I think your analysis would benefit from considering one of the great German Romantic poets and polymaths, who wrote under the pen name Novalis. His take on The Romantic was published the same year Wordsworth published Tintern Abbey, that is, 1798.
‘Romanticizing is nothing other than a qualitative raising into higher power…. By giving a higher meaning to the ordinary, a mysterious appearance to the ordinary, the dignity of the unacquainted to that of which we are acquainted, the mere appearance of infinity to finite, I romanticize them.’”
Thanks Nik, and it wasn’t meant as an admonishment at all. I mean your essay is superb. I was just thinking of this because there’s a scene in my next novel set in an English survey seminar and the kids are trying to figure out what Romantic means. And the thing is I was in that seminar, and we were told that Wordsworth was keenly aware of the German Romantic movement and I think I detect in Tintern Abbey especially the influence of that Novalis idea. The kids are going crazy trying to square this idea with the ways in which science was also something the English Romantic poets were aware of. Anyway this comment is way too long. Just also need to emphasize how smart and intricate your take on this all is!
Finally someone writing in this series who has a decent grasp on English Romanticism! Now we need a new article that has a more historical take: industry, empire, revolution, etc., and does explicitly what this article does only implicitly--take the argument to the present. What about revolution? Industry? Progress? Individualism? Morality? All painfully relevant, and it's totally unclear what aesthetic program might result from these considerations. (And as long as I am jonesing for needed articles--what about one on comparative Romanticisms? Germany v. America v. England v. France v. Germany? I think that in America poets are still spinning their wheels in the post-Ashbery age, stuck in a kind of purely formal Romanticism that is both nonsensical and subjective, but what about other countries or schools? And what happened to Germany, still heady idealists?)
This would be of interest. For me, the real question isn't what do the major English Romantic poets have in common, or even what do all Romantic poets have in common, but rather what do they have to do with Romantic prose? And what separates Romantic prose from non-Romantic prose? Surely Walter Scott and his imitators are Romantic. But what about Walpole and the Gothic? Rousseau? Richardson? Hamann and his followers in Germany? Vico? Adam Ferguson? Kant? Smith himself? (Wordsworth's Preface to LB famously borrows quite liberally from Smith.) Or in other media: was Garrick a Romantic? What about a painter like Hubert Robert? And those are just from the 18th century! Certain Baroque artists—El Greco, Salvatore Rosa, the later Shakespeare, Milton—are rather close to Romanticism, no? I usually think of Romanticism as defined less by anti-mechanism—I gather that people were already fed up with Descartes and the neo-Epicurians by 1700—than by anti- (or post-) classicism. But then this can't be quite right either, since Byron basically saw himself as Pope's heir. So perhaps it has something to do with historicism, or with anti-empiricism, or with (as you suggest here) a backlash against utilitarianism and Enlightenment political economy? (This why your take on Smith's reception would be interesting.) I'm just not convinced the whole cultural phenomenon can be reduced to overcoming the split between subject and object or whatever. And I'm not even sure one can really draw a clean line between Romanticism and the Enlightenment.
Romantism- such an amusing topic in our faceless time in poetry. Yes, Novalis... His sad romanticism even influenced Russian symbolism, as in Aleksandr Blok. And Byron, his influence was profound in 19th-century Russian poetry.
Thank you Larisa - it’s funny, Byron is relatively neglected in his fatherland today; but was by far the most influential of the English romantics abroad - as you say, Russia is a great example. I only wish I knew the language!!
Do not regret. All my youth, I was reading only foreign literature. Soviet literature was so boring! I studied French in school and university, but none of our teachers were permitted to go abroad, so their knowledge of foreign languages was rather weak. I read in French only Françoise Sagan, the rest of the world's literature -only in Russian. And knew it pretty well to compare with some philologists. Though I don't know how our favorite Pushkin sounds in translation. Nabokov didn't do a good job. And he was a Byron follower. All Russian romanticism of the 19th century came out of Lord Byron.
Bravo! You don't normally expect to come across Whitehead, Poincaré, or Mill in a discussion like this. Widening the range of reference slightly really gives some life to a tired subject.
It's funny that Whitehead and Russell were both Shelleyans of a sort. There would be some interesting work to be done in tracing the links between romanticism and modern philosophy of science (may well have been done already for all I know).
Thank you Sean! Whitehead looks more and more like a romantic, as I read him. When, in small snippets and asides, he speaks about political economy, for example, he’s squarely in the romantic tradition. As for his philosophy of science -the fallacy of misplaced concreteness is also perfectly consonant with Wordsworth, Blake.
I think your analysis would benefit from considering one of the great German Romantic poets and polymaths, who wrote under the pen name Novalis. His take on The Romantic was published the same year Wordsworth published Tintern Abbey, that is, 1798.
‘Romanticizing is nothing other than a qualitative raising into higher power…. By giving a higher meaning to the ordinary, a mysterious appearance to the ordinary, the dignity of the unacquainted to that of which we are acquainted, the mere appearance of infinity to finite, I romanticize them.’”
Agreed - very Anglo heavy, I can probably weasel out of this by way of standard excuse about the limitations imposed on a short essay
Lol, now that’s a comment! Get more high brow, Nik Prassas!
She’s right!
Thanks Nik, and it wasn’t meant as an admonishment at all. I mean your essay is superb. I was just thinking of this because there’s a scene in my next novel set in an English survey seminar and the kids are trying to figure out what Romantic means. And the thing is I was in that seminar, and we were told that Wordsworth was keenly aware of the German Romantic movement and I think I detect in Tintern Abbey especially the influence of that Novalis idea. The kids are going crazy trying to square this idea with the ways in which science was also something the English Romantic poets were aware of. Anyway this comment is way too long. Just also need to emphasize how smart and intricate your take on this all is!
Thank you! The Novalis is excellent and also very useful in defining the point of contention between Byron and Wordsworth.
Finally someone writing in this series who has a decent grasp on English Romanticism! Now we need a new article that has a more historical take: industry, empire, revolution, etc., and does explicitly what this article does only implicitly--take the argument to the present. What about revolution? Industry? Progress? Individualism? Morality? All painfully relevant, and it's totally unclear what aesthetic program might result from these considerations. (And as long as I am jonesing for needed articles--what about one on comparative Romanticisms? Germany v. America v. England v. France v. Germany? I think that in America poets are still spinning their wheels in the post-Ashbery age, stuck in a kind of purely formal Romanticism that is both nonsensical and subjective, but what about other countries or schools? And what happened to Germany, still heady idealists?)
I have something in the works on romantic reception of Adam Smith if that would be of interest.
This would be of interest. For me, the real question isn't what do the major English Romantic poets have in common, or even what do all Romantic poets have in common, but rather what do they have to do with Romantic prose? And what separates Romantic prose from non-Romantic prose? Surely Walter Scott and his imitators are Romantic. But what about Walpole and the Gothic? Rousseau? Richardson? Hamann and his followers in Germany? Vico? Adam Ferguson? Kant? Smith himself? (Wordsworth's Preface to LB famously borrows quite liberally from Smith.) Or in other media: was Garrick a Romantic? What about a painter like Hubert Robert? And those are just from the 18th century! Certain Baroque artists—El Greco, Salvatore Rosa, the later Shakespeare, Milton—are rather close to Romanticism, no? I usually think of Romanticism as defined less by anti-mechanism—I gather that people were already fed up with Descartes and the neo-Epicurians by 1700—than by anti- (or post-) classicism. But then this can't be quite right either, since Byron basically saw himself as Pope's heir. So perhaps it has something to do with historicism, or with anti-empiricism, or with (as you suggest here) a backlash against utilitarianism and Enlightenment political economy? (This why your take on Smith's reception would be interesting.) I'm just not convinced the whole cultural phenomenon can be reduced to overcoming the split between subject and object or whatever. And I'm not even sure one can really draw a clean line between Romanticism and the Enlightenment.
Greed is good + mercantile clubbability + Wordsworth? I'm intrigued.
Romantism- such an amusing topic in our faceless time in poetry. Yes, Novalis... His sad romanticism even influenced Russian symbolism, as in Aleksandr Blok. And Byron, his influence was profound in 19th-century Russian poetry.
Thank you Larisa - it’s funny, Byron is relatively neglected in his fatherland today; but was by far the most influential of the English romantics abroad - as you say, Russia is a great example. I only wish I knew the language!!
Do not regret. All my youth, I was reading only foreign literature. Soviet literature was so boring! I studied French in school and university, but none of our teachers were permitted to go abroad, so their knowledge of foreign languages was rather weak. I read in French only Françoise Sagan, the rest of the world's literature -only in Russian. And knew it pretty well to compare with some philologists. Though I don't know how our favorite Pushkin sounds in translation. Nabokov didn't do a good job. And he was a Byron follower. All Russian romanticism of the 19th century came out of Lord Byron.
Brilliant 👏
Thank you!
It’s comforting that the malaise is civilizational and not my own personal.
Bravo! You don't normally expect to come across Whitehead, Poincaré, or Mill in a discussion like this. Widening the range of reference slightly really gives some life to a tired subject.
It's funny that Whitehead and Russell were both Shelleyans of a sort. There would be some interesting work to be done in tracing the links between romanticism and modern philosophy of science (may well have been done already for all I know).
Thank you Sean! Whitehead looks more and more like a romantic, as I read him. When, in small snippets and asides, he speaks about political economy, for example, he’s squarely in the romantic tradition. As for his philosophy of science -the fallacy of misplaced concreteness is also perfectly consonant with Wordsworth, Blake.