م.محمد درع فرحان
تعريف الرومانسية
م.محمد درع فرحان
Ed.mohammed.dera@uoanbar.edu.iq
The term Romanticism became the focus of so many debates because it acquires many connotations in various fields of life such as: literature, politics, religion and art. So it is very difficult to give an accurate definition of what Romanticism is. In his brief essay on " the discrimination of Romanticism" Lovejoy concludes that "… the word Romantic has come to mean so many things that by itself means nothing. It has ceased to perform the function of the verbal sign ".
He thinks that there are more than one Romanticism. There is a movement which began in Germany in the seventeen-nineties. There is another movement which began in England in the seventeen-forties. There is a movement which began in France in 18801. There is another movement which began in France in the second decade of the 18th. Century, which is linked with German movement.
There is a rich collection of ideas to be found in Rousseau and other writers. The term 'Romanticism' has been given by different scholars with different definitions. However, they are identical in their essence. Romanticism is a reaction against the rules and restrictions imposed by Neo-classicism upon most of the literature of the 18th. Century. It is defined as:
A movement to honor whatever classicism rejected, classicism is the regularity of good sense, perception in moderation; Romanticism is disorder in imagination, the range of incorrectness, a blind wave of literary egotism.
Lovejoy sheds light upon some of certain critics' definitions that have no correspondence between them.
-Charles Whibley said that "Romanticism was born in the garden of Eden and that the serpent was the first romantic".
-Professor Ker believes that "Romanticism is the fairy way of writing. The romantic schools have always depended more or less on the past".
-Mr. Gosse said that "it is inconsistent with keeping to the facts".
The multiple meanings of the word romantic are one of the main sources of difficulty in defining the term Romanticism. Some of English critics treat the term "Romanticism " from a historical point of view as the romantic movement is essentially a European phenomenon, nurtured in European literature as the result of a series of ideological and technical development and inspired by a reaction against the neoclassical movement.
Other critics take Romanticism as a human tendency. For instance"
-Phelps defines Romanticism as " a sentimental melancholy, vague aspiration, subjectivity, the love of the picturesque and a reactionary spirit".
-Herford said it is an "extraordinary development of the imaginative sensibility".
Keywords: Romanticism, movement, definition, new-classicism.
References:
Lovejoy, O. Arthur. "On the Discrimination of Romanticism." In English Romantic Poets. Ed. M. H. Abrams. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.