Romanticism简介

Romanticism

I. Introduction

Romanticism

(the

Romantic

Movement),

a

literary

movement,

and

profound

shift

in

sensibility,

which took place in Britain and throughout Europe 1770-1848. Intellectually it marked a violent

reaction to the Enlightenment. Politically it was inspired by the revolutions in America and France

and

popular

wars

of

independence

in

Poland,

Spain,

Greece,

and

elsewhere.

Emotionally

it

expressed an extreme assertion of the self and the value of individual experience (the 'egotistical

sublime'),

together

with

the

sense

of

the

infinite

and

transcendental.

Socially

it

championed

progressive

causes,

though

when

these

were

frustrated

it

often

produced

a

bitter,

gloomy,

and

despairing outlook.

As an age of romantic enthusiasm, The Romantic Age began in 1798 when William Wordsworth

and Samuel Taylor published Lyrical Ballads, [in the Preface of the 2nd and 3rd editions of which

Wordsworth

laid

down

the

principles

of

poetry

composition,]

and

ended

in

1832

when

Walter

Scott (1771-1832) died. At the beginning the literature reflected the political turmoil of the age

stirred by French Revolution.

The glory of the age is notably seen in the Poetry of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and

Keats, who were grouped into two generations: Passive Romantic poets represented by the Lakers

/ Lake Poets

—

Wordsworth, Coleridge, Burns, and Blake though introspective 18th-cent. poets

such as Thomas Gray (1716-71) and William Cowper (1731-1800) show pre-Romantic tendencies,

as

well

as

Gothic

novelists

such

as

Horace

Walpole

(1717-97)

and

'Monk'

Lewis

(1775-1818,

Matthew Gregory Lewis), who reflected those classes which had been ruined by the bourgeoisie,

but later grew conservative and turned to the feudal past and idealized the life of the Middle Ages

to protest against capitalist development; and Active / Revolutionary Romantic poets represented

by those younger poets

—

Byron, Shelley and Keats, firm supporters of French Revolution, who

expressed the aspiration of the labouring classes and set themselves against the bourgeois society

and the ruling class, as they bore a deep hatred for the wicked exploiters and oppressors and had

an intensive love for liberty.

Women

novelists

appeared

in

this

period

and

assumed

for

the

first

time

an

important

place

in

English literature.

Mrs Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) was one of the most successful writers of the

school of exaggerated romance. Jane Austen offered us her charming descriptions of everyday life

in her enduring work. The greatest historical novelist Sir Walter Scott also appeared in this period.

He praised Jane's in the Quarterly Review in 1815, and later wrote of

renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting

Charles Lamb (1775-1834), William Hazlitt (1778-1830), Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) and

David Hume (1711-76) represented romantic prose of the period.

II.

Features of Romantic writing

1) The Romanticists' own aspiration and ideals are in sharp contrast to the common sordid daily

life under capitalism. Their

writings are filled with strong-willed heroes or even titanic images,

formidable

events

and

tragic

situations,

powerful

conflicting

passions

and

exotic

pictures.

Sometimes

they

resorted

to

symbolic

methods,

with

the

active

romanticists,

symbolic

pictures

represent a vague ideal of some future society; while with the passive romanticists, these pictures

often take on a mystic colour.

2).

The

romanticists

paid

great

attention

to

the

spiritual

and

emotional

life

of

man.

Personified

nature plays an important role in the pages of their works. Terror, passion, and the Sublime (an

idea

associated

with

religious

awe,

vastness,

natural

magnificence,

and

strong

emotion

which

fascinated 18th-cent. literary critics and aestheticians) are essential concepts in early Romanticism;

as

is

the

sense

of

primitive

mystery

rediscovered

in

the

Celtic

bardic

verse

of

*Macpherson's

'Ossian',

the

folk

ballads

collected

by

*Percy,

and

the

medieval

poetry

forged

by

*Chatterton

(whom

*Southey

edited).

[Foreign

sources

were

also

vital:

*Goethe's

The

Sorrows

of

Young

Werther 1774); the ghostly ballads of Burger (*Lenore, 1773); the verse dramas of *Schiller (The

Robbers, 1781); and the philosophical criticism of A. W. *Schlegel.]

3) The tone of Romanticism was shaped by the naked emotionalism of *Rousseau's Julie, ou la

nouvelle

Heloise

(1761),

and

the

exotic

legends

and

mythology

found

in

Oriental and Homeric

literatures and 17th-cent. travel writers. The stylistic keynote of Romanticism is intensity, and its

watchword

is

'Imagination'.

Remembered

childhood,

unrequited

love,

and

the

exiled

hero

were

constant themes.

4)

Romanticism

expressed

an

unending

revolt

against

classical

form,

conservative

morality,

authoritarian government, personal insincerity, and human moderation.

The Romantics saw and

felt things brilliantly afresh.

They virtually invented certain landscapes

—

the Lakes, the Alps,

the bays of Italy.

They were strenuous walkers, hill-climbers, sea-bathers, or river- lovers.

They

had

a

new

intuition

for

the

primal

power

of

the

wild

landscape,

the

spiritual

correspondence

between

Man

and

Nature,

and

the

aesthetic

principle

of

'organic'

form

(seen

at

their

noblest

in

Wordsworth's

*Prelude

or

J.

M.

W.

*Turner',

paintings).

In

their

critical

writings

and

lectures

they described poetry and drama with new psychological appreciation (the character of Hamlet,

for

example);

they

discussed

dreams,

dramatic

illusion,

Romantic

sensibility,

the

process

of

creativity, the limits of Classicism and Reason, and the dynamic nature of the Imagination.

5)

The

second

generation

of

Romanticists

absorbed

these

tumultuous

influences,

wrote

swiftly,

travelled

widely

(Greece,

Switzerland,

Italy),

and

died

prematurely:

their

life-stories

and

letters

became

almost

as

important

for

Romanticism

as

their

poetry.

They

in

turn

inspired

autobiographical

prose-writers

such

as

*Hazlitt,

*De

Quincey,

and

*Lamb;

while

the

historical

imagination found a champion in Sir W. *Scott.

Romanticism

in

British

literature

developed

in

a

different

form

slightly

later,

mostly

associated with the poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whose co-authored

book

Lyrical

Ballads

(1798)

sought

to

reject

Augustan

poetry

in

favour

of

more

direct

speech