own characters on the stage - to great acclaim - definitely a successful romantic.

Was Tolstoy a romantic? I think Prince Andrei is the epitome of a romantic hero...

[fb0252]

anybody read William Meister's Apprenticeship? Best Romantic novel imho, by leaps and bounds.

[osho]

In fact I always hate to label a writer. To say Wordsworth romantic and T.S Eliot modernist in very way is a narrowly blinkered idea. Wordsworth in some respects was much modernist than T. S.Eliot was somewhat romantic

[blazeofglory]

I recall having read a bunch of romantic poets starting from William Blake all through Shelly, Keats, Mathew Arnold and finally to W B Yeats. All these poets represented an epoch and even in my country in Nepal we had so many great poets following this track. In poetry the romantic era has a unique voice and they are unbeatably great poets and have never remained unsurpassed in the field of literature.Just imagine our world without these romantic poets. We feel a great void.

[mal4mac]

anybody read William Meister's Apprenticeship? Best Romantic novel imho, by leaps and bounds.

Berlin backs Friedrich Schlegel, who he says wrote most authoritatively about the Romantic movement while being part of it. The three factors that most profoundly influenced the movement were, according to Schlegel, in order were: Fichte's theory of knowledge, the French revolution, and Goethe's Wilhelm Meister.

What do you think makes it the best Romantic novel? Any preferred translation?

[mal4mac]

In fact I always hate to label a writer. To say Wordsworth romantic and T.S Eliot modernist in very way is a narrowly blinkered idea. Wordsworth in some respects was much modernist than T. S.Eliot was somewhat romantic

How is T.S. Eliot romantic?

As it says on this venerable site's introduction to him:

"The Waste Land (1922) deals with dark and haunting themes of individual consciousness and spiritual desolation against the decline of civilisation. Conrad's Heart of Darkness comes to mind as Eliot innovatively rejects traditional Romantic ideals through allusion and symbolism."

Wikipedia: 'He specifically identified as Anglo-Catholic, proclaiming himself "classicist in literature, royalist in politics, and anglo-catholic [sic] in religion." About thirty years later Eliot commented on his religious views that he combined "a Catholic cast of mind, a Calvinist heritage, and a Puritanical temperament."'

He seems intent on defining himself as being as far away from Romantic as possible!

Berlin identifies him as anti-romantic: "No universal pattern, no great style... the underground tradition to which T.S. Eliot wished to penetrate - these are the things which are denied and denounced by the entire romantic movement, likely to lead only to to stupidity and shallowness."

Think of "J. Alfred Prufrock" (good summary in Wikipedia...) How unromantic can you get! Comparing the evening sky to "a patient etherised upon a table," is shockingly anti-Wordsworth. Prufrock is determinedly anti-Byronic when he laments his physical and intellectual inertia, lost opportunities in life, lack of spiritual progress, and lack of carnal love.

The Hollow Men ends:
------
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
------

No Romantic could write that last line. Could they?

Eliot supported 'classical’ ideals and religious thought;admired the poetry and drama of the early seventeenth century; and deprecated the Romantics, especially Shelley.

He actually said good poems constitute ‘not a turning loose of emotion but an escape from emotion'. Is that Romantic? At first sight not - but Schopenhauer says similar things - and it could be looked at as a breaking the structures of 'trendy emotionalism'.

But I think Eliot's support of established religion, and establishment, reactionary values in general (including the anti-Semitism of that time) must place him firmly in the non-Romantic camp.

[JCamilo]

Those definitions of romantic-classicists by theme or style are bound to fail. You do not even need to go to a bordeline author like Wordsworth (Or Schiller, Coleridge, Rousseau, etc.)...

I prefer much the idea of Adorno that romanticism, modernism are are all part of a continued enlightment project. (In fact, I would say we still on this). And this would take, that romantic x classicism dictomy is even chronological, as the Romantic is the one that can look upon the world created by the englightment and find the negative and positive aspects of it wihtout proposing a solution or a project. This way, Wordsworth works as romantic, as he seems to be reacting (not just in form) to the begining of industrialization and urban shift that would be happening in the XIX century and his philosophy of composition that works from memory, the same goes for Blake, but does not go for Rousseau.

But even so, there will be darken areas.