The Age of Enlightenment and Romanticism

Ana Carolina M. Camargos1

Introduction

Both Enlightenment and Romanticism are movements that have had extreme
influence in several fields, such as science, arts, culture and way of life in society.
Although they are movements with very different characteristics, both arise in a
period in which the longing for change is undeniable. In literature, both movements
left as legacy very popular works years later. In this role, in order to analyze some of
the main characteristics of the Enlightenment and Romantic movements, I propose a
brief reading of the works - Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe and Composed upon
Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 by William Wordsworth.

The Characteristics of the Age of Enlightenment

The Enlightenment, considered by many as the Age of Reason, emerged from

a European intellectual and academic movement known as Renaissance humanism
during the 17th and 18th centuries. During this period Western Europe, England and
the American colonies were undergoing a process of transformation, especially in
relation to advances in science and industry, breaking with the boundaries of
conventionality. In this path, after the Scientific Revolution that had caused ruptures
and consequently brought about great transformations related to Western society
and culture, a form of Enlightenment literature that reflected a feeling of
individualism, tolerance and scientific effort that, together with the developments in
industry and politics, later took place in the modern world.2
Despite the several ramifications within the movement itself, which have
modified social practice in terms of religion, culture, science, etc., I will limit myself, in
the course of this paper, to describe the changes and contributions of this movement
in literature. Literature in the Age of the Enlightenment was configured in metaphors
and scientific images, so science played a very important role since the works of that

1
Student of English Language and Literature at Federal University of Uberlândia
2
http://www.online-literature.com/periods/enlightenment.php
period had a strong rational appeal. Besides, it had the characteristic of
neoclassicism founded by Alexander Pope, some of the works reflect the aesthetic
ideals of classicism (structure, unity, clarity, containment), which characterize much
creative literature of the time, however, it is known that some authors did not intend
to follow these rules, on an opposite way, they just wanted to write freely.3
Some authors of this movement were Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and
David Hume who wrote on subjects ranging from political philosophy to the nature of
humanity. This period also characterized the rise of the novel, at first sight we have
the author Daniel Defoe who wrote with a wealth of details Robinson Crusoe, which I
will briefly discuss on the next page. The Enlightenment also inspired some authors
of the next movement, Romanticism, especially the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne
and William Wordsworth.
This paper aims to analyze the characteristics of the Enlightenment and
Romanticism movements, and proposes a reading of the works - Robinson Crusoe
by Daniel Defoe and Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 by
William Wordsworth.

The Characteristics of the Age of Enlightenment in Robinson Crusoe

Defoe tells the story of a man named Robinson Crusoe who is detached from
the life of privilege he has and wants to live a life of adventure at sea. On one of his
trips he ends up shipwrecked and ends up on a desert island. All the rules created in
society no longer matter since for a long time Crusoe is the only person on the
island. From his arrival he needs to learn to survive well from the beginning, he ends
up having to learn how to cook, build, and needs to adapt to his temporary home.
With the initial solitude Crusoe visualizes a very strong spiritual contact and ends up
becoming a very rational man amidst the misfortunes that should have taken away
his sanity.
The first characteristic related to the Enlightenment that we can see in the plot
is rationality. Crusoe lives 28 years on a desert island with rare human contact and
yet remains sane, with coherent ideas essential to his survival, one sees in:

3
http://www.essential-humanities.net/western-art/literature/enlightenment/
 From this moment I began to conclude in my mind, that it was possible for
me to be more happy in this forsaken, solitary condition, than it was
probable I should have ever been in any other particular state in the world;
and with this thought I was going to give thanks to God for bringing me to
this place. (DEFOE, 1808, p.115)

Even in moments when he is tormented by fear, he manages to have a

moment of balance, to think of solutions quickly and to escape from problems. In
other situations, any other person would have already succumbed to despair and
sadness and would have given up or gone crazy, however, Crusoe as the years go
by becomes wise each time.
A second important aspect is the fact that Crusoe uses his knowledge for
survival, as previously discussed the character is the typical subject of the
Enlightenment capable of using reason and what is scientific to elaborate survival
artifacts. One can relate the character's trajectory to the gradual evolution of human
society:
After this, I made a great heavy pestle or beater of the wood called the
iron-wood, and this I prepared and laid by against I had my next crop of
corn, when I proposed to myself to grind, or rather pound, my corn or meal
to make my bread. (DEFOE, 1808, p.124)

Due to the shortage of tools and instruments, Crusoe learns to use manual
skills. Although the act seems something common, it takes time and mental effort, as
well as strategies that if analyzed could have some scientific tone:

However, I made me a table and a chair, as I observed above, in the first

place; and this I did out of the short pieces of boards that I brought on my
raft from the ship: but when I had wrought out some boards, as above, I
made large shelves of the breadth of a foot and a half one over another, all
along one side of my cave, to lay all my tools, nails, and iron-work, and in a
word, to separate every thing at large in their places, that I might come
easily at them. I knocked pieces into the wall of the rock to hang my guns
and all things that would hang up. (DEFOE, 1808, p.69)

Finally, it seems predominant throughout Defoe's work that it is the

transformation of a Puritan subject who, at times, feeling helpless, resorts to divine
prayers, for a rationalist, who survives because of knowledge and practical skills.

The Characteristics of the Romanticism

 If on the one hand we have the Enlightenment that rejected exaggerated
sentimentality and opted for rationalism, on the other we have Romanticism that was
characterized by a strong subjective aspect and that rejected rationalism and
physical materialism in general. Whereas the thinkers of the Enlightenment
emphasized the primacy of deductive reason, Romanticism emphasized intuition,
imagination, and feeling, to a point that has led to some Romantic thinkers being
accused of irrationalism. Romanticism can be said to have been a response to the
Enlightenment, the authors of this movement, which took place between the end of
the 18th and mid-19th centuries, emphasized sentimentality, subjectivity, unusual,
emotional, and transcendental.
Like other movements, Romanticism was also responsible for major changes
in music, architecture, literature, painting, criticism and historiography in Western
civilization. Romanticism in English literature began in the 1790s with the publication
of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads, in this first
wave of the movement the works were characterized by describing the mystical, the
subconscious, and the supernatural. In the second wave we have eyes turned to a
great feeling of nationalism, where the works were portrayed in order to describe the
origins and exalt folkloric characteristics. It was during this period that several of the
most famous Gothic novels were written, these novels dealt with the grotesque, with
horror, with the supernatural. It is known that “o romance gótico questiona a
constituição do real e interroga as contradições sociais, abrindo espaço para a
mescla de medo e interesse que parece ter caracterizado as relações da
burguesia com a aristocracia [...]” (VASCONCELOS, 2002, p. 123).
Other authors of Romanticism were Thomas De Quincey, William Hazlitt, and
the Brontë sisters in England; Victor Hugo, Alfred de Vigny, Alphonse de Lamartine,
Alfred de Musset, Stendhal, Prosper Mérimée, Alexandre Dumas (Dumas Père), and
Théophile Gautier in France; Alessandro Manzoni and Giacomo Leopardi in Italy;
Aleksandr Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov in Russia; José de Espronceda and Ángel
de Saavedra in Spain; Adam Mickiewicz in Poland; among several others.
Some of the literary characteristics of this movement are: emotions stand out
rationality and rules, imagination leads the characters to transcend. In addition,
intuition was highly valued, as was love for nature and the role of the common man.
In addition, there was a strong appeal to mystical and supernatural events. The
novelists were interested in portraying the medieval, especially the rebellions and
revolutions. There was an emphasis on individualism and subjectivity. Nature was
not only a scenario, but it could connect to the character, being influential in the way
they behaved and felt.
Some of these characteristics can be seen in Wordsworth's poetry.

The Characteristics of the “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3,

1802”

As already mentioned William Wordsworth was one of the founders of English

romanticism, in his poem Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
we find exaggerated sentimentality, use of hyperbole and admiration of natural
environments.
Right at the beginning of the poem we have an example of hyperbole,
Wordsworth says "Earth has not anything to show more fair", the fact that the author
writes that there is nothing more beautiful in the world is configured in a feeling of
great admiration that makes him forget other places equally beautiful, that is, as said
in the descriptions of Romanticism earlier, the emotions stand out rationality.
In addition, we also have the focus on nature. In this poem there is no
admiration of nature itself, but of an urban setting, despite this there are comparisons
that show the appreciation of the natural setting, the author says "Never did sun
more beautifully steep /In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill", ie, even if
Wordsworth says that no landscape is able to achieve such splendour, is still
beautiful, just not as beautiful.

Conclusion

Enlightenment and Romanticism were two very close movements, it is not

possible to say that one ceased to exist after the appearance of the other, but rather
that there is a gradient that blends characteristics of the two movements subtly. In
this paper I presented the characteristics of the two movements and from two works I
cited some representative traits. It can be affirmed from this that while the
Enlightenment preaches reason and science, Romanticism values the subjective and
inexplicable.
References

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