Neo-classical (18th century) v/s Romantic Revival Movement (19th century)
With the publication of Wordsworth’s lyrical ballads in
1798, the Romantic Revival Movement was ushered in England. This movement was
opposed to the neo-classical movement of the eighteenth century.
NEO-CLASSISM
The neo-classical poets were traditionalistic. The past for
them was important. The rules and regulations were essential. The presentation
of material was important in a prescribed form. These poets were trying to
imitate the classical poets of the past. They were very suspicious of
imagination. This was the literature of coffee houses, drawing rooms, city. It was
the urban emphasis of man in society. The stress was on decorum, form and neatness.
Emphasis was placed on reason and the heroic couplet was emphasized. The heroic
couplet was a verse form consisting of rhyming lines in iambic pentameter. This
can be summed in the words of Alexander Pope:
True
wit is nature to
Advantage
dress’d
What
oft was thought but
N’er
so well expressed.
ROMANTICISM
It was a deliberate and a sweeping revolt against the
literary principles of the eighteenth century, also called the Augustan Age –
the Age of Reason. Just as the poets Pope and John Dryden of Neo Classical
tradition had rejected the romantic tradition of the Elizabethans, the age of
Shakespeare as crude and irregular and had adopted classical or more correctly
Neo Classical principles of French literature in their writings, so now Wordsworth
and Coleridge in their turn rejected the Neo classical principles in favor of the
romantic.
These poets were therefore reverting back to the Elizabethian
age or the first Romantic Age in English Literature. Therefore, this was not something
new in literature and was called Romantic Revival Period.
There were few differences between sixteenth century and
nineteenth century romanticism.
In the Elizabethan age, most of the Elizabethans except
Shakespeare appeared to have been unable even to assign been unable even to assign
flowers to their proper seasons whereas poets and writers in the nineteenth century
looked upon nature from the point of view unknown to the Elizabethans. The sixteenth
century was the age of drama and an age of action. A life where they had to
investigate and explore, Romanticism in the nineteenth century on the other
hand was an age of the novel. It was an age given to introspection keenly alive
to their own literary traditions and history.
With Romanticism, poet’s emphasis was on imagination, they
were less bound by rules. They believed that they were not answerable to anyone
but themselves. They believed in using a variety of verse forms.
Emphasis was on individual creativeness, heightened
imagination, feelings, sensibilities, subjectivity and a spirit of freedom with
regard to form content.
Neo classical poets were conscious of decorum. Therefore,
language of poetry had to be elevated. These poets lived in their ivory towers.
They firmly believed poetry was not for the masses.
In opposition to this, romantic poets believed that
everyday language could be used in poetry. A poet they believed was a man among
men. The language of poetry need not be different from language of prose.
In the eighteenth century imagination was not an important
feature in Neo Classical theory of poetry. For Dryden and Pope, imagination had
little importance. They approved of fantasy, controlled by ‘reason’ or ‘judgment’.
For them, what mattered most in poetry was its truth to emotions or sentiments.
They wished to speak in general terms for common experience of man. They did
not express their views. For them the poet was more an interpreter than a creator.
They were not interested in mysteries of life.
Rene Descartes, the philosopher influenced the eighteenth century
writers to a great extent. He was a rationalist who thought that the world was
a machine controlled by God.
The Romantic attitude is expressed in the following lines, ‘we
are moving from mechanistic attitude towards nature, to an organic one’.
The Romantic Poets believed that imagination, the higher
faculty of need does not allow them to be content to look at things only at the
surface level, but encourage them to delve deeper onto the surface. They also
laid emphasis on the mysterious, spiritual and the occult.
These poets believed in taking the reader away to distant
lands; lands of enchantment, witches, magic, weird things and things which are
not normal.
The Romantic Poet is not mundane. He feels that there are extra
sensory parts which takes us to other worlds which we cannot experience with
the ordinary eye.
The Romantics had a specific attitude to nature. They believed
man had to control it to form it. They did not think of nature as a tool of
man. They thought nature had an autonomous existence. It was in a position to
bring about different responses from different people.
They loved the wild beauty i.e., forests, mountains, untamed
by man. They rarely spoke of nature objectively.
These poets believed that sensibility intervenes to turn
objective nature into subjective feelings.
Nature becomes organic part of that person’s life and
existence.
In the eighteenth century, nature is static where as in the
nineteenth century nature is constantly evolving. Nature chastens man. It makes
him aware of the sufferings in the real world. Nature is no longer looked at
from the outside. Linked up with all this is that the diction and syntax of poetry
is strongly influenced by the ideals of spontaneity and naturalism for the
romantics.
Wordsworth’s definition of a poet is ‘a man speaking to men’.
The poet stresses on spontaneous overflow of feelings. As a speaker the poet
liked to ignore the appearance of pre-deliberated artists. The earlier classical
concept of a poet was a contrast. The poet being a maker had to constantly work
on different tools and had to constantly perfect his art. The stress here was
on craftsmanship.
The Romantics portray nature with a subjective feeling. For
them nature is animated. It is here we see different forms of living things
having a life of their own. They looked upon nature as a process. Nature is inexhaustible
which has wonder and surprise in it. Nature is a beautiful awesome phenomenon. Wordsworth
refers to nature as ‘the anchor of my purest thought’.
The attitude of the Romantics is that man is seen as being essentially
good but is corrupted by civilization. The stress is on mans return to nature. They
were Pantheistic in their attitude and have a high regard for nature and the natural
environment and saw the hands of the Creator guiding the universe. They go beyond
the world of the flesh and emphasize the sublime.
Wordsworth’s ambition was to make the ordinary beautiful,
where as Coleridge was to make the extraordinary natural. Wordsworth wants to
show the beautiful in ordinary life. He tried to give a new meaning to common
things, to reveal the awe in ordinary life. Coleridge wants to make the extraordinary,
supernatural, remote and unusual normal. One aspect of Romanticism which centers
around the world of dreams and marvels is seen in Coleridge’s poetry. He conjures
a world of phantasonal (fantasy) scenery, linked up with supernatural
happenings. In Kubla Khan one dominant element is the element of mystery and
wonder. These are also seen in the ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ and ‘Christabel’.
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