Romanticism: An Age of Escapism

Romanticism is a poetic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries that turned toward nature and the interior world of feeling, in antagonism to the artificial formalism and orderly scientific inquiry of the Enlightenment era that went before it. English poets such as William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Blake, and Lord Byron produced work that articulated emotions just at the spur of the moment, originate parallels to their own demonstrative lives in the natural world, and illustrated creativity rather than logic. Romanticism was a response against rationality and the scientific approach of the “Age of Reason”. Many social, religious, political, and philosophical reasons formed a sturdy basis to seed Romanticism. Undesirable instances such as political incidences, communal unrest, mental turbulences, ethical uncertainty, religious misperceptions, and philosophical beliefs of the day, all added to the component of escapism in writers’ thoughts, personalities, and ultimately their works.

All the sensitive seers of the age appreciated and believed strongly in the depth and powers of imagination. Dissatisfied with the modernized world of the eighteenth century, English Romantic writers found solace and happiness in their own created world of imagination, where they preferred to escape from the harsh realities of their time. Writers believed that truth can be reached through logic and intellect only. Romanticism movement strongly opposed all these thoughts and thus there was a shift in style, themes, and way of thinking about humans and nature. The Romantic period extends from 1798 to around 1830. It was a period when historical events like French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars, Industrial Revolution, and many other national movements in Europe. It was the time when Rousseau’s call of back to nature was a cry everywhere in Europe.

The study and understanding of reasons and nature of the presence of this tendency of Escapism in English Romanticism become necessary in order to interpret, analyze and understand its usefulness and limitations and enjoy the works of great Literature. Romantic poets to find rescue in Escapism. Escapism can be defined as the tendency to escape from daily reality or routine by indulging in daydreaming, fantasy, or entertainment. t is an inclination or habit of retreating from unpleasant reality, as through diversion or fantasy according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Escapism can be called a movement in itself. In all romantic writing, we see is more or less escapist in nature. Escapism can be said as one of the main features of all romantic writing. Romantics talked of idealism, a perfect world, which was certainly not practically fully possible to attain under such conditions. Moreover, with the developed sensibility which made them suffer and feel for the unfortunate, these romantics started feeling compassion and pain for others, they developed frustrations over the then present social harsh realities of the world. Melancholy became the hallmark of an elegant soul and a refined sensibility. In such a painful state of mind, Romantic writers, who held strong sensibility, wanted to run away from the cruel world of reality to a land where they could get peace, pleasure, and happiness. They urged for something higher and deeper than this world of pain and suffering. The faculty and power of imagination facilitated these romantics in their escape to such a world of perfection and beauty.

The World is too much with us not only highlights Wordsworth’s anger, frustration with the modern world but also his Escapist tendencies. Wordsworth’s Escapism was his Escape from commercial city life, the modern mechanized world, and its ability to acquire material through any means. )felt angry and sad about the sorry state of modern life, which he completely rejected. Wordsworth wanted to escape from such a materialistic world when he communicates his feelings as follows

The world is too much with us late and soon,

Letting and spending we lay waste our powers

 Little we see in nature that is ours

Wordsworth believed that Man has fallen from higher faculties of mind and heart and is wasting all his energies for material gains. He felt sad for such a religion that forces a human to confine within established thoughts and thus refrain him from freedom of Thought and Relief. This escape was from himself also, his own being. He wanted to escape from his present life reality which he believed in the state of Emotional turmoil and some kind of ‘dissatisfaction. His inner urge was towards something more refined and pure. Away from the modern materialistic Man with no virtues, Wordsworth finds peace in turning towards the simple and rustic people, whom he sees with developed higher faculties, their emotions untouched by the commercial ends of daily city life and simplicity in their lives and thoughts.

“No Nightingale did ever haunt 

 More welcome notes to weary bands

1f travelers in some shady haunt

 Among Arabian sands

 A voice so thrilling never was heard  

In springtime from the Cuckoo bird

 Brea4ing the silence of the seas

 Among the farthest Hebrides”

Wordsworth finds peace and happiness and wants to get lost in the song of “The Solitary Reaper”

There, he turns his back to the world and praises the simple and rustic people. He finds the song of a rustic to be very melodious, unmixed with any sort of artificiality, hence all pure and spiritual. His escape is from the busy city life towards the simple and pure rustic life. To Wordsworth, nature series as a guide, companion, teacher, and inspiration to human beings. He finds peace and happiness in nature’s solitude.

John Keats is the most escapist among Romantic Poets. He has a good power of imagination. He does not find any difficulty in its creation. In that world, he quests for beauty. Several reasons are there due to which he prefers the ideal world to the world of reality. He does so because of his quest for Beauty, wants to forget pains and sorrows, finds peace and harmony in imagination, and tends to love the past. Sometimes he finds beauty in art, sometimes in the song of the nightingale, and somewhere he appreciates nature. He can find beauty in each and everything even in truth. In “Ode to Grecian Urn”, he writes:

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, —that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”

Hence, the pursuance of beauty forces John Keats to be an escapist. Similarly, In “Ode to Autumn” he creates a gloomy atmosphere. He also compares melancholy with joy and concludes that “Melancholy dwells with beauty, a beauty that must die”.  His odes are evidence that he has no ability to face hardships, therefore, he seeks escapism as he is not satisfied with his life.

Read about the Victorian and Modernist eras in English Literature here.