What Is Meant by Romanticism in France with Special Reference to the Drama

Abstract

IT HAS been said best definition of romanticism is admission there is no definition of it. One French woman attempts to define it as independent genre which takes its beauties where it finds them, which believes only in itself: . . . protestantism of He whom world recognizes as leader of romantic movement calls it the French revolution in literature,' and compares it to a virgin forest of kind depicted by Chateaubriand, as opposed to classicism, which is like royal park at Versailles. Madame de Stael had distinction of introducing term romanticism into French literature. She says (De la Litterature, I, xii; 1800), The name of romantic has been recently introduced ... to designate poetry which has songs of troubadours as its origin, and which was born of Christianity. Stendhal, writing somewhat later, defines classicism as the kind of literature which gave pleasure to our great-grandfathers, and then says, Romanticism is art of present time . . .works which, in present state of habits and beliefs, are capable of giving to people greatest pleasure possible. Jean Giraud, in L'Ecole Romantique Francaise (Paris, 1927; p. 3), defines it as a new renaissance, a spasm of sincerity on part of artists and public, a transformation of sentiment, of imagination and of taste, a rebellion against rules-and still more against routine; a protest against exclusive and sometimes oppressive reason which had been undisputed queen of classicism; between reign of 'philosophers' and of 'realists,' it was a school of enthusiasm, of poetic faith, and mysticism. Victor Hugo declares, in one of his numerous outbursts, romanticism is that which is most intimate in heart, and most divine in thought; Gustave Lanson affirms: Romanticism in principle is merely a refusal to live by intelligence alone, an affirmation poetry is a need of soul.