The
words ‘Romanticism’ and ‘Classicism’ are regarded as the contrasting terms. But
the term ‘classical’ and ‘Romantic’ are not synonyms of ‘classicism’ and
‘Romanticism’. The words ‘classical’ and ‘Romantic’ show his two attitudes of
mind towards life and its expression in the art. While the words ‘classicism’
and ‘romanticism’ refer to two specific movements in relatively modern time.
In
them two attitudes to life and to art came to be formulated as ideology, as a
creed or cult with its manifestation, its body of doctrine and a name. Each of these
movements was a revival – conscious attempt to return to the art form.
Classicism was born of the Renaissance rediscovery of Greek and the desire to imitate
Greek and Roman literature and art. But there have always been Romantics even
in classical’ Greek. Romanticism is the name given to the late 18th
and early 19th century reaction against classicism. It was in its
origin an attempts return to what was believed to have been the spirit of the middle
Ages.
Classical and Romantic:-
‘Classical’
this word dates from the Renaissance and come from Latin. It means
To describe everything, belonging to cultures of Greek
and Rome (e.g. their language, art, philosophy etc.)
Any work of art produced in imitation of forms of
Greek and Roman art.
The word is used in the sense of highest range.
Romantic: - The word
Romance originally indicated a language derived from the Roman. The name the
language became attached to the subjects matter. Then it was extended to include
tales chivalry and of the marvelous. It was Romantic Movement which gave it its
present meaning.
The Romanticism:-
Various
people define this Romanticism in various ways.
Romanticism
is disease, classicism in health. – Goethe.
The
return to nature – Rousseall
The
movement to honour whatever classicism rejected. Classicism is the regularity
of good sense perfection in moderation; Romanticism is disorder in the
imagination the rage of incorrectness. A blind wave of literary egotism. – Brumetiere.
The
opposite not of classicism but of Realism – a withdrawal from outer experience
to concentrate upon inner. – Abercrombie.
“The
Reawakening of the life and thought of the Middle Ages. – Heine.
Emotion
rather than reason; the heart opposed to the head. – George Sand.
Subjectivity,
the love of the picturesque and a reactionary spirit (against whatever
immediately preceded it) - Phelps.
“Romanticism” and “classicism’ both are
ideologies. Both were conscious and deliberate breaks with tradition. Both were
not working within a living tradition. Both were trying to revive an earlier tradition
which was unfamiliar to their contemporaries. The younger generation was
becoming restless. They were hungry for change. The results we know.
“Rules’ were dominant in ‘classicism’
while ‘rejection of the rule’ was the mark of the Romantic Movement. Rule had
become a tyranny, inhabiting the ‘free play of the imagination. As it always
happens in revolutionary movement, the pendulant swing to the opposite extreme.
For them the rules were evil and must be abandon in favour of imagination.
Thought there were no rules, there were certain principles about which every
romanticist agreed. They are as following.
Imagination:-
Imagination
was something new in the history of thought. Every creative artist has always
known that art is born of imagination. To the ‘Romanists’ the imagination was
not only the source of all poetry but its sole creator of not only poetry but
civilization morality and religion. It came to be regarded as an ‘inner light’.
This cult of imagination became something like a religious faith. This concept
was revolutionary.
(2) Individualism:-
The
second principle which all Romanticists shared was ‘Individualism’. This was
already implicit in the revolt against externally imposed rules and the claim
to individual liberty. But the implicit was made explicit and justified by
philosophical doctrine. This doctrine was provided in the first place by
Rousseau and by his disciple Godwin. Both taught the perfectibility of man
through the rule of reason. To Rousseau and Godwin everyman was absolutely
rational, it was necessary to create a just society from which all evils would
be banished. Godwin’s ‘political Justice’ was considered as a ‘Bible’ of
English Romanticism. He felt that abolition of law and government will set
individual to be free to follow the light of his own reason.
(3) Subjectivity:-
The
classicists look outward for his truth; it is same for all men. But to the Romantic
truth lay within himself. What his imagination revealed to him must be accepted
though all the world rejected it.
(4) Preference to
‘Particular’:-
The
classicists preferred ‘general’ while the ‘Romanticists’ preferred
‘particular’. For them every humanbeing was unique and the type was non
existent. Even Wordsworth and Coleridge believed that despite universality
there was individuality in every human being.
(5) Sensibility: -
Wordsworth
defined the poet as ‘a man with more lively sensibility.’ We find passionate
feelings in his poetry. The Greeks believed in the Golden Mean, the middle way
between too much passion and too little. To the romantics emotion tended to be
good in itself. Only in a state of heightening feeling, whether of pleasure or
pain, was a man truly alive.
The source of Inspiration for Romanticists:-
There
are some sources from which the Romanticists got their inspirations.
(A) Medievalism: - (The
Gothic Revival)
To
the classicists of the 18th century the word ‘Gothic’ was equivalent
to barbarous; the middle Ages were the Dark Ages. To the Romanticists the
Middle Ages became a world of enchantment. Gothic stood for all the aspiration
the mystery, spirituality and wonder. This idealization of the Middle Ages had
various manifestations as follows.
The Gothic
revival in architecture. In the full flood the Romantic Movement. Gothic became
the only acceptable style of architecture.
In narrative
poetry, use of stories in a medieval setting. e.g. Coleridge’s ‘Charitable’,
Keats’s ‘Isabella’ and ‘The Eve of St. Agnes’.
In prose
fiction the ‘Gothic romance’, a fantastic tale of adventure, marvel and the
supernatural in Gothic setting. e.g. Horace Walpole’s ‘The castle of Otranto’.
The rediscovery
of ‘ballads’ e.g. Percy’s ‘Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.’ The others are
‘The Ancient Mariner’, ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merce’.
The interest in
supernatural e.g. ‘The Ancient Mariner’, ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merce’, ‘Lamia’
etc.
Geographical Exploration (Step in Explorative land):-
There
was an escape from the familiar and hence escape from prosaic, known world into
unknown and hence mysterious parts of the earth.
Tales of
voyages into unknown; again ‘The Ancient Mariner’
Exoticism’:
especially the highly coloured oriental exotic. ‘Kubla Khan’ is far more than
exotic but its setting in xanadee is essentially romantic.
(C)Nature:-
The
escape from the city, limited, man-made, known to the infinite wonders of
nature, untouched by man. E.g. Shelly’ ‘Mont Blanc’, Byron’s ‘Manfred’, words
worth’s ‘prelude’.
(d) The primitive:-
This
comes from Rousseau’s Noble Savage. He and his followers believed that
civilization destroys man’s native innocence.
(E) Utopianism:-
The
escape from the limitations the imperfect present into a dream of a Golden Age
of human perfectibility in an unknown future. e.g. Shelley ‘s ‘Prometheus
unbound’.
The macabre:-
A
product of the cult of emotionalism. Evil, death and the horrible were treated
in order to exile emotion. The school boy shelly haunted grave yards. (Hymn to
Intellectual Beauty.)
(G) Political liberty;
republicanism:-
Almost
every romanticist was for a time at least, a republican. Rousseau began it with
is doctrine of the General will. France Revaluation add more such spirit.
There
are the main direction in which the romantic spirit set out to explore the mysteries
and wonders.
Classical Versus Romantic:-
We
need both the classical and the Romantic, Sophocles and Racine as well as
Shakespeare, Homer, Milton as well as Wordsworth. Without either group we
should be poor. Each has the defects its qualities. They carry within
themselves the seeds of decay. Too much following of rules affected classicists
and too much imagination affected Romanticists. The great romantics have
explored realms which no classical writer would dare to enter. They have
extended the range of human sensibility. At this time, some dangers are
revealed. e.g. egotism, self-pity, a pride in being different and at war with society,
escapism, sentimentality, irrationality etc. When these became predominant the
pendulum swung back to classical rationality, objectively and discipline.
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