Romanticism in Historical Perspective
Author(s): Lilian R. Furst
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Jun., 1968), pp. 115-143
Published by: Penn State University Press
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Romanticism
in Historical
Perspective
LILIAN R. FÜRST
ABSTRACT
oftheRomanof theemergence
This articlegivesa chronological
survey
The spreadofnewideas
in England,France,and Germany.
ticmovements
writwavesofRomantic
in thesuccessive
is tracedfromcountry
to country
ingbetween1750and 1830.The principalaim is to ascertainthecorrect
thatRomanticism
forby recognizing
perspective;
sequenceand historical
a
butrathera seriesof distinct
wasnota simultaneous
outburst,
upsurges,
of themazeof similarities
fortheexploration
sounderbasisis established
in Europe.[L. R. F.]
and differences
linkingtheRomanticmovements
No subject in the whole fieldof comparativeliterarystudieshas
provokedas much criticalwritingas Romanticism.And rightlyso,
for none indeed so insistentlydemands, and so richlyrewards,a
broad approach embracingseveralliteratures.But all the attempts
to discernthe salient featuresof European Romanticism,all the
argumentsas to its fundamentalunity or otherwise,and all the
tentativedefinitionsseem to be based on the assumption that
simultaneousoutburstsof Romanticismoccurredin various countriesabout thebeginningof thenineteenthcentury.This was simply
not the case: the spread of Romanticismis characterizedby curious
time lags and unexpectedspurts.In fact the movement'sexternal
historyshedsso much lighton its inner naturethata chronological
survey,thoughapparentlyan elementaryexercisein literaryhistory,
is a necessaryand potentiallyilluminatingpreliminaryto any fur115
116
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES
therdiscussion.To establish the correctsequence and perspective
not only obviatessome,at least,of the more commonmisapprehensionsbut also createsa sounderbase fromwhichto explorethemaze
of Romanticmovementsin Europe.
"Une arisede la conscienceeuropéenne":x thisis the succinctand
telling phrase chosen by van Tieghem to describe the Romantic
movementin Europe. The claim that it was far more than just
another literarymovementis not based primarilyon the sheer
extent,the expanse of Romanticism,thoughit is in fact true that
no other literarymovementhas ever evoked such a wide response
throughoutEurope. The real significanceof Romanticism as a
"crise de la conscienceeuropéenne" lies not in its mere quantity,
but in the quality of the changes it implied. For Romanticism
broughtnot just a greaterfreedomand a new technique; thesewere
only the outer manifestationsof a complete and deep-seatedreorientation,not to say revolution,in the mannersof thought,perception, and consequentlyof expressiontoo. The nature of this
revolutionhas recentlybeen outlinedin vivid termsby Isaiah Berlin
who definedit as a "shiftof consciousness"that "crackedthe backbone of European thought."2 That backbone had been the belief
in the possibilityof a rationalcomprehension
of the universe.When
the rationalisticapproach was applied to the arts as well as to the
emergentphysicalsciences,it resultedin thoserigidpronouncements
on the immutable'rules' of literaturethat were the bane of Neoclassicism.This dogmatismwas firstcautiouslyquestionedand then
vehementlyrejected in the course of the eighteenthcentury,and
finallythe old standardswereoustedby the Romantics'new criteria
and values. In place of the Neoclassicalideals of rationalism,traditionalism,and formal harmony,the Romantics emphasized individualism,imagination,and emotion as their guiding principles.
Hence the old 'rules' of 'good taste,'regularity,
and conformity
gave
way to the unbridled creativeurge of the original genius,and the
ideal of a smoothbeauty was scornedin favourof a dynamicoutpouring of feeling.A new mode of imaginativeperceptiongave
birthto a whole new vocabularyand new formsof artisticexpression: thisis the essenceof that"crise de la conscienceeuropéenne?
whichlies at the heart of the Romanticrevolution,and thisis also
perhaps as near an approximationto a definitionof Romanticism
as is possible.It may not have the neatnessof a snappy
catchphrase
(such as 'the returnto nature' or 'the cult of the extinct'),but it is
ROMANTICISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
117
sufficiently
comprehensiveand sufficiently
plain to serveas a viable
basis.
working
This reorientation
occurredin varyingdegreesthroughoutEurope
in thelatterpart of the eighteenthand the earlyyearsof the nineteenthcenturies.In thissense Romanticismcan rightlybe regarded
as a European phenomenonthatcan be appreciatedin all its implicationsonlyby meansof a comparativestudy.Many of the Romanticsthemselves
werewell aware of thesupranationalcharacterof the
movement:the brothersSchlegel consciouslycherishedthe notion
of a specifically
European Romanticliteratureas part of theirstriving foran all-embracing'universalpoetry/and both Coleridgeand
Novalis hoped for an eventual European reintegration.Perhaps
thesecosmopolitantendenciesof the Romantics have encouraged
criticsto seekout the commondenominatorsof the Romanticmovementsand to overemphasizethe similaritiesbetweenthe literatures
of variouscountries.The 'familylikeness'whichcertainlymeetsthe
eye can be traced back to the communal ancestryof Romanticism
throughoutEurope, which springsfromone and the same momentous spiritualand intellectualreorientation.
To delve into the originsof thisrevolutionis beyondthe scope of
this study. The firstunmistakable signs of impending change
manifestedthemselvesbeforethe middle of the eighteenthcentury,
and in thisearliestphase- say 1740 to 1770- it is England thatwas
to the fore.As early as 1742,Young, inspiredby personal griefat
the death of his daughter and of a friend,published his Night
Thoughts,which were followedin 1745 by Akenside'sPleasures of
Imagination.Historicallythesetwo workshave muchin commonin
thattheystand midwaybetweenthe conventionalmoralismof the
age and a freshoutlook which admitsimaginationto respectability
in poeticpractice.Imagination,accordingto Akenside,"diffusesits
enchantment"and makes the soul "to that harmoniousmovement
fromwithout/ Responsive":8 no verystartlingclaim as yet,but at
least a firstglimmerof a recognitionof the powersof the imagination. The personal melancholyand the funerealcult of the Night
Thoughts were reiterated in Hervey's Meditations Among the
Tombs (1746) and Gray'sElegy Writtenin a CountryChurchyard
and pathosof human
(1751) withtheirawarenessof the fleetingness
the
for
evocationof solemn,
their
darkness,
solitude,
Ufe,
preference
somberscenes.The slightlymoralizingsensibilityof the period is
as apparentin thesepoems as in the novels of Richardsonand his
118
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES
imitators.This sensibilitywas deeply affectedby Macpherson's
Fingal (1762) which,togetherwithPercy'sReliques (1765), laid the
foundationsforthe subsequentpopularityof supposedlynaive folkpoetry,the natural utterancesof primitive,spontaneous genius.
fromthe
Macpherson'sconcoctions,purportingto be a transcription
ancientbard Ossian,made a particularlystrongimpressionthroughout Europe with their highly-colouredintrigues,their gloomy
Northernsetting,theirwhole oùtlandishness,and, above all, their
rhythmicprose,whichseemedso muchmorepoetic than the poetry
of the earlyeighteenthcentury:
Starof descending
night!fairis thylightin thewest!thouliftestthyunshornhead fromthycloud: thystepsare statelyon thyhill. Whatdost
thoubeholdin theplain?The stormy
windsare laid. The murmur
of the
torrent
comesfromafar.Roaringwavesclimbthedistantrock.The fliesof
eveningare on theirfeeblewings;thehumof theircourseis on thefield.
Whatdostthoubehold,fairlight?But thoudostsmileand depart.The
wavescomewithjoy aroundthee: theybathethylovelyhair.Farewell,
thousilentbeam! Let thelightofOssian'ssoularise!*
Alongside Ossian, the other decisive document of English preRomanticism,Young's Conjectureson Original Composition(1759),
was of far-reaching
importas theheraldof thenew aesthetics.Some
of Young's ideas were,it is true,alreadycurrentin England among
his contemporaries,
notablyin the discoursesof Burke,Thomas and
JosephWarton, and William Sharpe. But never beforehad these
ideas been stated as cogentlyas in the Conjectures;by his clearsighteddistinctionsbetweenimitationand originality,the ancients
and the moderns,learningand genius,the observationof rules and
the energyof the inspiredenthusiast,Young was crucial in precipitatingthe reorientationaway fromthe old accepted notions.Here
for the firsttime,the superiorityof the new ideals was proclaimed
beyond a shadow of doubt: "An Original may be said to be of a
fromthevitalrootofgenius;
vegetablenature;it risesspontaneously
it grows,it is not made: Imitationsare oftena sortof manufacture,
wroughtby those mechanics,art and labour, out of pre-existent
materialsnot their own." 5 Or again, take the contrastbetweena
froma good
"genius"and a "good understanding":"A geniusdiffers
as a magician froma good architect;that raiseshis
understanding,
structureby means invisible; this by skilfuluse of common tools.
Hence genius has ever been supposed to partake of
something
divine."« These two brief examples alone sufficeto illustratethe
ROMANTICISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
119
incisivequality of Young's thinking.Many of the key conceptsof
Romanticismare already contained in the Conjectures,in the
prominencegiven to such words as "original," "genius," "grows,"
"magician," "divine." There is thus some justificationfor the
contentionthat "this vast romanticmovementwas the European
reverberationof English eighteenthcenturyromanticism,like the
T
thunderof Alpine re-echoingto a pistol-shot."
Many of the essential elements of Romanticismwere indeed present in England
towardthe middle of the eighteenthcentury:some recognitionof
the role of the imagination,the emphasison the original composithevague religiousfeeling,
tionof thegenius,thecult of sensibility,
themelancholyreverie,the interestin 'natural'poetry,the discovery
of externalnature.But it would be prematureto call thisanything
other than pre-Romanticism,for these were merely trends and
beginningswith the stresson the natural- no doubt in reaction
of Neodassicism- whereas the
againstthe artificialoverrefinement
dominant factor in Romanticism proper was the transfiguring
imagination,whose true significancewas not yet appreciated.
While this reorientationwas progressingrapidly in England,
France and Germanywere far behind during this initial phase.
fromthe backwashof its glorious NeoFrance was still suffering
classical age, which continued to overshadowcreativewritingand
does
to a large extentto stifleinnovation.A spiritof enlightenment
of
such
criticism
as
the
the
Diderot,
early
prefaces
pervadeat least
to his plays Le filsnaturel (1757) and Le père de famille (1758),
wherehe advocatesa greaterrealism;but afterthisadvance towards
emotionalismhe was, in his later works,to returnto the assumptions of the Neoclassical creed. Only Rousseau broke really new
ground: his disgustwith the social order of the time, based on
ownershipof land and goods,led him to idealize the primitivestate
of mankindand to call for the famousreturnto nature.Important
thoughthiswas, it was by no means Rousseau's sole contributionto
his assimilationof externalnatureto man'smoods
pre-Romanticism;
in Les rêveriesdu promeneursolitaire and La nouvelle Héloïse,
his musical prosestyle,and his spotlighton his ego in his autobiographicalwritingsall plainlyforeshadowcertainlaterdevelopments.
Rousseau,however,was not understood,at leastnot in France,until
was in Germanythrough
later;meanwhilehis mostimmediateeffect
of Herder, an enthusiasticdisciple of Rousseau's,
the intermediary
120
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES
his admirationfor Rousseau to the young adherwho transmitted
entsof the Sturmund Drang movement.
In the mid-eighteenth
centuryGermanywas in the literaryfield
the most backward of the major European countries; politically
disunitedand economicallydisruptedby internalstrife,Germany
had in the latterhalf of the seventeenthand the earlyyearsof the
eighteenthcenturyvirtuallybeen lyingfallow.A new era began to
dawn in the 1730'swiththe notoriousquarrel betweenthe doctrinal
rationalistGottschedand the somewhatless narrow-mindedSwiss
criticsBodmer and Breitinger,who realized that poetrycould not
be made accordingto a set recipe- like a cake- as Gottschedhad
assumed.Bodmer in 1740 published his KritischeAbhandlungvon
dem Wunderbarenin der Poesie ("Discourse Concerningthe Wondrous Element in Poetry"),the title of which alreadyindicatesthe
progressiontowardsa more fruitfulconceptionof art.The Enlightenmentfoundits mostvigorousand wise exponentin Lessing,who
savagelyattacked the 'frenchified'("französierend"he contemptuously calls it in the seventeenthLiteraturbrief)mode of writing
favouredby Gottsched.He pleaded instead that German writers
should model themselveson the freerproductsof theEnglish,whose
spiritwas more akin to theirown. Lessingwas not the firstto turn
his gaze towards England; Bodmer and Breitingerhad earlier
championedand translatedMilton, and Klopstock'sMessias (1748)
is patentlyindebted to Paradise Lost. AlthoughLessing was thus
not the firstto point towardsEngland, nevertheless
his position in
was
as
crucial
and
in
some
as,
Germany
respectscomparableto, that
of Young in England. For it was Lessingwho in his Literaturbriefe
(1759) and HamburgischeDramaturgie(1767) presenteda reasoned
and compellingcase for the decisive reorientationnot only from
France to England but also fromimitation to original creation,
extolling Shakespeare as the supreme creativegenius. Herder in
his rhapsodicappraisal of Shakespeareand also of Ossian furthered
the cult of genius,stimulatedno doubt by the German translation
of Young's Conjectureswhich appeared in 1760. The vital impetus
thereforereached Germany from England, the fountainhead of
European pre-Romanticism.
In the second phase, betweenabout 1770 and 1790, this position
was reversed,for the ascendancywhich had been England's now
passed to Germany.Both England and France were in no haste to
accept new notions,perhaps because the native literarytradition
ROMANTICISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
121
was firmlyestablished;in France it tended to exercisea retarding
- the great'battle*of Hernani took place only in the year
influence
1830- while in England the lack of resistanceto innovationsparaGermany,on
doxicallyled to theircomparativelyslow infiltration.
the contrary,was thirstingfora freshstartafterits long period of
inertia.So Germany'sverybackwardnessprovedin factan advantage
when the young writersof the Sturm und Drang movement,for
lack of a strongnativetradition,eagerlyseized on the stimulifrom
abroad, and it was theywho popularized and propagated the new
attitudesthroughoutEurope.
The essence of the Sturm und Drang, whose name was derived
fromKlinger'sdrama of 1776,lay in rebellionagainstfiniterestric- literary,political, or social. This selftion in any shape or form
assertiverebelliousnesswas more than the adolescentdefianceof a
fewgiftedyoungmen; it arose directlyout of the proud conviction
of the limitlessrightsand powers of the divinely-inspired
genius.
Thus the theoriesformulateda few years earlier by Young were
activatedby the Sturmund Drang and found living examples in
the youthfulGoethe and Schiller. All the favouriteideas of the
Sturmund Drang pivoted on the figureof the trulygreat,exceptional man; it was his personal experiencesand emotionswhich
into art throughthe creativepower of his
were to be transformed
unbridled imagination.No wonder that the Sturm und Drang is
oftenand aptly termedthe Geniezeit ("Period of Genius"). Incoherent and supremelyarrogant though it was, the credo of the
Sturm und Drang foreshadowedvery many of the basic concepts
of Romanticism:thebeliefin the autonomyof the divinelyinspired
genius,the release of the imaginationfromthe bondage of 'good
taste/the primacyof spontaneousand intuitivefeeling,the complete freedomof artisticexpression,and, finally,the notion of
organicgrowthand development,fromwhicharose both an interest
in the past, particularlythe Middle Ages, and a new pantheistic
visionof natureas partof a unifiedcosmos.Nor were theseideas to
remainmere theoriesany longer; in the earlyworksof Goethe and
Schillerthe new mode of perceptionand expressionburstupon a
startledEurope. And how immeasurableis the gulf that separates
Goethe'sdynamicnaturepoetryfromthe prettylyricsof the preceding generation! Consider the formal, pedestrian descriptionby
Brockesin his "Betrachtungendes Mondscheinsin einer angeneh-
122
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES
men Frühlingsnacht"in the 1721 collection Irdisches Vergnügen
in Gott(note theclumsytitles):
Kaumhattesichdie Nachtzu zeigenangefangen,
Die nachderHitzeLastderKühlungLustverhiess,
Alssichein neuerTag demScheinnachsehenliess:
Der volleMondwaraus demgrauenDuft,
Der nachdesTagesschwüler
Luft
MitPurpuruntermischt
den Horizontbedeckte
Wie rötlichGold nureben aufgegangen,
Aus dessenwandelbarem
Kreise,
Der allesin derNachtmitLichtund Schimmer
füllt,
MehrAnmutnochals LichtundSchimmer
quillt.8
Compare these mundane lines with the intenselyimaginative,
intuitiveperception of die same scene in Goethe's
mysteriously
den Mond":
"An
bewitching
FüllestwiederBuschundTal
StillmitNebelglanz,
Lösestendlichaucheinmal
MeineSeeleganz;
Breitest
übermeinGefild
LindernddeinenBlick,
Wie desFreundes
Augemild
ÜbermeinGeschick.9
In the face of these two texts,furtherverbal commenton the
revolutionwroughtby the Sturm und Drang becomessuperfluous.
It was at thistimetoo, in the early 1770's,that the greatRomantic
prototypeswere delineated in the melancholyhero Wertherand
the insatiableseekerFaust, figuresthatwere to haunt Europe. The
impactof Wertheris alreadynotorious;Goethe became the idol of
Europe. The successof Schiller'sDie Räuber was even more immediate and widespread:in England as well as in France,Schillerwas
acclaimedwithsuch wild enthusiasmas to triggera veritablemania
for the German theatre,admittedlyexcessive and short lived.
Goethe and Schillerremainedin the eyesof both the
Nevertheless,
and
the French the typical representativesof German
English
Romanticism,and strangethough this misconceptionmay at first
seem,it is in factnot withoutsome justification.For in the Sturm
und Drang, theculminationof pre-Romanticism,
thefirstsignificant
breakthroughwas achieved,and in this Goethe and Schiller were
largelyinstrumental.With the publication of Kant's three major
works,the Kritik der reinen Vernunftin 1781, the Kritik der
ROMANTICISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
123
in
praktischenVernunftin 1788, and the Kritik der Urteilskraft
the
rationalist
were
at
old
blows
struck
mortal
the
1790,
system.
F. Schlegelwas justifiedin his proud claim that the springsof the
new age were risingin Germany.To suggest,however,that Romanticismshould really be called "Germanticism"on account of its
10
essentiallyGermanicroots and spirit is an exaggeration,not to
sources
in England, althoughit
say a distortionin view of its early
is not withoutsome elementof (albeit poetic) truth,and the high
incidenceof Germanwords used in connectionwith Romanticism
in
europamüde,Dies- und Jenseitigkeit)
(Sehnsucht,Weltschmerz,
itselfindicates Romanticism'sdeep entrenchmentin Germany.
Thenceforththe overall picture of European Romanticismbecomes increasinglycomplex as the new creed slowlyspread from
countryto country.For a timeyet Germanywas to remain in the
ascendancy,so thatthisthirdphase was again largelyovershadowed
by Germany.This was her mostgloriousage, forthe 1790'switness
not only the elaborationof Romanticismbut also the heydayof
her Neoclassical period. These were the momentousyears of the
Goethe-Schillerfriendshipwhen the formerwrote Reineke Fuchs
(1794), Römische Elegien (1795), Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre
(1795), VenezianischeEpigramme(1797), Hermann und Dorothea
(1798), and manyof his best-knownballads, while Schiller'swork
included Über Anmut und Würde.(1793), Über naive und sentimentalischeDichtung(1795), Briefeüber die ästhetischeErziehung
des Menschen (1795),Das Ideal und das Leben (1795), Wallenstein
(1798-99),Das Lied von der Glocke (1799) and otherballads, as well
as theXenien (1796) on whichthetwo friendscollaborated.In order
to realize fully the extent to which Romantic and Neoclassical
- a fact that is often
strainswere contemporaneousin Germany
forgottenor overlooked it is perhaps worth enumeratingbriefly
some of the other workswhich appeared during this period: in
in 1797, the greatballad-yearof
1794,Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre;
Goethe and Schiller,Schelling'sIdeen zu einer Philosophie der
Wackenroder'sHerzensergiessungen
Natur, Tieck's Volksmärchen,
A. W. Schlegel'sfirsttranslaeines kunstliebendenKlosterbruders,
tionsfromShakespeare;in 1798,the journal of the Jena Romantic
group, the Athenäum; in 1799, Schleiermacher'sReden über die
Religion and F. Schlegel'sLucinde; and the new centuryopened
with Novalis' Hymnenan die Nacht. In theseworksthe writersof
the Jena Romantic group expounded their own Weltanschauung
124
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES
which was in many essential points a developmentof the earlier
ideas of the Sturm und Drang, although these had never been
fashionedinto a coherentaestheticsystem.Like theirpredecessors,
the Jena group founded their whole systemon the unquestioned
primacy of the subjective imagination of the original creative
genius,a doctrinewhich had been strengthenedby the powerful
supportof Fichte's philosophy,so that this subjectiveimagination
now became literallythe alpha and omega of the universe.The
notion of organic growth and developmentand the consequent
interestin historyand in living nature,the arrogationof complete
artisticfreedomas the birthrightof the autonomousdivine genius,
the trust in spontaneous emotion and instinct: all these were
inheritedfromthe Sturm und Drang, although German Romanticismwas not a mere continuationof the earlier movementand
there were vital shiftsof emphasis and mood which reveal the
distinctcharacterof the Jena school. The later group was more
rebelsof theSturmund
complexthan the relativelystraightforward
who
to
live
and
create
Drang
sought
solelyaccordingto the dictates
of feeling,while the Romantic strivesalso forknowledge,consciousness,a masteryof those feelingswhich in turn produceda certain
the keyto that curiousRomanticconceptof irony.
self-detachment,
As its name implies, the Sturm und Drang had been youthful,
forward-looking,
vigorous,and realisticin its rebellionagainst an
irksomereality,whereas with the Jena school an introvert,transcendentallongingcame to the foreas the Romanticlooked beyond
this world in his quest for an intangible,unattainableideal in a
dreamsphereof his own creation.To the revolutionary
naturalism
of Rousseau and the melancholypietism of English pre-Romantidsmwas now added the transcendentalism
of theGermanphilosophers,fortheJena Romanticgroup,speculativeratherthancreative
by nature,was responsibleforthe major body of GermanRomantic
philosophyand it was at this point that German Romanticism
assumed its characteristichue. An all-embracingexpansiveness,
coloured by a pervasivemysticism,
is its hallmark,so that it is a
way of living and perceivingratherthan merelyof writingwhich
was expounded in the theoriesof the brothersSchlegel,Schelling,
and Wackenroder.The spreadin scope and breadth
Schleiermacher,
ll
is vast. As poetryturnsinto "eine progressiveUniversalpoesie,"
it tendsnot only to mingle the various genresand media but also
moreand more to lose its specificmeaningand to becomeconfused
ROMANTICISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
125
and amalgamated with philosophy,religion, history,philology,
science, and politics. This cosmic extension of the meaning of
poetrywas to be of the utmostimportancefor the whole of the
nineteenthcenturyand beyondtoo.
So rapidlyhad the European balance changed that in theseyears
it was the turn of England and France to be comparativelybackward. In France,the Revolutionblotted all else frommen's minds
and theReign ofTerrorvirtuallysilencedcreativewritingfora time.
As Mme. de Staël reported:"Les Français,depuis vingtannées,sont
tellementpréoccupéspar les événementspolitiques,que toutesleurs
études en littératureont été suspendues."12Or again: "Depuis
quelque tempson ne lit guère en France que des mémoiresou des
romans; et ce n'est pas tout à fait par frivolitéqu'on est devenu
moins capable de lecturesplus sérieuses,c'est parce que les événementsde la Révolution ont accoutuméà ne mettrede prix qu'à la
connaissancedes faitset des hommes."13From the welterof argumentsas to whetherthe Revolutionimpededthe advance of Romanticismor fosteredit by breakingdown the old authoritarianorder
in the social sphere, only one fact emergeswith any certainty:
namely,the dearth of creativewritingduring the Revolutionary
period. Hence that curious hiatus in French literarydevelopment
in the years 1790 to 1820. The few workswhich did appear were
mainlyin the Rousseauistictradition,such as the exotic novels of
Bernardin de Saint-Pierrewhose Paul et Virginie (1787) and La
chaumièreindienne (1791) both illustratethe so-called returnto
nature. Chateaubriand's Alala (1801) and Reni (1805) are also
indebtedto the ideas of Rousseau, and none of these,no morethan
the Génie du Christianisme(1802),was regardedby contemporaries
as a seriousmenace to the Neoclassical traditionwhichstill reigned
unchallenged.FrenchRomanticism,when it did finallyassertitself,
was to be above all a revolt against this firmlyentrenchedand
ossifiedNeoclassidsm and it is significantthatthe earliestglimmerings of the new orientationfirstinsinuated themselvesinto the
strongholdof Neoclassidsmin prose,the genreleast subject to the
dictatesand rulesof theNeoclassicalcreed.
There were no such hindrancesto overcomein England, which
was gradually awakeningto the new tendendes. In Blake's Songs
of Innocence (1787) and Songs of Experience (1794), imagerywas
fromitseighteenth-century
used in a mannertotallydifferent
decorativefunction,and thiswas a vital breakthroughof the new typeof
126
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES
poeticexpression.The mid-1790'salso witnessedthe growingpopularityof tales of horrorwith Mrs. Radcliffe'sMysteriesof Udolpho
in 1794 and The Monk by Lewis in 1796. It was in 1798, the year
of the Lyrical Ballads, that WordsworthaccompaniedColeridgeto
Germany.Ironically,England was now to receiveits stimulusfrom
Germany,fromideas which had in fact originatedon her shores
and had been elaborated abroad while they were more or less
ignoredat home. That homecomingbegan in the 1790's with the
spreadof knowledgeabout Germanliteraturewhichhad previously
been dismissed,in spite of the successof Werther,as revolutionary,
sentimental,and not quite respectable.
sensationalist,
extravagently
The term'German Novel/ forinstance,was forlong a self-explanatoryexpressionof opprobrium,a stigmastemmingfromthe many
worthlessSchauerromane,stories that send a shudder down the
reader's spine, which had been translatedinto English to satisfy
the thirstforhorrorstories.A numberof originalEnglish Gothic
novelsof dubious quality were at that time passed offas renderings
fromGerman,thus bringingGerman literatureinto furtherdisrepute. Gradually a truerpicturewas to emerge,dating fromHenry
Mackenzie'spaper on German drama read beforethe Royal Society
of Edinburgh in 1788 and published in 1790. Here Schiller was
mentionedfor the firsttime in Britain in a startlingeulogy of
Die Räuber, the tremendousappeal of which lay in the noveltyof
its subject,the atmosphereof horror,and the unbridledexpression
of emotional crises.It made a vehementimpressionon Coleridge
whenhe read it in 1794,arousingthecuriosityabout Germanliteraturethatwas to take him and Wordsworthto Germanyin 1798.
While France was in the throesof the Revolution,and England
was only graduallyassimilatingthe new tendencies,Germanystill
remained the home of Romanticism.The Heidelberg group of
1805-1815differedfrom the earlier, more closely-knitJena circle
in thatit was farless philosophicallyinclined.Forsakingthe metaphysicalspeculations of the Jena theorists,the Heidelberg poets
createdmanyof the worksforwhich German Romanticismearned
its fameabroad, such as the tales of Hoffmann,Chamisso,Fouqué,
the poems of Uhland, Körner,Brentano,Arnim. More extrovert
than theirimmediatepredecessors,
theseHeidelbergpoets exploited
theJena theoriesforpracticalcreativepurposes.Their demand for
a spontaneousexpressionof emotion led to a gloriousblossoming
of lyricpoetry; the probing of the irrationalaspects of life- the
ROMANTICISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
127
so-called nocturnalsides of nature- was now precipitatedinto a
host oí supernaturaland fantasticstories,such as those of Tieck
and Hoffmann;and finallythe interestin history,formerlypart of
a compositebelief in organic growthand development,now also
assumed more specificformseitherin scholarlyresearchinto the
past, as exemplifiedby the philological enquiries of the brothers
Grimm,or in the newlyemergentnational consciousnessand pride
whichevoked,under the threatof the Napoleonic wars,lyriccycles
withsuch titlesas the GeharnischteSonette("Sonnetsin Armour")
by Rücken (1814), Körner'sLeyer und Schwert("Lyre and Sword")
of the same year, and Arndt's Lieder für Teutsche ("Songs for
Germans").This was the climatewhichfosteredArnim'sand Brentano'sDes Knaben Wunderhorn(1806-1808)and like collectionsof
folktalesin Görres'Die teutschenVolksbücher(1807) and Grimm's
Märchen (1812). In these patriotic nationalistic endeavours the
writersof the Heidelberg group foreshadowedthe more directly
movementof the
politicaland social aims of the Jung-Deutschland
the time lag in
that
this
at
is
It
mid-nineteenth
point
century.
for
while Romanmost
is
at
its
blatant;
European Romanticism
to unfold
about
as
and
is
France
in
ticismhas hardlystirred
only
yet
and
its
zenith
it
is
in
moving
alreadypast
fullyin England, Germany
steadilytowardsthe more sober social preoccupationsof the subsequent period. In the face of these discrepanciesalone, who would
dare to envisageEuropean Romanticismas one unifiedand consistententity?
In this interregnumthereappeared a work that was of extraordinary importance in the historyof Romanticism in Europe:
Mme de Staël'sDe l'Allemagne.Duringher exile fromFrance,Mme
de Staël travelledfairlyextensivelyin Germany,where she met,
amongothers,Goethe,Schiller,and A. W. Schlegel,who became her
son's tutor. In contrast to his volatile and inventive brother
Friedrich,August Wilhelm Schlegel was the most perceptiveand
orderlyof the Jena group, so that his elegantlyclear formulations
of German Romantic thought were more comprehensibleand
than the perhapsprofounder,transcendental
accessibleto foreigners
Friedrich
of
Schlegel,Schelling,or Schleiennacher;and
thinking
his Vorlesungenüber dramatischeKunst
of
translations
the
with
in 1813 and into Englishin 1815,A. W.
French
into
und Literatur
"Herold
oder Dolmetscher"lé of Romanthe
became
Schlegeltruly
de Staël thusmet a man well
Mme
A.
W.
tic thought.In
Schlegel,
128
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES
able to fan her enthusiasmfor Germany.The externalhistoryof
De l'Allemagne- the hindrancesto publication,therole of political
considerations,etc.- are irrelevantin the presentcontext except
in so faras thisoppositionin itselfindicatesthe Frenchreluctance,
indeed fear,to importforeignideas which seemed an insult and a
menace to French cultural dominance.In spite,or perhaps partly
because,of the violentresistanceto its publication,De VAllemagne
became the standardsourceof knowledgeon Germany,and beyond
thata manifestoof the new cosmopolitanismand a decisivestep in
the renewal of French literatureafterits long subservienceto the
tenetsof an emasculatedNeodassicism.In thisworkMme de Staël
fromthe great
soughtto delineate the conceptof a poetrydifferent
native traditionof France, for she fully realized the need for a
transfusionof new blood. In introducingcontemporaryGerman
writingto France, she constantlycontrastedits originality,vitality,
and imaginationwith the sterilerigidity,"le genre maniéré" « of
moribund French Neodassicism. Mudi valid critidsm can be
levelled against Mme de Staël: she saw Germanyin the literaryas
well as in thesocial and moral senseas the countryof Hermann und
Frenchpicture
Dorothea,therebynurturingthe strangelypersistent
of Germanyas "une région fabuleuse,oü les hommesgazouillent
et chantentcommeles oiseaux" ie Moreover,she had littleacquaintance with the work of the Jena group (there is, for instance,no
mention whatsoeverof Novalis) and regarded Goethe, Schiller,
Bürger,and Tieck as the representativeGerman Romantic poets;
nor had she much head forabstractphilosophyand no more than a
between
superfidalcomprehensionof Romantidsm,distinguishing
Classicaland Romanticpoetryas "celle qui a précédél'établissement
du christianismeet celle qui l'a suivi."17 All her judgments are
formedfroma plainlyFrenchstandpointso thatshe regardsGerman
and Englishliteratureas one entity,the literatureof the Romantic
North,as against the Classical literatureof France and Southern
Europe. Nevertheless,in spite of her undeniable weaknessesand
failings,Mme de Staël was an astute,perspicaciousarbiter,whose
observationsare often acute and who grasped the essence of the
new orientationof German literature.In some respectsMme de
Staël's position is reminiscentof that of Lessing: though more
emotional and fandful in manner than the sensible exponent of
the Enlightenment,
basically she advocates the same emancipation
fromthe traditionalrules in favour of a poetryfatheredby the
ROMANTICISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
129
enthusiasmof genius.In fact,De VAllemagnepresentsan admirable
surveyof the Sturmund Drang phase of Germanliterature,thatis,
of pre-Romanticism
ratherthanof the Romanticgroupsthemselves.
This is a crucialfactorforthe comprehensionof European Romanticismsince the opinions expressedby Mme de Staël and, perhaps
even more important,her omissions,forlong not only determined
the French (and to a lesser extent the English) view of German
literaturebut also shaped the course and nature of the French
Romanticmovement.So the preferenceforSchiller,the conception
of Goethe as "le chefde l'école mélancolique" 18 the appraisal of
Faust as the supremeRomantic masterpiece,the emphasis on the
picturesqueelementin poetry,and thebeliefthatGermanliterature
all thesecurious
is characterizedprimarilyby 'fantasy'and 'liberty*:
notions stem fromDe VAllemagne.And Mme de Staël's view of
Germanliteraturewas persistentas well as potent;until after18S0
the French continuedto believe that German literatureconsisted
solelyof Goethe,Schiller,Bürger,Tieck, and Jean Paul. No good
historyof Germanliteraturewas available in French; and while a
few works,notably Werther,Faust, Die Räuber, and later, the
dramasof Wernerwere read withrespectand devotion,poets such
as Novalis, Brentano,and Arnim were virtuallyunknown to the
French Romantic poets,veryfew of whom, incidentally,had any
knowledgeof German. The belief that French Romanticismwas
directlyinfluencedby German Romanticism,one of the principal
and most commonmisapprehensions
about the historyof Romanticismin Europe, is thereforecontravenedby the undeniable evidence of chronologicalfact.The truerelationshipis ratherbetween
the GermanSturmund Drang and FrenchRomanticism.Once this
correcthistoricalperspectiveis established,the strikingdifferences
betweenthe facesof Romanticismin Germanyand France become
somewhatless puzzling.
De l'Allemagne,whichwas originallypublishedin England, also
servedin somedegreeas a mediatorbetweenGermanyand England.
In the earlyyearsof the nineteenthcentury,because of the political
- the oppositionto Napoleon- the Englishtendedto turn
situation
more to Germanythan to France, and many links were forged
between the two lands throughboth travelersand translations.19
These links were remarkableratherfor their large number than
fortheirdepth,therebeing littleto suggestanyverydecisivesignificance.As in France,so in Englandactual knowledgeabout Germany
130
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES
was fairlyscant; the Carlyleanimageof a land of poetsand thinkers
succeededthe earlierone of a realmof the picturesqueand fantastic.
As forGermanliterature,it was again the Sturmund Drang which
made the only real impressionthroughthe earlyworksof Goethe
and Schillerand the dramas of Kotzebue,whose popularityturned
into an absolutefuror.The writingsof the Jenagroup,on theother
hand, gained little or no hearing until well into the nineteenth
century;Carlylewas the firstto writeabout Novalis in 1829,and
even then Novalis was interpretedas a disciple of Kant and Fichte
withoutany appreciationof his poetry.In her relationshipwith
her European neighbours,England showed that same sturdyindependencethat characterizesher own Romanticmovement.England
had indeed no need to be instructedin Romantic thoughtand
feelingby other nations,for in Shakespeare,Milton,Young, Macpherson,Percy,and Richardson she exported far more than she
importedin Schiller,Goethe,and Rousseau.
The greatfloweringof English Romanticismoccurredabout the
middle of the second decade of the nineteenthcenturywhen for
sometenyearsEngland became thefocusof European Romanticism.
By then the Romanticimpetushad slackenedin Germanyand was
graduallybeing diluted by the beginningsof the sober realismof
the mid-nineteenthcentury.Meanwhile France, apparentlystill
stunnedby the consequencesof the Revolution,was takingstockin
social and political affairswith thinkerssuch as Saint-Simon,
Cousin, and Thierry,while artisticcreativitywas relegatedto the
background.England with a galaxy of finepoets in Blake, Wordsworth,Coleridge,Shelley,Keats, and Byron assumed the primacy
which had been Germany's.Not that therewas ever a Romantic
'school*in England as there had been in Germany;therewas no
conscioushomogeneousprogramand therewere fewmanifestosor
literarydiscussionscompared with those in Germanyand with the
violentcontroversies
thatwere to swayFrance.Wordsworth's
famous
Preface to the "Lyrical Ballads" was conceived chieflyto counter
criticismand to forestallfurtherattacks.The second generation
of English Romantic poets was even less concernedthan the first
with questionsof poetic technique; Keats indeed was outspokenin
his rejectionof abstracttheorizing,whichhe brandedas "thewhims
of an Egotist."In a letterto J. H. Reynolds(February3, 1818) he
wrote: "Every man has his speculations,but everyman does not
brood and peacock over them till he makes a false coinage and
ROMANTICISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
131
deceives himself.. . . Poetryshould be great and unobtrusive,a
thingwhich entersinto one's soul, and does not startleit or amaze
it with itself,but with its subject.- How beautifulare the retired
flowers!how would theylose theirbeautywere theyto thronginto
the highwaycryingout, 'admire me I am a violet!- dote upon me
I am a primrose!'" 20 Informal in character,"a warm intuitive
muddle," as it has rightlybeen called,21English Romanticism
than its
less dogmatic,less self-conscious
remainedless systematic,
Continentalcounterparts,of an independentapproach consonant
the
with the innate individualismof the Briton.AlthoughJeffrey,
mostvehementopponent of the Lake Poets, accused them in the
EdinburghReview of 1802 of being "dissentersfromtheestablished
systemsin poetry,"who had borrowed their doctrinesfrom the
Germansand from"the great apostle of Geneva," this chargewas
far fromtrue.For the Romantic movementin England was above
all of evolutionary,not revolutionary,
origin; a sense of belonging
to and restoringthe native traditiondistinguishesthe Romantic
poets in England, where therewas no incisivebreak in continuity
and Romanas in Germanyand France.The Englishpre-Romantics
ticslooked back withapproval on Shakespeareand the pre-Restoration poets,nor did the Augustansrouse oppositioncomparable to
the rebelliousnessof the German Stürmerund Dränger or the
French onslaught on their tyrannicalliteraryestablishment.In
contrastto the necessityimposed on the French and Germans to
findsome way out of a kind of cul-de-sac,the Englishwere cast in
a historicallymore fortunateposition. Whereas the Germansand
the French Romanticshad to follow and in some way outdo their
glorious immediate predecessors,the English Romantics were
stronglyconscious of representinga new beginningand upsurge,
as in Germany.
not a reaction as in France or an overrefinement
From this,perhaps,EnglishRomanticismderivesits special quality
and grace.
offreshness,
freedom,flexibility,
With the deaths of Keats in 1821,Shelleyin 1822,and Byronin
1824, the period of English ascendancycame to an abrupt and
untimelyend. Now it was the turn of France in the 1820's and
was the face and spiritof Romanticism
1830's. But how different
in France fromwhat it had been in England! Whereasthe English
Romanticmovementhad evolved slowlyand organicallyout of the
native tradition, French Romanticism was essentiallya revolt
against the native tradition,an oustingof the firmlyrooted Neo-
132
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES
classical attitudesand formsby alien lines of thoughtand feeling.
Hence the violenceand bitternessof the quarrels attendanton the
emergenceof Romanticismin France, hence also the stubbornness
and vehemenceof the opposition. For this was far more than a
literarydebate; all mannerof political and national considerations
were implicatedin the complexweb of this"querelle nationale."22
The Revolution, though it had halted literarydevelopmentfor
many years,can also be evaluated as an indirectlypositivefactor,
forwith the fall of the absolute monarchythe Neoclassical dogmatismthat had been associatedwith it was severelyundermined:"à
société nouvelle, littératurenouvelle" became the popular slogan.
Moreover, the revolutionaryera with its free spectacle of the
guillotine created a new theatre audience avid for rapid action,
melodrama,and sharp contrasts.On the other hand, Napoleon's
Empire tended to have a reactionaryeffectnot only throughits
strictcensorshipbut also throughits revival of Neoclassical taste
as exemplifiedby Corneille's heroic characterswho were regarded
as the apotheosis of martial glory. Romanticism was therefore
fearedas a tendencyassociatedwith revolution,violence,and foreign domination,a threatto the national heritageof Greco-Latin
origin. Even in 1825 Le Globe still reported that: "On se sert
aujourd'hui en France du mot 'romantique' pour désignertoute
compositioncontraireau systèmesuivi en France depuis Louis
XIV." 23 This fear of the Romantic as tantamountto the revolucautious
tionaryexplains,in partat least,Constant'sextraordinarily
attitudein his prefaceto Wallstein,wherehe comparedthe German
and French dramatic systems.He deliberatelyavoided the word
'romantic' altogetherand repeatedlystressedhis support of the
native tradition,which was to be strengthenedand refreshed,not
oustedby innovationsfromabroad. A similarrevivalof the French
heritagewas advocated in Sainte-Beuve'sTableau de la poésie au
seizièmesiècle (1827) which was of vital importancein the history
of Romanticismin France; here Sainte-Beuve rehabilitatedthe
hithertoneglectedFrench poets of the sixteenthcentury,thereby
pointingto the existenceof a native traditionanteriorto and differentfromthe Neoclassical one.
Consideringthe strengthof this Neoclassical canon of clarity,
harmony,and 'good taste,'as well as the complexityof the political
and social background,it is little wonder that the new Romantic
orientationwas so slow to infiltrateinto France. The French
ROMANTICISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
13S
Romanticshad begun to emergeas a shadowyforcein opposition
to the Neoclassiciststowardsthemiddleof the 1810's,stimulatedby
De l'Allemagne and also by the translationin 181S of A. W.
Schlegel's Vorlesungen über dramatischeKunst und Literatur.
During the years 1814-1822 an outburst of anglomania swept
throughFrance following the isolation during the Napoleonic
wars;livelyinterestwas focusedon the 'conqueror/on the workings
the
of the constitutionalmonarchyand parliamentarygovernment,
industrialrevolution,new economicdoctrines,and, of course,new
therewas no outstandingpersonwriting,although unfortunately
alityto do forEngland what Mme de Staël had done forGermany.
Neverthelessthe technique of the 'Lakistes/their use of imagery,
the musicand innovationsof theirverse,and theirnote of mystery
arousedcuriosity.In fact,Scott,Byron,and Shakespeareas well as
Goethe and Schillerwere alreadyknown in France,but theirreal
vogue came only about 1820 onward, when Byron in particular
becamethe object of an idolatrousenthusiasm.This growingappreciationof English and Germanpoets coincidedwith the formation
of a number of Romantic groups centered either on a literary
journal such as the Muse française(1823-4)or the famousLe Globe
(1824-32),or in the French traditionon a salon such as that of
Deschamps (1820), the Société des bonnes-lettres(1821), Charles
Nodier (1823), and finallythe Cénacle of Hugo and Sainte-Beuve
(1827). The French Romanticswere thus unlike the English, and
more like the Germans,in their preferencefor groups, and the
dates of these various groups and journals help to site the real
of Romanticismin France. Oppositionwas, however,
breakthrough
farfromsilenced by the early 1820's; the traditionalistscontinued
to attackRomanticismas an alien, dangerouselement,brandingit
as a "romantismebâtard," to quote the phrase coined in 1824 by
Auger,the directorof the AcadémieFrançaise,in spiteof theefforts
of the movement'sdefenders,such as CharlesNodier,who soughtto
distinguishbetweenle frénétique(vampirism,meresensationalism)
and thegenuinelyromantique.
Long afterRomanticismhad become more or less acceptable in
lyricpoetrythroughthe worksof Lamartine,Hugo, and Vignyin
theyears1822-26,the finaland mostacrimoniousbattlewas fought
in the field of drama, the "dernièrefortresse"the "bastille littéraire"1*of the Neoclassical tradition.Several earlier attemptsto
in 1809 of Lemerder's
stormthisbastionhad failed; a performance
134
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES
ChristopheColomb,subtitleda "comédie shakespearienne/'proved
an utternasco,and in his renderingof Schiller'sWallensteintrilogy,
which dates fromthe same year,Constantcautiouslyfelt the need
to respectthe rules of our drama, as he put it, by reducing the
numberof acts to fiveand the charactersto twelve.In the winterof
1827-28a companyof English actors made a deep impressionin
Paris, and it was during that winter,when enthusiasmfor Shakespeare was at its zenith,that Hugo wroteCromwellwith its epochmakingpreface.Not that Hugo's ideas in themselveswere of startlingoriginality;sensationalthoughit was in its historicalcontext,
Hugo's attack on the three unities is in fact veryreminiscentof
Lessing'sargumentsin the HamburgischeDramaturgie.Indeed the
whole tone and spiritof the polemicsin France in the 1820'srecalls
the mood of the German Sturmund Drang of the 1770's.Thus Le
Globe definesits doctrineas "la liberté,""l'imitationdirectede la
nature," "l'originalité"2* while the concept "romantique" is
26 that is, in
equated with "vie, activité,mouvementen avant"
termswhich clearlyecho the dynamismof the Sturm und Drang.
There is, therefore,ample justificationfor Goethe's perspicacious
comment: "Was die Franzosen bei ihrer jetzigen literarischen
Richtungfüretwas Neues halten, ist im Grunde weiternichtsals
der Widerscheindesjenigen,was die deutscheLiteraturseit fünfzig
Jahrengewollt und geworden."27 Goethe's estimateof fiftyyears
as the timelag betweenGermanyand France is well judged, forit
was only with the noisy victoryof Hernani in 1830 that French
drama achieved the freedomattainedin Germanyin the 1770's by
Götzvon Berlichingenand Die Räuber. Moreover,while theFrench
Romanticswere related to the German Stürmerund Dränger,the
trueheirsof the GermanRomanticismof 1800-1815were undoubtedly the FrenchSymbolistpoets of the latterhalf of the nineteenth
century.Baudelaire, Mallarmé, and Rimbaud subscribedto a new
conceptionof art and the artist,a conceptionwhich was closely
akin to the theoriesof the German Jena Romantic group: poetic
experience was envisaged as essentiallydifferentfrom ordinary
experience,a magic formof intuitivespiritualactivity,a mysterious
expansion into the transcendentalin which the visionary poet
adventuredinto a dr^am-realmto explore the hidden sourcesand
of life.
'correspondences'
The battleforHernani in 1830 marksthe last greatmilestonein
the Romantic conquest of Europe. AlthoughRomanticismwas to
ROMANTICISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
1S5
reignin Franceforsome ten moreyears,othercurrentswereincreasinglyin evidence. By the mid-1830's Hugo was already advancing
a moreutilitarianconceptionof art,urgingthe artistto an awarenessof his seriousdutyto furtherthe progressof mankind.In this
of
changeof outlook, Hugo was anticipatinga trendcharacteristic
the mid-nineteenthcenturythroughoutEurope. In England and
Germanythe springsof Romanticismhad dried up much earlier
than in that late-starter
France,and in both countriesby the mid1830's only a diluted,rathersentimentalizedformof Romanticism
survivedalongside some witty satire directed against Romantic
attitudes,satirelike Peacock's CrotchetCastle(1831),Carlyle'sSartor
Resartus(1833-34),Heine's RomantischeSchule (1833), and Immermann's Die Epigonen (1836) with its significanttitle, as well as
his comic Miinchhausen (1839). Romanticismwas increasinglyout
of tune with the spiritof the age as the centuryadvanced; the new
sobermood and materialisticaims of the industrialera had little
for obscure nightsof individual imaginationand no use
sympathy
whatsoeverfor an art that 'bakes no bread' to quote a pertinent
Americanproverb.The artistwas called to cease his selfishexploration of his private realm, to come out of his ivorytower,and to
The disciplinedobjectivity
assumehis share of social responsibility.
of Realism came to replace- at least for a time- the autonomous
imaginationof Romanticism.
This chronologicalsurveyshould dispel a number of common
misconceptionsregardingRomanticism.Foremostamong these is
the misapprehensionthat European Romanticism is a clearly
definedentity,a unifiedschool which manifesteditselfin several
countriessimultaneouslyand shared certain ideals and predilections.Almostequally prevalentand mistakenis the belief that the
originsof Romanticismare to be found in Germanyand that both
the English and the French Romantic poets were directlyand
decisivelyinfluencedby the German theories.Such notions are
more than gross oversimplifications;
they are false premisesthat
can only breed furthererror.A historicalanalysisof the courseof
Romanticismin Europe revealsa farmorecomplicatedpicture,for
the Romantic manner of perceptionand expressionappeared in
various literaturesat differenttimes and in differentguises. Its
emergenceis an uneven,stragglingprocessof long duration,punctuatedby curious timelags as the ascendancypassed fromone land
to another. Moreover,since the spread of new ideas was largely
136
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES
in an age whencomdependenton thechancereportsof travelers
and
further
werestillrelatively
munications
bywar,
disrupted
poor
in
on contemporary
even
information
neighboring
developments
of
was oftenso scantand belatedthatmanyassumptions
countries
of
such
influencemustbe discounted.The outstanding
example
infiltration
of ideas is to be foundin De
slow and fragmentary
and widely-traveled
by a perspicacious
thoughwritten
l'Allemagne:
ideas
of
in
1810
few
of
the
theJenaRomantics
it
contains
critic,
very
later.
whichwereto reachFranceonlysomehalfa century
- itssuccessive
ofEuropeanRomanticism
The outerhistory
waves,
- suggests
both the
its new upsurgein one countryafteranother
ofitsnature.Though
vehemence
ofitsimpetusand thecomplexity
reorientation
of valuesthattook place
partof thatfundamental
to thenineteenth
Europeat theturnof theeighteenth
throughout
indeedit
it was not a singlebut a multiplemovement;
century,
a wholeseriesofmovements
fromtheSturmundDrang
comprised
in character,
onward,each separateand distinct
yetall involvedin
a profound"crisede la conscience9'
as individualistic,
imaginative,
attitudes
the
old
rationalistic
replaced
subjective
approach.The
and
form
of
this
crisis
differed
from
land
land becauseit
to
timing
was in each case determined
the
as well as
by
literary
background
and
social
factors.
Hence
the
of the
by
political
bewildering
variety
facesand products
ofRomanticism:
it is notjusta matter
ofgenre,
withtheEnglishexcellingat lyricpoetry,
theFrenchconcentrating
on dramain theirbattleagainstthestronghold
of theNeoclassical
of
theatre,while the transcendental
yearnings the Germansfind
theirmostappropriate
vehiclein theMärchen-like
This
narrative.
in itselfis only a symptonof far deeper divergences.
German
for instance,is not only the most radical and
Romanticism,
thoroughgoing,
embracingall the arts and philosophy,
politics,
and history,
butalsodistinguished
fromitsEnglish
science,
religion,
and Frenchcounterparts
at firstbya strongbias towardsthemetaand
FrenchRomanticism
physical laterby its patrioticcolouring.
resembles
theGermanbrandin its preference
fororganization
in
from
thrust;on theotherhand,it differs
groupsand in itsdynamic
the Germanmovement
(and is hereincloserto the English)in
in the domainof art,and it is characremainingalmostentirely
terizedaboveall byitsviolentrevoltagainstthestifling
dominance
of the nativeNeoclassicaltradition.In contrast,
EnglishRomanticismis thefreshest
and freest,
theleastself-conscious
and codified
ROMANTICISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
137
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COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES
because it evolved not against,but organicallyout of, the native
tradition.
In view of the confusionsurroundingthe termand the concept
of Romanticism,thereis surelya strongcase foran honestrecogni- of the factthat therehave been a number
tion of thesedifferences
of Romantic movementsin Europe. It is only in the light of the
correcthistoricalperspectivethata new approach can thenbe made
to the Romantic movementsin England, France, and Germanyin
an attemptto appreciatethe particularcharacterof each and at the
sametimeto understandtheirinterrelationship.
LilianR. Fürst • University
ofManchester,
England
NOTES
1. P. van Tieghem,Le Romantismedans la littérature
européenne(París,
1948),p. 247.
2. I. Berlin,"Some Sourcesof Romanticism/'
six lecturesdeliveredin Wash1966.
ington,broadcastB.B.C. "Third Programme,"
August-September
PleasuresofImagination,
3. M. Akenside,
Bk.1,1. 120.
4. J. Macpherson,,
The Poemsof Ossian,I (London,1784),205.
5. E. Young, Conjectureson Original Composition(Manchester,England,
1918),p. 7.
6. Young,Conjectures,
p. 13.
Romanticism
7. L. Abercrombie,
(London,1926),p. 28, footnote.
8. Brockes,"Considerations
on the moonlightof a pleasantspringevening/'
EarthlyJoyin God, reprintedin DeutscheLiteraturin Entwicklungsreihen:
Das Weltbildder deutschen
Aufklärung
(Leipzig,1930),p. 245:
Hardlyhad thenightbeguntoappear
Whichpromisedthejoyof cool aftertheburdenoftheday'sheat,
Whena newdayseemedtodawn:
Out of thegreymistcoveringthehorizonwithcrimsonstreaks
Afterthesultryatmosphere
oftheday
The fullmoonhad just risenwitha reddishgoldshine,
And fromitschanging
circle,
Whichfillsthenightwithshimmering
light,
Moregraceflower
thanshimmering
light.
9. Goethe,"To theMoon":
Once moreyoufillthebushesand thevalley
witha mistyradiance,
Silently
Atlasttooyourelease
Mysoulcompletely;
Overmyfieldsyouspread
Yourgazesoothingly,
like thegentleeyeofa friend
Watchingmydestiny.
ROMANTICISMIN HISTORICALPERSPECTIVE
143
10. F. Strich,"Europe and the Romanticmovement/'GermanLife and
Jl(1948-9),
87.
Letters,
ed. W. Rasch (Munich,1956),p. 37: "a
11. F. Schlegel,KritischeSchriften,
universal
progressive
poetry."
12. Mmede Staël,De l'Allemagne(Oxford,1906),p. 1: "For the past twenty
yearsthe Frenchhave been so preoccupiedwithpoliticalhappeningsthat aU
havebeenin abeyance."
matters
literary
13. Staël,De l'Allemagne,
p. 171: "For sometimepeople in Francehave been
otherthanmemoirsand novels;it is not entirelyout
readinghardlyanything
thatpeople have becomeless equal to seriousreading,but because
of frivolity
themto attachimportance
the happeningsof the Revolutionhave accustomed
ofeventsand men."
solelytoknowledge
Kleine Schriften(Tubingen,1950),p. 173: "herald or
14. F. F. Schirmer,
interpreter."
15. Staël,De l'Allemagne,
p. 178: "themanneredstyleof writing."
of Schillerspoems(1854),p. vi: "a
16. X. Marmier,prefaceto a translation
land,wheremenwarbleand singlike birds."
fairy-tale
and that
17. Staël,De l'Allemagne,
p. 33: "that whichprecededChristianity
it."
whichfollowed
18. Nodier,Débats,April 19, 1817: "the head of the schoolof melancholy."
19. F. w. Stokoe,GermanInfluencem theEnglishRomanticrerioa,Appendix
intoEnglish1789-1803.
listsGermanworkstranslated
V, pp. 180-87,
20. Keats,Letters(Oxford,
1934),p. 72.
in England,"PMLA,LV (1940),
"The Romanticmovement
21. H. N. FaiTchild,
24.
22. Nodier,Débats,January6, 1816: "nationalcontroversy.
23. Duvicquet,Le Globe,December6, 1825:"the word'romantic'is used in
to the systemcurrentin France
Francenowadaysto denoteanyworkcontrary
sinceLouisXIV."
24. Desmarais,Le Globe, October29, 1825: "the finalbastion,the literary
Bastille."
25. Anon.,Le Globe, October29, 1825: "freedom,""imitationonly from
nature,""originality."
26. Duvergicrde Hauranne,Le Globe,March24, 1825: life,activity,
surging
forwards."
27. Goethe,as reportedby Eckermann,
GesprächemttGoethe(1955),p. 673,
6th March,1830: "What the Frenchnow regardas a new tendencyin their
of what Germanliteraturehas
is basicallynothingbut a reflection
literature
last
the
achieved
and
fifty
yean."
during
sought