By Lechi Eke
In 1840 the word Romantic was coined. It was adapted from the Roman provinces of France in particular. In these areas, they spoke what was called Roman dialects, just like the various dialects of Igbo. Now, found within the Igbo dialects are the varied dialects of the “Ogboo people – Namesake people – the Abriba, Ohafia, Item, Ozuitem, Igbere, Alayi, etc. of Abia state who speak varied dialects of their own kind of Igbo.”
So, there were these Roman dialects from especially France where Latin or the Roman dialects were spoken, and they had stories written in these dialects. So, Romantic is coined from the word romant, a word borrowed from French romaunt in the 16th century because of the imitation of the Roman dialects-kind of stories told in these areas.
You may ask how come France had a Roman dialect.
France became a Roman province when Rome under Julius Caesar conquered it during the Gaulic Wars between 58-51 BC. Caesar defeated Vercingetorix in 52 BC, and renamed France Gaul from Latin Gallia and continued expansion – all the areas where the Celtics lived were called Gaulic areas.
The Celtic tribes included France, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy, Netherlands, and Germany (the west bank of the Rhine).
Of great importance are the stories they told in these areas which gave impetus to the derivation of the nomenclature Romantic from the Latin word, romant. The stories from these areas were of “proud strong natives who thrived…” in their land. They were stories of adventurous chivalry emphasizing individual heroism on the exotic or mystifying side. These were the same themes pursued by the late 18th/19th century Romantic writers.
So, because Romanticism features these kinds of heroic figures, apparently copied from stories from these medieval Roman provinces of especially France, their works were branded romantic.
Ancient France was under Roman rule for 500 years (1st century BC to the 5th century AD).
Romantics preached the transformation of the world via the power of the human imagination. Their work influenced science which they called “imagination without emotion”, as exemplified by the Darwin’s theory of Evolution. They believed that science “lacked feeling and emotional thought due to its narrow-mind and heartless ideas.”
It is Logic versus emotion. Romanticism embraced emotion before rationality. The concentration of emotion, adventure, and imagination during this era led to new ideas of creation like the Darwin’s theory of evolution. This is part of the advancement that romanticism brought to science, including technology.
The advancement include the developmental (improvement of …) the earth’s history and its creatures; examinations of man’s psychological states (by not only giving emotion or inward feelings free rein, but also, searching out or examining what that inward feelings are saying).
Others were the discovery of nature’s hidden forces like the force of the churning of the waters which brings electricity (flowing water can be captured and turned into electricity – this comes from sheer imagination!), magnetism (an ability to attract or charm or science that deals with magnetic phenomena according to Merriam Webster dictionary), galvanism (bioelectricity), plus other life forces, meteorology (science of atmosphere, weather and weather-forecasting), mineralogy, physiognomy (inner character or quality revealed outwardly – Merriam Webster dictionary), etc.
Acquiring knowledge of nature increased understanding of humanity as well – this is so Darwin (in his study of nature (fossils and stuff) Darwin arrived at the theory of evolution).
However, some Romantic writers were not interested in scientific manipulation of nature. American poet, Edgar Allan Poe shuns it in his 1829 Sonnet to Science, Mary Shelley too in Frankenstein, as well as John Keats in his poem Lamia where he wrote about “cold philosophy.”
I think all the second generation romantic writers shunned the manipulation of nature.
The thinkers and writers of the romantic era saw the world we live in as made up living entities with feelings than emotionless functional objects. They believed in natural science.
Romanticism marked the beginning of art and the common people. From the classical period, art had been for the upper class which is understandable for is it not when you “have eaten belle full” that you will start looking for rhymes, symbols and rhythm? Walking through the periods, one cannot but notice how men of letters entertain the elite and got supported by them.
The principal thought explored during the Romantic Period were nature, myth, emotion, symbols, including ideas about self and individualism. Romanticism shunned the sophistication and artificiality of formal classicism in Literature.
Some examples of Romanticism include the publication called “Lyrical Ballads” a collaborative body of work by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge; “Hymns to the Night” by Novalis (the pseudonym of German poet and author, Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg (1772-1801)). He was the most important and most imaginative poet of romanticism of German extraction.
Romanticism pursued the themes of democracy, republicanism, evolutionism, the power of imagination, extreme mental state, nature, etc. Romantic thinkers influenced politics, preaching liberalism, radicalism, conservatism and nationalism glorifying nature and the medieval, etc.
With influence on political ideology, they pursue the cause of the poor and the oppressed; they promoted the ideals of social emancipation and progress. The first generation Romantics supported the French Revolution. Wordsworth would later change his mind about it because of the terrible bloodshed in the French Revolution.
Many of the Romantic writers contributed several things which time and space disallow us to air. Wordsworth bequeathed us with three innovations which are: the Picturesque Theory, the use of simple language in order to reach the common man as against exalted language for the court/palace; and, the inward turning of the writer’s mind producing a semi-autobiographical catch on nature and imagination.
Romanticism also gave us the artist as a supreme individual creator whose “creative spirit is more important than strict adherence to formal rules and traditional procedures” – this of course is exalting imagination as entrance to transcendental experience and divine truth.
Percy Bysshe Shelley gave us the philosophical knowledge that “equality was the natural state.” He came before his time as the struggle for equality still rages in the 21st century world. We are still struggling with racism, sexism, slavery – including human trafficking and exploitation.
Hymns to the Night
By Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg (Novalis)
Into the bosom of the earth,
Out of the Light’s dominion,
Death’s pains are but a bursting forth,
Sign of glad departure.
Swift in the narrow little boat,
Swift to the heavenly shore we float.
Blessed be the everlasting Night,
And blessed the endless slumber,
We are heated by the day too bright,
And withered up with care.
We’re weary of a life abroad,
And we now want our Father’s home.
As we bid farewell to Romanticism, we must mention such great names as Victor Hugo (1802-1885) who wrote The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), the Bronte sisters, Edgar Allan Poe, William Blake, W. B. Yeats, and so many others we could not touch.
