Introduction to Romanticism

Romanticism has very little to do with things popularly thought of as "romantic," although love may occasionally be the subject of Romantic art. Rather, it is an international artistic and philosophical movement that redefined the fundamental ways in which people in Western cultures thought about themselves and about their world.

Historical Considerations

It is one of the curiosities of literary history that the strongholds of the Romantic Movement were England and Germany, not the countries of the romance languages themselves. Thus it is from the historians of English and German literature that we inherit the convenient set of terminal dates for the Romantic period, beginning in 1798, the year of the first edition of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge and of the composition of Hymns to the Night by Novalis, and ending in 1832, the year which marked the deaths of both Sir Walter Scott and Goethe. However, as an international movement affecting all the arts, Romanticism begins at least in the 1770's and continues into the second half of the nineteenth century, later for American literature than for European, and later in some of the arts, like music and painting, than in literature. This extended chronological spectrum (1770-1870) also permits recognition as Romantic the poetry of Robert Burns and William Blake in England, the early writings of Goethe and Schiller in Germany, and the great period of influence for Rousseau's writings throughout Europe.

The early Romantic period thus coincides with what is often called the "age of revolutions"--including, of course, the American (1776) and the French (1789) revolutions--an age of upheavals in political, economic, and social traditions, the age which witnessed the initial transformations of the Industrial Revolution. A revolutionary energy was also at the core of Romanticism, which quite consciously set out to transform not only the theory and practice of poetry (and all art), but the very way we perceive the world. Some of its major precepts have survived into the twentieth century and still affect our contemporary period.

Imagination

The imagination was elevated to a position as the supreme faculty of the mind. This contrasted distinctly with the traditional arguments for the supremacy of reason. The Romantics tended to define and to present the imagination as our ultimate "shaping" or creative power, the approximate human equivalent of the creative powers of nature or even deity. It is dynamic, an active, rather than passive power, with many functions. Imagination is the primary faculty for creating all art. On a broader scale, it is also the faculty that helps humans to constitute reality, for (as Wordsworth suggested), we not only perceive the world around us, but also in part create it. Uniting both reason and feeling (Coleridge described it with the paradoxical phrase, "intellectual intuition"), imagination is extolled as the ultimate

synthesizing faculty, enabling humans to reconcile differences and opposites in the world of appearance. The reconciliation of opposites is a central ideal for the Romantics. Finally, imagination is inextricably bound up with the other two major concepts, for it is presumed to be the faculty which enables us to "read" nature as a system of symbols.

Nature

"Nature" meant many things to the Romantics. As suggested above, it was often presented as itself a work of art, constructed by a divine imagination, in emblematic language. For example, throughout "Song of Myself," Whitman makes a practice of presenting commonplace items in nature--"ants," "heap'd stones," and "poke-weed"--as containing divine elements, and he refers to the "grass" as a natural "hieroglyphic," "the handkerchief of the Lord." While particular perspectives with regard to nature varied considerably--nature as a healing power, nature as a source of subject and image, nature as a refuge from the artificial constructs of civilization, including artificial language--the prevailing views accorded nature the status of an organically unified whole. It was viewed as "organic," rather than, as in the scientific or rationalist view, as a system of "mechanical" laws, for Romanticism displaced the rationalist view of the universe as a machine (e.g., the deistic image of a clock) with the analogue of an "organic" image, a living tree or mankind itself. At the same time, Romantics gave greater attention both to describing natural phenomena accurately and to capturing "sensuous nuance"--and this is as true of Romantic landscape painting as of Romantic nature poetry. Accuracy of observation, however, was not sought for its own sake. Romantic nature poetry is essentially a poetry of meditation.

Symbolism and Myth

Symbolism and myth were given great prominence in the Romantic conception of art. In the Romantic view, symbols were the human aesthetic correlatives of nature's emblematic language. They were valued too because they could simultaneously suggest many things, and were thus thought superior to the one-to-one communications of allegory. Partly, it may have been the desire to express the "inexpressible"--the infinite--through the available resources of language that led to symbol at one level and myth (as symbolic narrative) at another.

Other Concepts: Emotion, Lyric Poetry, and the Self

Other aspects of Romanticism were intertwined with the above three concepts. Emphasis on the activity of the imagination was accompanied by greater emphasis on the importance of intuition, instincts, and feelings, and Romantics generally called for greater attention to the emotions as a necessary supplement to purely logical reason. When this emphasis was applied to the creation of poetry, a very important shift of focus occurred. Wordsworth's definition of all good poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" marks a turning point in literary history. By locating the ultimate source of poetry in the individual artist, the tradition, stretching back to the ancients, of valuing art primarily for its ability to imitate human life (that is, for its mimetic qualities) was reversed. In Romantic theory, art was valuable not so much as a mirror of the external world, but as a source of

illumination of the world within. Among other things, this led to a prominence for first-person lyric poetry never accorded it in any previous period. The "poetic speaker" became less a persona and more the direct person of the poet. Wordsworth's Prelude and Whitman's "Song of Myself" are both paradigms of successful experiments to take the growth of the poet's mind (the development of self) as subject for an "epic" enterprise made up of lyric components. Confessional prose narratives such as Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) and Chateaubriand's Rene (1801), as well as disguised autobiographical verse narratives such as Byron's Childe Harold (1818), are related phenomena. The interior journey and the development of the self recurred everywhere as subject material for the Romantic artist. The artist-as-hero is a specifically Romantic type.

Contrasts With Neoclassicism

Consequently, the Romantics sought to define their goals through systematic contrast with the norms of "Versailles neoclassicism." In their critical manifestoes--the 1800 "Preface" to Lyrical Ballads, the critical studies of the Schlegel brothers in Germany, the later statements of Victor Hugo in France, and of Hawthorne, Poe, and Whitman in the United States--they self-consciously asserted their differences from the previous age (the literary "ancien regime"), and declared their freedom from the mechanical "rules." Certain special features of Romanticism may still be highlighted by this contrast. We have already noted two major differences: the replacement of reason by the imagination for primary place among the human faculties and the shift from a mimetic to an expressive orientation for poetry, and indeed all literature. In addition, neoclassicism had prescribed for art the idea that the general or universal characteristics of human behavior were more suitable subject matter than the peculiarly individual manifestations of human activity. From at least the opening statement of Rousseau's Confessions, first published in 1781--"I am not made like anyone I have seen; I dare believe that I am not made like anyone in existence. If I am not superior, at least I am different."--this view was challenged.

Individualism: The Romantic Hero

The Romantics asserted the importance of the individual, the unique, even the eccentric. Consequently they opposed the character typology of neoclassical drama. In another way, of course, Romanticism created its own literary types. The hero-artist has already been mentioned; there were also heaven-storming types from Prometheus to Captain Ahab, outcasts from Cain to the Ancient Mariner and even Hester Prynne, and there was Faust, who wins salvation in Goethe's great drama for the very reasons--his characteristic striving for the unattainable beyond the morally permitted and his insatiable thirst for activity--that earlier had been viewed as the components of his tragic sin. (It was in fact Shelley's opinion that Satan, in his noble defiance, was the real hero of Milton's Paradise Lost.)

In style, the Romantics preferred boldness over the preceding age's desire for restraint, maximum suggestiveness over the neoclassical ideal of clarity, free experimentation over the "rules" of composition, genre, and decorum, and they promoted the conception of the artist as "inspired" creator over that of the artist as "maker" or technical master. Although in both Germany and England there was continued interest in the ancient classics, for the most part the Romantics allied themselves with the very periods of literature that the neoclassicists had dismissed, the Middle Ages and the Baroque, and

they embraced the writer whom Voltaire had called a barbarian, Shakespeare. Although interest in religion and in the powers of faith were prominent during the Romantic period, the Romantics generally rejected absolute systems, whether of philosophy or religion, in favor of the idea that each person (and humankind collectively) must create the system by which to live.

The Everyday and the Exotic

The attitude of many of the Romantics to the everyday, social world around them was complex. It is true that they advanced certain realistic techniques, such as the use of "local color" (through down-to-earth characters, like Wordsworth's rustics, or through everyday language, as in Emily Bronte's northern dialects or Whitman's colloquialisms, or through popular literary forms, such as folk narratives). Yet social realism was usually subordinate to imaginative suggestion, and what was most important were the ideals suggested by the above examples, simplicity perhaps, or innocence. Earlier, the 18th-century cult of the noble savage had promoted similar ideals, but now artists often turned for their symbols to domestic rather than exotic sources--to folk legends and older, "unsophisticated" art forms, such as the ballad, to contemporary country folk who used "the language of commen men," not an artificial "poetic diction," and to children (for the first time presented as individuals, and often idealized as sources of greater wisdom than adults).

Simultaneously, as opposed to everyday subjects, various forms of the exotic in time and/or place also gained favor, for the Romantics were also fascinated with realms of existence that were, by definition, prior to or opposed to the ordered conceptions of "objective" reason. Often, both the everyday and the exotic appeared together in paradoxical combinations. In the Lyrical Ballads, for example, Wordsworth and Coleridge agreed to divide their labors according to two subject areas, the natural and the supernatural: Wordsworth would try to exhibit the novelty in what was all too familiar, while Coleridge would try to show in the supernatural what was psychologically real, both aiming to dislodge vision from the "lethargy of custom." The concept of the beautiful soul in an ugly body, as characterized in Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, is another variant of the paradoxical combination.

The Romantic Artist in Society

In another way too, the Romantics were ambivalent toward the "real" social world around them. They were often politically and socially involved, but at the same time they began to distance themselves from the public. As noted earlier, high Romantic artists interpreted things through their own emotions, and these emotions included social and political consciousness--as one would expect in a period of revolution, one that reacted so strongly to oppression and injustice in the world. So artists

sometimes took public stands, or wrote works with socially or politically oriented subject matter. Yet at the same time, another trend began to emerge, as they withdrew more and more from what they saw as the confining boundaries of bourgeois life. In their private lives, they often asserted their individuality and differences in ways that were to the middle class a subject of intense interest, but also sometimes of horror. ("Nothing succeeds like excess," wrote Oscar Wilde, who, as a partial inheritor of Romantic tendencies, seemed to enjoy shocking the bourgeois, both in his literary and life styles.) Thus the gulf between "odd" artists and their sometimes shocked, often uncomprehending audience began to widen. Some artists may have experienced ambivalence about this situation--it was earlier pointed out how Emily Dickinson seemed to regret that her "letters" to the world would go unanswered. Yet a significant Romantic theme became the contrast between artist and middle-class "Philistine." Unfortunately, in many ways, this distance between artist and public remains with us today.

Spread of the Romantic Spirit

Finally, it should be noted that the revolutionary energy underlying the Romantic Movement affected not just literature, but all of the arts--from music (consider the rise of Romantic opera) to painting, from sculpture to architecture. Its reach was also geographically significant, spreading as it did eastward to Russia, and westward to America. For example, in America, the great landscape painters, particularly those of the "Hudson River School," and the Utopian social colonies that thrived in the 19th century, are manifestations of the Romantic spirit on this side of the Atlantic.

Recent Developments

Some critics have believed that the two identifiable movements that followed Romanticism--Symbolism and Realism--were separate developments of the opposites which Romanticism itself had managed, at its best, to unify and to reconcile. Whether or not this is so, it is clear that Romanticism transformed Western culture in many ways that survive into our own times. It is only very recently that any really significant turning away from Romantic paradigms has begun to take place, and even that turning away has taken place in a dramatic, typically Romantic way.

Today a number of literary theorists have called into question two major Romantic perceptions: that the literary text is a separate, individuated, living "organism"; and that the artist is a fiercely independent genius who creates original works of art. In current theory, the separate, "living" work has been dissolved into a sea of "intertextuality," derived from and part of a network or "archive" of other texts--the many different kinds of discourse that are part of any culture. In this view, too, the independently sovereign artist has been demoted from a heroic, consciously creative agent, to a collective "voice," more controlled than controlling, the intersection of other voices, other texts, ultimately dependent upon possibilities dictated by language systems, conventions, and institutionalized power structures. It is an irony of history, however, that the explosive appearance on the scene of these subversive ideas, delivered in what seemed to the establishment to be radical manifestoes, and written

by linguistically powerful individuals, has recapitulated the revolutionary spirit and events of Romanticism itself.

Romanticism in English literature of the Beginning of the 19th Century

(The Age of Romanticism)

Britain became a large trading empire. The cities grew fast. London remained the largest one. In the 19th century Britain was at its height and self confidence. It was called the "work¬shop" of the world. The rich feared the poor both in the countryside and in the fast-growing towns.

Nevertheless the great emphasis was made on the individual based on interdependence of Man and Nature.

During the second half of the 18th century economic and social changes took place in England. The country went through the so-called Industrial Revolution when new industries sprang up and new processes were ap¬plied to the manufacture of traditional products. During the reign of King George III (1760-1820) the face of England changed. The factories were built, the industri¬al development was marked by an increase in the export of finished cloth rather than of raw material, coal and iron industries developed. Internal communications were largely funded. The population increased from 7 mln to 14 mln people. Much money was invested in road- and canal-building. The first railway line which was launched in 1830 from Liverpool to Manchester allowed many people inspired by poets of Romanticism to discover the beauty of their own country. Romanti¬cism was the greatest literary movement in the period between 1770-1840. It meant the shift of sensibility in art and literature and was based on interdependence of Man and Nature. It was a style in European art, liter¬ature and music that emphasized the importance of feeling, emotion and imagination rather than reason or thought. Romanticism in literature was the reaction of the society not only to the French Revolution of 1789 but also to the Enlightenment connected with it. The common people didn't get what they had expected: neither freedom nor equality. The bourgeoisie was dis¬appointed as well, because the capitalist way of devel¬opment hadn't been prepared by the revolution yet. And the feudals suffered from the Revolution, because it was the Revolution that had made them much weaker. Everybody was dissatisfied with the result. In such a situation the writers decided to solve the social prob¬lems by writing. In England the Romantic authors were individuals with many contrary views.

But all of them were against immoral luxuries of the world, against injustice and inequality of the society, against suffering and human selfishness.

The period of Romanticism in England had its pecu¬liarities. The Romantic writers of England did not call themselves romanticists (like their French and German contemporaries). Nevertheless, they all depicted the interdependence of Man and Nature. The Romantic writers based their theories on the intuition and the wisdom of the heart. On the other hand, they were violently stirred by the suffering of which they were the daily witnesses. They hoped to find a way of changing the social order by their writing, they

believed in liter¬ature being a sort of Mission to be carried out in order to reach the wisdom of the Universe.

The Industrial Revolution in England had a great influence on the cultural life of the country. The writers tried to solve the problems, but we can't treat all the Romantics of England as belonging to the same literary school. William Blake (1757-1827) was bitterly dis¬appointed by the downfall of the French Revolution. His young contemporaries, Samuel Coleridge (1772— 1834) and William Wordsworth (1770-1850), both were warm admirers of the French Revolution, both escaped from the evils of big cities and settled in the quietness of country life, in the purity of nature, among unsophisticated country-folk. Living in the Lake coun¬try of Northern England, they were known as the Lakists. The Late Romantics, George Byron (1788-1824), Percy Shelley (1792-1822), and John Keats (1795-1821), were young rebels and reflected the inter¬ests of the common people. That is why the Romantic Revival of the 18th-19th centuries can be divided into three periods: the Early Romantics, the Lakists and the Later Romantics.

The representatives of the early stage of English Romanticism were George Crabbe (1754-1832), William Blake (1757-1827) and Robert Burns (1759-1796).

The Early Romanticism

The most outstanding representative of the Early Romanticism in England was Robert Burns. Unlike George Crabbe and William Blake, he was very popular in his time. Robert Burns became the national bard of Scotland. His hatred of injustice was firmly rooted in his personal life experience full of trouble and sufferings.

His attitude to life Robert Burns shows in his "Poem on Life" written in the year of his death:

Dame Life, tho` fiction out may trick her,

And in paste gems and flipp`ry deck her,

Oh! flick`ring, feeble and unsicker I’ve found her still,

Aye wav'ring like the willow wicker, tween good and ill.

Robert Burns (1759—1796)

Robert Burns was born on 25 January 1759 in Alloway, near Ayr. His father, William Burnes, was a hard-working small farmer who had come from the north-east of Scotland. William Burnes (Robert dropped the "e" from the spelling of the family name) took great trouble to give his children education, he had the traditional Scottish respect for education “...valuing knowledge, possessing some and open-minded for more" (wrote Thomas Carlyle, the influ¬ential writer and historian born not far from Dumfries in 1795).

Robert's mother was Agnes Brown, a farmer's daughter from South Ayrshire. Although his mother was uneducated, Robert Burns nevertheless inherited from her a great love for the rich tradition of Scottish balladry. When Burns was seven, his family moved to Mount Oliphant farm not far from Alloway. Robert got much of his schooling there. Burns at early age worked on the family farm. Despite the desperate hardship of the farm (where by the age of thirteen Burns did most of ploughing and reaping and threshed the corn with his own hands) he would always have a volume of Scottish ballads ready to read in any spare minute. It was the combination of hard labour and poor food that caused heart attacks which troubled him during all his life and from which he died.

Meanwhile, from his mid-teens onwards, Burns was conscious of the Scottish folk songs and dances of Ayrshire where he was brought up. He wrote his first poem at fourteen. The poem was inspired by and devoted to a young girl with whom Robert worked in the fields.

By 1777 Robert Burns had acquired a good knowledge of English Literature, Greek, Latin and French. He attended a young men's debating society in Tarbolton.

In 1781 Burns went to Irvine to train as a flax dresser; linen was one of the profitable branches of the Scottish economy in the 18th century. Burns worked with his father and brothers. But in 1784 his father died, and Burns moved to Mossgiel farm which they had rented from the Ayr lawyer Gavin Hamilton when it was clear that William Burnes was going to die. During this period Robert Burns met Jean Armour, his future wife. He seemed to have married her some time later because of objections of her father. Fortune was against Robert. As a farmer he was very unsuccessful. Therefore, he decided to emigrate to the West Indies. His most brilliant poems appeared in 1785—1786. He published them in August, 1786 in Kilmarnock under the title “Poems Chiefly in Scottish Dialect”. This volume contained some of his most popular earlу songs, as well as “To a Mouse", "To a Mountain Daisy” and others.

To a Mountain Daisy

Wee modest crimson-tipped flow`r

Thou's met me in a evil hour;

For I maun crush amang the stoure

Thy slender stem:

To spare thee now is past my pow`r,

Thou bonnie gem.

Alas! it`s no thy neibor sweet,

The bonnie lark, companion meet,

Bending thee `mang the dewy weet

Wi` spreckl`d breast

When upward springing, blythe to greet

The purpling east.

Cauld blew the bitter-biting north

Upon thy early humble birth;

Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth

Amid the storm,

Scarce rear`d above the parent-earth

Thy tender form.

Although Burns never received more than £20 for his book, it was a great success, being admired by everyone from ploughboys to the educated circles of Edinburgh.

Burns was so encouraged by such a warm reception given to his poems that he decided to move to Edin¬burgh, the capital of Scotland since 1452. Robert Louis Stevenson said that "no situation could be more com¬manding for the lead city of a Kingdom; none better chosen for noble prospects”. Edinburgh lies between the Pentland Hills and the Firth of Forth — a situation which gives a different view from whichever point of the compass the arrivals approach.

They call Edinburgh "the Athens of the North”. Edinburgh Castle dominates the city and is an irresistible start-point. In addition the Royal Mile and the Old Town are admirable. In contrast the New Town with its wide leafy streets and splendid buildings is enjoyed on a casual stroll from Princes Street.

The development of the New Town, the birth of Classical Edinburgh, the concept of Athens of the North made the capital the most beautiful city in Britain.

The Old Town was a centre of not only Royal Court and Parliament, but the centre of culture, science and thought. It was a place where men like David Hume, the philosopher, and Adam Smith, the economist, strolled the High Street. Robert Burns was introduced to many famous people there; he found love, comfort and appreciation in Edinburgh. All were impressed by his modesty and talent. That was the Golden Age, the end of the 18th century when the first New Town was at the peak of its intellectual power.

The first Edinburgh edition of Burns's poetry appeared in spring of 1787. He became famous. The so-called "ploughman poet" was befriended and courted. No party in Edinburgh was held without him. He was respected in the capital of Scotland. He made friends with Lord Newton and Walter Scott. Robert Burns was called the "Caledonia's Bard".

Meanwhile, a second edition of Burns's poems ap¬peared. The publication brought the author sufficient financial security to allow him to return to Ayrshire in 1788 where he produced two of his best-loved works, "Auld Lang Syne" and "Tam o`Shanter”, his last major work and many would say his masterpiece.

The Later Romantics

George Gordon Byron (1788-1824), Percy Byshe Shelley (1792-1822), John Keats (1795-1821) were the representatives of the highest level of the Age of Romanticism and all the three were greatly influenced by the Lakists. Unlike the Conservative Lake poets, the Later Romantics were progressive poets. They were young revolutionary rebels, talented and fascinating. Byron called the style of William Wordsworth "dull and simple", while his own poetic manner is often vivid and vigorous. His noble origin, charm, mysterious love affairs, eventful life, independence and pride, a great lyrical power established him as a Romantic poet and rebellious aristocrat.

Byron's friend Percy Byshe Shelley, also a revolu¬tionary idealist, the lover of classical poetry, was very metaphorical.

John Keats was the youngest among the Revolution¬ary Romantics. He died at 25 of tuberculosis. The style of his poetry was lofty and very lyrical. Keats was fond of writing odes. His talent made the poet mysterious and charming. Keats deeply felt the interdependence of Man and Nature and in his "Ode to a Nightingale” emphasized the contrast between the ugliness of Life and the beauty of the world of Nature.

George Gordon Byron (1788-1824)

George Gordon Byron was born in London on 22th of January, 1788. His father was English, but mother was of the Scottish origin. She was poor but noble, her name was Cather¬ine Gordon. Byron spent his childhood in the small town of Aberdeen in the eastern coast of Scotland. Soon his father died, leaving his wife and child in more than reduced circumstances.

When Byron was ten, his great uncle died, and the boy inherited the title of Lord Byron and the family castle of Newstead Abbey. Lord Byron and his mother moved to Nottinghamshire where they got a small pension from the government.

Lord Byron was educated at Cambridge. When he was twenty-one he became a member of the House of Lords. In 1809 he went on a two-year-long voyage to Portugal, Spain, Albania, Greece and Turkey. He re¬turned home in 1811.

In 1812 Byron published the first two parts of his major work “Childe Harold's Pil-grimage" in which he de¬scribed his journey to the for¬eign lands. Thus Byron's liter¬ary activity began. It can be divided into four periods:

1. The London period (1812-1816)

"Childe Harold's Pilgrimage” (parts 1, 2 ) (1812)

"The Corsair" (1814)

“Lara” (1814);

2. The Swiss period (May-October, 1816)

"Childe Harold's Pilgrimage” (part 3)

"Manfred" (a philosophic drama);

3. The Italian period (1816-1823)

"Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" (part 4)

"Don Juan" (1818-1823)

"Cain" (1821)

“The Vision of Judgment" (1821);

4. The Greek period (1823-1824)

Several lyrical poems.

All the periods of his literary activity were marked by the corresponding periods of his political life.

During the first period, which was called the London period and which brought him fame and universal acclaim after the publication of his “Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" in 1812, Lord Byron delivered his Parlia¬mentary speeches in the House of Lords. Byron was a peer of the realm. His first speech was in defence of the Luddites (industrial workers who destroyed the equipment as a protest against unemployment and low pay). His main ideas were expressed in his poem "Song for the Luddites".

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)

The name of Sir Walter Scott is closely connected with the genre of the historical novel. It was he who introduced it into English Literature, because he was interested in the ro¬mantic aspects of Scottish history. Walter Scott expanded the range of the novel as a literary form. His histor¬ical novels changed attitudes towards the past, he made the world aware of Scotland, his novels struck the reader with their epic quality.

Walter Scott was born on 15th of August, 1771 into the family of a well-known Edinburgh lawyer. His mother Anne Rutherford was the eldest daughter at a professor of medicine of Edinburgh University. Both parents were descended from old Border families. Therefore, Walter Scott acquired an interest in the history and legends of the Borders. When a child, he spent much time with his grandparents at their farm in the Borders.

At the age of seven Walter Scott entered the High School of Edinburgh. He spent there five years.

In 1783 he proceeded to Edinburgh University. His father wanted him to study law. But Walter Scott's profound interest in history and passionate love for his country changed the course of his life. He was greatly interested in the folklore of Scotland; he collected legends and popular ballads of the Highlands and Border Country, filling his mind with romantic tradition. The works of the German romantics, Schiller and Goethe, attracted him. He possessed a great knowledge of romantic literature. Though personally friendly to the Lakists (William Wordsworth was his life-long friend), he never shared their literary tastes.

His early reputation was as a narrative poet. In 1802-1803 Walter Scott published a collection of Scottish legends under the title of "The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border”.

In hunting for balla¬ds he also hit upon the goblin story out of which he developed his first verse-tale of Border chivalry, “The Lay of the Last Minstrel”(1805).

Waiter Scott's tales portrayed vivid image of the chivalry of feudal times, well-drawn pictures of Border and Highland scenery. The great success of the collection encouraged Scott to make literature his main pursuit in life. The following literary ballad comes from “The Heart of Midlothian". It is called "Maisie". It is the death song of a mad peasant woman:

Proud Maisie is in the wod,

Walking so early;

Sweet Robin sits on the bush,

Singing so rarely.

“Tell me, thou bonny bird,

When shall I marry me?" —

“When six braw gentlemen

Kirkward shall carry ye."

"Who makes the bridal bed,

Birdie, say truly?” —

“The grey-headed sexton,

That delves the grave duty”.

The glow-worm o'er grave and stone

Shall light thee steady;

The owl from the steeple sing,

"Welcome, proud lady".

In 1808 Walter Scott published "Marmion":

— Such dusky grandeur clothed the height,

Where the huge castle holds its state,

And all the steep slope down,

Whose ridgy back heaves to the sky,

Piled deep and massy, close and high,

Mine own romantic town.

In 1810 Walter Scott published the most powerful poem, “The Lady of the Lake”:

— The summer dawn's reflected hue,

To purple changed Loch Katrine blue,

Mildly and soft the western breeze,

Just kissed the Lake, just stirr'd the trees.

Loch Katrine is situated not far from Edinburgh. There is the steamship "Sir Walter Scott" named after the great poet who wrote "The Lady of the Lake". It makes 8 miles cruise from the narrow inlet at Trossachs Pier to the Loch's southwestern shore, Royal Cottage and Glengyle House at the northern head of the Loch — the birthplace of Rob Roy MacGregor.

Sir Walter Scott combined the life of a poet and country gentlemen with that of a principal clerk of the Court of Session (the Supreme Civil Court of Scotland). Edinburgh was a vital part of Scott's being and his books were published there. Up to 1814 Scott wrote poems on historical and legendary subjects and became famous as a poet. Meanwhile, he purchased a farm¬house on the banks of the Tweed.

During 1814-1832 he began to write novel after novel. "Waverley", his first historical novel was pub¬lished in 1814. It was the beginning. It was a success, and from then to the end of his life Walter Scott devoted himself only to prose. Every year he produced a novel. But he concealed his authorship until 1827, because he was Sheriff of Selkirk. But the success of the "Scotch Novels” was great and brought him a large income. Walter Scott managed to create a new genre — a historical novel by blending historical fact with roman¬tic fancy. With his growing fame as a writer Walter Scott was made a baronet in 1820.

The historical events that attracted his attention were those closely connected with the relations be¬tween Scotland and England, the struggle for Scottish independence. For many centuries England, that was much more economically developed than its northern neighbour, had oppressed Scotland and the freedom-loving Scots. The author described the 17th-18th cen¬turies of the Scottish history. Among his most famous novels are "Rob Roy” (1818). "The Bride of Lammerтооr” (1819). He chose for his heroes the common people of Scotland.

Later Walter Scott extended his background also to England. He wrote several historical novels about Eng¬land; the periods he chose there were the end of the 16th century (the Elizabethan Age) and the middle of the 17th century (the Bourgeois Revolution and the Restoration of Monarchy). Among those novels were: "Ivanhoe" (1820), "The Monastery” (1820), "The Abbot" (1820), "Quentin Durward” (1823).

England and Scotland were closely connected with each other in their historical development. Thus in "The Abbot” Walter Scott de¬scribed one of the epi¬sodes of the tragic life of Mary, Queen of Scots.

"Quentin Durward" was written on a different subject. Walter Scott por¬trayed the King of France as one of the most cunning politicians of his time.

Among the outstanding historical novels "Ivanhoe" was one of the best.

George Byron, a great admirer of Scott's talent, said that "he (Walter Scott) was a library in himself”. Like Walter Scott, Byron had an exact feeling of the historical development. Unlike Walter Scott, Byron didn't share the Lake poets' disapproval of revolutionary methods.

But it was Walter Scott, the first writer of a new genre of the historical novel who depicted Scotland as a mysteriously romantic country full of adventure.

There are many places of interest connected with the name of Sir Walter Scott all over Scotland. Scott Monument in Edinburgh is one of the famous land¬marks with a 287 step climb to the top.

In 1832 an architectural competition for an appropri¬ate memorial to Sir Walter Scott was launched.

As a result the design by George Meikle Kemp had won.

In 1840 the construction of the monument to Walter Scott began in Princes Street Gardens.

In 1846 the monument was built. Sinсе then millions of tourists have climbed the 200 foot structure to ad¬mire the views of Edinburgh and the statues of Walter Scott's characters which decorate the monument.

Scott Monument in Edinburgh attracts tourists greatly. Not far from the monument there is Sir Walter Scott's Tea Room, a cosy place where you can enjoy the view of Edinburgh castle just from the window of the Tea Room while enjoying the waitress service tearoom with authentic Scottish cooking. The festival Menu includes such delicious Festival Fancies as Haggis and Oatcakes, Salmon Pate Piper's Pie (chicken and mushroom), Juggler’s Lunch (ploughman's lunch) or Soup of the day (with a crusty roll) and Bread and Butter Pudding.

Sir Walter Scott's Tea Room invites the visitors:

Festival fancies

If you’re caught on the hoof,

Whilst doing The Fringe,

Why not come into our Tea Room,

Embark on a binge

We’ve Shortbread and Haggis

And Clootie Dumpling too,

If you're not sure what they are,

You should try a fair few.

The name of Sir Walter Scott is com¬memorated by his re¬lief profile on the north wall of the Writers` Museum in Edinburgh. More than that, the quotation from his "The Lay of the Last Minstrel” is inscribed in stone and set in the paving which leads to the door of the Writers` Museum:

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,

Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land!

The Museum has a unique collection of relics and manuscripts relating to Walter Scott: the rocking horse he used as a boy, his dining table from 39, Castle Street, the printing press on which Scott's Waverley Novels were printed and his chess set.

In Glasgow the tourists can enjoy the monument to Sir Walter Scott in the middle of the city square where there are many other monuments to great men of Scotland.

What are the salient features of Romanticism?

Romanticism is a movement in art and literature in the eighteenth and nineteenth century in revolt against the neo-classicism of the previous centuries. It is the direct outcome of French Revolution. The French Revolution directly inspired by Rousseauism, had its influence on the Romantic Poets, both in its revolutionary ideals and in its excess of terror. This imaginative literature of the early nineteenth century found its creative impulse in the sociological ideal.

Romanticism is a contrary to the neo-classicism. Neo-classicism can be characterized by emotional resistant, order and logic while romanticism gives emphasis over imagination. The romantics write what they get from their imagination. The romantics tried to see life with new sensibilities and fresh visions. They are deeply aware of their social obligations, but the burden of an exception vision of life drives them into being almost fugitives from their fellow-men. The romantic poets lead the readers to the strange areas of human experience, but seldom welcome him in the language of ordinary conversations, or even with currency of normality.

Romanticism started its journey in English Literature wit the publication of Lyrical Ballads, a joint work of Wordsworth and Coleridge in 1798. Its communion with nature, interest in simple human life, profound impulsiveness, imaginative propensity (প্রবনতা�) and lyrical subjectivity etc. are its salient features.

Romantic age is essentially an age of verse. The spirit of romanticism is found primarily struck in poetry in the liberation of poetic inspiration and impulses. This dominant of poetry is found echoed in words worth’s famous saying, “Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge.

Romantic poets had a strong power of imagination. All the poets of this period possess this imaginative power which made their works different from their predecessors. We see the use of this imagination in “Kubla Khan” and “The Ancient Mariner” of Coleridge.

The imaginative power of the romantic poets leads them to mysticism. The poets of romantic age found interested in the mysticism. The poets of romantic age found interested in the mysterious unknown world that lives on the other side of life. Wordsworth viewed nature from a mystic angle, Coleridge’s mysticism found in his fascinating treatment of the supernatural world in his poems, Keats, Shelly and other poets also deal with mysticism.

Love for beauty and nature is another feature of romanticism. All the romantic poets had a deep interest in nature not as a center of beautiful science but as an informing and spiritual influence on life. The common elements of nature i.e. the rising sun, the blooming flower and deep blue sky are like living soul-mighty and gigantic to the romantic poets. The romantic poets also found everything lovely and beautiful in nature and man. “Beauty is truth and truth beauty” is the poetic philosophy of the age of romanticism.

The romantic poets are found to deal with human life in its essential traits, in liberty, simplicity and purity, childhood and primitive simplicity are idealized by Wordsworth where as Byron and Shelly remain the assertive poets of humanity. Other poets and prose writers also deal with humanity.

Hellenism is finely incorporated and echoed in the poetry of romantic age, mainly in the poems of Shelley and Keats. The romantic poets looked upon Greek Literature. They did not borrow the elements but the content of Greek Literature and shaped it with their own genius as like as Shelley did in “Prometheus Unbound”

The romantic poets gave emphasis upon content rather than form and structure. The content of a literary work is the measure by which the romantics measured a literary work. The romantic poets deny the notion that poetry has its own exceptional word stock. They used simple diction rather than elevated diction. They used the word of rustic and daily life in their poetry. Wordsworth, in the later

editions of Lyrical Ballads said that the Language of poetry ought to be the same as the language of a simple farm-worker.

Every literary period is sharply inspired by the social and political condition of its own time. But romanticism is free from this kind of inspiration. It criticizes the growth of industry and town though it took birth in the golden period of industrious revolution. The romantic poets turning to nature for protection also criticize the traditional religious belief of the time.

The romantic literature was marked, and is always marked, by a strange reaction and protest against the bondage of rule and custom in science and theology, as well as literature, generally tent to fetter (বন্দী� করা�) the free human spirit. Romantic poets are essentially subjective self-revelation a creed with them. In their poetry may be found much of their mind and spirit. They seem to take their readers into confidence and pour into their ears all their passions and pains, all their dreams and desires. It’s a cardinal element in all romantic poets. As in the prelude’s words worth made an epic of personal experience based on his own life.

In general, these are the features of romanticism. Of course, romantic poetry is no sudden phenomenon in the literature of England. It is rather an inevitable reaction of the artificial and critical poetry of the eighteenth century with all the features mentioned above.