The Romantic Movement in England
Year of lecture: 1959
Abstract:
"Artists like William Blake, Fuseli and Goya are sometimes called proto-romantics, because in their work the effects of the classical tradition is still felt strongly, and their work is still very much concerned with the image of man, which they use with new freedom as a vehicle of dramatic and emotional expression. These proto-romantics, as we have already seen in our two earlier lectures were greatly interested in the extreme states of emotional expression, the portrayal of terror, fear, madness, murder, dreams and nightmares.
After 1790/1800, however, in England, the romantic interest gradually shifts from the human condition and becomes increasingly concerned with the interoperation of nature. To some extent, political factors were responsible for the change of emphasis in England. During the Napoleonic period, England was engaged in a vital national struggle with Napoleon, and a romantic humanism of the type championed by Rousseau and the Encyclopaedists fell from favour in England. Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Fuseli, all began life as young radicals and champions of the rights of man. The excesses of the French revolution turned all of them away from direct participation in social revolution. It is in this situation that the study of nature gained a new importance for the English romantics. The romantic saw himself alienated from nature."
