Romantic Studies by Frances Ferguson

     Frances Ferguson begins her essay with the brief discussion of about the appropriateness of the term Romanticism whether Romanticism has a fixed date of beginning and ending or not; is it a systematic and monolithic movement or not etc. Frances Ferguson begins the essay by mentioning the new historical critic, Jerome Mc Gann, who dealt with the issue of how many Romanticism there are in his essay Romantic Ideology. This issue was first raised by Arthur O`Lovejoy in On the Discrimination of Romanticism(1924). Then again, this issue was revisited by Rene Welleck in his work Concept of Romanticism in Literary History (1949). These critics are therefore mainly concerned with the question what is romanticism? And they are determined to find out whether the name of the period Romanticism is useful or not.

     According to Lovejoy, the word Romanticism means so many things, which means nothing. So it is not better to use the word romanticism. As a linguistic sign Romanticism does not have specific meaning, it has seized of function as a verbal sign. Lovejoy says the term Romanticism is contradictory when it talks about breaking from the past classicism and at the same time it comes back to the Greek period. Love joy questions how a single term could include two opposite aspect. Burn’s poems are highly rustic and vernacular where as Byron’s poems are highly sophisticated. So Lovejoy says how the same Romanticism could refer to the vernacular lyrics of Burn’s poems written in the Scottish dialects and the ironic sophistication of Byron’s Don Juan. Romanticism does not have common themes- nature, sublimity, radical politics, revolution, war, etc. But again, Lovejoy says that these themes are very common to other writers as well like the writers of Victorian age and Neo- classical period. Therefore these themes cannot guarantee the period of Romanticism. Wordsworth was inspired by city life. So Lovejoy says that there is not specific definition of romanticism then it is said that romanticism talks about sublime, nature, war, revolution etc. But even the other literary period have equally talked of such things in 18 th and 19 th century literature so how is this period romanticism is distinct from other in terms of subject matter. So let’s stop using the term romanticism or use romanticisms. To this idea of Lovejoy, Welleck responds by criticizing him, in his Concept of Romanticism in Literary History (1949). According to him, Romanticism can still capture the idea of the writers of the same period- so, this term is still useful and it has not lost its meaning. Even when we use the term Romanticism, it presuppose that there is something common to all. Welleck attempts to find common denominators and tries to show the unity of European Romanticism. According to him, there is a common style, theme, subject and philosophers in all the Romantic writers:
(A) There is common concept of poetry and working of poetic imagination.
(B) There is same conception of nature and its relation to mind. All the romantic writers are influenced by nature in same way or the other way
(C) There is a same poetic style. Style is that of using imagery, symbolism and myth, which is clearly distinct from that of 18 th century neo- classicalism. So Romantic period has its own style, themes, philosophies, that are distinctly different from those of the past.

     For these reason, Romanticism as a term denoting certain period is not a problematic category, according to Welleck. He further claims that Romanticism should not be taken as any arbitrary linguistic sign because it is a period term, and a name for certain system of norms of certain period. Welleck again ridicules Lovejoy’s point asserting that small differences do not endure total differences. Despite the differences in idea of Welleck and Lovejoy, Ferguson has considered both Lovejoy and Welleck to be supremely interesting- both of their ideas are logical through they contradict each other. The only differences between them is that Lovejoy defines Romanticism and supplies distinctions, while Welleck observes contradictions (opposites) among the writing of the romantic period ; where as Welleck notices completely agreement among English , French and German Romantic writers. The debate between Abrams and McGann follows the earlier debate between Lovejoy and Welleck. Abrams tries to show the spirit of the age whereas McGann finds reaction and politics in such an attempt. Abrams is one of the most important, intellectual historians of romanticism. He has expressed his ideas in his two seminal books; The Mirror and the Lamp and Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature. The first book shows uniformity among the romantic writers due to their expressive orientation towards the poet, where as the second one broadly, synthesizes differences between several varieties of romantic art and versions of secularized Judeo-Christian tradition. This book argues that romantic arts are the reflection of the spirit of the spirit of French revolution. Romantic writers took French revolution as the most glorious event in the beginning but later that optimism and euphoria turn in to despair and disappointment because French revolution went mad. So, he argues that hope and disillusionment manifested in romantic poetry are ultimately the effect of French revolution. Abrams claims that the French revolution has become so deeply implicated in romantic structures of emotions that it remains implicit reference even when the poem seem to be most personal and private. So Abrams reads many seemingly a political poem as political ones.

     McGann takes Lovejoys side, extends his ideas and dismisses the notion of periodization to that of pluralism. He means to say that one must create new- critical distinction between writers instead of putting them in the same category by showing certain similarities. McGann is a new historicist romantic historian but of a different kind, different from main stream of new historicism of Stephen Greenblatt. MaGann criticizes the romantic poetry for its displacement of the historical and the political by the transcendental. For him it justifies the view that romanticism was a reactionary movement. He does not call only the romantic writers reactionary but even the critics like Abrams are reactionary for their endorsement (declare approval) of romantic ideology. McGann charges that academic romantist had come to understand romanticism so well that they are writing as practicing romanticism so well that they are writing as practicing romanticism themselves loosing their scholarly objectivity by over denitrifying with their object of study. They might be over identifying with their object of study. They might be very good propagandist of romantic art but they are in McGann view in sufficiently critical (which make criticism biased). Mc Gann criticizes Abrahams not for seeing politics everywhere but rather for surpressing politics and in the process becoming an apologist for reactionary politics. Hence Frances Ferguson believes that Abrams and Welleck were not unable to become sufficiently critical but they were basically willing to imagine the spirits of the age or the commentaries among the romantic writers,where as McGann shows the tendencies of showing various. That is why the idea of the spirit of the age becomes also belief for McGann because it suppresses the notion of individual agencies. Ferguson further says Abrahams was not as less critical as McGann claims. They are opposing to each other because one is trying to find out differences while the other is searching for unity.