Title
There can be no doubt that the title of our program is appropriate to the subject of our studies. We have seen that Romanticism, as a title, functions as little more than a title – a label for placing a shift in consciousness into a framework that allows us to speak about it. When it comes time to define Romanticism as a term for describing that shift one can easily come as unhinged as many of those artists whom we label with the term Romantic. Nevertheless, the goal of our work in this program has been aimed at putting together, if not a definition, then at least an idea of the links that can be drawn between those artists that we have studied and how those links represent a movement or a shift in consciousness. In short, what element(s) can we find in these works that support drawing them all under the term Romantic in any other sense than merely chronologically?
In my own words, the fundamental element that seems present in all of the works we have studied this quarter is this: everything is messed up. The Enlightenment thinkers had an idea that somehow mankind could figure out the right direction, could move in that direction, was doing so, and that there even was a right direction to move in. Mankind could, given enough time, intelligence, and dedication could eventually know everything and achieve perfection. The Romantics (always bearing in mind that I must use this term for lack of a better one) obliterated, in many cases, that notion. If there is one overriding idea that the Romantics embraced it was that the aforementioned ideas of the Enlightenment were largely wrong. Man, for the Romantics, is flawed and should be celebrated for being so.
Of course, I cannot, in good conscience, state that all Romantic thinkers felt that man could not achieve perfection or divine understanding. Indeed, many of them actually believed that man could achieve some form of perfection or understanding; they found that perfection and understanding not in uniformity but in individuality and uniqueness. That is not strictly true either. Some felt quite strongly about a brotherhood in which men shared with each other something greater than themselves, were part of a whole made from imperfect pieces. Here we see that every time I attempt to place down a statement that holds truth throughout the gamut of Romantic thinkers I must contradict myself. So what answer can I make to my question? There is no RIGHT answer. I can attempt to pin down the central tenets of something called Romanticism but someone else can always find an example to the contrary.
So we must return to the idea of paradox. In order for me to find any meaning that I can apply to the whole of Romanticism, I must not attempt to apply any definition to Romanticism. Although I refuse to apply any definition to the term Romanticism, I do feel that there are elements that are nonetheless inherent in the majority of the works we have studied, and that those elements represent a commonality that warrants the use of a term to tie them all together. I have already said that I feel that the Romantics all react against the Enlightenment notions about the motion of mankind towards a single correct endpoint. I would now posit that the majority of the Romantics have a common idea of what to do about the fact that the world is no longer fundamentally secure, as it had been in the Enlightenment: experience.
The Romantics seem to embrace experience above all else. It is true that they do not all suggest that one experience life in the same way or that one do the same thing with those experiences, but all prescribe experience. Wordsworth calls for experience that the poet later recalls in tranquillity and creates poetry in order to draw the reader, as well as the poet, towards that particular experience and towards experience in general. Coleridge believes much the same, though he may find other experiences. Byron does not necessarily believe in Wordsworth’s Nature, but he does believe in the active experience of the world around us, hence his worship of the overreacher. Goethe also praises the inexorable movement of the overreacher, providing us with Faust, the new example of the redeemable being: “[he who] strives with all his power” (493). I could continue to deal in minutiae with each of the Romantics that we have studied, but I believe that my point is clear.
If I then must draw a conclusion about the thread that ties the Romantics together, it is this: the goal of human existence is experience itself, not necessarily what that experience can teach one. In other words, the Romantics attempt to draw mankind out of the egotistical headspace that believe in a TRUE PATH that men can find, define, pave, and follow into a world that exists outside of our preconceptions. The world is no longer a plastic place for us to mold, but rather, if I may conflate several theories, an organic realm with which we must converse. Of course the Romantics are still quite arrogant in many of their presumptions, but their general movement towards a liberation of the previously chained world leads to an acceptance of diversity. The example of Faust rewriting John is perhaps the most cogent to explain where Romantic thought leads. For the Romantics the ideal state of being would probably combine the elements of word, mind, force, and act; the Romantics did not wish to through away words or thought, but rather to equal them with force, act, and experience. In conclusion, Romanticism cannot be defined in terms of dogma, but rather in terms of response to dogma. Whatever particular scheme for the daily execution of life one has means nothing, the execution of that plan with inexhaustible effort and dedication is divine. Romanticism, if I may be so bold as to make a definition (I know I said I wouldn’t) is movement; where you move is up to you.
Micah Krabill
Composed for the course "Paradoxes of Romanticism"
December 1, 1999