Anamika BA 101006 Romantic Literary Criticism English literary criticism of the Romantic era is most closely associated with

the writings of William Wordsworth in his Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his Biographia Literaria (1817). Modern critics disagree on whether the work of Wordsworth and Coleridge constituted a major break with the criticism of their predecessors or if it should more properly be characterized as a continuation of the aesthetic theories of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century German and English writers. INTRODUCTION In 1800, in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth issued his famous proclamation about the nature of poetry as the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. With this statement, Wordsworth posited a very different view of poetry than was standard at the time, shifting the center of attention from the work as a reflection or imitation of reality to the artist, and the artist's relationship to the work. Poetry would henceforth be considered an expressive rather than a mimetic art. Although the analogy of art as a mirror was still used, M. H. Abrams reports that the early Romantics suggested that the mirror was turned inward to reflect the poet's state of mind, rather than outward to reflect external reality. William Hazlitt in his On Poetry in General (1818) addressed the changes in this analogy by combining the mirror with a lamp, in order to demonstrate that a poet reflects a world already bathed in an emotional light he has himself projected, according to Abrams. Additionally, music replaced painting as the art form considered most like poetry by the Romantics. Abrams explains that the German writers of the 1790s considered music to be the art most immediately expressive of spirit and emotion, and both Hazlitt and John Keble made similar connections between music and poetry in their critical writings. Many of the principles associated with early nineteenth-century English criticism were first articulated by late eighteenth-century German Romantics. Ren Wellek has documented the contributions of Friedrich Schiller, Friedrich and August Wilhelm Schlegel, F. W. J. Schelling, Novalis, and other important figures of the period. Novalis, for example, shared the English Romantics' belief that the poet was a member of a special breed, exalted beyond any other human being. Similarly, Jochen Schulte-Sasse, in his comprehensive history of German literary criticism, traced the development of various elements of Romantic thought that appeared in Germany either prior to or concurrent with similar developments in England. The literary reviews of the early nineteenth century, most notably the Edinburgh Review and the Quarterly Review, participated in the formulation of critical theory as well. Although earlier reviews were little more than advertisements for the books being considered, or thinly concealed puff for

Anamika BA 101006 booksellers' wares, in the words of Terry Eagleton, the change in reviewing style in the Romantic period was not much of an improvement. According to Eagleton: Criticism was now explicitly, unabashedly political: the journals tended to select for review only those works on which they could loosely peg lengthy ideological pieces, and their literary judgements, [sic] buttressed by the authority of anonymity, were rigorously subordinated to their politics. John O. Hayden reports that reviews were tainted not only by politics, but by malicious allusions to the private lives of the authors, and concedes that the critical values of the reviewers were neither uniform nor well established. Coleridge's unhappiness with the vicious, opinionated reviews in the periodicals prompted his attempt to devise a critical method that would supplant mere opinions with reviews based on a set of sound literary principles. However, because such norms and conventions were associated with rationalitythe very target of most Romantic poetrycriticism needed to head in a different direction. It had to corner for itself some of the creative energy of poetry itself, or shift to a quasi-philosophical meditation on the nature and consequences of the creative act, according to Eagleton. The Romantic poet/critic thus began to produce criticism that explained and justified not only creativity itself, but also his own creative practices, even his own poetry. T. S. Eliot reports, for example, that Wordsworth wrote his Preface to defend his own manner of writing poetry, and Coleridge wrote the Biographia to defend Wordsworth's poetry, or in part he did. Paul A. Cantor, in his study of twentieth-century attacks on Romantic criticism, acknowledges the self-serving quality of the image put forth by Romantic poets who saw themselves as isolated and inspired geniuses possessed of special gifts unavailable to the masses. According to this image, explains Cantor, the artist stands above society as a prophetic visionary, leading it into the future, while free of its past and not engaged in its present activities (in the sense of being essentially unaffected and above all uncorrupted by them.) In addition to the primacy of the poet, the aesthetic theories associated with Wordsworth and Coleridge in particular, were critical of earlier poets' poetic diction, which to the Romantics, was affected and artificial. They preferred, according to William K. Wimsatt, Jr. and Cleanth Brooks the primitive, the nave, the directly passionate, the natural spoken word. Wordsworth argued that there should be no difference between the language of prose and that of poetry, thus defending his use, within the Lyrical Ballads, of the everyday language of the middle and lower classes. Wimsatt and Brooks write that Wordsworth's primitivism was part of a general reaction, setting in well before his own day, against the aristocratic side of neo-classicism. But where Wordsworth associated poetic diction with artifice and aristocracy and his own poetic language with nature and democracy, Coleridge saw the issue differently. To Coleridge it seemed more like an issue between propriety and impropriety, congruity and incongruity. In effect he applied the classic norm of decorum, according to Wimsatt and Brooks.

Anamika BA 101006 Coleridge's critical theories also differ from Wordsworth's in that they are heavily grounded in theology. Sometimes, particularly in his later writings according to Timothy Corrigan, the theological overwhelms the literary. What is most peculiar about his work during this period is the unusual extent to which he disregards the primary text and how completely his complex theological models and language usurp that text, contends Corrigan. Current scholarly work on Romantic literary theory often suggests that many of the Romantic critics were far ahead of their time, anticipating the work of various late twentieth-century thinkers. One example is provided by Kathleen M. Wheeler, who states that Coleridge's concept of polarity, of opposition, is in many ways anticipatory of Derrida's concept of difference for Coleridge, as for Derrida, relations and oppositions form the substances of experience. Wheeler also suggests that the work of several German Romanticists, whose writings were well known to Coleridge, is also directly related to Derridean deconstruction. These ironists [Ludwig Tieck, Karl Solger, Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis, Jean Paul, and others] developed concepts of criticism as play, destructive creativity (= deconstruction), language as essentially about itself, an aesthetics of incomprehensibility, the reader as creative author, ideas about the unity of poetry and philosophy, literature and criticism, and criticism as art, according to Wheeler. Along similar lines, Wellek asserts that the work of German Romanticist Tieck anticipates the theories of Sigmund Freud. Freud could not have stated more clearly the association of art and lust than did Tieck, claims Wellek. Abrams makes a similar claim for John Keble's Lectures on Poetry (1844), insisting that they broach views of the source, the function, and the effect of literature, and of the methods by which literature is appropriately read and criticized, which, when they occur in the writings of critics schooled by Freud, are still reckoned to be the most subversive to the established values and principles of literary criticism. Despite efforts to position the English Romantics within a continuum of criticism extending from Plato and Aristotle to Jacques Derrida and the poststructuralists, several literary scholars still insist that the theories of Wordsworth and Coleridge were radically different from their predecessors. Patrick Parrinder claims that their poetry and criticism constituted nothing less than a cultural revolution. Parrinder validates their claim to have overthrown the eighteenth-century canons of taste and to have reconstituted the genuine tradition of English poetry, and believes that their efforts to establish a new literary paradigm was aided, in part, by their self-conscious awareness of the revolution they were creating. They not only produced the new poetry but the essential commentaries upon it, according to Parrinder. Eliot concurs, maintaining that Wordsworth is really the first, in the unsettled state of affairs in his time, to annex new authority for the poet, to meddle with social affairs, and to offer a new kind of religious sentiment which it seemed the peculiar prerogative of the poet to interpret.

Anamika BA 101006 The chief features of romantic criticism may be summarized as follows: (i) Romantic criticism ignores rules whether of Aristotle or Horace or of the French and emphasizes that works of literature are to be judged on the basis of the impression they produce, and not with reference to any rules. It is impressionistic and individualistic, and freedom of inquiry is its keynote. (ii) It is concerned with the fundamentals, such as the nature of poetry, and its functions, and not merely with the problems of style, diction or literary genres. It is neither legislative nor judicial. It is concerned mainly with the theory of poetry, and the process of poetic creation. (iii) Imagination is emphasized both as the basis of creation and of judgment on what is created. It is imagination which leads to the production of great works of art. Shakespeare is great because his works are the product of imagination. Pope is not great as he is deficient in this respect. The critic also must primarily be gifted with imagination; only then can he appreciate the beauty of work of art. (iv) Views on Poetic diction and versification undergo a radical change. Simplicity is emphasized both in theme and treatment. (v) Romantic criticism is creative. It is as much the result of imagination as works of literature Critics express their views after entering imaginatively into the thoughts and feelings off writers whose works they may be examining. (vi) The influence of Wordsworth and Coleridge was far-reaching. New definitions of poetry are attempted. Poetry is no longer considered as mere imitation or invention but becomes the expression of emotion and imagination. Inspiration and intuition rather than adherence to rules are regarded as the true bases of creation. 5. Pleasure than instruction becomes the end or function of poetry. If poetry instructs, it does so only through pleasure. Poetry should transport and make people 'nobler' and 'better' through such transport. Its appeal should be to the heart and not to the head. By the death of Dr. Samuel Johnson, Neo- classicism fades away and Romanticism emerged. Romanticism is actually reaction against Neo-classicism with its rationalism and great appreciation of reason or the intellectual element and neglect of the sentimental or emotional element which is exalted by Romanticism. Romanticism, on the other hand, highly considers imagination which is ignored by Neo-classicism. Besides, it revolts against the deep attention to rules, order and restrictions embrace by Neo- classicism. The Romantic Movement extends from 1798 to 1830. It is European movement but it began in England which was deeply influenced by the French revolution with its stress on liberty. Love of freedom which is deeply rooted in the English people had its impact on the literature and criticism of this period. Consequently, the restricted neo-classical principles and rules prevalent during

Anamika BA 101006 the Restoration and the Augustan age began to loose their strength and give way to the romantic movement. Romantic criticism, then, is characterized by the neglect of the neo-classical rules which were based upon the theories of the ancient masters such as Aristotle and Horace. Instead of judging the work of art in terms of the rules of the ancients, the impressions of the work of art produces should be the standard by which is judged. A deep concern with imagination which was controlled by Neo-classicism is another characteristic of romantic criticism. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, for instance, gives a detailed account of imagination in his Biographia Literaria (1817). Emotions and feelings are, likewise, greatly considered by romantic critics. William Wordsworth, for example, sees that "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." A tendency to simplify the language of poetry is one more characteristic of romantic criticism. In his "Preface to the Lyrical Ballads," (1802) Wordsworth recommends "The language really used by men" in writing poetry. The most outstanding critics of English romanticism are William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Wordsworth's "Preface to the Lyrical Ballads" (1802) is regarded as one of the most influential documents in English literary criticism. The Preface is actually a revolt against the neo-classical rules and tenets. Besides, it is a manifesto of the English Romantic Movement. Wordsworth intended his "Preface to the Lyrical Ballads" to be an introduction to these poems which were new both in theme and style. In addition, it sums up his theory of poetry. He maintains: The principal object, then proposed in these poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as possible in selection of language really used by men, and at the same time to throw over them a certain coloring of imagination. Wordsworth, furthermore, points out that in these poems, he has chosen "humble and rustic life" since in this kind of life, passionate and feelings are frankly and freely expressed. Thus, he stresses poetry should be emotional. Consequently, the Preface demonstrates the fundamental characteristics of Romanticism. Coleridge's Biographia Literaria (1817) is considered a landmark in the field of literary criticism. Arthur describes Biographia Literaria as "the greatest book of criticism in English." Biographia Literaria deals with Coleridge's biography and critical principles. It explores some of the fundamental tenets of Romanticism. A principal part of Biographia Literaria, for instance, is devoted to a discussion of imagination which is one of the main principles of Romanticism. What are the major trends of romantic criticism? Answer:

Anamika BA 101006 The major trends of romantic criticism as word'sworth mentions in his bibliography is the assimilation of wealth in the spiritual as well as the bilingual sphere.As with any major author, the critical legacy is vast and varied. The aim of this sis to identify the major stages in the 120-year span of critical literature as it moved from the impressionistic and speculative toward the more objective and analytic and to highlight the most important contributions associated with each stage. For the first half of the twentieth century, literary critics had to rely on these incomplete collections, whose editors had substantially altered the original poems, regularizing unorthodox diction, meter, punctuation, and capitalization to make them conform to the expectations of their era's readers. From a marketing perspective these alterations made perfect sense--indeed, the earliest volumes sold extremely well and were reprinted several times apiece--but they prevented scholars from studying the poems . It was not until 1955, nearly seventy years after the poet's death, that Thomas H. Johnson produced his three-volume variorum edition of all 1,775 poems, which includes the numerous word and phrase variants that commonly appear on Dickinson's so-called worksheet drafts, the pencil-draft manuscripts of poems after 1864 that Dickinson did not transcribe into "fair copies" (always in ink) and bind into fascicles (sewn manuscript gatherings). Twenty-six years later, R. W. Franklin, who had spent decades examining manuscripts, published The Manuscript, a two-volume holographic reconstruction of the poet's fascicles and unbound "sets," thus returning these poems to their original sequences within original groupings. Thus the assimilation of knowledge is the basis of romantic criticism as we see it. Critics of the Romantic Age Introduction: The romantic age in England was not only an age of glorious poetry but also of glorious literary criticism. In fact, most of the eminent men of letters of the age were critics as well as creative writers. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Byron, Hazlitt, Lamb, Leigh Hunt, and De Quincey all contributed to critical literature. But the main critics who gave a direction to the current of literary criticism were Coleridge, Lamb, Hazlitt and De Quincey, and it will be with them that we will concern ourselves here. All of them together have often been categorised as Romantic critics; but there are easily discernible in them some very important mutual differences of approach as well as opinion, though they share some important features, too. All of them reacted sharply against the neoclassic tradition of Dr. Johnson, the cham of the realm of letters. Further, unlike him, they do not indulge in what is called judicial or legislative criticism, the like of which is embodied in his rather pontificial pronouncements. Their criticism is, with some exceptions, interpretative or appreciative. They get into the mind of the writer whose work they are examining and thus grasp psychologically the nature of his creative

Anamika BA 101006 activity which gets ultimately crystallised into his work. None of the romantic critics harp-upon the mechanical and time honoured rules and regulations which the neo-Aristotelian critics of yore from the reign of Elizabeth to the eighteenth century had exalted into a fetish. And lastly, most of the romantic critics pafticularly Hazlitt, give critical judgments which are eminently of, what may be called, the impressionistic kind: in other words, while dealing with works of literature, they depend on their personal impressions rather than a persistent reference to any well-evolved or well-set body of rules or criteria of judgment. It is these common features which justify their classification into a group, in spite of some important, and many peripheral, heterogenities. Wordsworth and Coleridge: Wordsworth and Coleridge pioneered the Romantic Movement in England with their joint work Lyrical Ballads (1798) which has justly been called the Magna Carta of Romanticism. Wordsworth thought it appropriate to append to the first edition of the work an Advertisement embodying his radical views regarding the nature and function of poetry. These views were elaborated and some observations added in the Preface to the 1800 edition of the work. Wordsworth said some nice things about poetry and poets, but his observations on poetic diction met with little approval and were contradicted by none other than his best friend Coleridge himself. It was to a large extent, under the wave of democratic enthusiasm generated by the then recent French Revolution that Wordsworth recommended as subjects of poetry incidents and characters from humble and rustic life. He insisted that poetry was in the countenance of all science. He gave the poet a high and important office. And here is his well-known description of poetry: Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility: the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind. So much, so well. But when Wordsworth goes forward with his theory of poetic diction he is on a really treacherous ground. He writes in the Preface: The principal object then proposed in these poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them throughout, as far as was possible, in a selection of language really used by men. And further: It may be safely affirmed that there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition. There was a point in Wordsworths condemnation of the gaudy and inane phraseology of many of his predecessors and even contemporaries; but he broke too many windows in his desire for fresh air. That Wordsworths conception about the language of poetry was unsound is best exemplified by his own practice. Some of his best poetry uses a language far removed from the language of ordinary people. Wordsworths status in the history of English criticism is, then, not exceedingly high. Coleridge as we have said, took upon himself to expose the

Anamika BA 101006 hollowness of Wordsworths notions. In Chapters 17-20 of his Biographia Literaria he pursues to the end the critical hares started by Wordsworths Preface. That Coleridge was a great critic has been acknowledged by almost everybody who has written about his criticism. In fact most critics give him the first Fank among the hierarchy of English critics. As Symons observes in The Romantic Movement in English Poetry, Coleridge had imagination, insight, logic, learning, almost every critical quality united in one; and he was a poet who allowed himself to .be a critic. As a critic, Coleridge was a pioneer in many respects. For instance, he gave a new conception of the very function of a critic which according to him should be to appreciate and interpret and not to judge. He condemned the contemporary reviews because they teach people rather to judge than to consider, to decide than to reflect. According to George Watson, his own method presupposed a delicate and enquiring reverence for all of mans creation, and a passionate curiosity to explore its depth. Coleridges conception of the poetic process needs some elucidation. He believes that for the existence of truth there must be a knower and a known, a subject and an object, or the Self and Nature. Out of the interaction and fusion of the two arises a creative work. This work is neither Self nor Nature but a different entity altogether-tertium quid- having laws of its own. Poetry, thus, is a counter-action offerees and has a logic of its own as severe as that of science and more difficult, because more subtle, more complex, and dependent on more and more fugitive causes. Coleridges Shakespearean criticism should be studied in the light of his conception of the creative process. The neoclassical critics like Dr. Johnson considered Shakespeare to be a great dramatist on the ground that Shakespeare is, above all writersthe poet of nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirror of manners and of life. To mirror nature is, according to Coleridge, none of the functions of a poet. Poetry is neither Nature nor Self but the outcome of the counteraction of the two, and, therefore, an independent entity with laws which it is the function of a true critic to explore and explain. A genius works organically, not mechanically. A poem is not just created by a poet; it grows within him like a plant from a seed. Shakespeare, observes Coleridge, goes on creating and evolving B out of A and C out of B and so on, just as a serpent moves, which makes a fulcrum of its own body and seems for ever twisting and untwisting its own strength. Coleridges distinction between fancy and imagination may also be here referred to as an example of his critical profundity. Fancy, says he, has no other counters to play with but fixities and defmites and is only a mode of memory. But the true imagination is esemplastic and given to re-create, idealize, unify. Coleridges literary criticism seems to be part of a comprehensive system of aesthetics which he might have contemplated to proffer at some later stage of his life. It is also near enough the metaphysics of the German Philosophers like Lessing, Schlegel and Kant who seem to have influenced Coleridge quite considerably. A point of interest to note is that though Coleridge was a really

Anamika BA 101006 great critic-and was acknowledged as one by most of his contemporaries-he did not create a school of criticism. He was revered by a large number of poets and scholars. The young men, says George Watson who crowded to his house in Highgate in the last years of his life, among whom (according to Carlyle) he enjoyed the reputation of a sage, sought wisdom of a kind too generalized and too occult to turn them into good critics-indeed, into any kind of critic. Charles Lamb: William Hazlitt: De Quincey: Romantic Criticism: Its Chief Features The chief features of the new school of romantic criticism may be summarized as follows: 1. Romantic criticism ignores rules whether of Aristotle or Horace or of the French, and emphasizes that works of literature are to be judged on the basis of the impression they produce, and not with reference to any rules. It is impressionistic; and individualistic, and freedom of inquiry is its keynote. 2. It is concerned with the fundamentals, such as the nature of poetry, and its functions, and not merely with the problems of style, diction or literary genres. It is neither legislative nor judicial. It is concerned mainly with the theory of poetry, and the process of poetic creation. 3. Emphasis is laid on imagination and emotion and not on reason and good sense. Poetic enthusiasm is no longer looked down upon, as by the Neoclassics. 4. New definitions of poetry are attempted. Poetry is no longer considered as mere imitation or invention but becomes the expression of emotion and imagination. Inspiration and intuition, rather than adherence to rules, are regarded as the true basis of creation. No earlier English critic, except Sidney (and he too only in passing), had examined such fundamental questions. 5. Pleasure rather than instruction becomes the end or function of poetry : "If poetry instructs, it does so only through pleasure" (Coleridge). Poetry should transport and make people 'nobler' and 'better' through such transport. Its appeal should be to the heart and not to the head. 6. Imagination is emphasized both as the basis of creation and judgment on what is created. It is imagination which leads to the production of great work of art. Shakespeare is great because his works are the product of imagination. Pope is not great as he is deficient in this respect. The critic also must primarily be gifted with imagination; only then can he appreciate the beauty of a work of art. He must enter imaginatively into the spirit of a work of art.

Anamika BA 101006 7. Views on poetic diction and versification undergo a radical change. Simplicity is emphasized both in theme and treatment. 8. Romantic criticism is creative. It is as much the result of imagination as works of literature. Critics express their views after entering imaginatively into the thoughts and feelings of the writers whose works they may be examining. 9. The influence of Wordsworth and Coleridge was far reaching. Wordsworths Preface To The Lyrical Ballads is an unofficial manifesto of the Romantic movement, for it throws out hints and makes suggestions which capture the imagination, and which lead to the rise of the romantic criticism in the early decades of the next century. Wordsworth was the first in many fields, he stimulate interest and controversy, and so brought about fundamental change both in roman tic, theory and practice. He is the first theorist the Romantic Movement, and the credit of having given a particular shape and direction to English romantic criticism must go to him. By his emphasis on simplicity both in theme and treatment conquered new territories for poetry and so enlarged the domain both of theory and practice of literature. By his emphasis on emotion and imagination he gave back to English poetry the stuff which properly belongs to it, and in this way revolutionized literary concepts. He demolished much that was false and injurious in English critical tradition, so that literary criticism in England could breathe a larger and freer atmosphere. English criticismand poetrycould never be the same after Wordsworth had written. To his influence was added that of Coleridge and other romantic critics, and by the opening decades of the 19th century the revolution was complete. Neoclassicism had had its day in England; now it was a thing of the past. The future lay with the new criticismthe romantic criticismof Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley and many others. Conclusion In the end, we give George Saintsbury's summary of the main features of romantic criticism: All periods of literature are to be studied, and all have lessons for the critic. Gothic ignorance is an ignorant absurdity. One period of literature cannot prescribe to another. Each has its own laws; and if any general laws are to be put above these, they must be such as will embrace them. Rules are not to be multiplied without necessity: and such as may be admitted must rather be extracted from the practice of good poets and prose-writers rather than imposed upon it. Unity is not itself uniform, but will vary according to the kind, and sometimes, within the kind itself. The kind itself is not to be too rigidly constituted; and sub-varieties in it may constantly arise.

Anamika BA 101006

The object of literature is Delight; its soul is imagination f its body is Style. A man should like what he does like; and his likings are facts in criticism for him. Nothing depends upon the subject; all upon the treatment of the subject. The first requisite of the critic is that he should be capable of receiving Impression: the second, that he should be able to express and impart them.

The Rise of Romantic Criticism The awakening of sensibility is the most radical change that comes over the English literary scene about the middle of the 18th century. 'Sensibility' primarily means the power of sensation on perception, but this meaning has become over-laid with another, that of quickness and acuteness of apprehension or feeling, which in turn was extended, during the 18th century, to mean the capacity for refined emotion, sensitiveness generally in the face of external nature, and the readiness to feel for the poor and the suffering. Rationalism which had prevailed during the Augustan era, and the order, discipline, and respect for tradition and authority which the Augustans had inculcated, no longer satisfied. The commonly held assumptions about man, God and society, were breaking down, and the writers were thrown back on their own reactions and responses to the facts of life. Reason had failed to answer the fundamental questions about the mystery of life, and so stress shifted to emotion and imagination as safer guides to truth. Sensibility, in its various manifestations, was the contemporary expression of what Johnson called, that hunger of the imagination which preys incessantly on life. This awakening of sensibility accounts for the change that comes both over literature and literary inquiry in the later half of the 18th century. The neoclassical dogma is felt to be too cramping and narrow, and writers turn to a freer mode of self-expression.