When you see the word, “Romanticism”, what springs to mind? If you see roses, boxes of chocolates, wedding rings, and the like, you’re off track. Romanticism and Romantic with a capital ‘R’ has very little to do with romance, per se. It’s really about individuality and the cultural rebellion against the Enlightenment.
The age of Enlightenment, as it is sometimes referred to, was defined by the belief that reason was the principle source of understanding; understanding the natural world and human kind’s place therein depended on the application of reason; logical thought was more important than religious belief.
The period between the 17th and 18th centuries was described by Thomas Paine as the Age of Reason. This was the period in which Newton and Newtonian science exerted a particular hold upon European thought. In philosophy, for example, laws similar to those found to be applicable to the physical universe were applied to facilitate understanding of human affairs. Individual feeling and patronage were largely ignored and the focus in the arts was primarily upon technical proficiency rather than any element of self-expression.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744) is perhaps the best known of the English writers of the Enlightenment period and one of his most famous works, An Essay on Man, is a good example of the type of writing preferred at this time. Its focus is upon the optimism and respect of reason, and the essay is used to describe elements of the Newtonian universe:
All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body nature is, and God the soul …
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou cannot see.
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good
And, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,
One truth is clear: Whatever is, is right.
The Countess of Winchelsea (1661-1720), is another popular English voice of the period, writing about reason and feminine equality. In France, Candide (1759), by Voltaire (1694-1778), also exemplified the period.
Satire, in fact, was very popular. In Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) used satire to ridicule the pettiness of human concerns. Likewise, Robinson Crusoe (1719), by Daniel Defoe (1659-1731), Pamela (1740-1741) by Samuel Richardson (1689-1761), and Tom Jones (1749) by Henry Fielding (1707-1754) offered straight prose, clarity, and simplicity to explore a diverse range of issues and, ultimately, to defined a natural human morality.
After the French Revolution, however, there was a dramatic and powerful rebellion against this rational and reasonable focus. Political upheaval, social chaos, and the phenomenal bloodshed and tyranny of that period in France caused many artists, writers, and philosophers to react and rebel against the ideas of the Enlightenment and the rules and regulations that had been used to constrain society as part of this cultural movement.
The Romantic movement was the first and principle result of this cultural rebellion (the Gothic movement was both a continuation of the rebellion and a development of the Romantic movement). It began, primarily, in Germany (then Prussia) where poets such as Goethe and Schiller developed a movement called Strum and Drang, Storm and Stress, which concentrated on individuality and emotion rather than the rational modes of logical thinking preferred by the Enlightenment.
The characteristics of the Romantic movement have been debated at some length by academics, who haven’t exactly decided on the various components. The key elements, however, relate to individuality and intuition, to nature and personal freedom, and to personal choice. Not without foundation, some academics look to Romanticism as the foundation of our modern consumer culture.
Prominent romantic authors and poets include Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne, the Scottish poet James Macpherson, Scott, Byron, Goethe, and Schiller.
