ROMANS. 255 ROMANTICISM. ill Rom (Frankfort. 1803) ; Spitta, Untersu- cliutuien ilbvr dm Brief dcs I'aulii.s an die Homer (Giittingen. 1001); Jacobus, A Problem in eto TesUuiuiit Criticism (Xew York, 1891) ; Schiifer, Der Brief I'auli un die liiimer (Minister, ISitl). The Dutch school is represented liy Pierson-Xaber,
erisimilia (Amsterdam. 1880) : ViUter, IJic
Komiiosilion der I'aulinischen Uauplliriefe {Tu- bingen, 1890) ; Van iMaiien, Paulus 11. ( I.evilen, 1891). A full discussion of its positions will be found in Knowling, The M'itness of the Epistles (l.on.lim. 1892). ROMANS, King of the. A name ap[)lied to the elective head of the Holy Roman Empire(q.v.) before his coronation as Emperor by the I'ope; he vas also known as the German King. After 902 the German King was regarded as having a pre- scriptive right to the Im]x;rial title, liitiierator L'uiiKiiioruin. and thus in the course of time the candidate for the Empire came to be known by an- ticipation as Ilex Romanoriim. Cliarles V. vas the last head of the Holy Roman Empire to be crowned by the Pope, and beginning with his successor, Ferdinand I., the King of the Romans was also styled Elected Roman Emperor. The King of the Romans was as a rule elected dur- ing the lifetime of the Emperor. Napoleon I., who aspired to the traditions of the older Em- pire, named his son King of Rome. ROMANSH. See Romauce Languages. ROMANTICISM (from romantic, Fr. roman- liijiie, from OF., Fr. roman, novel, romance). A term commonly employed to designate the mod- ern rise and development of imagination and sensibility in the literatures of Western Europe, and to indicate the tendency of nineteenth-cen- tury authors to rid literature of Greek and Roman rule. Romanticism, as a tendency, is sometimes opposed to the restraint of classicism, and again to the literalness of realism. On the one hand classicism, which had once been so warmly espoused by the humanists, had degen- erated into a feeble efl'ort to express the modern world in a high-flown but lifeless jargon in which mythological references still abounded. This was especially true of the drama. On the other hand, a certain school of realists, who came after the tide of romanticism had begun to ebb. hampered their imaginations for the sake of what they believed to be scientific transcrip- tions of lite. Against these realists the later romanticists rebelled. It may be said that realists and romanticists (or romancers) have worked peacefully side by side since as early as 18.50, and both schools have found common readers. In the Augustan period English literature, barren of strong passion except the indignation of satire, made its primary appeal to the intel- lect ; its ideal was 'good sense.' Pope reasoned in verse, writing essays in criticism and in morals: Swift employed the fantastic romance to satirize his contemporaries and mankind as a species ; Addison ridiculed with urbanity tire foibles of society; and rarely did any writer look beyond London. It was the province of romanti- cism to rediscover that man is more than intel- lect: that he possesses imagination and emotions. Between 1720 and 1730 .Tames Thomson, a Scotch poet, published his Seasons, poems which defi- nitely mark a new interest in external nature. He was followed during the next few years by many imitators, known as the landscape poets; then canio Grays "Elegy in n Country Church- yard," Goldsmith's •■Deserted Villnf,'e.""und tow- per's "Task." This descriptive |HH-try reached its highest development in .Scott. Hvron, Keulx, ordsworth, and Shelley, who lent to nature "the light that never was on sea or hind." Uy the middle of the eighteenth century the lyrical crj-, which had long l>cen suppressed in English li't- erature. broke forth once more. .At lirsl it wa» a relined nie!anch(dy, as in Collins and (Iriiy; afterwards it broadened into a noble liuniaiiity 'in Cowper. Hums, and Wordsworth. Finally "pas- sion and description were fused in the lyrics of Shelley, where, says Woodberry. "nature "is emp- tied of her contents to become the pure inhabi- tancy of the human soul." Again, the ape of Pope and Addison had lost the mood of Ruper- stilion and wonder. That mood soon returned, and as the date for it we may take Collin-'s "Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland" (written in 1749). In 17li4 Horace Walpole published the Castle of Olranln. which initiated the romance of the ghost and the night- mare. This kind of literature was spiritualized by Coleridge in the "Rime of the Ancient Mari- ner" (1798). Moreover, the first half of the eighteenth century cared little for the past. On history Fielding was very satirical, declaring that there was more truth in Tom Jones than in Lord Clarendon. But with the ghost came his- tory, which was incorporated into romance. Most of these characteristics of romanticism — the love of the picturesque, history, and superstition — found combined expression in Scott, first in his verse talcs and afterwards in the Waverley nov- els. It is. however, to be noted that Scott was rarely lyrical, anil that the supernatural awak- ened in him little of the mystic's awe. For mysticism, which was becoming one of the notes of romanticism, we have to look rather to the neoplatonisiii of Wordsworth, the pantheism of Shelley, and. for its full development, to the Pre- Raphaelite Brotherhood (see Pke-Raphaelites) , of which Rossetti was the central figure. For their matter the romanticists turned to our earlier literature: to Milton, S|)enser. Shake- speare, to ballads, metrical romances, Celtic and Norse stories, Greek art and literature, and later to Dante. In this search for what was new they were much aided by scholars. In 17^5 P. H. Mallet, a native of Geneva, ami professor of belles-lettres at the L'niversity in Copenhagen, published the first part of his Histoire df Dane- marcl;. of which an English translation by Thomas Percy appeared in 1770. This Imok first made generally known to England the gist of the Eddas. Five years before Percy hail pub- lished a collection of English and Scotch ballads under the title of I'elitiues of Ancient Eiuilish Poetry. This ballad book has been aptly called 'the Bible of the romantic reformation." . - othcr publication of great influence was Mae- pherson's Ossian (17(i0()3), a series of |>rose poems, in which some use was made of Celtic motives. The romanticists also had their ailvo- cates in criticism. In 1754 apjieared Thoina.s Warton's Observations nn the I'acrii (Jurcn of Spenser, a measured defense of romantic themes. Two year.s later .Tosepli Warton published an Ks-iai/ on Pope, one of the most important con- tributions to romantic criticism. Pope, who had been regarded as the most correct of EnL'lish poets, W'arton placed Iwlow Milton and Spenser,
