Paper -5 assignment

• Name : Asari Bhavyang  

• Roll no :-4

• Enrollment No:-3069206420200002

• Course:-M.A (English)Sem1

• Subject: History of English Literature

• Topic:- why is this period of Romanticism called the Age of revolution ?Give some reasons for the influence of the French revolution on English literature , and illustrate ?

• Teacher Name :- Dilip Barad sir 

• Batch :- 2020-2022

• Email :- asaribhavyang7874@gmail.com

• Department :- The Department of English

[1.] Why is this period of Romanticism (1789-1837) called the Age of Revolution? Give some reasons for the influence of the French Revolution on English literature, and illustrate ?

Ans :-

Introduction :-

During the second half of the 18th century economic and social changes took place in England. The country went through the so-called Industrial Revolution when new industries sprang up and new processes were applied to the manufacture of traditional products. During the reign of King George III (1760-1820) the face of England changed. The factories were built, the industrial development was marked by an increase in the export of finished cloth rather than of raw material, coal and iron industries developed. Internal communications were largely funded.
The population increased from 7 million to 14 million people. Much money was invested in road- and canal-building. The first railway line which was launched in 1830 from Liverpool to Manchester allowed many people inspired by poets of Romanticism to discover the beauty of their own country. Just as we understand the tremendous energizing influence of Puritanism in the matter of English liberty by remembering that the common people had begun to read, and that their book was the bible, so we may understand this age of popular government by remembering that the chief subject of romantic literature was the essential nobleness of common men and the value of the individual.

Videos :-

Romanticism :-

Throughout history certain philosophies or ideas have helped to shape the themes of literature, art, religion, and politics. The concept of Romanticism was preceded by the philosophy of Neoclassicism. In the writings before this period humans were viewed as being limited and imperfect. A sense of reverence for order, reason, and rules were focused upon. There was distrust for innovation and invention. Society was encouraged to view itself as a group with generic characteristics. The idea of individualism was looked upon with disfavor. People were encouraged through literature, art, religion, and politics to follow the traditional rules of the church and government. However, by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a great reaction against this philosophy was noted. It was labeled as Romanticism. The expression Romantic gained currency during its own time, roughly 1780-1850.However, even within its own period of existence, few Romantics would have agreed on a general meaning. Perhaps this tells us something. To speak of a Romantic era is to identify a period in which certain ideas and attitudes arose, gained currency and in most areas of intellectual endeavor, became dominant. That is, they became the dominant mode of expression. Which tells us something else about the Romantics: expression was perhaps everything to them expression in art, music, poetry, drama, literature and philosophy. Just the same, older ideas did not simply wither away. Romantic ideas arose both as implicit and explicit criticisms of 18th century Enlightenment thought. For the most part, these ideas were generated by a sense of inadequacy with the dominant ideals of the Enlightenment and of the society that produced them. Thus, Romanticism was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. Partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, it was also a revolt against the aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature. It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education and the natural sciences. Its effect on politics was considerable and complex; while for much of the peak
Romantic period it was associated with liberalism and radicalism, its long-term effect on the growth of nationalism was probably more significant. Reaction Against Enlightenment:-
Romanticism appeared in conflict with the Enlightenment. You could go as far as to say that Romanticism reflected a crisis in Enlightenment thought itself, a crisis which shook the comfortable 18th century philosophe out of his intellectual single-mindedness. The Romantics were conscious of their unique destiny. In fact, it was self-consciousness which appears as one of the keys elements of Romanticism itself.
 

Romanticism was the new thought, the critical idea and the creative effort necessary to cope with the old ways of confronting experience. The Romantic era can be considered as indicative of an age of crisis. Even before 1789, it was believed that the ancient regime seemed ready to collapse. Once the French Revolution entered its radical phase in August 1792, the fear of political disaster also spread. King killing, Robespierre, the Reign of Terror, and the Napoleonic armies all signaled chaos -a chaos which would dominate European political and cultural life for the next quarter of a century.

At the same time, intellectuals criticized the tasteless and unreceptive philistine bourgeoisie. Ironically, they were criticizing the same class and the same mentality from which
they themselves had emerged and which had supported them. In this respect, the Romantic age was similar to the age of Enlightenment. A free press and careers open to talent provided
possibilities of competitive innovation. This led to new efforts to literally train audiences to be receptive to the productions of artists and intellectuals. Meanwhile, literary hacks and Grub Street writers produced popular pot boilers for the masses. All these characteristics placed limits upon the activities of the Romantics. These limits could not be ignored. In fact, these limits often exerted pressures that can be identified as causes of the Romantic movement itself. Truth and beauty were human attributes. A truth and beauty which emanated from the poet’s soul and the artist’s heart. If the poets are, as Shelley wrote in 1821, the "unacknowledged legislator’s of the world," it was world of fantasy, intuition, instinct and emotion. It was a human
world.

Industrial Revolution :-

The INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION can be said to have made the European working class. It made the European middle-class as well. In the wake of the Revolution, new social relationships appeared. As Ben Franklin once said, "time is money." Man no longer treated men as men, but as a commodity which could be bought and sold on the open market. This "commodification" of man is what bothered Karl Marx his solution was to transcend the profit motive by social revolution.

There is no denying the fact that the Industrial Revolution began in England sometime after the middle of the 18th century. England was the "First Industrial Nation." As one economic historian commented in the 1960s, it was England which first executed "the takeoff into selfsustained growth." And by 1850, England had become an economic titan. Its goal was to supply two-thirds of the globe with cotton spun, dyed, and woven in the industrial centers of northern England. England proudly proclaimed itself to be the "Workshop of the World," a position that country held until the end of the 19th century when Germany, Japan and United States overtook it. The vision was all-important. It was optimistic and progressive. Man was going somewhere, his life has direction. This vision is part of the general attitude known as the idea of progress, that is, that the history of human society is a history of progress, forever forward, forever upward. This attitude is implicit throughout the Enlightenment and was made reality during the French and Industrial Revolutions. With relatively few exceptions, the philosophes of the 18th century embraced this idea of man's progress with an intensity I think unmatched in our own century. Human happiness, improved morality, an increase in knowledge were now within man's reach. This was indeed the message, the vision, of Adam Smith, Denis Diderot, Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin.

Aided by revolutions in agriculture, transportation, communications and technology, England was able to become the "first industrial nation." This is a fact that historians have long recognized. However, there were a few other less-tangible reasons which we must consider. These are perhaps cultural reasons. Although the industrial revolution was clearly an unplanned and spontaneous event, it never would have been "made" had there not been men who wanted such a thing to occur. There must have been men who saw opportunities not only for advances in technology, but also the profits those advances might create. Which brings us to one very crucial cultural attribute  the English, like the Dutch of the same period, were a very commercial people. They saw little problem with making money, nor with taking their surplus and reinvesting it. Whether this attribute has something to do with their "Protestant work ethic," as Max Weber put it, or with a specifically English trait is debatable, but the fact remains that English entrepreneurs had a much wider scope of activities than did their Continental counterparts at the same time.

• French Revolution and English Literature  :-

The French Revolution is widely recognized as one of the most influential events of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Europe, with far reaching consequences in political, cultural, social, and literary arenas. Although scholars such as Jeremy Popkin point to more concrete political issues as grounds for the upheaval, supporters of the Revolution rallied around more abstract concepts of freedom and equality, such as resistance to the King’s totalitarian authority as well as the economic and legal privileges given to the nobility and clergy. It is in this resistance to monarchy, religion, and social difference that Enlightenment ideals of equality, citizenship, and human rights were manifested. These beliefs had profound influence on the Romantic poets.
The French Revolution, along with the Industrial Revolution, has probably done more than any other revolution to shape the modern world. Not only did it transform Europe politically, but also, thanks to Europe's industries and overseas empires, the French Revolution's ideas of liberalism and nationalism have permeated nearly every revolution across the globe since 1945. In addition to the intense human suffering as described above, its origins have deep historic and geographic roots, providing the need, means, and justification for building the absolute monarchy of the Bourbon Dynasty which eventually helped trigger the revolution.

Poetry and Politics:-

The conditions prevailing in England at that time made her particularly receptive to the new ideas generated by the Revolution. In literature the French Revolution was instrumental in the creation of a new interest in nature and the elemental simplicities of life. It accelerated the approach of the romantic era and the close of the Augustan school of poetry which was already moribund in the age of Wordsworth.
The Three Phases of the French Revolution :-
It is wrong to think of the French Revolution as a sudden coup unrelated to what had gone before it. In fact, the seeds of the Revolution had been sown long before they sprouted in1789. We can distinguish three clear phases of the French Revolution, which according to Compton-Rickett, are as follows:
1. The Doctrinaire phase-the age of Rousseau;
2. The Political phase-the age of Robespierre and Danton;
3. The Military phase-the age of Napoleon.”
All these three phases considerably influenced the Romantic Movement in England.

Conclusion:-

During the twentieth century, especially after World War I, Western drama became more internationally unified and less the product of separate national literary traditions. Throughout the century realism, naturalism, and symbolism  continued to inform important plays. Among the many twentieth century playwrights who have written what can be broadly termed naturalist dramas are Gerhart Hauptmann , John Galsworthy, John Millington Synge and Sean O'Casey , and Eugene O'Neill, Clifford Odets, and Lillian Hellman.

References:-

1. Albert,Edward. (1979). History of English Literature. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
2. Hudson, William Henry. (2015). an outline of English Literature. New Delhi: Rupa Publications India
3. Long, William.J.(2014). English Literature. Noida: Maple Pres Ltd
4. Nayar, Pramod K. (2015). A Short History of English Literature. New Delhi: Cambridge    University Press India Pvt.Ltd

Thank you 

Dilip Barad

Words :-2031