Pre Romanticism In English Poetry Of The Eighteenth Century

Author : Henry A. (Henry Augustin) Beers
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN 13 : 9781721948161
Total Pages : 212 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (481 download)

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Download or read book A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century written by Henry A. (Henry Augustin) Beers and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-06-29 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century by Henry A. (Henry Augustin) Beers CHAPTER I. The Subject Defined To attempt at the outset a rigid definition of the word romanticism would be to anticipate the substance of this volume. To furnish an answer to the question-What is, or was, romanticism? or, at least, What is, or was English romanticism?-is one of my main purposes herein, and the reader will be invited to examine a good many literary documents, and to do a certain amount of thinking, before he can form for himself any full and clear notion of the thing. Even then he will hardly find himself prepared to give a dictionary definition or romanticism. There are words which connote so much, which take up into themselves so much of the history of the human mind, that any compendious explanation of their meaning-any definition which is not, at the same time, a rather extended description-must serve little other end than to supply a convenient mark of identification. How can we define in a sentence words like renaissance, philistine, sentimentalism, transcendental, Bohemia, pre-Raphaelite, impressionist, realistic? Definitio est negatio. It may be possible to hit upon a form of words which will mark romanticism off from everything else-tell in a clause what it is not; but to add a positive content to the definition-to tell what romanticism is, will require a very different and more gradual process.[1] Nevertheless a rough, working definition may be useful to start with. Romanticism, then, in the sense in which I shall commonly employ the word, means the reproduction in modern art or literature of the life and thought of the Middle Ages. Some other elements will have to be added to this definition, and some modifications of it will suggest themselves from time to time. It is provisional, tentative, classic, but will serve our turn till we are ready to substitute a better. It is the definition which Heine gives in his brilliant little book on the Romantic School in Germany.[2] "All the poetry of the Middle Ages," he adds, "has a certain definite character, through which it differs from the poetry of the Greeks and Romans. In reference to this difference, the former is called Romantic, the latter Classic. These names, however, are misleading, and have hitherto caused the most vexatious confusion."[3] Some of the sources of this confusion will be considered presently. We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience