The USA English Forum Blog

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Romanticism

The concept of Romanticism is a central and defining notion for the remainder of this course and could use some introduction.

Origins

English Romanticism grows out of a conglomeration of powerful forces that came together with profound consequences over the second half of the eighteenth century:

• Democratic ideals
• Capitalistic ambitions
• Industrial growth, etc.

While I have always held Wordsworth as the "father" of English Romanticism (I am fully cognizant of the problems and questions of such a position, but this is not the place for that discussion), the concept of the Romantic Self derives from the French writer Jean Jacques Rousseau, most notably from his Confessions (published posthumously in 1781). Wordsworth is, in my opinion, the most noteworthy practitioner of the concept (although strong cases could be made for Coleridge, who played a large part in making Wordsworth Wordsworth, and certainly for Byron as well) among the English Romantics, while Whitman and Emerson are the most notable of the Americans.

What is Romanticism?

This is a tough one. There have been thousands of "good" definitions or characterizations of what "Romantic" means in literature, etc., but none of them really covers it exhaustively or convincingly.

There are always works or authors who are generally considered "Romantic" who don't fit a particular model. The best (or most fitting) definition I am aware of is by René Wellek, who said essentially that everyone knows and agrees what it is; they just can't agree on terms and schemes. Other critics have posited that we can only talk about Romanticisms.

However, for our purposes, my sense is that Romanticism is what a very famous set of six English Poets who wrote between about 1790 and 1825 did, and is anything that does similar things. Those six poets are

• William Blake
• William Wordsworth
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• Lord Byron
• Percy Bysshe Shelley
• John Keats

Of course, that doesn't really say anything.

"Romantic" usually means that an author or work privileges concepts such as

• The imagination
• The infinite
• The universal
• The transcendental
• The self
• The special place and role of the poet.

These last two are a bit complicated, especially when we consider someone like Walt Whitman.

The Self

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Selfhood, around 1800, was, strangely, a relatively new concept, only evolving into our present understanding over the preceding 300 or so years, beginning with Columbus and Martin Luther instigating the rise of capitalism and Protestantism respectively, with the former granting (at least in perception anyway) individual autonomy in the social sphere and the latter granting individual, first-hand access to salvation and ultimately to God Himself. Feudalism and Catholicism didn't allow for either of these, so really for the first time in Western history, the average Joe individual gained agency in society, or in fancy philosophical terms (or grammatical terms), he became a subject.

Age of Revolution

All of this came to a head in the late 18th century, when the American and French Revolutions presented the new promise of democracy and self-determination (which I would say has more to do with the "Protestant" side of things) and the Industrial Revolution was happening in England (on the capitalism side).

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The Industrial Revolution was, of course, a two-edged sword. It gave the promise of infinite human progress and immediately improved living conditions for some of the population, while also presenting the (illusory?) promise of economic independence; however, on the other hand, it created a new and incredible concentration of people in cities, which, along with the paltry wages for industrial laborers, led to abject poverty and economic desperation for a huge segment of the population.

At the same time, the English government cracked down very harshly on the democratic aspirations of the English people, making for a messy and contradictory set of circumstances.

It is not coincident that all of the "Big Six" were very active in what might be called the democratic movement, most of them to a degree that might be (and actually was in a few cases) considered treasonous.

A New Definition of Romanticism

So what does all of the historical background have to do with literature? Good question. I formulated my own definition or model of Romanticism several years ago that makes use of this particular construction of context and is predicated on Marx's concepts of alienation and reification (literally "thing"-ification).

I should probably make a disclaimer here: Marx is relevant because he interprets early 19th-century England/capitalism in much the same way that most of the Romantics did: I'm not pulling a move typical to Marxist critics and trying to make the Romantics Marxist, rather I'm making Marx a Romantic, for what that's worth.

Alienation is the idea that man (pardon the "sexist" lingo, but given the historical context and the constraint of space, I'm going to take the easy way out) has become alienated from himself because of the social relations of industrial capitalism, a system in which, according to Marx, Wordsworth, Blake, Shelley, Emerson, and Whitman at least, the objects of production (commodities) become the agents (subjects) of the society (this, I believe, is a fair characterization of the "almighty market"), and the members of the society are reduced to things (objects).

It is worth noting here that when I was pursuing my doctorate in English, my dissertation was going to be an examination of this conception of Romanticism in the context of the urbanization in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, looking primarily at Wordsworth and Blake, but other English and American writers as well, while also considering Romanticism in the resulting social, cultural, and ideological shift from the country to the city.

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Given all of this, I believe that a lot of the literature considered "Romantic" takes on as its mission to foresee (if not achieve, especially in Blake, Shelley, Emerson and Whitman) a state of humanity that has overcome this alienation and reification, a world in which man is redeemed or reconciled, or in other words, reunited with himself.

The privileged task of the Poet is to show the way. Whitman is the boldest and most outrageous in his acceptation of this task, but Blake and Wordsworth are not far behind.

This "definition," especially in this brief form, is by no means exhaustive and certainly doesn't account for all that is or might be considered Romantic, but it does cover anything that I would call "very Romantic," for what that's worth.