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The Romantic Age

1798 – 1832
Introduction
Romanticism is a movement that emerged as a reaction against Neoclassicism, the age preceding the
Romantic Movement. The Neoclassical age was also called the 'The age of Enlightenment', which
emphasized on reason and logic. The Romantic period wanted to break away from the traditions and
conventions that were dear to the Neoclassical age and make way for individuality and experimentation.
The Romantic movement is said to have emerged in Germany, which soon spread to England as well
as France, however, the main source of inspiration for Romanticism came from the events and
ideologies of the French Revolution. Other than this, even the industrial revolution which began during
the same period is also said to be responsible for the development of Romanticism. Though Romantic
elements were found in art and literature since several centuries, it was the publication of 'Lyrical
Ballads' by Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1798 that marked the beginning of the
Romantic period.

The Meaning of Romanticism

Before we look at the main features of this period, we need to think about the words Romantic and
Romanticism. The names we apply to broad periods of literary and cultural history can often be
misleading, and this is especially true of the “Romantic” Age and “Romanticism.” The word romance
(French roman) was a broad term in origin and was applied indiscriminately to any long narrative in
French verse – for example, the Roman du Rou, a chronicle of Normandy; the Roman de la Rose, an
allegory of aristocratic courtship; the Roman d’Alexandre, the history of Alexander the Great. By the
end of the middle Ages, however, the word roman, or romance, had become restricted to something
like its modern meaning: a tale of knightly prowess, usually set in remote times or places and
involving elements of the fantastic or supernatural.

Therefore, the word romance originally referred to the highly imaginative medieval tales of knightly
adventure written in the French derivative of the original Roman (or romance) language, Latin. (That
these tales often involved amorous encounters between a knight and his lady is partly responsible for
the modern meanings of romance and romantic.) When we speak of the Romantic Period, we are using
the word romantic in this older sense. We are referring indirectly to an interest in the charming, magical
world of medieval “romance,” and more generally to the rich imaginative activity displayed in that
world, which is deeply characteristic of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century writers. To
avoid confusion, we should remember that “romance” as “freely imaginative perfection-seeking
fiction,” not “romance” as “love between men and women,” is the true basis for the terms “Romantic
Age” and “Romanticism.”

Historical and Political Background

The eighteenth century was a time of great prosperity and confidence for the upper and middle class in
England, but toward the end of the century two major political revolutions disturbed the established
sense of security and well-being in the country. Although both revolutions occurred outside England,
they nevertheless affected the late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century thinking.

Revolt in America
First, there was the revolt of the English colonies in America against the uncaring and unjust economic
policies of the mother country under the blundering leadership of George III. The victory of the
American movement for independence was certainly a blow to English confidence, but practically and
philosophically it was less threatening than the second revolution, which took place in France in 1789.

French Revolution
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Unlike the American Revolution, which was merely a rejection of authority and was controlled by a
distant and unorganized group of colonies, the French Revolution was a complete overthrow of the
government of a great European power from within. This seeming change in the balance of power
sparked the feeling in English liberal and radicals that, in the spirit of the Declaration of the Rights of
Man and the storming of the Bastille to liberate political prisoners, England was now primed for a
triumph of popular democracy. (Historical accounts suggest that the Bastille liberation was more
symbolic than actual.)

Later, however, English sympathizers dropped off as the revolution followed its increasingly grim and
violent course. When revolutionary extremists gained control of the government in 1792, they executed
hundreds of imprisoned nobility in what became known as the September Massacres. The year 1793
saw the execution of King Louis XVI and the establishment under Robespierre of the Reign of Terror,
during which thousands of those associated with the old regime were guillotined.

The reaction of the supporters of the Revolution was on of disillusionment and hopelessness in France
as well as England. In England, the government and ruling classes, in reaction to the fear that the early
democratic principles of the revolution might spread to their own country, introduced severe measures.
Public meetings were prohibited, habeas corpus was suspended for the first time in over a hundred
years, and advocated of even modest political change were charged with high treason. The
disillusionment of the liberal and democratic thinkers seemed to reach its deepest when Napoleon, still
regarded by some as a song of the Revolution, was defeated by British forces as Waterloo in 1815. This
defeat by on despotic power over another, rather than showing democratic progress and reform, seemed
to have consolidated the power of the wealthy and reactionary ruling classes.

Romantic Age was a time of vast and largely unguided political and economic change. Most of the
writers of this period were deeply affected by the promise of subsequent disappointment of the French
revolution, and by the contorting effects of the Industrial revolution. In many ways, both direct and
indirect, we can see the historical issues we have just been surveying reflected in the main literary
concerns of romantic writers.

Much as the French Revolution signaled an attempt to break with the old order and to establish a new
and revitalized social system, romanticism sought to free itself from the rules and standards of
eighteenth-century literature and to open up new areas of vision and expression. The democratic and
insistence on the rights of the individual, which characterized the early states of the French revolution,
have their parallel in the Romantic writer’s interest in the language and experience of the common
people, and in the belief that writers and artists must be free to explore their own imaginative worlds.
The main consequences of the industrial revolution – the urbanization of English life and landscape,
and the exploitation of the working class – underline the Romantic writer’s love of the unspoiled natural
world or remote settings devoid of urban complexity, and his passionate concern for the downtrodden
and oppressed.

The Industrial Revolution

Though less sudden and obvious in its consequences that the political revolutions in America and
France, the Industrial Revolution was ultimately more important in transforming European society,
and its own way more violent in its impact of human life.

Emergence of New Social Structure

This was a turbulent period, during which England experienced the ordeal of change from a primarily
agricultural society, where wealth and power had been concentrated in the landholding aristocracy, to
a modernized industrial nation, in which the balance of economic power shifted to large scale
employers, who found themselves ranged against an immensely enlarging and increasingly resistive
working class. The result of this industrialization of Britain’s cities was to depopulate the countryside
by forcing workers to seek employment in the various city mills. Working and living conditions in these
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cities were terrible; women and children as well as men labored for long hours under intolerable
conditions. More than ever before the population was becoming increasingly polarized into what Prime
Minister Disraeli called the “Two nations”- the two classes of capitol and labor, the large owner or
trader, and the possessionless wageworker, the rich and the poor.

. Characteristics of Romanticism
As literature was the first to be influenced by the ideas and ideologies of Romanticism before
spreading to art and music, the characteristics of romanticism in literature are the same for other art
forms too. Therefore, let us look at some of the Romanticism characteristics which influenced all the
artistic fields of that period.

Love of Nature:

The Romantics greatly emphasized on the importance of nature, and one of the main characteristics of
Romanticism in poetry is the beauty of nature found in the country life. This was mainly because the
industrial revolution had taken man from the peaceful country life towards the city life, transforming
man's natural order. Nature was not only appreciated for its physical beauty by the Romantics, but
also for its ability to help the urban man find his true identity.

Emotions v/s Rationality:

Unlike the Neoclassical age which focused on rationality and intellect, Romanticism placed human
emotions, feelings, instinct and intuition above everything else. While the poets in the former era
adhered to the rules and regulations while selecting a subject and writing about it, the Romantic writers
trusted their emotions and feelings to create poetry. This belief can be confirmed from the definition of
poetry by William Wordsworth, where he says that "poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings". The emphasis on emotions was also spread to music created in the Romantic period, and was
seen in the compositions made by great musicians like Weber, Beethoven, Schumann, etc.

Artist, the Creator:

As the Romantic period emphasized on emotions, the position or role of the artist or the poet also
gained supremacy. In the earlier times, the artist was seen as a person who imitated the external world
through his art. However, Romanticism reverted this belief. The poet or artist was seen as a creator of
a piece of work which reflected his individuality and inner mind. It was also for the first time that the
poems written in the first person were being accepted, as the poetic persona became one with the
voice of the poet.

Nationalism:
The Romantics borrowed heavily from the folklore and the popular art. During the earlier periods,
literature and art were considered to belong to the high class educated people, and the country folks
were not considered fit to enjoy them. Also, the language used in these works were highly poetic, which
was totally different from that which was spoken by people. However, Romanticism changed all this.
Their works were influenced from the ballads and folklore that were created by the masses or the
common people, rather than from the literary works that were popular. Apart from poetry, adopting
from the folklore and ballads is also one of the very important characteristics of Romanticism in music.
As the Romantics became interested and focused on developing the folklore, culture, language, customs
and traditions of their own country, they developed a sense of Nationalism which reflected in their
works. Also, the language used in Romantic poems were simple which was usually used in everyday
life.

Exoticism:
Along with Nationalism, the Romantics even developed the love of the exotic. Hence, in many of the
literary as well as artistic works of that period, the far off and mysterious locations were depicted.
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Though this was completely opposite from the ideal of Nationalism, they never clashed with each
other. The reason for this is that just like the exotic locations, the people did not know about the
folklore of their places before, and so they seemed to be as vague as the far away places. Exoticism is
also one of the most prominent characteristics of Romanticism in art, along with sentimentality and
spirituality.

Supernatural:

Another characteristic of Romanticism is the belief in the supernatural. The Romantics were interested
in the supernatural and included it in their works. This fascination for the mysterious and the unreal also
lead to the development of the Gothic romance which became popular during this period. Supernatural
elements can be seen in Coleridge's, 'Kubla Khan' and in Keats' poem 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci'.

Reaction to Earlier Age

Like many other literary movements, it developed in reaction to the dominant style of the preceding
period:

• The eighteenth century is often described by literary historians as the Augustan Age because
it sought to emulate the culture of the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus(27 BCE – 14
CE)
• Classical standards of order, harmony, proportion and objectivity were preferred – the period
saw a revival of interest in classical architecture, for instance
• In literature, Greek and Roman authors were taken as models and many eighteenth century
writers either translated or produced imitations of poetry in classical forms
• In its early years, Romanticism was associated with radical and revolutionary political
ideologies, again in reaction against the generally conservative mood of European society.

Poetic Theory and Poetic Practice/ Characteristics of

Romantic Poetry
Although no writer during William Wordsworth’s time considered himself a “Romantic,” a word not
applied until half a century later by English historians, many of them did feel there was a pervasive
intellectual and imaginative climate, which some of them called “the spirit of the age.” The Revolution
left the feeling that this was a great age of new beginnings when, by discarding inherited procedures
and outworn customs, everything was possible, not only in the political and social realm but in
intellectual and literary enterprises as well. Remember, the major writers of the day including Robert
Burns, William Blake, Wordsworth, and Coleridge were all fervent supporters of the early Revolution.
Even after its collapse, writers such as Shelley and Byron felt when purged of its errors, the Revolution’s
example still comprised humanity’s best hope.

As was mentioned, the Romantic Age in England began with perhaps the greatest act of collaboration
in all of English Literature; the publishing of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s
Lyrical Ballads. In excited daily communions these two men set out to revolutionize the theory and
practice of poetry.

Wordsworth undertook to justify the new poetry in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads. In it he set himself
in opposition to the literary ancient regime, those writers of the preceding century – Dryden, Pope, and
Johnson- who, in this view, had imposed on poetry artificial conventions that distorted its free and
natural development. Although Coleridge did not agree wholeheartedly with all of Wordsworth’s
assumptions, he did see the necessity of overturning the reigning tradition. This preface, therefore,
deserves its reputation as a turning point in English literature, for Wordsworth gathered up isolated
ideas, organized them into a coherent theory based on explicit critical principles, and made them the
rationale for his own massive achievements as a poet.
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Spontaneity

Wordsworth described all good poetry as, at the moment of composition, “the spontaneous overflow of
powerful feelings.” Although there existed varied theories of what Romantic poetry was, all concurred
on the crucial point that it was the mind, emotions and the imagination of the poet that were the defining
attributes of a poem. The emphasis in this period on the free activity of the imagination is related to an
insistence on the essential role of instinct, intuition and the feelings of “the heart” to supplement the
judgments of the purely logical faculty, “the head,” whether in the province of artistic beauty,
philosophical or religious truth, or moral goodness.
Nature Poetry

Because of the prominence of landscape in this period, ‘Romantic poetry” has to the popular mind
almost become synonymous with “nature poetry.” Romantic “nature poems” are in fact meditative
poems, in which the presented scene usually serves to raise an emotional problem or personal crisis
whose development and resolution constitutes the organizing principle of the poem. Restate: Nature
causes the poet to meditate over a problem and resolve it.

The Commonplace

Another characteristic of Romantic poetry was the glorification of the common man and rustic life; or
according to Wordsworth, “to choose incidents and situations from common life” and to use a “selection
of language really spoken by men,” for which the model is “humble and rustic life.” Byron maintained
allegiance to both aristocratic proprieties and traditional poetic decorum: “Peddlers,” and “Boats,” and
“Wagers’! Oh! ye shades Of Pope and Dryden, are we come to this?

The Supernatural

Also characteristic of this poetry was an interest in the realm of mystery and magic, in which materials
from ancient folklore, superstition, and demonology are, employed in the distant past or far away
locations. Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, and Keats’ La Belle Dan sans
Merci fit this character.

Individualism, Infinite Striving, and Nonconformity

Through the greater part of the eighteenth century, men and women had for the most part been viewed
as limited beings in a strictly ordered and unchanging world. The opposite was true in the Romantic
period, where a higher estimate was put in human powers. Now a radical individualism surfaced that
argued that the human being should refuse to submit to limitations and pursue infinite and inaccessible
goals. For example, Goethe’s Faust, unlike Marlowe’s Faustus, wins salvation through his persistent
striving for more.

Also apparent in Romantic poetry is the isolation of the individual, (contrast views of the Restoration).
Many of the poets of the day employed a protagonist with an individual vision that was achieved outside
of an ordered society. Finally, the theme of exile, of the disinherited mind that cannot find a spiritual
home in its native land or society is introduced. This solitary Romantic nonconformist was sometimes
also a great sinner, therefore the fascination with Cain, Satan, and Faust—or in Coleridge’s case, his
outcast Mariner.
Predominance of Imaginations and Emotions

In Romantic Poetry, reason and intellect were subdued and their place was taken by imaginations,
emotions and passions. In the poetry of all the Romantic Poets, we find heightened emotional
sensibilities and imaginative flights of genius bordering on heavenly heights uncrossed by the poets
of previous age.
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Subjectivity

Subjectivity began to have its full play in the poetry of this age. The poets of this period were in favour
of giving subjective interpretation to the objective realities of the life. “The Romantic Movement”, says
William J. Long “was the expression of individual genius rather than of the established rules.”

Lyricism

In Romantic Poetry lyricism predominates and the poets of this school have, to their credit, a number
of fine lyrics excelling the heroic couplet of the Neoclassical Age in melody and sweetness of tone.

Simplicity in Style

The style of the Romantic Poets is varied but stress was laid on simplicity. Instead of artificial mode of
expression of classical poets, we have a natural diction and spontaneous way of expressing thoughts in
Romantic Poetry.

Love of Liberty and Freedom

In Romantic Poetry, emphasis was laid on liberty and freedom of individual. Romantic poets were
rebels against tyranny and brutality exercised by tyrants and despots over humans crushed by poverty
and smashed by inhuman laws.

Revolt against Set Rules / Traditions

The poetry of the Romantic Revival is indirect contrast to that of Neoclassical. In the 18 th century,
poetry was governed by set rules and regulations. There were well prepared lines of poetic composition.
And any deviation from the rules was disliked by the teachers of poetic thought. The first thing that we
notice in the poetry Romantic age is the break from the slavery of rules and regulations. The poets of
Romantic Age wrote poetry in free style without following any rules and regulations.

Major Poets of the Romantic Age

The First Generation of Romantic Poets/ Lake Poets

The first generation of Romantics includes Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey. At one time all three
were friends and neighbors living in the mountainous Lake District in the northwest of England.
Therefore they are sometimes called “The Lake Poets”. They are regarded as one group because of they
seem to share many of the same ideas about politics and poetry. All three as young men were
revolutionary in their ideas, and all three became more conservative and respectable as they grew older.

William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850)

Although Wordsworth is the least colorful of the major Romantic poets, he is recognized by many as
the greatest. Wordsworth’s reputation is based on his collaborative efforts in Lyrical Ballads and his
autobiographical masterpiece The Prelude, the greatest and most original long poem since Milton’s
Paradise Lost. Wordsworth is remembered as the poet of the remembrance of things past, or as he
himself put it, “of emotion recollected in tranquility.” Where an object or event in the present triggers
a sudden renewal of feelings he has experienced in youth. He is also a great poet of nature. Nature
dominates the bulk of his poetry.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 - 1834)
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Coleridge, Wordsworth’s co-collaborator on Lyrical Ballads, is most famous for his mysterious and
demonic poetry, including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, and Christabel. Coleridge
was regarded by his friends as one of the greatest intellectual minds of the day; albeit, a mind that should
have produced more, and one that suffered the dehabilitating effects of opium addiction.

Robert Southey (1774-1843)

Southey is chiefly remembered for his friendship with Samuel Coleridge. As a young man he was the
author of a number of ballads and epic poems like “The Battle of Blenheim” and “Joan of Arc”.
These poems were very much in the new “Romantic” style. Later in his life he turned to prose and
especially biographies, and was the author of a two-volume “Life of Nelson”. He was happily married
with seven children of his own, and when Coleridge became addicted to opium, Southey happily
adopted and took care of Coleridge’s children.

The Second Generation of Romantic Poets

George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788 - 1824)

Byron cuts one of the most fascinating personalities of the Romantic Age. He achieved great fame
during his lifetime and was rated as one of the greatest poets through the nineteenth century, but is now
viewed as the least consequential of the major Romantic poets. Interestingly, none of the major poets,
except Shelley, thought highly of Byron or his work; while Byron spoke slightingly of all the major
poets except Shelley. Byron felt that all his contemporaries were focused on the wrong subject matter
he chose the favorite of the neoclassicists, satire against modern civilization, in his masterpiece Don
Juan. Byron’s chief claim to be considered an arch-Romantic is with the personage of the “Byronic
hero.” This persistent character is that of a moody, passionate, remorse-torn, but unrepentant wanderer;
in essence, a reflection of himself. The literary descendants of this Byronic hero are Heathcliff in
Wuthering Heights, Rochester in Jane Eyre, and Captain Ahab in Moby Dick. Byron died at the age of
thirty-six in Greece, where he is regarded today as a national hero for his efforts in training Greek
soldiers during the Greek/Turkish wars.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822)

Shelley’s writing is the most passionate and intense of all the romantics. Eccentric in manners and in
religious and political beliefs, “mad Shelley” was expelled from Oxford for the publication of an article
called The Necessity of Atheism. Like Byron, Shelley felt himself to be an alien and outcast from his
own country and society; subsequently, Shelley lived out the latter years of his life in Italy. Shelley’s
greatness as a poet is seen in hi philosophical masterpiece Prometheus Unbound, and for his great
“Ode to the West Wind,” among others. Shelley, like Byron and Keats, died at a young age. Only
twenty-nine, Shelley died in a boating accident in 1822. Shelley’s body was thereby cremated by a
group of friends, including Byron, and his ashes buried in the Protestant cemetery in Rome.

John Keats (1795-1821)

The brevity and intensity of Keats’ career are unmatched in English poetry. At the age of
twenty-three, Keats had achieved the culmination of his brief career. Within five years of first
trying his hand at poetry, Keats had written The Eve of St. Agnes, La Belle Dame sans Merci,
Lamia, all of the “great odes,” as a sufficient number of the sonnets to make him, like
Wordsworth, a major Romantic craftsman in that form.
To put Keats’s potential in comparison, it should be remembered that Wordsworth did
not start writing in earnest until he was twenty-seven, and on his death at the age of twenty-
five, Keats’ achievements greatly exceeded that of Chaucer, Shakespeare, or Milton.
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The Romantic Novel / Novel in the Romantic Age

Two new types of fiction were prominent in the late eighteenth century i.e. Romantic Age;
I. The Gothic Novel
II. The Novel of Purpose

The Gothic Novel

These novelists came under the spell of medievalism and wrote novels of ‘terror’ or the ‘Gothic
novels’. The origin of this type of fiction can be ascribed to Horace Walpole’s (1717-97) The Castle
of Otranto(1746). Here the story in set in medieval Italy and it includes a gigantic helmet that can strike
dead its victims, tyrants, supernatural intrusions, mysteries and secrets. There were a number of
imitators of such a type of novel during the eighteenth century as well as in the Romantic period.

Mrs. Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823

The most popular of the writers of the ‘terror’ or ‘Gothic’ novel during the Romantic age was Mrs. Ann
Radcliffe (1764-1823), of whose five novels the best-known are The Mysteries of Udolpho and
the Italian. She initiated the mechanism of the ‘terror’ tale as practiced by Horace Walpole and his
followers, but combined it with sentimental but effective description of scenery. The Mysteries of
Udolpho relates the story of an innocent and sensitive girl who falls in the hands of a heartless villain
named Montoni. He keeps her in a grim and isolated castle full of mystery and terror.

The novels of Mrs. Radcliffe became very popular, and they influenced some of the great writers like
Byron and Shelley. Later they influenced the Bronte sisters whose imagination was stimulated by these
strange stories.

Though Mrs. Radcliffe was the prominent writer of ‘Gothic’ novels, there were a few other
novelists who earned popularity by writing such novels. They were Mathew Gregory (‘Monk’) Lewis
(1775-1818). Who wrote The Monk, Tales of Terror and Tales of Wonder; and Charles Robert
Maturin whose Melmoth the Wanderer exerted great influence in France. But the most popular of all
‘terror’ tales was Frankestein (1817) written by Mrs. Shelley. It is the story of a mechanical monster
with human powers capable of performing terrifying deeds. Of all the ‘Gothic’ novels it is the only one
which is popular even today.

The Novel of Purpose

Jane Austen (1775-1817)

Jane Austen brought good sense and balance to the English novel which during the Romantic age
had become too emotional and undisciplined. Giving a loose rein to their imagination the novelist of
the period carried themselves away from the world around them into a romantic past or into a romantic
future. The novel, which in the hands of Richardson and Fielding had been a faithful record of real life
and of the working of heart and imagination, became in the closing years of the eighteenth century the
literature of crime, insanity and terror. It, therefore, needed castigation and reform which were provided
by Jane Austen. Living a quiet life she published her six novels anonymously, which have now placed
her among the front rank of English novelists. She did for the English novel precisely what
the Lake poets did for English poetry—she refined and simplified it, making it a true reflection of
English life. As Wordsworth made a deliberate effort to make poetry natural and truthful, Jane Austen
also from the time she started writing her first novel—Pride and Prejudice, had in her mind the idea of
presenting English country society exactly as it was, in opposition to the romantic extravagance of Mrs.
Radcliffe and her school. During the time of great turmoil and revolution in various fields, she quietly
went on with her work, making no great effort to get a publisher, and, when a publisher was got,
contenting herself with meagre remuneration and never permitting her name to appear on a title page.
She is one of the sincerest examples in English literature of art for art’s sake.
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In all Jane Austen wrote six novels—Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility,
Emma, Mansefield Park, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. Of these Pride and Prejudice is the best
and most widely read of her novels. Sense and Sensibility, Emma and Mansefield are now placed among
the front rank of English novels. From purely literary point of view Northanger Abbey gets the first
place on account of the subtle humour and delicate satire it contains against the grotesque but popular
‘Gothic’ novels.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)

Walter Scott’s qualities as a novelist were vastly different from those of Jane Austen. Whereas she
painted domestic miniatures, Scott depicted pageantry of history on broader canvases.
During his first five or six years of novel-writing Scott confined himself to familiar scenes and
characters. The novels which have a local colour and are based on personal observations are Guy
Mannering, The Antiquary, Old Mortality and The Heart of Midlothian. His first attempt at a
historical novel was Ivanhoe (1819) followed by Kenilworth (1821), Quentin Durward (1823),
and The Talisman (1825). He returned to Scottish antiquity from time to time as in The
Monastery (1820) andSt. Ronan’s Well (1823).
In all these novels Scott reveals himself as a consummate storyteller. His leisurely unfolding of the
story allows of digression particularly in the descriptions of natural scenes or of interiors. Without being
historical in the strict sense he conveys a sense of the past age by means of a wealth of colourful
descriptions, boundless vitality and with much humour and sympathy. The historical characters which
he has so beautifully portrayed that they challenge comparison with the characters of Shakespeare,
include Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scott. Besides these he has given us a number of
imperishable portraits of the creatures of his imagination. He is a superb master of the dialogue which
is invariably true to character.

Scott was the first novelist in Europe who made the scene an essential element in action. He
knew Scotland, and loved it, and there is hardly an event in any of his Scottish novels in which we do
not breathe the very atmosphere of the place, and feel the presence of its moors and mountains. He
chooses the place so well and describes it so perfectly, that the action seems almost to be result of
natural environment.
Though the style of Scott is often inartistic, heavy and dragging; the love interest in his novels is
apt to be insipid and monotonous; he often sketches a character roughly and plunges him into the midst
of stirring incidents; and he has no inclinations for tracing the logical consequences of human action—
all these objections and criticisms are swept away in the end by the broad, powerful current of his
narrative genius. Moreover, Scott’s chief claim to greatness lies in the fact that he was the first novelist
to recreate the past in such a manner that the men and women of the bygone ages, and the old scenes
became actually living, and throbbing with life. Carlyle very pertinently remarked about Scott’s novels:
“These historical novels have taught this truth unknown to the writers of history, that the bygone ages
of the world were actually filled by living men, not by protocols, state papers, controversies, and
abstractions of men.”

Prose-Writers of the Romantic Age

Though the Romantic period specialised in poetry, there also appeared a few prose-writers-Lamb,
Hazlitt and De Quincey who rank very high. There was no revolt of the prose-writers against the
eighteenth century comparable to that of the poets, but a change had taken place in the prose-style also.
Whereas many eighteenth century prose-writers depended on assumptions about the suitability of
various prose styles for various purposes which they shared with their relatively small but sophisticated
public; writers in the Romantic period were rather more concerned with subject matter and emotional
expression than with appropriate style. They wrote for an ever-increasing audience which was less
homogeneous in its interest and education than that of their predecessors. There was also an indication
of a growing distrust of the sharp distinction between matter and manner which was made in the
eighteenth century, and of a Romantic preference for spontaneity rather than formality and contrivance.
There was a decline of the ‘grand’ style and of most forms of contrived architectural prose written for
what may be called public or didactic purposes. Though some Romantic poets—Coleridge, Shelley,
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Keats, Byron—wrote excellent prose in their critical writings, letters and journals, and some of the
novelists like Scott and Jane Austen were masters of prose-style, those who wrote prose for its own
sake in the form of the essays and attained excellence in the art of prose-writing were Lamb, Hazlitt and
De Quincey.

(i) Charles Lamb (1775-1834)

Charles Lamb is one of the most lovable personalities in English literature. He lived a very humble,
honest, and most self-sacrificing life. In his Essays of Elia (1823) and Last Essays (1833), in which is
revealed his own personality, he talks intimately to the readers about himself, his quaint whims and
experiences, and the cheerful and heroic struggle which he made against misfortunes. Unlike
Wordsworth who was interested in natural surroundings and shunned society, Lamb who was born and
lived in the midst of London street, was deeply interested in the city crowd, its pleasures and
occupations, its endless comedies and tragedies, and in his essays he interpreted with great insight and
human sympathy that crowded human life of joys and sorrows.

Lamb belongs to the category of intimate and self-revealing essayists, of whom Montaigne is the
original, and Cowley the first exponent in England. To the informality of Cowley he adds the solemn
confessional manner of Sir Thomas Browne. He writes always in a gentle, humorous way about the
sentiments and trifles of everyday. The sentimental, smiling figure of ‘Elia’ in his essays is only a cloak
with which Lamb hides himself from the world. Though in his essays he plays with trivialities, as Walter
Pater has said, “We know that beneath this blithe surface there is something of the domestic horror, of
the beautiful heroism, and devotedness too, of the old Greek tragedy.”
The style of Lamb is described as ‘quaint’, because it has the strangeness which we associate with
something old-fashioned. One can easily trace in his English the imitations of the 16th and 17th century
writers he most loved—Milton, Sir Thomas Browne, Fuller, Burton, Issac Walton. According to the
subject he is treating, he makes use of the rhythms and vocabularies of these writers. That is why, in
every essay Lamb’s style changes. This is the secret of the charm of his style and it also prevents him
from ever becoming monotonous or tiresome. His style is also full of surprises because his mood
continually varies, creating or suggesting its own style, and calling into play some recollection of this
or that writer of the older world.

(ii) William Hazlitt (1778-1830)

As a personality Hazlitt was just the opposite of Lamb. He was a man of violent temper, with
strong likes and dislikes. In his judgment of others he was always downright and frank, and never cared
for its effect on them. During the time when England was engaged in a bitter struggle against Napoleon,
Hazlitt worshipped him as a hero, and so he came in conflict with the government. His friends left him
one by one on account of his aggressive nature, and at the time of his death only Lamb stood by him.
Hazlitt wrote many volumes of essays, of which the most effective is The Spirit of the Age (1825)
in which he gives critical portraits of a number of his famous contemporaries. This was a work which
only Hazlitt could undertake because he was outspoken and fearless in the expression of his opinion.
Though at times he is misled by his prejudices, yet taking his criticism of art and literature as a whole
there is not the least doubt that there is great merit in it. He has the capacity to see the whole of his
author most clearly, and he can place him most exactly in relation to other authors. In his interpretation
of life in the general and proper sense, he shows an acute and accurate power of observation and often
goes to the very foundation of things. Underneath his light and easy style there always flows an
undercurrent of deep thought and feeling.
The style of Hazlitt has force, brightness and individuality. Here and there we find passages of
solemn and stately music. It is the reflection of Hazlitt’s personality—outspoken, straightforward and
frank. As he had read widely, and his mind was filled with great store of learning, his writings are
interspersed with sentences and phrases from other writers and there are also echoes of their style.
Above all, it vibrates with the vitality and force of his personality, and so never lapses into dullness.

(iii) Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859)

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De Quincey is famous as the writer of ‘impassioned prose’. He shared the reaction of his day
against the severer classicism of the eighteenth century, preferring rather the ornate manner of Jeremy
Taylor, Sir Thomas Browne and their contemporaries. The specialty of his style consists in describing
incidents of purely personal interest in language suited to their magnitude as they appear in the eyes of
the writer. The reader is irresistibly attracted by the splendour of his style which combines the best
elements of prose and poetry. In fact his prose works are more imaginative and melodious than many
poetical works. There is revealed in them the beauty of the English language. The defects of his style
are that he digresses too much, and often stops in the midst of the fine paragraph to talk about some
trivial thing by way of jest. But in spite of these defects his prose is still among the few
supreme examples of style in the English language.
De Quincey was a highly intellectual writer and his interests were very wide. Mostly he wrote
in the form of articles for journals and he dealt with all sorts of subjects—about himself and his friends,
life in general, art, literature, philosophy and religion. Of his autobiographical sketches the best-known
is his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, in which he has given us, in a most interesting manner,
glimpses of his own life under the influence of opium. He wrote fine biographies of a number of
classical, historical and literary personages, of which the most ambitious attempt is The Caerars. His
most perfect historical essay is on Joan of Arc. His essays on principle of literature are original and
penetrating. The best of this type is the one where he gives the distinction between the literature of
knowledge and of power. On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth is the most brilliant. He also wrote
very scholarly articles on Goethe, Pope, Schiller and Shakespeare. Besides these he wrote a number of
essays on science and theology.

In all his writings De Quincey asserts his personal point of view, and as he is a man of strong
prejudices, likes and dislikes, he often gives undue emphasis on certain points. The result is that we
cannot rely on his judgment entirely. But there is no doubt that his approach is always original and
brilliant which straightway captures the attention of the reader.