Philosophy of the Modern Era

The Movement of Romanticism

From the late eighteenth century to the present, art, literature, philosophy, and even politics have been influenced, either positively or negatively, by the worldview characterizing what can broadly be termed the movement of Romanticism. Even those who rejected this sentiment found themselves compelled to reckon with it, often discovering themselves more profoundly affected by it than they suspected. In this chapter, I propose to provide a brief description of the Romantic worldview, primarily concerning issues not overtly philosophical, as this worldview forms the cultural foundation of much philosophical thought during the period we shall now address.

Initially, the movement of Romanticism was not linked to philosophy, although it soon became entwined with it. Its connection to politics, through Rousseau, was established from the outset. However, before we can delve into its political and philosophical implications, it is essential to examine this movement in its essence, which lies in its rebellion against established ethical and aesthetic norms.

The first great figure of this movement is Rousseau, who, to a certain extent, merely articulated pre-existing tendencies. The cultured individuals of eighteenth-century France were enamored with what they called la sensibilité, meaning a propensity for feeling—more specifically, for sympathy. For feeling to be wholly satisfying, it had to be immediate and passionate, entirely free from thought. The sensitive person could weep at the sight of a destitute peasant family, yet remain unmoved by well-considered schemes to improve the condition of the peasantry as a class. It was assumed that the poor possessed greater virtue than the rich. The sage was envisioned as someone who renounced the corruptions of court life to enjoy the simple joys of humble rural existence. This inclination can be found as a transient mood among poets of nearly every era. The exiled duke in As You Like It expresses such a sentiment, even as he returns to his dukedom as soon as he is able. Only the melancholic Jacques genuinely prefers life in the forest. Even Pope, a perfect example of all that the Romantic movement stands against, declares:

"Happy the man whose desires and cares
Are confined to a few paternal acres,
Who is content to breathe his native air
On his own ground."

In the minds of those who cultivated sensitivity, the poor always possessed a few paternal acres, living off the fruits of their own labor, devoid of the need for trade. Yet, they invariably lost these acres under tragic circumstances, as an aging father could no longer work, a beautiful daughter was forced into a life of vice, and an immoral creditor or lord was ready to seize either the acres or the daughter's virtue. For Romantics, the poor were never townsfolk or industrialists. The proletariat is a concept of the nineteenth century, perhaps equally romanticized, but entirely distinct.

Rousseau appealed to the existing cult of sensitivity, imbuing it with a breadth and scope that it otherwise could not possess. He was a democrat, but only in his theories, not in his inclinations. For long periods in his life, he was a destitute wanderer, regarded kindly by those who were only slightly less needy than himself. He reciprocated this kindness with actions often marked by ungratefulness, yet his responses reflected precisely what the most ardent champion of sensitivity could desire. Possessing the inclinations of a vagabond, he found the constraints of Parisian society tiresome. From him, Romantics learned to disdain the obstacles erected by convention: initially in dress and manners, in the minuet and heroic couplet, later in art and love, and finally across the entire realm of traditional morality.

Romantics were not individuals devoid of morality. On the contrary, their moral judgments were sharp and passionate. However, they rested entirely on principles that seemed entirely different from those that their predecessors deemed virtuous. From 1660 until Rousseau, memories of the religious and civil wars in France, England, and Germany exerted a significant influence. People were acutely aware of the dangers of chaos, the anarchic tendencies of powerful passions, the importance of security, and the sacrifices necessary to achieve it. Prudence was viewed as the highest virtue, and intellect was valued as the most effective weapon against destructive fanaticism; refined manners were exalted as a barrier against barbarism. The ordered cosmos of Newton, in which planets revolve around the sun in law-governed orbits, became an imaginary symbol of good governance. Restraint in expression was the primary aim of education and the first mark of a gentleman. During the revolution, the pre-Romantic French aristocrats died quietly; Madame Roland and Danton, who were Romantics, perished rhetorically.

By Rousseau's time, many began to feel burdened by security and sought excitement instead. The French Revolution and Napoleon offered them the chance to fully indulge this sentiment. When, in 1815, the political world returned to tranquility, it was a peace so lifeless, so grim, and so hostile to any vigorous life that only cowed conservatives could reconcile themselves to it. Consequently, there was no intellectual acquiescence to the status quo characteristic of France under the Sun King and England prior to the French Revolution. The rebellion of the nineteenth century against the Holy Alliance took two forms. On one hand, there was an uprising of both industrialists and the proletariat against monarchy and aristocracy; this bore little trace of Romantic influence and was, in many ways, a return to the eighteenth century. This movement was represented by philosophical radicals, the free trade movement, and Marxist socialism. In stark contrast, there was the rebellion of Romanticism, which was partly reactionary and partly revolutionary. Romantics did not seek peace and quietude but rather a vigorous and passionate individual life. They harbored no sympathy for industrialism, as it posed a threat; the pursuit of money seemed unworthy of the immortal soul, and the rise of modern economic organizations impeded individual freedom. In the post-revolutionary period, they gradually embraced politics through nationalism: it was believed that each nation possessed a common soul that could not be free until the borders of states aligned with the boundaries of nations. In the first half of the nineteenth century, nationalism emerged as the most vigorous and revolutionary principle, and most Romantics ardently supported it.

The Romantic movement, as a whole, is characterized by a substitution of utilitarian standards with aesthetics. The earthworm is useful but not beautiful; the tiger is beautiful but not useful. Darwin, who was not a romantic, praised the earthworm, while Blake extolled the tiger. The morality of the romantics was primarily motivated by aesthetic considerations. However, to accurately characterize the romantics, one must not only acknowledge the significance of aesthetic motives but also recognize the shift in taste that rendered their sense of beauty distinct from that of their predecessors. One of the most apparent examples of this is their preference for Gothic architecture. Another example can be seen in their taste for landscape. Dr. Johnson favored Fleet Street over any rural scenery, asserting that a person bored with London must also be bored with life. If anything in the countryside enchanted the predecessors of Rousseau, it was the landscape of abundance, with rich pastures and fat cows. Rousseau, being Swiss, naturally admired the Alps. In the stories of his disciples, we encounter wild streams, terrifying chasms, impenetrable forests, thunderous storms, and raging seas—elements that are fundamentally useless, destructive, and frenzied. This transformation appears to be more or less permanent; almost everyone today prefers Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon to lush meadows and fields of swaying grain. Tourist hotels provide statistical evidence of this understanding of landscape.

The temperament of the romantics is best studied through their fiction. They were drawn to the strange: ghosts, ancient ruined castles of the last melancholic scions of once-great families, practitioners of mesmerism and occult sciences, sensitive tyrants, and Levantine pirates. Fielding and Smollett wrote about ordinary people in circumstances that were entirely plausible, embodying the realist approach that stood in opposition to romanticism. But for the romantics, such subjects were too prosaic; they drew inspiration solely from what was great, improbable, and terrifying. Science—something suspicious—could be employed if it led to something astonishing. Yet, above all, the Middle Ages and what was most medieval in the present captivated the romantics. Frequently, they detached themselves entirely from reality, whether in the past or the present. “The Ancient Mariner” is typical in this regard, while Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” scarcely resembles the historical monarch Marco Polo. The geography of the romantics is intriguing, stretching from the West to the “solitary shores of Khorezm,” places that are mysterious and remote—either located in Asia or derived from ancient history.

Despite its origins in Rousseau, the Romantic movement was initially predominantly German. German romantics were young in the late 18th century, and during their youth, they expressed what was most characteristic of their worldview. Those who were not fortunate enough to die young, in the twilight of their lives, allowed their individuality to be muddled by the uniformity of the Catholic Church. (A romantic might become a Catholic if born a Protestant, but he could hardly be a Catholic otherwise, as it would necessitate combining Catholicism with protest.) German romantics influenced Coleridge and Shelley, and independent of this German influence, the same worldview became widely accepted in England during the early years of the 19th century. In France, although in a diminished form, it flourished after the Restoration until the time of Victor Hugo. In America, it can be distinctly observed in Melville, Thoreau, and Brook Farm, and in a somewhat softened form in Emerson and Othorno. Though the romantics displayed a tendency toward Catholicism, there was something irrepressibly Protestant in the individualism of their worldview, and their continuous successes in shaping customs, opinions, and institutions were almost entirely confined to Protestant countries.

The beginnings of romanticism in England can be seen in the works of satirists. In Sheridan’s “The Rivals” (1775), the heroine is more inclined to marry a poor man for love than a wealthy one to please her guardian and his family; however, the wealthy suitor who they have chosen wins her affection by courting her under a false name and pretending to be a pauper. Jane Austen mocks the romantics in “Northanger Abbey” and “Sense and Sensibility” (1787—1788). In “Northanger Abbey,” there is a heroine who is bewildered by the ultra-romantic “The Mysteries of Udolpho,” published in 1794. The first significant romantic work in England—aside from the writings of Blake, who was an independent Swedenborgian and scarcely belongs to any “movement”—was Coleridge’s “The Ancient Mariner,” published in 1799. The following year, unfortunately acquiring the Wedgewood capital, he traveled to Göttingen to immerse himself in the study of Kant, which did not enhance his poetry.

After Coleridge, Wordsworth and Southey became reactionaries. Their hatred of the revolution and Napoleon temporarily obstructed English romanticism, which was soon revived by Byron, Shelley, and Keats and, to some extent, dominated the entire Victorian era. Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” written under the influence of conversations with Byron amid the romantic landscape of the Alps, contains what can almost be regarded as an allegorical prophetic tale of the development of romanticism. The creature of Frankenstein is not merely a monster, as it has become in popular parlance; it was initially a benevolent being, fervently yearning for human affection, yet the horror of its deformity incites hatred and compels violence in those whose love it seeks. Invisible, it observes the virtuous family of poor peasants and secretly aids them.

Finally, it resolves to reveal itself to them: “The more I saw them, the more I longed to claim their protection and kindness; my heart yearned for these lovely beings to know and love me; to see their affectionate glances directed at me was the ultimate limit of my desires. I tried not to think of the possibility that they might turn away from me with disdain and horror.”

But they did so. At first, he demanded of his creator the creation of a female creature, similar to himself, and when this was denied, he dedicated himself to the murder of everyone that Frankenstein loved, one by one. Yet even at the moment when all his killings were completed, and he stood over the lifeless body of Frankenstein, the creature's feelings remained noble: “This too is my victim! With his death, my crimes are completed. The wretched spirit of my existence is exhausted. Oh, Frankenstein! Noble and self-sacrificing man! What good is it that I now seek your forgiveness! I, who inexorably destroyed you, annihilating what you cherished. Alas, he is already cold; he cannot respond to me... When the list of my dreadful sins rises before my eyes again and again, I cannot believe that I am the very being whose thoughts were once filled with lofty and extraordinary visions of beauty and the greatness of kindness. But it is so: the fallen angel becomes a malicious devil. Yet even this enemy of God and man has friends and allies in his solitude. I, however, am alone.”

In such psychology, if we set aside its romantic form, there is nothing unrealistic, nor is there any need to seek out pirates or vandal kings to find parallels. An English visitor to the Exchequer in Dorne complained that the English no longer loved him. Dr. Bart, in his book on juvenile delinquency, mentions a seven-year-old boy who threw another boy into the Regent's Canal. The reason for this was that neither his family nor his peers had shown him any affection. Dr. Bart was kind to him, and he became a law-abiding citizen. But Dr. Bart did not set out to transform the monster Frankenstein.

This is not the fault of the psychology of the romantics; it reflects their standard of values. They admire strong passions, indifferent to their nature or their social consequences. Romantic love, especially when it is unhappy, is sufficiently powerful to earn their approval; yet most of the strongest passions are destructive: hatred, indignation, jealousy, remorse, and despair, disgraced pride and the fury of the unjustly oppressed, militant fervor, and contempt for the weak and cowardly. Consequently, the type of person supported by romanticism—especially in its Byronian variant—is the prone-to-violence, anti-social, anarchic rebel or the conquering despot.

The reasons for the allure of this worldview lie deep within human nature and the conditions of existence. From the instinct for self-preservation, man has become a social creature; yet instinctively, he remains largely a solitary being. Hence, religion and morality are necessary to bolster this instinct. However, the habit of refraining from present pleasures for future gain is tiresome, and when passions are stirred, it is challenging to maintain oneself within the reasonable bounds of social behavior. Those who, in such moments, cast aside these bounds acquire new energy and a sense of power from the cessation of internal conflict, and although they may ultimately find themselves in trouble, they revel in a feeling of divine exaltation, which, while known to great mystics, can never be experienced by those whose behavior does not transcend prosaic virtue. The individualistic side of their nature asserts itself, yet, if intelligence remains intact, this assertion must be clothed in myth. The mystic remains alone with God and, contemplating the infinite, feels freed from obligations toward his neighbor.

The anarchic rebel does even better: he feels not alone with God, but as God himself. Truth and duty, which represent our subservience to matter and to our fellow beings, no longer exist for the individual who has become God. For others, truth is what he postulates, duty is what he commands. If we could all live as solitary beings without laboring, we might enjoy this ecstasy of independence; since this is not possible, its enjoyment is accessible only to the mad and the dictators.

The rebellion of individualistic instincts against social constraints is the key to understanding philosophy, politics, and sentiment—not only of what is generally called the romantic movement but also of its followers down to our day. Philosophy, influenced by German idealism, has become solipsistic, and self-improvement has been proclaimed as the fundamental principle of ethics. Regarding sentiment, there has been an uncomfortable compromise between the desire for isolation and the necessity of satisfying passion and economic needs. In D.H. Lawrence's story "The Man Who Loved Islands," the protagonist increasingly disregards such a compromise and ultimately dies of hunger and cold while reveling in complete isolation. However, such a sequence has not been achieved by writers who exalt solitude. The hermit does not avail himself of the comforts of civilized life, and a person who wishes to write books or create works of art must accept the assistance of others to sustain his existence while he works. To continue feeling solitary, he must be able to prevent those who serve him from encroaching upon his self, which is best achieved if they are slaves. Passionate love, however, is a more complex matter. Since passionate lovers are seen as people who have rebelled against social shackles, they are admired. But in real life, love relations quickly become social constraints, and love partners begin to be hated, increasingly frantically if the love is strong enough to make the bonds difficult to sever. Consequently, love comes to be portrayed as a struggle, in which each seeks to annihilate the other by penetrating the defensive barriers of his or her self. This perspective becomes common in the works of Strindberg and even more so in those of D.H. Lawrence.

Not only passionate love, but any friendly relations with others are possible within such a framework of feelings only insofar as others can be regarded as projections of one’s own self. This is quite feasible if others are blood relatives, and the closer they are, the easier it is to accomplish. Hence, there is an emphasis on kinship that leads, as in the case of the Ptolemies, to endogamy. We know how much Byron cherished all of this. Wagner speaks of a similar feeling in the love of Sigmund and Sieglinde. Nietzsche, though not in a scandalous sense, preferred his sister to all other women. "How strongly I feel," he wrote to her, "in everything you say and do, that we belong to the same kind. You understand me more than others because we are of the same origin. This aligns perfectly with my 'philosophy.'"

The principle of nationality, championed by Byron, is an extension of the same "philosophy." A nation is viewed as a kinship descending from common ancestors and possessing some type of "blood consciousness." Mazzini, who constantly attacked the English for failing to appreciate Byron, envisioned nations endowed with a mystical individuality and attributed to them a kind of anarchic greatness that other romantics sought in the heroic individual. Freedom for nations began to be viewed not only by Mazzini but also by relatively moderate statesmen as something absolute, making practical international competition impossible.

Faith in blood and race naturally associated with anti-Semitism. Simultaneously, the worldview of romanticism, partly due to its aristocratic nature and partly because it preferred unbridled passion to calculation, contained the greatest contempt for commerce and finance. It thus led to the proclamation of its hostility toward capitalism, sharply distinct from the animosity of socialists representing the interests of the proletariat, as the hostility of romanticism is rooted in aversion to economic activities and is heightened by the belief that the capitalist world is controlled by Jews. This perspective is expressed in Byron's rare instances when he condescends to dwell on something as vulgar as economic power:

Who seized the world’s lever in his hand? Who rules all congresses—liberal And royalist? Who hurled the Spanish Into battle, like “shirtless men,” beneath the noise of journalistic scribes? Who threatens all continents with fortune or woe? Who smooths the way for cabalistic politicians? Who became Bonaparte's screen against dreams? Jew Rothschild with Baring—brothers in Christ.

The verses may not be particularly musical, but the sentiment is very much in the spirit of our time, and it has been taken up by all of Byron's followers. The romantic movement, in essence, aimed at liberating the human personality from the shackles of social conventions and morality. In particular, these shackles were seen as mere obstacles to desirable forms of activity, as each ancient community developed rules of behavior regarding which nothing could be said except that they are traditional. However, once selfish passions are unleashed, they are not easily subordinated again to the interests of society. Christianity had some success in taming the self. Yet economic, political, and intellectual factors incited a rebellion against the church, and the romantic movement shifted this rebellion into the realm of morality. The encouragement of the new, unbounded self clearly rendered social cooperation impossible and confronted its followers with the alternative of anarchy or despotism. Initially, selfishness led individuals to expect paternal tenderness from others. But when they indignantly discovered that others have their own selves, the disappointed desire for tenderness turned into hatred and violence. Man is not a solitary animal, and as there exists social life, self-assertion cannot serve as the highest principle of ethics.