Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 17.djvu/280

BOMANTICISM. 256 BOMANTICISM. and added that lie was surpassed in some re- spects by Thomson and Gray. As marking the progress of romantic criticism from timidity to boldness, we should also mention Let lira on Chivalry and Komance (1702), by Kiehard Kurd, in which Spenser was placed highest among Eng- lish poets. The case of romanticism against classicism continued to be argued by many others. For example, V. L. Bowles issued in 180G a new edition of Pope, which was prefaced by severe strictures. This publication led to a lively con- troversy, in which Byron took a prominent part on the side of Pope. By tliis time our old writers and the new romantic school were being inter- preted in a sympathetic mood by Lamb and Haz- litt. To such an e.tent was romanticism thus a revival that literary historians have often de- fined it as a return to the Middle Ages. But it was no return; its product was unlike anything in the past. iledioeval and other literatures rather furnished it with motives and suggestions for as original work as any period of our litera- ture can claim. In their study of early poetry the romanticists naturally revived and modified old verse-forms. From the advent of Dryilen to the death of Pope the heroic couplet reigned almost supreme. Writ- ten with a good deal of freedom at first, it had at length come to be very monotonous, with its fixed caesuras and pauses at the ends of the lines. Although some of the romanticists held to this couplet, they nevertheless broke it up, varying the csesuras and letting one line overflow into another or one couplet into another, without any stop whatever. In their first revolt from Pope the new poets, however, often imitated the blank verse and the octosj-llables of Milton, the Spen- serian stanza, ballad measures, and the Eliza- bethan sonnet. The movement toward a free versification has continued tmtil to-day English poetry is richer in verse-forms than ever before. The English vocabulary has also been renovated. Into prose romance came, with Scott and his school down to Stevenson, old words and expres- .sions; and the poets h<ave ventured upon new and felicitous compounds. Perhaps the greatest gain to our language from romanticism has been the choice of words for their rich coloring and sounds. In other countries the course and the results of romanticism were much the same as in Eng- land. The French date the beginning of the movement with Rousseau's cry of a return to nature (c.17.50), and follow it through Chateau- briand to Victor Hugo and a group of his con- temporaries. In her book on Germany (De I'Alle- magne, 1810) Madame de Stael upheld romantic ideals and described for her classic compatriots the wonders of romantic literature in Germany. In his preface to Cromicr;? (1827) Hugo defended against classicism the grotesque in art. declaring it to be "one of the su])reme beauties of the drama." and condemned the unities of time and place. Hugo demanded imrestrained liberty. He and his associates enriched the current literary vo- cabulary, freed French classic metre from its trammels, and recovered forgotten stanzas. French romanticism owes a great deal to Eng- land, and Shakespeare seems to have been far more often iii the thoughts of Hugo and his circle than was Rousseau, Shakespeare exemplified freedom for the drama. Hernani (18.30) was con- structed in the Shakespearean spirit and it aroused more liostility and enthusiasm than any other play by 'ictor Hugo. The Krcncli roman- ticists sought their inspirations far and near. Searching the literature of other nations, llu-y found new worlds and extended the intellectual boundaries of France. Notwithstanding so nuich that is maudlin or extravagant in the French ro- mantic period, it is an epoch a.s remarkable for its vitality, sympathy, and curiosity as the classic seventeenth century was remarkable for its logic and its limitations, both of horizon and of form. In Germany the first announcement of roman- ticism was in 1773, when there appeared a col- lection of essays by Miiser, Herder, and Goethe, entitled Von deutscher Art und Kunst, eiyiitje fiiegende Blatter (fly-sheets on German style and art) ; great praise was bestowed on German folk-songs, Shakespeare, and Gothic architecture. The same year Goethe published Gotz von Ber- lichinyen, an historical drama, of which the hero is a robber-knight of the sixteenth century. Schiller also felt the romantic impulse at the beginning of his literary career. But Goethe and Schiller soon outlived their youthful extrava- gances, and in reaction from their classicism in the narrower sense of the term there arose the German romantic school, of which the official organ was the Athemium, founded in 1798 by the Schlegels. Among other romanticists were Tieck and Novalis ; and coming later and forming what is sometimes called the second romantic school, were Arnim, Brentano, the Grimms, and Uhland. Like Chamisso, Heine composed ballads and allowed his mind to wander in a dream world. His poetic landscapes and his poetic incidents are romantic, but Heine had more than one side, and he expressed a great many human conditions without distortion. In the unfinished epic Tris- tan und Isolde, Immermann endeavored to quick- en medi.Tval poetry. Gustav Freytag sought to breathe life into medi;T!val dust in Die Ahnen; Victor von ScheflFel succeeded charmingly in his story of Ekkehard. and mediaeval literature has since been cultivated, translated, and adapted by men like Vilhelm Hertz and Paul Heyse, That romanticism began in Germany, as has so often been asserted, is a theory which does not admit of demonstration. Until a rigid definition of romanticism shall have been accepted b_y all reputable critics, and until the works of a host of writers shall have been tested with this defi- nition (which must necessarily be derived from the very men to whom it is applied), so long shall we be imable to honor any one country as tile home or any one man as the foimder of ro- manticism. Like realism (q.v. ) and idealism, romanticism is a tendency, and we can find it not only in a Victor Hugo or a Woi'dsworth. but in a Cervantes, or in the adventures of Odysseus. Romanticism had its schools, its declarations, and its dogmas. These are more easily found and explained than the features which they impressed upon literature or the causes which gave them rise. In England, France, Germany, in Scandi- navia, in Italy, and in Spain, romanticism flour- ished as something new and extraordinary until its novelty had worn off and its elements had been assimilated by literature. Romanticism was everywhere — in England, France, Germany, Scandinavia, and Russia — a revolt, either silent or outspoken, from literary tradition of every description. Its boldest cham-