A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century | Page 7

be more attractive than the
classic manner, with its composed and measured preciseness of
statement. . . But on the other hand the romantic manner lends itself, as
the true classical does not, to inferior work. Second-rate conceptions

excitedly and approximately put into words derive from it an illusive
attraction which may make them for a time, and with all but the coolest
judges, pass as first-rate. Whereas about true classical writing there can
be no illusion. It presents to us conceptions calmly realized in words
that exactly define them, conceptions depending for their attraction, not
on their halo, but on themselves."
As examples of these contrasting styles, Mr. Colvin puts side by side
passages from "The Ancient Mariner" and Keats' "Ode to a
Nightingale," with passages, treating similar themes, from Landor's
"Gebir" and "Imaginary Conversations." The contrast might be even
more clearly established by a study of such a piece as Keats' "Ode on a
Grecian Urn," where the romantic form is applied to classical content;
or by a comparison of Tennyson's "Ulysses" and "The Lotus Eaters," in
which Homeric subjects are treated respectively in the classic and the
romantic manner.
Alfred de Musset, himself in early life a prominent figure among the
French romanticists, wrote some capital satire upon the baffling and
contradictory definitions of the word romantisme that were current in
the third and fourth decades of this century.[18] Two worthy
provincials write from the little town of La Ferté-sous-Jouarre to the
editor of the "Revue des Deux Mondes," appealing to him to tell them
what romanticism means. For two years Dupuis and his friend Cotonet
had supposed that the term applied only to the theater, and signified the
disregard of the unities. "Shakspere, for example makes people travel
from Rome to London, and from Athens to Alexandria in a quarter of
an hour. His heroes live ten or twenty years between two acts. His
heroines, angels of virtue during a whole scene, have only to pass into
the coulisses, to reappear as wives, adulteresses, widows, and
grandmothers. There, we said to ourselves, is the romantic.
Contrariwise, Sophocles makes Oedipus sit on a rock, even at the cost
of great personal inconvenience, from the very beginning of his tragedy.
All the characters come there to find him, one after the other. Perhaps
he stands up occasionally, though I doubt it; unless, it may be, out of
respect for Theseus, who, during the entire play, obligingly walks on
the high-way, coming in or going out continually. . . There, we said to

ourselves, is the classic."
But about 1828, continues the letter, "we learned that there were
romantic poetry and classical poetry, romantic novels and classical
novels, romantic odes and classical odes; nay, a single line, my dear sir,
a sole and solitary line of verse might be romantic or classic, according
as the humor took it. When we received this intelligence, we could not
close our eyes all night. Two years of peaceful conviction had vanished
like a dream. All our ideas were turned topsy-turvy; for it the rules of
Aristotle were no longer the line of demarcation which separated the
literary camps, where was one to find himself, and what was he to
depend upon? How was one to know, in reading a book, which school
it belonged to? . . . Luckily in the same year there appeared a famous
preface, which we devoured straightway[19]. . . This said very
distinctly that romanticism was nothing else than the alliance of the
playful and the serious, of the grotesque and the terrible, of the jocose
and the horrible, or in other words, if you prefer, of comedy and
tragedy."
This definition the anxious inquirers accepted for the space of a year,
until it was borne in upon them that Aristophanes--not to speak of other
ancients--had mixed tragedy and comedy in his drama. Once again the
friends were plunged in darkness, and their perplexity was deepened
when they were taking a walk one evening and overheard a remark
made by the niece of the _sous-prefet_. This young lady had fallen in
love with English ways, as was--somewhat strangely--evidenced by her
wearing a green veil, orange-colored gloves, and silver-rimmed
spectacles. As she passed the promenaders, she turned to look at a
water-mill near the ford, where there were bags of grain, geese, and an
ox in harness, and she exclaimed to her governess, "_Voilà un site
romantique_."
This mysterious sentence roused the flagging curiosity of MM. Dupuis
and Contonet, and they renewed their investigations. A passage in a
newspaper led them to believe for a time that romanticism was the
imitation of the Germans, with, perhaps, the addition of the English and
Spanish. Then they were tempted to fancy that it might be merely a

matter of literary form, possibly this