romanticismnowandagain

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Covering Reflection

In a series of lectures later published under the name Roots of Romanticism, Philosopher Isiah Berlin said that Romanticism “seems to me to be the greatest single shift in the consciousness of the West that has occurred.” He argues that the ideas popularized in this era shaped the zeitgeist of the 20th century – nationalism, ideologies, individualism, the modern hero figure, and more may be traced to these Romantic thinkers. This page will put Berlin’s idea through an informal test by comparing a Romantic period text to a related example of contemporary art. The objective of this project is not to directly trace the origins of one text to the other or to grade their artistic value. Instead, a close reading into a particular feature of the original romantic text is presented, then a related contemporary piece is evaluated for its affinity for Romantic concepts. With rigorous Enlightenment-style measurements, the modern Romantic counterparts are given a grading based on their harmony to the original ideas of the selected text. The first duo considered, Taylor Swift’s 2020 song “Lakes” and Wordsworth’s 1807 “Lonely as a Cloud,” were written 213 years apart but were inspired by the same location. Wordsworth’s poem was selected for its Romanticism epitomizing attributes. To name a few, the poem idealizes nature, solitude, and memory. The use of different scales in the poem is noticeable – at the beginning, the poet supposes a bird’s eye view of the scene likened to the cloud. When the daffodils are sighted, they do not appear as though they are from above but instead appear endless, as though the perspective takes place back on the ground through a human’s limited line of sight. In a sense, their head is no longer in the clouds. This shift in perspective allows the speaker to focus in and gain a human-informed understanding of the flowers, which allows him to feel as a part of their whole. The close reading itself focuses particularly on wind, concluding that it represents something of an external force that allows exciting possibilities, if only the witnesser interprets them correctly. By looking into a singular aspect that interacts with the main images (cloud, daffodils, waves), the piece can be understood by tracing its thread. The second focus is on the hermits of Gilpin’s Picturesque. The examination of a passage describing an ideal hermit’s cave reveals that Gilpin believes that revelation is a consequence of experiencing the sublime. The qualities of the cave location allow the hermit to experience the extremes of time, light, and scale all within solitude. The idea in examining this piece with a focus on the hermit was to explore how a romantic thinker viewed the process of idea making. By examining this, we may better understand Gilpin’s perspective on the performance and action of cognition. Thomas Moore’s poem was examined through its more peripheral evocations of death, particularly the symbolic death implied about Irish culture. The song is self-referential in that it decries the loss of culture through the loss of music while also itself being a song of Irish origin, only it now acknowledges a new state due to English influence. The analysis concluded with the word propaganda, which may be a problematic term. The use of emotive language and cultural pride does have political motivations and underpinnings to Moore, but any goal or action called for in the song is not as explicit as traditional propaganda. However, it does have a share of bias. While the song decries the lack of freedom, slavery was ongoing in Britain, including in Ireland, so the It would be improper to separate the original or contemporary texts and art from the social and historical contexts that formed them, but this broad analysis does show overlap, and similar desires, fears, and strategies that demonstrate a relevance of ideas originally expressed two centuries ago. Taylor Swift’s “the lakes” is an escapist fantasy that overtly references Romantic symbols, locales, and writers while reinterpreting Romantic solitude for her own life; Ansuman Biswas artistic performance as a hermit of the Manchester Museum resembles both modern day shock protest and the elucidation through seclusion of hermits past; The Cranberries utilize song to express grief as Moore did. It can be concluded that Romantic concepts are still relevant for today’s artists.

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The Cranberries “Zombie” was inspired by the violence of the Irish troubles. The song uses repetition - “in your head” - to underscore the overwhelming presence and dread that the strife caused everyday life. 

Rating: 🍒🪗 - Cranberries and a lone harp; The Cranberries recognize “the same old theme” of the violence, though they are not nostalgic as Moore was.

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Death and Patriotism in “The Harp That Once Through Tara’s Halls”

Other than music, death is one of the foremost presences in Thomas Moore’s “The Harp That Once Through Tara’s Hall.” Two references to the soul has it described as shed and fled, with soul dually evokes the implied spirit and actual death. Punctuating the first stanza, the lines “And hearts that once beat high for praise, / Now feel that pulse no more!” (7-8), likens the thrum of music the to the heartbeat. These attributes turn the poem into a quasi-elegy for Irish culture, encouraging the lament it brings to the listener to mobilize and revive their culture. In this way, Moore’s poetry is something of an ethos appeal for Irish independence, an early example of nationalist propoganda.

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Because hermit life was idealized, estates would sometimes employ “garden hermits” as ornamental additions to their properties, providing entertainment and elevating the loftiness of the area. These positions came with rules for conduct, and a hermit could be expected to dress like a druid or take a vow of silence for pay. While the fashionableness of the garden hermit died out long ago, some reinterpret their concept. Ansuman Biswas is a performance artist who locked himself inside of the Manchester Museum for 40 days, where he would wander alone, select an artifact, and destroy it. His stated goal is to sensitize people to extinction. He writes in his blog, “I will forego the richness and diversity of my life, renouncing it while entombed with the riches of the world’s civilisation.” Biswas' rating: 🐚 - One lonely hermit. While Biswas’ rejection of modernity in favor of personal enlightenment is both highly Romantic and hermit-like, he would have likely lost his post if his 18th century landlord caught him destroying his personal property (though it can be speculated that Biswas would 1. Enjoyed this and 2. challenged an artifact's definition as property.)

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Gilpin’s Theatre of the Sublime

“He might wander along the bottom of a mountain; and by the side of a lake, almost unfrequented, except by the foot of curiosity, or of some hasty shepherd, seeking for the stragglers of his flock. Here he might enjoy the contemplation of nature in all her simplicity and grandeur. This single scene, the mere invirons of his cell, under all the varieties of light, and shade—sun-shine, and storm—morning, and evening, would itself afford an inexhausted fund of entertainment: while the ample tome expanded daily before his eye, would banish the littleness of life; and naturally impress his mind with great ideas.” (Gilpin 77). Hermits were those who sought seclusion amongst nature to live ascetically and gain religious insight, and during mid/late 18th century England many were charmed by their devotion and spiritual aura. By examining why Gilpin proposed in The Picturesque that the cliffs of the Wyn Valley were uniquely suited for hermits, the connection between revelation and his understanding of the sublime is illuminated. First, the cliffs were “unfrequented” and the encounter with others could only occur by chance, allowing undisturbed contemplation. It is not through others, Gilpin expresses, that deep insight may be gained. The lone figure against an enormous backdro of mountains and lakes may help a hermit contextualize his humanity and accept or banish what is refers to as “the littleness of life,” a phrase that encapsulates sublime aesthetic. Secondly, the hermit will experience multitudes of nature same place: light and shade, sun and storm, day and night. These images stimulate (“entertainment”) the interpretative process (“before his eye”). Gilpin proposes a kind of Romantic equation for the for individual revelation, the “great ideas” revealed to him after encountering the sublime.

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Taylor Swift’s 2020 track “the lakes” explores her hiatus in the lake district, the very same one Wordsworth helped to popularize through his writings. Her lyrics reference Wordsworth indirectly: “I’ve come too far to watch some namedropping sleaze / Tell me what are my words worth” (Swift, Verse 2). While “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” or even “Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey,” find elucidation and revelation from these vistas, Swift’s experience is more about the search for catharsis: “Those Windemere Peaks look like a perfect place to cry” (Swift, Chorus). Overall, Swift’s song tends towards her need for solitude and escape against the antagonists she faces from social media, celebrity culture, and label disputes. While it is not totally unalike Wordsworth’s desire for retreat from the din of human chatter or the sad song of humanity, “the lakes” focus on autobiographical topics is perhaps less generalizable than Wordsworth’s texts. Swift’s Romantic rating: 🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼 - The singer songwriter receives 17 out of 10,000 at-a-glance daffodils; “the lakes” aligns Swift with Romantic poets with excellent effect, but the issues were not always relatable, leaving the listener lonely as a cloud. 

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Wind in Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”

The poem’s titular simile, the lonely cloud, positions the initial perspective as above and detached from the landscape. The cloud’s movement, “wandered lonely” (1), is both aimless and disconnected to its lower surroundings – it has no physical relationship to it hence its loneliness. “Floats on high o’er vales and hills” (2) additionally emphasizes this pervading sense of disengagement; this is a high-altitude cloud untouched by valley gales. The meandering formlessness of the cloud perhaps best reflects the literalization of a mind going through the motions of life, as if it were carried by the motions of atmosphere and nothing else, not noticing the worthwhile terrestrial elements or their “jocund company” (16) that would later alleviate it. Though the external force of wind is driving the daffodils, to Wordsworth they are dancing, which suggests jubilation, liveliness, and engagement, and contrasts with the lifeless and less-impressive lake waves, perhaps because they are merely reacting mechanically to this force and lack the je-ne-sais-quois spark of life. Wordsworth elevates the living over the non-organic and offers a more human-centric vision, underscored by the “I” of the poem dropping the cloud simile and coming down to earth, as it were, with the newfound ability to experience “bliss of solitude” as opposed to cloud loneliness. The ability to experience solitude blissfully is much alike the ability to see dancing in daffodils – they are both the result of subjective interpretation. In this way, Wordsworth demonstrates that though the human mind, like nature, is subject to external forces, there still remains a force of its own – one can drift like a cloud or dance like a daffodil.