Notes on The Origins of Romanticism

The Romantic Moment and the Collective Biography

• The Romantic Moment (late 18th to early 19th centuries) was a "revolution in writing and sensibility" led by the Romantics, with William Wordsworth as a core figure.
• This era saw a rise in biography and autobiography, exemplified by Wordsworth's The Prelude, and explored how lives and works interwove (the "spirit of the age," Hazlitt).
• Romanticism, while linked to historical revolutions (American, French, Industrial), was a distinct cultural shift, shaped by social networks, dissenting religion, print culture, and a new focus on self-expression.

What we mean by Romanticism and why it matters

• Isaiah Berlin viewed Romanticism as a watershed movement, primarily one of ideas and consciousness, transforming Western thought.
• Key themes include revolution, nationalism, expanded rights (human, slave, animal), reverence for nature, environmental awareness, radical/organic societal tensions, the cult of personality and sincerity, imagination, creativity, and genius.
• It redefined literature as a field for treating the self, memory, and interior life.

The spirit of the age in practice: examples and pathways

• Revolutionary Ideas: William Blake's "New Jerusalem" vision and Wordsworth's embrace of the French and Haitian Revolutions (e.g., in a sonnet to Toussaint L'Ouverture).
• Gothic Surge: The 1790s saw a rise in Gothic novels (e.g., Mrs. Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho), reflecting the age's appetite for mystery and anxieties about political upheaval.
• Nationalism: German Sturm und Drang sought native culture through Volk traditions (Herder), using Shakespeare and Ossian as models. Romanticism paradoxically looked both backward and forward.
• Rights and Advocacy: Works like Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man and Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman were foundational. Abolitionist efforts (Clarkson) and early voices for animal rights (Oswald) were also prominent.
• The Self as Revolution: Coleridge's letters illustrate Romantic self-consciousness and introspection, emphasizing irregular impulses over bourgeois conformity.
• Romantic Poetics: Friedrich Schlegel defined Romantic poetry as progressive, universal, fusing poetry and prose, art and nature, capable of reflecting the entire world and the age.
• Goethe’s Werther: A central text, seen as a declaration of the rights of feeling, yet Goethe later criticized its "sickly" sentiment. The "Werther effect" (real or perceived suicides) highlighted its potent influence.
• The Chatterton Archetype: The tragic boy genius, Thomas Chatterton, became a Romantic hero, linking to the allure of living hard and dying young.
• Pantheism, Nature, and Religion: Many Romantics embraced pantheism, seeing God immanently in nature (e.g., Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey).
• Rousseau's Influence: His ideas on the "noble savage," natural education (Emile), and critique of social inequality were crucial for the Romantic imagination.
• Ossian: The cycle of poems, though controversial in authenticity, profoundly influenced Romantic nationalism and the desire for a northern epic, superseding Homer for figures like Werther.
• Core Origins: The lecture highlights Werther, Emile, and the Ossian epic as foundational for understanding Romanticism's focus on the self, education, and mythic nature.

Foundational figures, terms, and works to remember

• Central Figures: Wordsworth and Coleridge.
• Key Concept: Hazlitt's "spirit of the age" for the era's shared cultural currents.
• Theorists: Friedrich and August Wilhelm Schlegel shaped Romantic poetics.
• Works: Goethe’s Werther (sensibility, self-destruction), Ossian (mythic epic).
• Era: The 1790s were a period of intense experimentation in religion, politics, and aesthetics.

Chronological anchors (sample of key dates and figures)

• $1783$: Blake’s Poetical Sketches.
• $1784$: Charlotte Smith’s Elegiac Sonnets; death of Samuel Johnson.
• $1791$: Boswell’s Life of Johnson published.
• $1798$: Friedrich Schlegel’s Athenäums-fragmente.
• $1807$: Final passing of the Bill for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.

Connections to broader study and real-world relevance

• Romanticism redefined literature for personal truth and critique, influenced later cultural movements, and explains the rise of biography.
• Tensions between liberty and order, the "Werther effect" (media influence), and environmental/pantheistic themes remain relevant today.