To the Romantics, fairy land is as real as our world. Schlegel and Shelley pointed out the term Romanticism. Through Coleridge the term of Romanticism came in English. Lock gives the term ‘British Empirical’ in it. All knowledge is the product of experience which we receive through five senses.
There are three types of knowledge; Correct, Incorrect, and Pseudo knowledge. Pseudo knowledge cannot be affirmed nor be denied. All beliefs came into groups of pseudo knowledge.
The whole science depends on empiricism. Seventeenth century was the century of science. Eighteenth century was the century of technology. People of the eighteenth century had a firm faith in science, it had proved its validity, it is applied to the machine and it is confirmed. Science revealed everything and there is no place for mystery. So, the 18th century people had a firm faith in science because science had proved its validity. They believed in three basic entities/rules; Truth, Nature and Reason. These are called Three Augustine positives. All truths reside in Nature and Reason can discover these truths,
Nature, and all its laws, were hid in night;
God said, let Newton be, and all was light.
These lines are a parody of the opening lines from “Genesis” the first book of the “Bible”. Bible says,
“all was dark, God said let there be light and all was light.”
With Newton revealing the laws of Nature, they thought, the whole mystery of life has been solved. This created tremendous optimism in the people. They thought the utonian mechanics had put the whole Universe. Now, we know that the whole universe/machinery has certain laws. This optimism was confirmed by the application of the laws of science through technology. Science has given additional power to man. It has reduced his labour. But this optimism proved to be very short-lived. Because those who were powerful became more powerful and vice versa. The entire benefit of technology went to the exploiters and they exploited the helpless, poor people to the maximum. The rich became richer and the poor became poorer.
It would reduce the art of labour, people had to be in very cramped, unhygienic business for 18 hours a day on very small wages. The entire benefit of technology went to exploit the helpless people. This enlarged the class gap, the rich became richer and poor became poorer. This technology actually destroyed life or leisure.
There were other much profound consequences of industrialism. Industrialism eliminated God. If the universe is running according to fixed principles and God does not violate his own principles then there is left no room for God. In the same way, all emotions, feelings, compassions were thrown out of life. Human beings were reduced to robots.
On the social level, the consequences of industrialism were no less horrifying. People, who, were living in the open fresh environment of the country side moved towards the factory area in the congested slums. Secondly, in the village, people lived in the close community. Every one was close to everyone. Dickens wrote in “Hard Times”, all elders were uncles and aunts and all children were everybody’s children. Thus everyone and people lived in moral atmosphere. In factory slums, people came from various regions. They were all Aliens. Nobody cared what everybody had done. In the first play, it created in the people, a sense of isolation and alienation. Also the village life observed age old conventions and traditions and everybody’s conduct was clearly definite. In factory area, there was complete chaos. Comfort went out of life and sense of security, brotherhood, disappeared and faith also.
Naturally a reaction started against it. First reaction was back to nature. Man suffered a lot by alienating himself from Nature. The rustic lived in a natural environment. He was nourished by fresh air, bird, animals and simple unpretentious people. The people of the city were found to be selfish intriguing. This reaction which ultimately led to the Romantic movement was started much before Wordsworth and Coleridge who were considered the pioneers of Romanticism. A big change was coming in thought as well as in poetry. There were many foreign factors which also created this reaction.
There was the movement of freedom in the American colonies, wars in India, England also protested for all kinds of corruption and exploitation. The victory of India was charged by corruption. “Hume” started a new humanism in England. He saw things from human point of view and condemned all antihuman activities. The spirit behind it was “Russo” who said that,
“Man was born free but he is everywhere in chains.”
He raised the slogan of
“Equality, Liberty, Fraternity.”
This became the slogan of “French Revolution.” There was another great thinker who very much influenced his age, “Goudin”, Shelley’s father-in-law. He was a rationalist. He believed that once man has been given reason he needs no other. He rejected all institutions, right from the top, religion, marriage morality, government. He was an ‘Anarchist’. A very beautiful illustration of this, can be seen in Ibsen’s play “Dolls House.” Blake was also a representative of Romanticism like Hopper and Crabb. Historians have called them the poets of “Transition” but actually they are really the poets of Romanticism. People were now hankering the soul which was destroyed by industrialism. They asserted that the empirical reality was not the whole reality. Blake was also full of spirit of “French Revolution.” He was a man of vision. But at the same time he had an acute social awareness. Basically, Blake was an engraver and in his life he was known more as an engraver than as a poet. This shows the great power of vision. He not only visualized his thought and feeling but also presented them in concrete form.
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