Romanticism Has a Defintion

Romanticism is known as a movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that distinguished literature, art, politics, and philosophy from the previous period, before the Industrial Revolution. The term is complicated to clearly define beyond the basic sense, but by analyzing the characteristics of the movement and what scholars conclude about it, a definition can be offered.Characteristics and themes that are consistently seen in the literature of the suggested period include: individualism, love of nature, a longing for the past, feelings of love and hate, terror and awe, chaos, fear, sentimental melancholy, and anti-romantic feelings. These and other reoccurring points aid to the recognition of Romanticism as a definition. Also, by considering how the term is used today and how it was in the past, like in scholarly resources, a definition can be proposed by comparing those findings.Romanticism can be formulated into a definition through these listings and findings.

The writers and poets, and their literature and poetry of the era are included in what will define this significant period. First of all, when exploring the literature of the time period of about 1780 to 1830, a specific theme of individualism is made relevant in many readings. A source mentions that “the Romantics asserted the importance of the individual, the unique, even the eccentric. Consequently they opposed the character typology of neoclassical drama” (Melani).The “Romantic hero” is portrayed in noted literature of the time through characters such as Prometheus, Captain Ahab and outcasts from Cain to the Ancient Mariner; even Hester Prynne, and Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost (Melani).

An important poet whose poetry expressed an individualized view of humanity important to Romanticism was William Blake. His poetry is described as “highly individual in style and technique” (Lawall, ed. , 540). He uses different voices in his poems to relate to the reader and put forth his own ideas about human existence (Martilli).Blake’s individualism within his poetry portrays the ideology that Romanticists sought to convey (Martilli).

The idea of individualism became important during the time after Industrialism and the revolution. An outside source comprehends an “individual” is a person that refuses to identify himself with a group or an organization; one that disregards the common beliefs or values within society and chooses to act or think in his own way, using his own thoughts and ideas. An “individual” is free to make his own choices and declares his independence from others.An “individual” wishes to convey his own feelings without regard to how others might react (Martilli). This is just one example of a consistent theme seen in literary Romanticism.

Secondly, another theme to be examined, with examples provided to acknowledge the definition of Romanticism, is love of nature. A source describes particular perspectives of this theme as considerably varied subjects that include: nature as a healing power, nature as a source of subject and image, nature as a refuge from the artificial constructs of civilization, including artificial language (Melani).These views can be found throughout the literature of the Romantic era in so many writers and poet’s language. Wordsworth and Shelley are two illustrious poets that wrote with appreciation for the sublime in the natural world. Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” writes about nature as picturesque beauty and its unifying bond with mankind (Stillinger). The “Lucy” poems by Wordsworth are filled with union of nature and human.

The natural world depicted in Shelley’s poems is “wilder and crueler,” presenting a fear of nature, and has significance independent from man (Warren).His poem, Mont Blanc, addresses this dissimilar view in the lines: “Dizzy Ravine! and when I gaze on thee I seem as in a trance sublime and strange…” Samuel Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, John Keats’s La Belle Dame, and William Blake’s The Lamb are other works that contain nature as an element in the text. These and many more are all represented in quite different ways, but help toward the defining of Romanticism. A third representative theme that reoccurs in the literature that is a part of Romanticism is longing of the past, or nostalgia.This theme fits right into the time period that is defined as Romanticism because it was a reaction of the Industrial Revolution and became a revolt against the Age of Enlightenment’s social and political norms.

Also, it was a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature, so writers interpreted these changes in their works by condemning city life and encouraging the common man. Nostalgia is proven to be a Romantic response of the time in many works of William Wordsworth, such as We Are Seven, Simon Lee, Michael, The Prelude, and Preface to Lyrical Ballads.Also, emotions used as a means to press us away from the Revolution and toward conservatism, are in works such as Joanna Baillie’s Address to a Steam vessel and Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France. Nostalgia is a part of the movement and definition of Romanticism because it is a romantic characteristic in itself. Fourthly, feelings of love and hate is a combined theme that exists throughout late eighteenth, early nineteenth centuries of Romantic works.

Poets of said works include: Joanna Baillie, Percy Shelley, John Keats, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Jane Austen. These authors speak of emotions of love and passion in their sonnets and poetry. A Romantic aspect to this is when writers of the time bring in hateful emotion and turn against romantic feelings. This is a kind of bipolar way of thinking that is consistently realized in Romantic literature.

Once again, another addition to the list of similar themes and elements that proves an obvious place in Romanticism.A final point to make when declaring a definition of Romanticism is that no matter when the works of this time period were first recognized as a movement or lapse from previous literary, philosophical and political ways, readers, then and today, could and can always find these similar themes and related elements intertwined in the literature, art, and thinking. There should be a definition of Romanticism that sums up all of these aspects into a whole to be understood as the meaning for one time period.Romanticism has the ability to define a literary period in a lot of ways.

In conclusion, Romanticism has many different definitions. Like a bipolar condition, mixed with feelings of love and hate, choices between man and nature, subjects of beauty and fear, Romanticism is like a constant swinging back and forth of a pendulum. Although, this may make it seem too broad to define, the whole notion of it balances it out and makes it possible to.