Romanticism is a literary movement that reacted against classicism and emphasized emotion and individuality, focusing on the free expression of feelings to move readers. Both Lamartine of France and Mahá of the Czech Republic depict life, death, and the relationship between nature and humans in their works. Lamartine’s Lake Fianna sings of love and sorrow in nature, while Mahá’s May is a classic work of Czech Romanticism that explores the duality of life and death. Both poets maximize romantic expression through nature and lyrical emotions.

Introduction

Romanticism is a literary movement that originally originated in Germany and spread to England and France. However, the romanticism that developed in the Czech Republic was more influenced by French romanticism than German. This stemmed from the rejection of German ethnicity and anti-Mazarist attitudes dating back to the Middle Ages. Given this background, it makes sense to shed light on French and Czech Romanticism together. In this article, we’ll take a look at the definition and characteristics of Romanticism, and then introduce you to two of the most prominent French Romantic poets, Alphonse de Lamartine and Karel Hynek Mácha, as well as their major works.

What is Romanticism?

Romanticism is essentially lyrical literature, which freely expresses the individuality of each writer. This personality is expressed mainly through emotions and sensations, with relatively little expression of ideas. Therefore, Romantic literature is emotional and descriptive, and doesn’t care much about the truth, as long as it moves the reader.
Romanticism arose against the traditions and rules of classicism and the cult of antiquity. Romantic writers rejected the rules of classicism and instead turned to medieval and foreign literature. The origins of Romanticism were shaped by various literary, artistic, and social aspects.

1. Literary origins – The importance of sensitivity and imagination had long been emphasized, and foreign influences in particular increased the value of these elements.
2. artistic origins – Romantic writers interacted with painters and artists, and in painting, rediscovered movement, color, and passion through the works of Gros, Géricault, Delacroix, and others.
3. Social origins – Traditional barriers such as schools and salons were removed by the Great Revolution, and the enactment of the Constitution created a social platform for Romanticism to spread as it stimulated the imagination.

Characteristics of Romanticism

1. Individualism and lyricism
Romantic lyric poetry is an expression of individuality, focusing on emotions and sensations. Romantic writers were preoccupied with describing their personal affections and impressions of nature, which resulted in an emotional and painterly lyricism.
2. Emotional and descriptive literature
Romantic writers deeply explored and expressed human emotions. Although the nature, intensity, and form of the emotions expressed by each poet are unique, the reader can relate to the emotional depth of the poet.
3. Discarding genres and rules
Romanticism abolished the strict genre distinctions and rules of classicism, and freed up artistic expression. Artists were freed from fixed forms and allowed to be creative, and Romanticism evolved through its confrontation with Classicism.

Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869)

Lamartine’s artistic career can be roughly divided into four periods. The first period is personal, the second is religious, the third is political, and the fourth is composed of works written in his old age to settle debts. His most famous work, the Meditations, resonated with readers at the time who were tired of the classicist style of poetry. Lamartine’s lyric poetry is characterized by musicality, innocent lyricism, and celebrations of nature, love, and family, and he contributed to the development of lyric poetry by freely expressing emotion and lyricism.

Lamartine’s poems generally develop in three stages.
1. describing scenes or memories of nature.
Emotions such as frustration and disappointment overtake the poet’s soul and he expresses melancholy.
The poem concludes with faith in God and hope for the world to come.

Readers of the time were comforted by Lamartine’s poetry in the midst of their depressive emotions, and his works represented the feelings of his readers.

In Lake Fianna, the sorrow of losing love is sung over the lake and nature. Lamartine’s poetry is characterized by meditations and lyricism in nature, as he desperately sings of emotions that exist deep within the human soul. His poetry has a deep, indescribable sweetness and musicality, and his use of allusions and metaphors, breaking away from the classicist form of poetry, is an attempt at Romantic reform.

Lake Fianna (Alphonse de Lamartine)
As always, drifting toward new shores,
drifting toward new shores
without ever returning,
we cannot cast anchor, even for a day.
Can we not cast anchor, even for a day?

O, lake! When the year is drawing to a close,
by the river where she had often gone, where she would have loved to see it again.
Upon the rock where she sat.
Now I come and sit alone,

You, who were crying beneath the rooted rocks in the water,
You who were breaking against the broken rocks,
The foam of the waves within thee is carried away by the barim
And wet her fair feet.

Do you remember that evening, when we rowed wordlessly?
Far away under the sky, riding the waves,
Riding the waves, keeping time with the beautiful sound
The faint sound of the master’s rowing.
Suddenly, strange voices from another world echoed against the calm lake shore.
Even the waves are listening breathlessly,
and a lovely voice, familiar to my ears.
The words of a lovely voice familiar to the ear.
– Hereafter omitted – by

Karel Hynek Mácha (1810-1836)

Karel Hynek Mácha was a leading Czech Romantic poet who wrote only one book of poetry, Maj, and his work deals with the opposing themes of life and death, nature and the human soul. Mahá did not receive much recognition during his lifetime, but was reappraised after his death by the critic F. X. Šalda.

It was late evening on the first day of May
It was the evening of May, the hour of love
A dove’s voice came into love
Into the fragrant place of the pine forest
The silent moss was whispering about love
The blossoming samu is lying about Sarah’s pain
Sang his love to himself
Fragrant sighs are showing the rose
Whispering secret pain in the darkness
The river bank hugged around the lake
The bright sun of another world
sparkled with bands of sky blue
Shining there like tears of love
And the world of stars in the shining sky
As if ascending to the temple of eternal love
burning toward itself
transforming them into a dying flame
Till the wandering stars meet each other like lovers.
The full moon beautifully illuminates the arm
Pale and clear, clear and pale
Like a woman seeking her man’s lover
In the dying flame of a rose
Dies herself on the water
The girl dies of love for herself
A faint shadow shone in the swampy yard.
The shadow came closer and closer to herself
More and more like a downward embrace
The wind blew it to the knees of ecstasy
Finally, in the dimness, merging into one
With the shadow, the trees drew closer to them, tree to tree.
The twilight of the mountains cast shadows.
Birch on pine, pine on birch.
Leaning against each other, wave upon wave.
In the brook, it rushes to a full boil
With the time of each love into time
– Hereafter omitted.

In the above piece, “Maj (May),” Maha talks about the beauty of nature in the natural setting of May. He broke away from the strict classical rules and forms of poetry to use more free rhyming and musically rich verse. Later people would say that they found fluent rhyme and “mesmerizing harmony” in his poetry.
He maximizes the expression of emotion in this poem, making it even more romanticized by using symbols and allusions to convey his thoughts and feelings. The main theme of the poem consists of the opposition between life and death, nature and man, and the soul.
The hidden truth is depressing, but it is not, and the revealed truth is beautiful and lovely, but it is not. This duality and mysteriousness is perhaps why this poem is considered one of the most representative Czech Romantic poems.

Conclusion

In this article, we looked at the definition and characteristics of Romanticism, and shed light on Romantic literature, focusing on the French Romantic poet Alphonse de Lamartine and the Czech Romantic poet Karel Hynek Mahá. I chose this topic because I was fascinated by the “back to nature” spirit and mystical elements of Romanticism. While it can be risky to represent the literature of an era with a single author, I believe that their representative works can serve as good examples for understanding literary periods.