What Was the Romantic Movement?

Romanticism

There are many way to approach the concept (or movement) known as romanticism, and over the many years romanticism has been perceived and defined in wildly different ways. Scholars and historians have spent tens of thousands of words dissecting, describing, and trying to come to terms with what romanticism really means. The truth is there are many ways to approach romanticism, and this paper looks into scholarly approaches to romanticism in 1925, 1949, and 1990. How is the approach to romanticism in 1925 different -- but also similar -- to another approach in 1990? That question and others that are germane to this topic will be presented in this paper. The three scholarly articles that will be critiqued in this paper are: Paul Kaufman's "Defining Romanticism" (1925); Morse Peckham's "Theory of Romanticism" (1951); and David Perkins' "The Romantic Movement" (1990).

Three scholarly articles from three periods in the twentieth century

Kaufman, 1925. History shows us that 1925 was the year in which Adolf Hitler published his manifesto, Mein Kampf -- the antithesis of romanticism -- and F. Scott Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby, not representative of romanticism either. It was also the year an article was published by Paul Kaufman suggesting that there had been, since 1890, an "engrossing concern" as to the true meaning of romanticism. Kaufman also termed the number of attempts to categorize romanticism as "bewildering" (Kaufman 193). Kaufman goes into the interpretations by various scholars, adding to the mystery of just what romanticism truly represents to the scholar.

When Kaufman uses the word "bewildering" he is apparently responding to the fact that notwithstanding the many "formulas" that had been in the mix as to what romanticism means, the "widely divergent views" are increasing, adding to the confusion (194). The author quotes Professor P.R. Frye (from a book published in 1922) who asserts that romanticism is "anything which 'tends to disrupt or disturb the balance of the faculties'" (194). That is likely the most obscure attempt at defining romanticism available; but give Kaufman credit for digging it out. Another quote that Kaufman offers is from Professor H.J.C. Grierson, who, in 1923, explained that when it comes to romanticism, "…the spirit counts for more than the form" (Kaufman 194). Grierson didn't exactly hit the nail on the head, but he is certainly on the right track because we have learned in this class that romanticism is less about content and more about how and why the piece was painted.

It is clear that in the early 1920s scholars such as Kaufman were frustrated and nearly fed up trying to come up with a workable definition of romanticism. On page 196 of his essay Kaufman uses words like "futility," "crisis," "hopeless," "intolerable," and "chaos" to describe previous attempts at coming up with a more precise description. Nevertheless he seeks to reinvent a definition by searching for the historical meaning vis-a-vis "romantic" (198). I'm not sure he accomplishes what he set out to do because in his final paragraph he admits that the "present laissez-faire attitude" towards the task of defining romanticism is "demoralizing to criticism" (204). Moreover, he concludes, in an age of "wayward and troubled thought," any attempt to come to a workable understanding is "the greatest service criticism can render…" (204).

Peckham, 1951. Twenty-six years after Kaufman's essay, Morse Peckham digs into the same troubling issue, with a bit more success than his scholarly predecessor. Peckham, seemingly less bewildered, is certainly more pragmatic than Kaufman in that he begins his scholarship with what romanticism is not. Peckham asserts that romanticism should not be viewed as having been spawned by the "political revolutions" in Europe, or of the industrial revolution (Peckham 1951). Yes, the great push in Europe for political reform comes into play in romanticism, Peckham agrees; however, the two are not "the same thing" (5).

Peckham references the 1949 attempt by Jacques Barzun to define romanticism as part of "the great revolution which drew the intellect of Europe…from the expectation and desire of fixity into desire and expectation of change" (Peckham 7). Typically published scholars and intellectuals who research difficult, even ambiguous topics, reference previous scholarship in hopes of adding credibility to their given topic. Indeed, Peckham references an impressive 1949 essay by Rene Wellek, which offers three components explaining romanticism. The three are: a) there was indeed an intellectual and artistic movement in Europe, a movement that had "certain intellectual and artistic characteristics" called "romanticism"; b) those involved in the movement were "quite conscious of their historic and revolutionary significance"; and c) the reason that "skepticism" about romanticism exists in the United States is because of Arthur O. Lovejoy's article "On the Discrimination of Romanticisms" (Peckham 7).

According to Peckham the 1924 Lovejoy piece points to "a fearful variety of ways…" in which romanticism is defined, and Lovejoy insisted that there is not one single concept that can embrace all the ways in which romanticism should be understood (7). But that having been said, Peckham boils Lovejoy's "literary romanticism" definition (updated in Lovejoy's 1936 book) down to the simple idea that that there was (in the late 18th century and early 19th century) a "change in the way of thinking of European man" (8). That change was overdue because since Plato's original philosophy on the nature of reality, European minds had been stuck in one gear, Peckham explained (9).

But "occidental art" and "occidental thinking" ("occident" means Europe and America, the West) came along as a key element of the romantic movement and it changed many ideas, including the belief that the "cosmos" was not a "static mechanism" but instead the cosmos was "a dynamic organism" (Peckham 9).

Comparing Peckham's 1951 treatise on romanticism with Kaufman's 1925 essay is like comparing a hybrid auto (Peckham) with a gas-guzzling 30-year-old Dodge (Kaufman). Both essays are well structured and easily understood, but while Kaufman struggled with the definition and complained about the plethora of wrongheaded attempts to define romanticism, Peckham offers some clues and some answers that are helpful to the student researcher.

Perkins, 1990. This essay is really the first one of the three I chose that spells out how the romantic movement got its start, why it started (in particular with English poets) and who its pathfinders were (Wordsworth, Coleridge and Francis Jeffery, to name three). Perkins notes that the mean-spirited titles that were given to English poets prior to the use of the "romantic" -- "The Satanic School" and "The Cockney School of Poetry" -- were given to the poets by "politically conservative critics" that were "hostile" (Perkins 1990). Apparently anything progressive and hopeful was to be mocked, not unlike what we see in society today in politics.