Romanticism, Science and Technology
Similarities and differences between the world of the 19th century and our 21st century world
In The Passion of the Western Mind (1996), Richard Tarnas describes how ‘two distinct streams of culture’[1] proceeded from the Renaissance. One stream issued from the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, and stressed rationality and secularism. The other stream is represented by Romanticism and stressed sensuality, spirituality, the supernatural and non-rational ways of knowing. But, it’s an over-simplification to regard the relationship between poetry or Romanticism, on the one hand, and science or the Enlightenment on the other, as being one of simple opposition.
It’s important to understand that neither the Romantic poets, nor any writers of the Romantic era, were self-consciously involved with what we now regard as the Romantic Movement, as that label was only assigned during the Victorian age[2]. This has important implications with regard to any statement we make about the position, views and direction of the Romantic Movement. Whenever we speak at all of the Romantic Movement or the Romantic age or the Romantic poets, we are reading something into literary history and literature, which was not completely there at the time. So, we need to be careful when making general summations about the…
