THE ROMANTIC AGE

The Romantic Age

 Romantic movement which Victor Hugo calls “liberalism in literature” is simply the expression of life as seen by imagination.The period  covers the latter half of the reign of king George 111 and ends just seven years before the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837.  Normally, 1798 is considered as the year of   inauguration of romantic revival with the publication of  “ The  Lyrical  Ballads”.  Romantic revival had manifested itself   before in the works of    the transitional poets of the 18th  century, but “The Lyrical Ballads” gave a definite shape and direction to  the movement. The poets who were responsible for gradually bringing in elements of   romanticism are  known  as heralds  of  romantic  revival. Among  these the  most important were  James Thomson ,Thomas  Gray,  William  Collins, Oliver Goldsmith, William  Cowper, George  Grabbe, William  Blake  and   Robert  Burns. 

Characteristics of the Romantic Movement

 The Romantic movement was a strong reaction against neo-classical ideas.The romantic qualities that had characterised the literature of the age of Elizabeth were revived.  The fullness of imagination, richness of language, vastness of conception, lyricism, picturesqueness, suggestiveness and sensuosness found powerful expression, in the literature of the romantic period.

              Romanticism returned to nature and humanity for its material.They minutely observed all aspects of nature and expressed their emotional reactions to the magic and beauty of nature.Wordsworth discovered a new wonder in nature and found peace and joy.Shelley, Keats and Byron loved nature.

             Romanticism was marked by intense human sympathy and understanding of human heart.The heart unlocks its treasure  not to intellect or science but to the touch of a sympathetic nature.The things that are hidden from the wise and prudent are revealed to children. Pope had no appreciable humanity, Swift’s work is a frightful satire and Addison delighted polite society but did not have any message for plain people. With the romantic revival everything changed.

             The romantics looked to the past and sought to get away from the present reality. The element of mysticism in the medieval life was heightened by the passage of time.The romantic spirit seeks the strange and the mysterious.Coleridge experienced the feeling  of wonder and mystery in the supernaturals and Wordsworth revealed the inherent mystery in the common objects of nature and human life.

             Romanticism was the expression of individual genius rather than of established rules.There is an endless variety in the works of the best romanticists.The romanticists who used nature and human heart as sources for their material, surprise us and offer new beauty and stirs us deeply.

Romanticism is a revolt against all artificiality; it stands for simplicity in theme and treatment.Not only do the romantics treat the common man, they also use his language for their purposes.Thus Wordsworth, raised his voice against the artificial diction of the 18th century classics and advocated the use of the language of common man for purposes of poetry.

             The Romantic movement followed its own genius but looks back with reverence to the past masters.Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton were the inspiration of the romantic revival. In short, romanticism is the protest against the bondage of rules, the return to nature and human heart and the interest in old sagas and medieval romances.

The Age of poetry

             The main characteristic of the romantic age is that it is an age of poetry.The previous age emphasised on prose but Romantic age like Elizabethan age, turned to poetry.The glory of the age is represented in the poetry of Scott, wordsworth Coleridge , Byron, Shelley, Keats, Moore and Southey.

             Romantic poets set themselves to oppose the tendencies of the 18th century poetry.That is why it is termed as romantic revolt. Augustan poetry (or neoclassical or 18th poetry i.e the poetry of Pope and his school) was marked by artificial and conventional diction.It was didactic.(it sought directly to teach moral lessons to the reader.)or satirical.It dealt with  town life and appealed to the intellect rather than emotions. Romantic poetry was a reaction against these  features. This  reaction manifested itself in concrete form in the publication of “The Lyrical Ballads”( 1780) by Wordsworth and Coleridge, who can be regarded as founders of the Romantic movement.

             The essential qualities of romantic poetry are emotion and imagination. Neoclassical poetry appealed to  reason and romantic poetry has a emotional appeal. Besides, neoclassical poetry shows no exercise of the imagination of the writer.Keats’s “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”,Coleridge’s “ Kubla Khan”  are purely imaginative poems.Wordsworths “Ode to Duty” and Shelley’s “Ozymandius” has emotional appeal.

             The  18th century poets were little interested in nature,whereas the romantic poets had deep and sincere love for nature.Wordsworth,the greatest nature poet in English literature gave a high status as an independent subject for poetry and developed a full fledged philosophy regarding nature.Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats are ardent lovers of nature and can be  distinguished from one another in their attitude to nature. “Tintern Abbey” , “Frost At Midnight” , “Ode to Westwind”, “Ode to Autumn” are all nature poems.

             Romantic poets had sincere love for man.Coleridge shows his love of humanity in “Reflections”. Shelley visualizes the golden age of man when there  will be no slavery and love  will reign, in his “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” and “ Ode to the Westwind”.

            Romantics were deeply inetrested in their own personality and wrote deeply personal poems revealing their own nature , feelings and thoughts.This subjectively led them to write lyrics.Shelley’s lyricism is exquisite and uncomparable.”Ode to Westwind” is a supreme example of lyric gift . “The Solitary Reaper” is an example of Wordsworth’s lyricism.

             The 18th century poets employed conventional and artificial diction ,variety of metres and stanza forms.The heroic couplet was thought to be the best metre for writing poetry.They also coined fresh and beautiful words and special phrases as against conventional and artificial words of 18th century poetry.

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