Romanticism

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Data:	12.02.2007
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In the end of 18th century there were two important events: the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution in England. The French Revolution shook all the European countries. English intellectuals such as Paine and Fox, and poets like Wordsworth and Coleridge were in favour of it because they recognized the same ideas of freedom and equality but they saw their principles betrayed during the Reign of the Terror and the Napoleonic Wars. It was a period of social unrest in England. The enclosures turned common land into private property with the consequent deprivation for many farmers of their means of support. During the war with France the poor suffered the high price of bread and the new Corn Law made the situation worse. A peaceful protest ended tragically when a mounted troop charged the crowd, it was the Peterloo massacre. Things improved when the Corn Law was modified and later when the Reform Bill passed. In this period there were new inventions, such as the stream engine, and the consequent growing demand for coal needed for industry. In these period began the development of a national rail network as well as canals for transport by boats. Poets and painters chose nature as the subject of their works. This new interest for nature and for the people who lived in contact with it was one of the key features of new literary and artistic movements: the Romanticism.
In the end of 18th century there were two important events: the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution in England. The French Revolution was hailed by many intellectuals as the overthrow of tyranny and the beginning of a new era. “Liberty, equality and fraternity” was the motto of French Revolution. The French philosopher Rousseau set his theory on the equality of all individuals and advocated a society governed by the general will. He saw the civilization as artificial and corrupting and he preached a return to a simple and natural life. This aspect was in contrast to the Industrial Revolution. Before the change from an agricultural to an industrial nation, a large share of English society was formed by small farmers. The Industrial Revolution transformed the working individual into an impersonal labour force. The independent farmers moved to the new industrial towns to became factory workers, they leaving their villages and the importance of the agriculture declined. The intellectuals of the time deplored the abandonment of the country and the loss of contact with nature. The excess of the Jacobin dictatorship and France’s wars with the rest of Europe disappointed many supporters of the French Revolution, who passed to conservative positions. The necessity of reform was urgent. The working-classes were beginning to become conscious of their rights, and were demanding better living standards and the rights to vote; the reforms were not welcomed by the government and by a good share of public opinion. The ideological fervour of those years was the source of great pamphleteering and debate. The industrial and commercial development as the flourishing of economist such as Mill. The most influential thinker of the time was Jeremy Bentham, the father of Utilitarianism, who thought that social action is right when it produces the greatest good for the greatest number.
• German pre-romanticism: “Sturm and Drang” (storm and stress) was applied to an avant-garde literary movement in Germany after 1770. The roots of the movement are to be found in Rousseau’s doctrine of nature. Are connected with this movement Herder and Goethe.
• English pre-romanticism: sensibility gradually grow for the whole of the 18th century. The most important poet was Gray.
• German Romanticism: the poets rejected the classical rules and looked to their own national history as source of inspiration for the poetry. There was divided into two group. The most important poet of the first group was Schlegel.
• English first Romantic generation: Terror, passion and the “sublime” are essential features. This movement included Wordsworth, Coleridge and Scott.
• English second Romantic generation: the writers included Byron, Shelley and Keats, most of them moved to Mediterranean countries (the Grand Tour).
• French Romanticism: The Romantic ideal was introduced into the country in XIX century. The major exponents were Hugo and Stendhal.
• Italian Romanticism: it is connected with the Risorgimento and the fight for independence. Berchet heralded the movement into the country (XIX century). The main exponents were Leopardi and Manzoni.
Romanticism can be as a label to describe the new intellectual and artistic climate that had developed between the end of 18th century and the first part of the following one. It was an European movement which involved and affected other countries, such as Germany, Italy and France. “Romantic” started being used to describe states of mind associated with the expression of feelings end emotions. In England the Romantic authors never used this word to define them and the qualities of their poetry. There were important the works of the French philosopher and the writer Rousseau and the German literary movement: Sturm and Drang (Storm and Stress). Rousseau contends that society and civilized behaviour are bad while nature and natural behaviour are good. The German idealism is generally considered the background of Romanticism.
English Romanticism is radically different from previous modes of feelings and expression. In Augustan or Neoclassical Age there was the precise, accurate and balanced reflection of universal truths. There was the shift from it to the intense, emotional projection of individual feelings, from the imitation of classical model to the inspired quest for new imaginative patterns, from the objective and impersonal observation of the reality to the subjective and personal contemplation of it. In the Augustan Age reason was the supreme faculty by which all things were knowable. The new spirit of the age capitalized on imagination, the individual and nature. The reason for this change are many and were a combination of social and political events, that is the great revolutions. There was a renewed interest in nature. Simplicity, synonymous of a less complex way of life contrasted with the urban environment, were particularly admired. Nature putting the artist in touch with the infinite and the divine. The French Revolution impressed the minds of the Romantic artists, but their principles were betrayed by the Reign of the Terror. The French Revolution was hailed as an opportunity to awaken the individual consciousness. Another element of importance in English Romanticism was the re-evaluation of the Middle Ages. The genre that dominated English Romanticism was poetry. The English romantic poets are conventionally divided into two generations. The first generation includes Wordsworth and Coleridge; the second one comprises Byron, Shelley and Keats. The poets of the first generation were enthusiast for the French Revolution. The poets of the second generation had a brief but intense life and travelled in Europe the grand tour. They were in opposition to contemporary society.