Explain Romaticism and the major writers?

 Historians of English Literature have designated the period from 1798 to 1832 as the Romantic period. Wordsworth and Coleridge published Lyrical Ballads in 1798 and Sir Walter Scott died in 1832. Also, the Reform Bill which extended the right to vote to the middle class and labourers was passed by the Parliament in 1832. During this period, England moved from being a primarily agricultural to modern industrialized society. The French Revolution was a major source of influence for romantic writers, which in fact swept away the hierarchies in different sectors. The new slogans of liberty, equality and fraternity promised a free and egalitarian society. Monarchy (kingship) was abolished and the feudal structure was demolished. The similar change happened in the realm of literature as well.

 

In language, the cultivated speech of the elite was sought to be replaced by the speech of the common people. In the choice of themes, great events had to make way for more commonplace incidents. The characters depicted in poetry need not be kings or queens; humbler folks like a leech-gatherer, or a highland lass, or even an idiot boy was good enough for poetic composition. Thus the French Revolution caused a democratization of literature in genre, in language, in themes and in characters. The spirit of the age demanded these changes and the creative writer responded enthusiastically.

 

Victor Hugo, French novelist described romanticism as ‘liberalism in literature’. The important point is that romanticism has political overtones. The term implies a literary and philosophical theory which tends to see the individual (common men) at the very center of all life and all experience. The individual is placed at the center of art. Literature is, therefore an expression of his unique feelings and particular attitudes. Romanticism as a literary movement was spread through most of Western Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It affected literature, art, music, philosophy, religion and politics.

 

Salient features of romanticism:

Romanticism is opposed to the artificial conventions, the royal literary tradition and the poetic foundation. The Neo-classical theory of poetry sets several rules and restrictions for poetic composition. The function of poetry, according to this view, is to instruct and to please. Art is a mirror in which we find a reflection of life or in other word poetry should reflect the real life. For the Romantics, the source of poetry is the poet himself. As Wordsworth puts it, poetry is a "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity". It is an inborn gift and not something that can be acquired. Poetry is the expression of emotion. The poet's imagination creates poetry. Blake thought that poetry comes from inspiration, vision, and prophecy (ability to forecast). Keats said that poetry should come "as naturally as the leaves of a tree".

 

Romantic poets made daring innovations, in the themes, forms, language and style of poetry. Lowly and eccentric characters like ‘an idiot boy’ or ‘a leech- gatherer’ are the subject matter for poetic treatment by Wordsworth. Supernatural themes are used by Coleridge (Rime of The Ancient Mariner) and Keats (The Eve of St. Agnes). Romantic poetry often deals with "far away and long ago" exotic (strange and unusual) places and forgotten events. It draws inspiration from folk literature and the literature of the Middle Ages. Yet another innovation is the use of symbolist techniques, notably by Blake and Shelley. The latter poet's "West Wind" (the power of nature and of the imagination inspired by nature) and "Skylark" (freedom and unending scope of imagination) are good examples.

 

Another significant innovation is the use of everyday speech of ordinary people instead of lofty poetic diction (highly refined). The Romantic poets looked for new metres and stanzas to replace traditional forms. Rural life is idealized in Romantic poetry. Classicism and Romanticism are generally considered somewhat antithetical. Classicism is concerned with the social, the formal, the intellectual, and the static whereas Romanticism is concerned with the individual, the informal, the emotional and the dynamic. The Neo- classical writers were interested in conservatism, formality, acceptance of approved standards and patterns. Careful workmanship is the hallmark of classicism. The unities are preserved by the classical writers whereas the Romantic writers do not observe them. Classicism focuses on the intellectual, romanticism on the emotional. Thus, the Romantic Movement was a revolutionary movement in many ways.

 

Classification of Romantic Poets:

1- EARLY ROMANTIC POETS

Also called as transitional poets in a sense.

Some writers remarkably exhibited a complete departure from neo classicism, as they physically belong to the end of seventeenth century. They in fact anticipated the arrival of romanticism. The notable early romantic writers are James Thomson, Mark Akenside, Robert Burns, Joseph Warton, William Collins and Thomas Gray etc.

 

 

James Thomson (1700-1748) took a deep interest in nature. His poem, "The Seasons" (1730) evokes interest in the processes of nature. He is fascinated by the fearful aspects of nature such as floods and storms. He is described as "a poet of pictorial landscape". He speaks of the interactions between man and Nature in "The Seasons".

 

Mark Akenside (1721-1770) was another fore-runner of Wordsworth. He attempted to revive the Greek forms of the lyric. His most important poem, "The Pleasure of Imagination" (1744) is at once didactic and descriptive. The poet captured the beauty and harmony of nature.

 

William Collins (1721-1759) Most influential figure for all the Romantic poets. He finds that landscape evokes ideas and emotions. He particularly loves Nature at twilight (evening). His "Ode to Evening" is the forerunner of Keats's "To Autumn". Romantic tendencies such as a return to the past and anti- intellectualism may be noticed in his "Ode on Popular Superstitions". Coleridge is impressed with Collins's use of superstitions and classical legends.

Thomas Gray's (1716-71) well-known poem, ‘‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’’, pays attention to nature and a humble life which are dear to the Romantic poets. He records the different moods of nature in charming detail. Such descriptions paved the way for Wordsworth's memorable descriptions of nature.

William Cowper (1731-1800) is yet another precursor of romanticism. For him, love of Nature and religious worship are related activities. He believes that contemplation in the midst of Nature will bestow wisdom more easily than the reading of books. He prefers the beauty of the countryside and he portrays Nature in his poems.

 

William Blake achieved little fame in his own lifetime but in the twentieth century he has come to be recognised as a poetic genius. Blake was also an engraver, and illustrated many of his poems so that they could be read visually as well as verbally. His life was spent in rebellion against the rationalism of the eighteenth century and he rejected, in particular, the formal restrictions of neoclassical poetry. A characteristic feature was a tendency to see the world in terms of opposites. Blake wrote that ‘Without Contraries is no Progression’ (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell) and much of his poetry illustrates this.

 

Blake makes extensive use of symbolism in his poetry. Some of the symbols are straightforward: innocence is symbolised by children, flowers, lambs, or particular seasons. Oppression and rationalism are symbolised by urban, industrial landscapes, by machines, by those in authority (including priests), and by social institutions. The symbolism in some of his later poems, such as the epic Milton, is less easy to interpret. Blake sometimes creates a mythological world of his own. Blake’s best known symbol is that of the tiger in his poem The Tyger. The tiger has been interpreted differently by successive generations but its basic meaning is the natural and creative energy of human life.

 

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

 

Images of childhood have a central place in Blake’s poetry, as they do in the work of many Romantic poets. Blake’s most famous collection of poetry, Songs of Innocence and Experience, published separately in 1789 (Songs of Innocence) and 1793 (Songs of Experience), and together in 1794.  In the volume Songs of Innocence and Experience, several poems are written in pairs, contrasting states of human innocence and experience. 

 

 

Elder Romantic Poets/ First generation of Romantic Poets

William Wordsworth – Samuel Taylor – Robert Southey

Wordsworth is a prominent leader of the Romantic Movement in England. He supported the French Revolution. In 1795, he met S.T. Coleridge and this meeting was beneficial for both of them. They jointly authored Lyrical Ballads (1798) which is considered to be the beginning of the Romantic Movement in England. On the urging of Coleridge, Wordsworth explained the guiding principles of this new movement in his preface to the second edition of the book published in 1800. In addition to many lyrics, Wordsworth wrote The Prelude (1850), a sort of spiritual autobiography like its subtitle "The Growth of a Poet's Mind". Wordsworth is better known for his poems like "Tintern Abbey" and "Immortality Ode".

 

 

S. T. COLERIDGE

He was a man of many faces; poet, philosopher journalist, preacher, lecturer, playwright, literary critic and literary theorist. He pioneered a movement against the mechanistic psychology of the eighteenth century. More than the other Romantics, he recognised the supremacy of imagination as a creative power. Biographia Literaria(1817) is a seminal work dealing with his philosophy of poetry and a critical statement of Romantic ideas. It is in this book that he explains how he had dealt with the supernatural in his poetry.

Coleridge tries to differentiate between the two key terms, 'fancy' and 'imagination' in the same book. He called imagination the "shaping and modifying" power and fancy, the "aggregative and associative" power.

Coleridge is remembered for three poems, ‘‘The Ancient Mariner’’, ‘‘Kubla Khan’’ and ‘‘Christabel’’. All of them arise from the world of dreams and the subconscious.

 

THE SECOND GENERATION OF ROMANTIC POETS

Three poets namely Byron, Shelley and Keats, belong to the second generation of Romantic poets. All of them were “rebellious geniuses” who were not recognized or understood in their country and time. All of them died young before they could realize their full potential. They are thus “the inheritors of unfulfilled renown”.

 

Lord Byron (1788-1824)

Byron’s reputation as a poet and as a personality outside his own country was immense. He had influenced several French and German poets. His life itself was like a romantic poem and he is the hero of his poems. The phrase ‘‘Byronic hero” has become an independent and critical term to describe a youthful, daring, passionate, cynical (pessimist), moody and rebellious figure.

 

 

P.B.SHELLEY (1792-1822)

Shelley had very radical ideas; he was an idealist. He believed that mankind can be made perfect, tyranny can be abolished and freedom can flourish in all walks of life. Shelley, like Blake, was a poet of prophecy and of vision. “Ode to the West Wind” concludes with the prophecy: “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”

 Adonais (1821) is a pastoral elegy written on the death of Keats. ‘‘Adonais’’ is regarded as one of the two or three great elegies in English. Like Wordsworth Shelley spent a good deal of time contemplating the natural phenomena. He believed that Nature was the outward manifestation of the inner and divine beauty. Shelley was fascinated with clouds, wind, waterfalls and such other natural phenomena. They became symbols of great significance to him. Light and sound attracted him. He found music everywhere. In fact, he heard a ‘vast universal symphony’. 

 

John Keats (1795–1821)

John Keats was the youngest of the major romantic poets. He was born October 31, 1795, in London, England, to a lower-middle-class family. His father’s accidental death in 1804, and his mother’s death in 1809 after a long fight with tuberculosis, marked him with a sense of life’s insecurity, a theme that recurs in his poetry.

 His first published poem was ‘‘O Solitude,’’. His second work, Endymion (1818), fell short of his own expectations, but his third collection, Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes, and Other Poems (1820) contained some of the greatest poems in the English language.   Keats died of tuberculosis February 23, 1821, in Rome, at the age of twenty-five.