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    Marianne Martindale
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    Aristasian fanzine.

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    Aristasian fanzine.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    89 views11 pages

    The English Magazine 6

    Uploaded by

    Marianne Martindale
    Aristasian fanzine.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    of 11
    The English Magazine ‘Suspicium melioris evi Bolume G, Sou the Gigth Romanticifm, Past & Prefent More than one of our correspondents has falged a queltlon concerning our use of the Was the original Romantick movement thet, ‘with its Tove of socal and spirtuall upheavall fer its own sake, paved the way forthe modern acceptance of the Evils about which your Mag eines 0. cightly complain.” Mr. NM. Gwynne of WeSt London asks “the romantic movement, in every Geld of human adtivity ‘which it touched, was a revolutionary movement tnd was considered unspeakably vulgar by those who watched the revolution, did their ‘eft to defend the old valves and cuftoms and remembered the oid values and euBtoms when they were all but gone. What did romanticism ‘mean if did not mean abandonment of form, Tack of reftraint and aggressive ventimental- {tye the appeal to the emotions rather than the reason?” “These are reasoned remarks and it behoves us to reply to them as such. nthe BrSt place, Tet us note that” the hiftoreal movement Fomantlism (we spell It with a to differentiate it from our own Romanticism) comprised many different and ‘often confiting Strands from revolution (0 Teaflion, from democracy to hierarchy, from chaos and beaftiness to chivalry and order. IF Wordeworth's famous words on the French Revolutions" Blise wa it in that davn to be alive/But to be young was very heavent™ ‘were romantic in the abandoned, chactie sense oF that term, does not the very spirit of rom ‘breathe in Burke's famous words on the same tubjedt? ‘ke sow sixteen or seventeen yours since I moe ‘rance, then the Datphiness, at Vere tlle; and surely ncver ited ou this by which the hardy seemed to touch, « more delight wa ion Tan be aft ove the horeon, coring ts cheering te elevated aphere she abt began ‘Bove in"glterng ke the morlag Rar fall ot Ue aed apleodour, and joy Lite did dream that Tebould have lived tp nce auch dane fal- Fes wpon ber in alia of gullant men, in sation ‘of mea of honour and of cavers T thought ton tMeusand. mwords tuft: have leaped Troe thir ieablarde to avenge even» Took that threatened hier with insult. Bot the age of chivalry is gone ‘That of sophiSicee, economifs, and clears tar asecended. ‘The Revolution itself, far rom being a rom- antic movement, was the spothecsia of eo- Classical rationalism, with its revival Gn per- verted form) of classical republicanism, its Ceremonial enthronement of the Goddess of Reason in Notre Dame cathedral and, beneath all the rhetoric, its ultimately Whiggish mot- Ive force--to replace the old hegemony of the nobility with the new hegemony of money. IF Certain romantics were taken in by the spur- tous claims of the Revolution, itis also worthy ‘of note thatthe three English romantics moSt ‘oeal in its support-—Wordeworth, Coleridge and Southey—all became Staunch conserya- tives without ceasing to be romantics. Edmund ‘Gosse summarised the position thus: Enrly tm the century, Wordeworh ad become, Tha we seninedn Ghanch and Sate Pry of te ‘Rtreme types Southey. who tn 784 bad “chose ing to ty, wavered between deisn and ace promptly developed s horror for every species of Mer pei abd anil go the (high Tory) Quarterly Review. Temperament nt eréumblance Combined to make Scott came Mind mane. we lok back the “Cxtracrdinary, ‘ode and wholesome law-abiding morality ef te generation whick Introdoced romanticiem ia thi Country ‘Both theae great writers (Wordsworth and CGsisidgel spake much of passion, and iniBed ox “resampled fo ‘acapeto0 long. But by passion Wordeworth ao see ioe Pass ‘nov unruly turbulence of the nonser, 20 fevelt aguiaft conventional manners, no. dtr Tego ei atone opel ie tryna {ahead his conception tx his poetry, as Insnce cpton coped apo sme ee of ge {eal or pathetic beauty-vuch ae mountain & shld a Bowerand ted dedly ty into the Sanne! of imaginative expression. He stv that there wpe apette of Beauty wich might lad to ‘but fom these he and Scott and even Goletige, resolutely armed away thei eyes” Perhaps the moSt important point to grasp hhere—and the point mast obfuscated by the whole tendency of modern Hiterary interpret- Stion—is that these writers were nat merely Page 2 ‘passively accepting social conventions or fai Ing, through negligence, or preoocupation, oF cial conditioning™, to eriticise the “prud ish” ‘conventions of ‘their time. They ‘were helping to eftablish those conventions. They were ahead of their time--the forerunners of Vidtorian sensibility. They were aétvely in e- volt againit the crude licentiousness of the Teth century, and were setting new ftandards of purity and refinement which were to help {orm the better aspedts ofthe Vidorian era, a commonplaces of the liberal interpretation of Sitery and Iterature that decency, propeety find morality are blind produats of an unietel Figent or prejudiced atcal order, while the tman of genius. represents ineligent revel puiit such retraite, sometimes quite over- {raing them and helping to bring about a "Rep forward in the hberation” of the

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