NEW CURRENTS.

SUMMARY.

English romanticism of the nineteenth century has been described as a return to the medieval, as a return to nature, and as a rebirth of wonder. Scott's historical romances illustrate the first; the nature poetry of Burns and Wordsworth the second; and such poems as Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" the third. All three were marked characteristics of English literature from the time when Burns published his first little volume of poems in 1786 to the death of Scott in 1832. They do not give us a complete definition of Romanticism, but they will help us to understand how great was the difference between the literature of the Romantic period and the literature of the time of Pope and Addison.

The new Romanticism, like that of the Renaissance, resulted from changes in modes of life and thought. In the earlier period, these changes were connected with the passing of medievalism and the discovery of new worlds. They resulted in greater freedom for the imagination, and the stimulus that comes from broader and deeper intellectual life. In the transition to the nineteenth century the changes,

while different in some respects, were alike in the kind and intensity of their effects.

Political Revolution. The rise of modern democracy is marked by the growing importance of the common man. Great progress had been made in England since the old days when kings ruled by Divine Right. But the Revolution of 1688, while it established the supremacy of Parliament, did not create a Parliament that was truly representative of the whole people. In Johnson's time the population of England was about eight millions; only about one hundred and fifty thousand of these were citizens with the right to vote. The great lords and landowners controlled the elections; the common man had no more voice in government than in the days of Henry V.

Along with this, there was complete indifference to poverty and the sufferings that came therefrom. Pope's idea of the universe "whatever is, is right"-was typical. To poverty might be thrown some charitable crumbs, but not much was done to make it possible for the poor man to help himself. Taxed heavily, without representation in Parliament, with little

chance to own property, with no choice of vocation, it was his lot to suffer.

But as the eighteenth century went on, signs of change were manifest. A great movement toward prison reform testified to a broader kindliness. The Wesleyan revival was a new birth of religion, and it was carried on among the poor. Rousseau's insistence on the dignity and worth of man has already been cited. He held that man in a state of nature-that is, before the advent of civilization-had been perfect; from this perfection he had degenerated through the institutions and the customs of civilized life. But a return to more natural ways of living, he thought, would restore the golden age. This faith in the so-called perfectibility of man became a cardinal principle with theorists influenced by Rousseau. One phase of it is represented by a statement, in a book by the great French philosopher called The Social Contract, that all men are equal, that all have certain inalienable rights, and that government is merely a convenience, based on a contract, in which the partners are all the people.

These are mere suggestions of some of the currents that were beginning to stir men's minds and that were destined to sweep away the conventions of the Augustans, along with the ancient monarchy of France and the dominion of England over her American colonies. The revolutions in America and in France were tremendous

WEAVING

events that altered the course of history. Inevitably they produced effects on literature, some of which we shall trace in this chapter.

The Industrial Revolution. The changes in life as the eighteenth century closed were not all political. A different and vaster revolution was also in progress, destined to touch the daily life of millions of people even more nearly than the political changes that were shaking the thrones of Europe. Like other revolutions, it involved adjustment to new conditions, and this process of adjustment brought suffering and death to many before the process was completed. This great transformation has been called the Industrial Revolution.

A series of great discoveries and inventions opened the way into a new world. Toward the end of the century machinery for spinning and weaving cotton and woolen thread transformed one of the most important of industries. The development of steam as a source of power, after 1765, reacted upon every form of manufacture, so that inventions multiplied with great rapidity. These inventions meant that one man and a machine could do the work formerly done by many men. Since the machines were controlled by a few men or groups of men, who employed laborers as they needed them, the industrial revolution ushered in a new era, in which problems of the relations of capital and

labor, previously unknown, became new factors to add to the complexity of life. Factories manned by hundreds of laborers took the place of the old system, by which most necessities of life had been made, in private houses, by men who employed a few apprentices. A similar transformation took place in farming, where great landowners employed labor as it was needed and drove tenants and small landowners away. Towns increased in population. People lived on the wages they received, or did not live at all. Child labor,

crowded tenements, the sufferings incident to a revolution whose causes were not fully understood and to which adjustments came slowly, were evils that drove many to despair.

Revolution and Literature. The effects of these two revolutions on literature did not become fully apparent until well along in the nineteenth century. Politically, the movement had its climax in England in 1832, with the passage of a Reform Bill that greatly extended the privilege of voting. Industrially, the process is not yet complete, for the relations between capital and labor are still matters for study and adjustment. But sympathy for the hard lot of the poor man, the feeling that the worth of the individual should not depend upon worldly rank, and the enthusiasm for new political theories, all had immediate influence on the literature of the period that we are now to study. The poets found a new world of imagination and sympathy. This new world had many provinces: nature; history and legends of former times; the brotherhood of man. Each of these supplied themes that inspired the prose and poetry of a new romanticism.

ROBERT BURNS (1759-1796)

The poetry of Burns represents a complete break with the ideals of the Augustans. For one thing, Burns wrote about simple themes, topics that Pope and his school would not have regarded as fit subjects for poetry. Pope wrote about fashionable life, or put into finely polished verse theories about literature or the moral reflections of his time. Burns wrote about dogs, mice, the field daisies, the life of peasants. In his poetry, the language of unlettered men took the place of the artificial language of people whose language was as formal as their lives. Burns also wrote about love, in a series of poignant lyrics such as English poetry had not known since the Elizabethan period. Finally, he everywhere expressed a sense of the dignity of simple life. He made no apology for his cottager; indeed, he asserted that the true greatness of his native Scotland was to be sought in such life as he

ROBERT BURNS

described in his "Cotter's Saturday Night." Furthermore, in poem after poem he sang the brotherhood of man, and the "inalienable rights" on which the American Declaration of Independence is based.

Life of Burns. The boyhood of Burns was spent on farms rented by his father. He had almost no formal schooling, and had access to few books. So little prospect was there of his being able to make a living that he planned to emigrate to America, and his first book of poems was printed in 1786 in order to raise money for his passage. This book made such an impression, however, that he gave up the plan and went to Edinburgh instead. Here he became a popular hero, and did little work beyond collecting some material for additional poems. Two years later he married Jean Armour and settled on a farm at Ellisland. He made little headway against poverty, and was compelled to take a minor government office in 1791. The last five years of his life were filled with tragedy; he was very poor, suffered greatly from illness, and his poetic gift failed him.

Burns as a Poet. Among his many poetic gifts Burns had the power of looking straight at men and events and telling