The Project Gutenberg eBook, A History of English Romanticism in the
Eighteenth Century, by Henry A. Beers

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Title: A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century

Author: Henry A. Beers

Release Date: March 24, 2005 [eBook #15447]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF ENGLISH ROMANTICISM
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY***

E-text prepared by Jeanette Hayward and Al Haines. Dedicated to the memory
of James Hayward.

A HISTORY OF ENGLISH ROMANTICISM IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

by

HENRY A. BEERS

Author of _A Suburban Pastoral_, _The Ways of Vale_, etc.

"Was unsterblich im Gesang soll leben Muss im Leben untergehen."
--Schiller

PREFACE

Historians of French and German literature are accustomed to set off a
period, or a division of their subject, and entitle it "Romanticism" or
"the Romantic School." Writers of English literary history, while
recognizing the importance of England's share in this great movement in
European letters, have not generally accorded it a place by itself in the
arrangement of their subject-matter, but have treated it cursively, as a
tendency present in the work of individual authors; and have maintained a
simple chronological division of eras into the "Georgian,", the
"Victorian," etc. The reason of this is perhaps to be found in the fact
that, although Romanticism began earlier in England than on the Continent
and lent quite as much as it borrowed in the international exchange of
literary commodities, the native movement was more gradual and scattered.
It never reached so compact a shape, or came so definitely to a head, as
in Germany or France. There never was precisely a "romantic school" or
an all-pervading romantic fashion in England.

There is, therefore, nothing in English corresponding to Heine's
fascinating sketch "Die Romantische Schule," or to Theophile Gautier's
almost equally fascinating and far more sympathetic "Histoire du
Romantisme." If we can imagine a composite personality of Byron and De
Quincey, putting on record his half affectionate and half satirical
reminiscences of th