Book Report: Romantics, Rebels & Reactionaries by Marilyn Butler
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date published 17/05/2007
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SummaryOffering a precise and coherent definition of artistic movements has always been a tempting prospect for whoever seeks to make sense out of our historical and cultural background. One has to confess, that it is equally tempting to approach the Romantic period in an attempt to set fixed chronological boundaries and to attribute predefined literary themes and political interests to this extremely rich age in English literature. Indeed the names of Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, Byron, Shelley and Keats are often associated with the Romantic Movement. Greatly influenced by Lord Byron’s writing, the romantic poet quickly became associated with the figure of a rebel or “sensitive individual who rejected worldliness, and even, literally, this vulgar material world for a better” (p 3); one could thus imagine that the Romantic Poet would also be a “political rebel”. However, Marilyn Butler immediately questions these clear-cut definitions and stereotypes. First, by pointing out to the fact that the use of the term “romantic” to define these artists is somewhat anachronistic since the writers themselves never really claimed to belong to an organised school or movement just as the definition of romanticism has always evolved throughout history. The author then reminds us that Romantics, whether in Germany, France or Britain, have not always supported revolutions and radicalism as one could have expected, and that romanticism was initially of a rather conservative nature. Realising that to be objective, it is necessary to look at romanticism from its earliest origins in the late 18th Century, Butler refuses to separate the authors from their historical and social context and reminds us that English Literature at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries needs to be considered as “product and part of social experience”. By placing these poets into their historical context, Butler refuses to provide a universal definition of romanticism thus pointing towards the unique character or specificity of English Romanticism.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Offering a precise and coherent definition of artistic movements
- The Arts in an Age of Revolution: 1769-1790
- Art for the people in the revolutionary decade: Blake, Gillray and Wordsworth
- The Rise of the Man of Letters: Coleridge
- Novels for the gentry: Austen and Scott
- The cult of the South: the Shelley circle, its creed and influence
- The war of intellectuals: from Wordsworth to Keats
- Romantic novel, Romantic prose.
- Conclusion: the question of romanticism in England
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