It was Madame de Stael who first coined the word "romanticism" in her book on Germany (1813). Her definition occurred in the section on poetry in which she contrasted classical and romantic poetry. She found the basic difference in the artificiality of the classical and naturalness of the romantic poetry. The greatness of the Romantics came from elevating character over action. Placing character in the foreground, they centered their attention upon honour, love and bravery- inshort, upon the internal condition of individuals rather than upon those external forces the ancients thought guided human destiny. This meant the primacy of 'emotion' and 'sentiment', since the human character must be detached from the environment and analyzed in terms of the individual's own emotions.
Madame de Stael's praise for the moderns and hostility toward the ancients epitomized a feeling quite prevalent at the beginning of the century. This was explicit in the plays of the time which tended to become mere vehicles for violent emotions displayed on stage. Oratory and emotion were prized far above well-cnstructed action.. Not the construction of Shakespeare's plays but the ideal of character portrayal which contemporaries saw in him, led to a renewed international popularity of his works. When Shakespeare was first revealed to France in 1827 by kemble and his troupe of actors, the audience was struck by the 'sentiment' and 'emotion' which they contrasted favorably with the great French classical writers like Racine and Corneille. Similarly, the romantic enthusiasm for Shakespeare was so great in Germany that by the end of the century one writer wrote a whole book entitled 'Shakesperomania' (1873) in order to save German literature from such contaminating English influence.
Romantics saw in Shakespeare an anticipation of the modern in the arts. He seemed to have put into practice the conceetnration upon the internal condition of man which Madame de Stael had praised. This 'inner man' seemed to be sumsumed under a series of words which the Romantics used constantly: character,emotion, sentiment and soul. Romantics used them to oppose rational systematizing: "He who believes in systems expells love from his heart." Yet, when the consequences which flowed from its view of life are analyzed, it is apparent that romanticism tended to become a system itself.
Excerpts taken from 'The Culture of Western Europe' by George Lachmann Mosse
