Reflections on Romanticism

English translation

AI-assisted English translation. The Japanese original remains authoritative.

Originally published: 16 February 2020.

By Kyoichi Fukuda
Professor Emeritus, Doshisha Women's College

If we understand Romanticism, in broad terms, as the activity of the ego, or self, driven by the expression of feeling in opposition to rationalism, reason, materialism, science, custom, institutions and law, tradition, classicism, the present, and others, then the influence of its creative power has been immeasurably deep and wide. This is true not only in the arts but also in philosophy, social thought, and even politics. Anyone engaged in creation surely draws, to a greater or lesser degree, on this power. If we accept that the act of creation is ultimately the liberation of the self from oppression, and a metaphor for the rescue of an ailing self, might we not call Romanticism the very god of creation?

In the modern age especially, as the world underwent dramatic changes, the self came more forcefully into consciousness. Ever since, art has been deeply bound up with Romanticism. It was the power of feeling that connected the effort to free the self from oppression with revolutions in various spheres, and made that effort a powerful weapon in struggle. People discovered that love and jealousy, hatred and righteous anger, tears of compassion and of remorse, fear and awe, loud laughter, smiles, and derisive laughter could all, through their intensity, bring them back to themselves while also becoming means of connecting with others. What remained was the question of expression: how to avoid an excess of feeling that might become, in Goethe's words, “morbid.” The situation was the same in the eighteenth century, in the nineteenth, and in our own time.

Here is a poem by Emily Dickinson (1830–86).

This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me –
The simple News that Nature told –
With tender Majesty

Her Message is committed
To Hands I cannot see –
For love of Her – Sweet – countrymen –
Judge tenderly – of Me

What charming words. In the conservative small town of Amherst, she quietly and diligently filled her notebooks with short poems. She sent them to T. W. Higginson, a prominent literary figure of the time, seeking his understanding and support. But her dream went unfulfilled, and she passed away unknown. Yet, troubled as she was by loneliness and the world's lack of understanding, she was not crushed by them. She continued to weave the activity of her self into words, quietly addressing the world and the generations to come. In time, her words came to life again, crossing the boundaries of time and place to speak directly to our hearts.

A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.

I say it just
Begins to live
That day.

It is unfortunate that Wordsworth's definition, “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” distorted our understanding of Romanticism. The expression of feeling can be an effective spark for creation, yet people often failed to consider where it might lead and fell into self-indulgence. Dickinson tells us to have greater faith in the power of words, rather than becoming talkative under the sway of emotion. In this sense, I find a suggestive lesson for the Romantics in Robert Frost's approach to poetry. When Ezra Pound advised him to write poetry more freely, Frost retorted, “What is the fun in playing tennis without a net?”

7 September 2019