Romanticism, Economic Liberalism and Political LiberalismThe
French Revolution, including the Napoleonic conquests of Europe,
and the Industrial Revolution had tremendous ramifications in
Europe. Some, like Karl Marx, tried to make sense of both by seeing
them as the result of class struggles. Some others, who reacted
negatively toward the French Revolution and to the French export of
Enlightenment philosophies even before that, tried to figure out
what was "wrong" with it by tracing its origin to the Enlightenment
and its "rigid" application of scientific rules to human society.
Three modern schools of thought were developed based on the
negative reactions toward the Enlightenment and the French
Revolution: Romanticism, political Liberalism, and modern
Conservatism. The Romantic movement, first starting in central
Europe as a negative reaction to the French export of Enlightenment
theories as universal scientific rules governing all humans,
emphasized the uniqueness of the human being and the mysterious
nature of the human mind. The Romantic movement received greater
momentum after Napoleon's invasion of central Europe, and gave rise
to modern nationalism: the uniqueness of a people. The Romantic
movement became a European wide movement especially after the
Industrial Revolution started, when many revolted against the
mechanization of labor and society in their writings. Political
liberalism was championed by social reformers in 19th century
England. These reformers, however, tried to avoid repeating the
"mistakes" of the French Revolutionaries by applying abstract
scientific rules to the understanding of society. They decided
successful social reform would come from the application of
tangible, practical rules to society, therefore their adoption of
the term "utility" in judging government performance, and their
initial adoption of the term "happiness" as a measure to evaluate
the success or failure of administration. Economic liberalism,
although similar to political liberalism in its emphasis on
restricting the role of the state in society, had a different
origin. It developed during the Enlightenment and bore the
Enlightenment imprint of searching for scientific rules governing
the realm of economic activities. One of its founders, Adam Smith,
started to formulate his theories on the verge of the British
Industrial Revolution.
1. Romanticism
It arose as a reaction to the Enlightenment and the French
Revolution. Instead of searching for rules governing nature and
human beings, the romantics searched for a direct communication
with nature and treated humans as unique individuals not subject to
scientific rules. Napoleons invasion of central Europe also helped
start a movement that emphasized the authentic national culture
such as the vernacular and folklore instead of the language and
customs imposed by the foreign ruler.
The romantic movement received new momentum after the Industrial
Revolution, which to the Romantics destroyed nature.Wolfgang von
Goethe (German, in reaction to French export of the Enlightenment):
Denunciation of the Enlightenment philosophers; Advocation of
imagination and experience.William Blake (British, in reaction
against the Industrial Revolution): disdain for the French
philosophers; mystery of the human mind.William Wordsworth
(British, in reaction against the Industrial Revolution): value of
immediate contact with nature.(These three figures are commonly
covered in an English class.)2. Economic liberalismWhat today is
called economic liberalism was developed in the late 18th and early
19th centuries in Britain, most notably by Adam Smith, Thomas
Malthus, and David Ricardo. Economic liberalism was a product of
the Enlightenment in its emphasis on universal laws governing
economy and affirmation of self-interest.Like the Enlightenment,
the formulation of scientific rules governing economy was against
the absolute control of government over economy. These champions of
economic rules believed that individual freedom was best
safeguarded by the reduction of government powers to a minimum.
They wanted to impose constitutional limits on government, to
establish the rule of law, and to sweep away restrictions on
individual enterprises, specifically, the state regulation of
economy.A. English economy before Adam Smith:Historically, from the
15th-16th century to the 18th century, the English economy was run
under the theory of mercantilism: wealth comes from gold and
silver, and the state could acquire wealth through encouragement of
trade, or rather export, by private companies. Their success would
contribute to state revenue. And the state would guarantee their
mercantile success. The best example was the British East India
Company, which, established to trade with the East Indies, almost
became a monopoly of British overseas trade every where, and served
as the British government's representative to govern India from the
1770s to 1858.B. Economic liberalism as a revolt against
mercantilism and government support of monopoliesThe liberals
wanted to ensure a voice in government for men of property and
education, and an "equal opportunity" in trade and commerce. It was
also influenced by romanticism in its emphasis on individual
freedom and the imperative of the human personality to develop to
its full potential. Basically, however, economic liberalism was a
theory for the middle class.C. Adam Smith (1723-90)
His liberalism was developed in the middle of the British
Industrial Revolution, when many British factories were in the
process of being mechanized and wanted opportunities to sell their
products in overseas markets, which were so far dominated by the
British East India Company.
D.Smith emphasized the importance of free market and free
trade.
To him, there was a convergence of individual and social
interests through a free market economy.Premises of free trade:
National wealth comes from labor: the produce that requires labor
to produce. In England labor at the time of Adam Smith was
primarily invested in landed produce. The value of the landed
produce made by the farmer was the basis of national wealth and
wealth distribution: the farmer would use that wealth to purchase
tools, goods made by artisans/handicraftsmen, and other
non-agricultural products.Their purchases would keep the national
industry and other trades going. Thus if high tariffs were levied
on imported goods, it meant part of the value produced by the
farmers would be used to pay the tariff, and less money would be
used to purchase the above mentioned goods. Higher tariffs would
also lead to less investment on the farm hence farmer could not
raise crop yield the following year, and that would decrease the
tax base for state. Higher tariffs will also lead to 1) trade
monopoly in England that raised prices of the non-agricultural
goods, and 2) depletion of farmers resources because they now had
to spend so much more on purchasing non-agricultural goods. In the
long run, this would decrease the value of farm produce and hurt
national industries since the farmers would buy less and less.E.
Ricardo and Malthus:David Ricardo (1772-1823) and Thomas Malthus
(1766-1834) continued Adam Smith's use of scientific rules in the
study of economy and opposition to government intervention in
economic activities. Their writings, especially the writings of
Ricardo, done at a time when the British Industrial Revolution was
well under way, served a different social purpose as Smith's. While
Smith championed the cause of the small and medium sized merchants
and traders, and in that sense was "progressive" by today's
standards, Malthus and Ricardo discouraged any government
legislation to salvage the working class poor by saying that
working class poverty was determined by the scientific rules
governing society, and not something government policy could
alter.In "An Essay on the Principle of Population" (1798, rev. ed.
1803), Thomas Malthus contended that poverty and distress are
unavoidable, since population increases by geometrical ratio and
the means of subsistence by arithmetic ratio.Ricardo's iron law of
wages supplemented Malthus's pessimistic thesis by asserting that
wages tend to stabilize at the subsistence level.Labour, like all
other things which are purchased and sold, and which may be
increased or diminished in quantity, has its natural and its market
price. The natural price of labour is that price which is necessary
to enable the labourers, one with another, to subsist and to
perpetuate their race, without either increase or diminution.The
natural price of labour, therefore, depends on the price of the
food, necessaries, and conveniences required for the support of the
labourer and his family.The market price of labour is the price
which is really paid for it, from the natural operation of the
proportion of the supply to the demand; labour is dear when it is
scarce, and cheap when it is plentiful. However much the market
price of labour may deviate from its natural price, it has, like
commodities, a tendency to conform to it.It is when the market
price of labour exceeds its natural price, that the condition of
the labourer is flourishing and happy, that he has it in his power
to command a greater proportion of the necessaries and enjoyments
of life, and therefore to rear a healthy and numerous family. When,
however, by the encouragement which high wages give to the increase
of population, the number of labourers is increased, wages again
fall to their natural price, and indeed from a reaction sometimes
fall below it.When the market price of labour is below its natural
price, the condition of the labourers is most wretched: then
poverty deprives them of those comforts which custom renders
absolute necessaries. It is only after their privations have
reduced their number, or the demand for labour has increased, that
the market price of labour will rise to its natural price, and that
the labourer will have the moderate comforts which the natural rate
of wages will afford.
3. Utilitarianism: philosophy guiding 19th century English
social reformUtilitarianism was a reaction against the
Enlightenment principles and the French Revolution. It sought to be
concrete rather than abstract. The word utility meant anything that
was not abstract; something tangible and mundane. It came in the
wake of the English industrial Revolution. Its founder, Jremy
Bentham, decided it meant quantifiable pleasure and that government
should promote the greatest pleasure of the greatest number of
people.
John.Stuart.Mill (1806-73)Born into the family of a leading
member of the British Utilitarian school, James Mill, John Stuart
Mill championed the utilitarian theory but modified it to include
not just quantitative but also qualitative happiness/pleasure. Like
the other Utilitarians, he was hoping to replace traditional mores
and values with this concept of happiness, a happiness one pursued
not just for oneself, but also for others because of the natural
human sentiment of sympathy. Indeed, sympathy was central to Mill's
argument for a less politically restrictive society, because humans
were by nature altruistic as a result of the natural sentiment of
sympathy. And only when political restrictions and social
conventions were relaxed could humans do good things for the sake
of goodness, instead of just avoiding legal punishment and social
condemnation.Mill is usually regarded as the champion of political
liberalism, marked especially by his treatiseOn Liberty(1859).
There he gave the most systematic treatment of why, even a
democratic representative government had to restrict its power.
Reasons he included were the bias of the voters and that not every
one was equally politically active, therefore decisions were often
made on behalf of those who were most politically active. Unlike
the Enlightenment philosophers who championed rights such as
liberty and equality but did not extend them to women, and not
always to the poor, Mill had a greater respect to the sanctity of
individual freedom, and treated women as equals.
(All Rights Reserved - James O. Richards)The Shaping of the
"SecondEurope" by Revolutions 1750-1914The Impact of Revolutions
and "isms" as a Theme
Outline of LectureI. Introduction -
ImpactOfRevolutionsII.ConservatismIII.LiberalismIV.NationalismV.
RomanticismVI.SocialismVII.Optimism, Pessimism, and
RealismVIII.Nihilism (Anti-Rationalism)IX.Imperialism
IntroductionRevolutions were decisive in shaping the period
1789-1914. From the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution,
and the revolution caused by Charles Darwin's theory of evolution
came all the major movements and important figures of the period.
These movements and people differed widely except for the one thing
they had in common, the
suffix"ism:"ConservatismLiberalismNationalismRomanticismSocialismOptimism,
Pessimism, and RealismNihilism(Anti-Rationalism)Imperialism
For several sessions we shall be looking at each of these in
some detail, showing at the same time that the "ism" is an
outgrowth of revolutionary forces and that it has an effect on the
basic ideas, beliefs, and values of the Second Europe. In some
cases the effect is to affirm the Enlightenment outlook in one or
more ways. In others it is to modify that outlook. In still others
it is a basic rejection of the Second Europe and its affirmations
about man, the world, God, society, and the future. You need to be
looking at the broader question of what each "ism" had to say about
the Enlightenment as well as what the "ism" was.The first two
"isms" we take up were directly inspired by the French Revolution
which itself was influenced by the American
Revolution:ConservatismandLiberalism. Conservatism rejected the
French Revolution not only for its effects but also because of its
methods. Arevolution, according to Edmund Burke, necessarily
destroys its ideals as it attempts to achieve them. Social and
political progress are not brought about through violence and
destruction; only through conserving and enriching the traditions
of the past can man hope to make changes for the better. Any
change, to produce beneficial results, must be slow
andevolutionaryin nature. Anything else is worse than doing nothing
at all. Sudden change always ends in disaster. Conservatives, then,
questioned the efficacy, if not the validity, of Second Europe
ideas and ideals.Liberalism, on the other hand, believed that
progress could occur through peaceful, lawful change. Primarily
English but also found later on the Continent, Liberals trusted in
the rationality and goodness of man. They thought it possible to
adapt the ideals of the Enlightenment to the political and economic
conditions being created by the Industrial Revolution. They too
questioned the effects and methods of the French Revolution, but
for them the problem lay not in what the French Revolution sought
to accomplish, but in the way it sought to accomplish it. They
believed that each individual must be given the maximum freedom to
develop himself as he thought best. At the same time they wanted to
keep government interference to a minimum. They believed
inLaissez-faireeconomics. Liberalism was torn by dissension during
the period we will be looking at because Liberals held
contradictory ideals: governmental non-interference and
humanitarianism. These two ideals clashed, particularly in the
19thcentury. Liberals, then, affirmed the Enlightenment and
believed its values and ideals could be implemented in the actual
conditions of society by peaceful, constitutional changes.
?1. What are the differences between modern conservatives and
liberals?2. Should government interference be kept to a minimum? Is
more government better for the individual or worse?Your reasons?3.
It comes back to the theory one holds about human nature, doesn't
it?
Nationalismwas the third of the "isms" we shall examine. Its
effect was profound in the 19thcentury, and still is. In fact, in
our century there seems to be no end to the effort of each
"people", using the term loosely to characterize a group which sees
itself as distinct for whatever reason it sees itself as distinct,
to achieve separate status as a "nation" and freedom to determine
its own destiny. In the 19thcentury "nation" identified a people
sharing an identity through occupation of a territory, a history, a
language, common traditions and other common elements. This
attitude toward a people as unique and worthwhile compared to other
peoples was first made an ideology during the French Revolution.
The French proclaimed the French "nation" as the authority
underlying the state (not the King who had been executed, or France
in the abstract, but thepeople, the "nation"). They spread this
attitude acrossEuropeduring the Revolution and found it turned back
against them when they became an occupying force in the countries
they conquered. Because the French nation and its culture became
equated with French occupation and rule, the subject peoples
searched their own history and traditions, each trying to find a
national culture which would surpass that of the French. This
cultural nationalism led to political nationalism and helped
inspire opposition to the French both before Napoleon and during
his imperial reign inEurope. It took a variety of forms after the
French Revolution and Napoleonic period. InGermanyit led to the
worship of the state (G. W. F. Hegel). InItalyit became the basis
forthe ahumanitarian crusade for independence from foreign
oppressors (Giuseppe Mazzini). It led to movements for independence
in other cases: the Greeks from the Turks; the Belgians from the
Dutch. Its most important practical result in the 19thcentury was
the unification and creation ofGermanyandItalyas nation-states.
?The tendency of nationalism is to idealize ever smaller
groupings of "peoples" as nationalities. How does that compare with
the tendency of radical individualism to idealize the solitary
person? Is it too much of a stretch to compare them?
Romanticism, a movement of wide and varied character in
literature, philosophy, and the arts, was a fourth "ism" spawned by
revolutions which shaped the Second Europe. As a general outlook on
life, it was a reaction against central tenets of the
Enlightenment, particularly the emphasis on reason and logic and
the scientific spirit with which men sought to understand
themselves and their world. Romantics were sympathetic to the
French Revolution and willing to join any crusade for political
freedom. At the same time they steadfastly opposed the Industrial
Revolution which they saw as crippling and deadening the spirit of
man. Romanticism as a general outlook survives today in the trend
towards individualism and primitivism as themes in our society
(individualism-maximum freedom from any kind of restraint;
primitivism-the destruction of traditional standards and the
idealization of the "unfitting" in personal and social behavior).
Romanticism, then, basically rejected the Enlightenment.
?Perhaps it is premature to raise the question about the
Romantic influence so early, but let's do it anyway.Individualism
and primitivism.Do you see these today?Examples?
A fifth "ism" wasSocialism, the most radical of the lot. This
was particularly so in the case of Karl Marx's brand of socialism.
Socialism sprang up in reaction to the Industrial Revolution and
the industrial society which followed. Socialism differed from
Liberalism in one important way. Liberals rejected the
pre-revolutionary social structure ofEurope, but accepted the new
middle class or bourgeois society which grew out of
industrialization. Socialists rejected the bourgeois society and
championed the industrial working class or proletariat also a
product of the Industrial Revolution. Some socialists advocated
peaceful, gradual changes to industrial society. Marxian Socialists
preached violent, revolutionary change. As we shall see, Socialism
affirmed many of the tenets of the Second Europe, although its
stance as a broad movement was that of a counter-culture, hostile
to the established order in all respects.Optimismwas a sixth "ism",
perhaps the most pervasive of them all. With few exceptions,
leaders of the 19thcentury were firm believers in progress. G. W.
F. Hegel said progress was a metaphysical necessity. Marx
pronounced it a historical necessity;Darwin, a biological
necessity. John Stuart Mill in his workUtilitarianism(1863), said
"...no one whose opinion deserves a moment's notice can doubt that
most of the great positive evils of the world are in themselves
removable. . . .All the grand sources ... of human suffering are in
a great degree, many of them almost entirely, conquerable by human
care and effort." In that progress was one of the watchwords of the
Second Europe, optimism affirmed the Enlightenment.To many it
seemed undeniable that progress was being made as man conquered
nature through industrialization, technology, and engineering. No
single event was more symbolic of this belief than the opening of
theGreat Exhibition of 1851in the marvelousCrystal Palace. Designed
bySir Joseph Paxton(himself a model of the self-made man) and
erected inLondon'sHyde Park, the Palace was both a triumph of
engineering and a thing ofbeauty,perfectly embodying the hope and
confidence of the age that progress was unending and universal. It
was what would today be called prefab construction. Over a million
square feet of clear glass rested on a framework of iron trusses
and rods covering an area of almost 800,000 square feet of
exhibition spaces. Fittingly, this cathedral of progress contained
a huge Centre Transept housing the largest organ in the world.
Inside were the proofs of man's genius in manufacturing and the
arts: 13,000 exhibits from Great Britain and other nations,
including theJacquard loom(punch card operated to automatically
produce intricate textile patterns), the Colt repeater pistol, and
a reaper from the United States. QueenVictoriapronounced the
opening of the Exhibition "one of the greatest and most glorious
days of our lives."
?The Jacquard loom lives on. Standard Textile in Thomaston, GA
is running seven of these in their plant, producing blankets and
other products. Themodern versionis computer-driven.
Even a brief discussion of 19thcentury optimism and the
engineering marvels which this ism evoked must mentionIsambard
Kingdom Brunel(1806-1859).At the astonishing age of 20 he was
resident engineer on theThames Tunnel.He designed and built several
suspension bridges.Turning to railway engineering, he designed and
built the Great Western Railway which linkedLondontoBristoland
required abox tunnelof over 2 miles; Brunel insisted the railway be
built on a new wider gauge for greater speed. Not content with
these projects, he also conceived and constructed several
iron-hulled transports, one of which first incorporatedthe
screw-propelleron an oceangoing ship. (Brunel silenced objections
to the propellers feasibility by staging a demonstration in which
his ship out-pulled a paddle wheeler.)Optimism seemed to promise
unending progress based on the ever greater works of Paxton, Brunel
and others.Would these advances one day be extended to the whole
world? Who could doubt it? The lack of a general war from 1815 to
1914 seemed to confirm it. So in literature, a subject we examine
later, there is a strong strain of optimism in the first half of
the 19thcentury. But the human misery of industrial society and the
ideas of Charles Darwin also called forth pessimism and realism in
literature as the century moved into the second half.
?
1.Progress, Yes or No?Maybe?2.Are better things progress?
A seventh "ism" wasNihilism, a philosophy identified with
Friedrich Nietzsche. Nihilism is the philosophical stance (school
is too strong a word) that all rational, systematic thought is
unfounded, that life is senseless and useless, that objective truth
cannot be known, and that the task of the philosopher is to tear
down existing philosophical systems and statements of truth. It is
an oversimplification to say that something so complex as nihilism
or Friedrich Nietzsche could be produced by any single event or
movement. But the upheaval in thought produced by Darwin's theory
of evolution by natural selection is certainly an important factor.
If a blind force is driving the development of organisms in
interplay with their environment, then what is there of an order or
purpose in the grand scheme of things? None, said Nietzsche. All
one can do is point out the truth that there is no truth in any
systematic sense. It is a chimera to be grasped and conveyed, if
stated at all, in highly personal aphorisms. The only reality and
"truth" is that a blind Will is working itself out in this world.
The 19thcentury did not feel the impact of his ideas very much, but
the 20thcentury certainly did. Obviously Nietzsche and Nihilism are
totally opposed to the Second Europe.
?Here's one way to apply what Nietzsche said. Truth is what I
perceive. But I recognize that you may not see it as I do, so your
perception is equally valid. Which means that no one is Right. Or
Wrong. So I shouldn't make judgments about Right and Wrong. The
terrorist who flies a plane into a building and kills a lot of
people is notWrong. He is part of a great cause which has commanded
hiswill, a cause which he authenticates by voluntarily dying and
taking many others with him. So I have no objective standard by
which to judge him. Or do I? And this standard is?
An eighth and final "ism" wasImperialismwhich developed out of
the Industrial Revolution, Optimism and Darwinism. The imperial
countries of the 19thand early 20thcenturies were the
industrialized nations of Europe. Part of the attitude of
imperialists was the idealistic notion that Western Man should take
the benefits of Civilization and Progress to those who did not
enjoy them in the non-western world. But practical, selfish ideas
also entered into imperialist thinking.And the influence of
Darwin.As Theodore Roosevelt said at the turn of the 19th-
20thcenturies "Nations that expand and nations that do not may both
ultimately go down, but the one leaves heirs and a glorious memory,
and the other leaves neither."These then were the major movements
or "isms" which appeared in reaction to the Enlightenment, the
great Revolutions, and the impact of Darwin. To understand them and
their effect on the shaping of the Second Europe is to understand
much about the late 18th, 19thand early 20thcenturies. Now we will
take up the Revolutions and "isms" in order.
Lecture 16The Romantic Era
The categories which it has become customary to use in
distinguishing and classifying "movements" in literature or
philosophy and in describing the nature of the significant
transitions which have taken place in taste and in opinion, are far
too rough, crude, undiscriminating -- and none of them so
hopelessly as the category "Romantic."---Arthur O. Lovejoy, "On the
Discriminations of Romanticisms" (1924)Ask anyone on the street:
"what is Romanticism?" and you will certainly receive some kind of
reply. Everyone claims to know the meaning of the word romantic.
The word conveys notions of sentiment and sentimentality, a
visionary or idealistic lack of reality. It connotes fantasy and
fiction. It has been associated with different times and with
distant places: the island of Bali, the world of the Arabian
Nights, the age of the troubadours and even Manhattan. Advertising
links it with the effects of lipstick, perfume and soap. If we
could ask the advertising genius who, fifty years ago, came up with
the brilliant cigarette campaign, "blow some my way," he may have
responded with "it's romantic."These meanings cause few problems in
every day life -- indeed, few of us wonder about the meaning of
Romanticism at all. Yet we use the expression freely and casually
("a romantic, candle-lit dinner"). But literary historians and
critics as well as European historians have been quarreling over
the meaning of the word Romanticism for decades, as Lovejoy's
comment above makes abundantly clear. One of the problems is that
the Romantics were liberals and conservatives, revolutionaries and
reactionaries. Some were preoccupied with God, others were
atheistic to the core. Some began their lives as devout Catholics,
lived as ardent revolutionaries and died as staunch
conservatives.The expression Romantic gained currency during its
own time, roughly 1780-1850. However, even within its own period of
existence, few Romantics would have agreed on a general meaning.
Perhaps this tells us something. To speak of a Romantic era is to
identify a period in which certain ideas and attitudes arose,
gained currency and in most areas of intellectual endeavor, became
dominant. That is, they became the dominant mode of expression.
Which tells us something else about the Romantics: expression was
perhaps everything to them -- expression in art, music, poetry,
drama, literature and philosophy. Just the same, older ideas did
not simply wither away. Romantic ideas arose both as implicit and
explicit criticisms of 18th century Enlightenment thought
(seeLecture 9). For the most part, these ideas were generated by a
sense of inadequacy with the dominant ideals of the Enlightenment
and of the society that produced them.ROMANTICISMappeared in
conflict with the Enlightenment. You could go as far as to say that
Romanticism reflected a crisis in Enlightenment thought itself, a
crisis which shook the comfortable 18th centuryphilosopheout of his
intellectual single-mindedness. The Romantics were conscious of
their unique destiny. In fact, it was self-consciousness which
appears as one of the keys elements of Romanticism
itself.Thephilosopheswere too objective -- they chose to see human
nature as something uniform. Thephilosopheshad also attacked the
Church because it blocked human reason. The Romantics attacked the
Enlightenment because it blocked the free play of the emotions and
creativity. Thephilosophehad turned man into a soulless, thinking
machine -- a robot. In a comment typical of the Romantic
thrust,William Hazlitt(1778-1830) asked, "For the better part of my
life all I did was think." AndWilliam Godwin(1756-1836), a
contemporary of Hazlitts asked, "what shall I do when I have read
all the books?" Christianity had formed a matrix into which
medieval man situated himself. The Enlightenment replaced the
Christian matrix with the mechanical matrix of Newtonian natural
philosophy. For the Romantic, the result was nothing less than the
demotion of the individual. Imagination, sensitivity, feelings,
spontaneity and freedom were stifled -- choked to death. Man must
liberate himself from these intellectual chains.Like one of their
intellectual fathers,Jean Jacques Rousseau(1712-1778), the
Romantics yearned to reclaim human freedom. Habits, values, rules
and standards imposed by a civilization grounded in reason and
reason only had to be abandoned. "Man is born free and everywhere
he is in chains," Rousseau had written. Whereas thephilosophessaw
man in common, that is, as creatures endowed with Reason, the
Romantics saw diversity and uniqueness. That is, those traits which
set one man apart from another, and traits which set one nation
apart from another. Discover yourself -- express yourself, cried
the Romantic artist. Play your own music, write your own drama,
paint your own personal vision, live, love and suffer in your own
way. So instead of the motto, "Sapere aude," "Dare to know!" the
Romantics took up the battle cry, "Dare to be!" The Romantics were
rebels and they knew it. They dared to march to the tune of a
different drummer -- their own. The Romantics were passionate about
their subjectivism, about their tendency toward introspection.
Rousseaus autobiography,The Confessions(1781), began with the
following words:I am commencing an undertaking, hitherto without
precedent and which will never find an imitator. I desire to set
before my fellows the likeness of a man in all the truth of nature,
and that man myself. Myself alone! I know the feelings of my heart,
and I know men. I am not made like any of those I have seen. I
venture to believe that I am not made like any of those who are in
existence. If I am not better, at least I am different.Romanticism
was the new thought, the critical idea and the creative effort
necessary to cope with the old ways of confronting experience. The
Romantic era can be considered as indicative of an age of crisis.
Even before 1789, it was believed that theancien regimeseemed ready
to collapse. Once the French Revolution entered its radical phase
in August 1792 (seeLecture 13), the fear of political disaster also
spread. King killing, Robespierre, the Reign of Terror, and the
Napoleonic armies all signaled chaos -- a chaos which would
dominate European political and cultural life for the next quarter
of a century.Meanwhile, the Industrial Revolution -- in full swing
in England since the 1760s -- spread to the Continent in the 1820s,
thus adding entirely new social concerns (seeLecture 17). The old
order -- politics and the economy -- seemed to be falling apart and
hence for many Romantics, raised the threat of moral disaster as
well. Men and women faced the need to build new systems of
discipline and order, or, at the very least, they had to reshape
older systems. The era was prolific in innovative ideas and new art
forms. Older systems of thought had to come to terms with rapid and
apparently unmanageable change.In the midst of what has been called
the Romantic Era, an era often portrayed as devoted to
irrationality and "unreason," the most purely rational social
science -- classical political economy -- carried on the
Enlightenment tradition. Enlightenment rationalism continued to be
expressed in the language of political and economic liberalism. For
example,Jeremy Benthams(1748-1832) radical critique of traditional
politics became an active political movement known
asutilitarianism. And revolutionary Jacobinism inundated
EnglishChartism-- an English working class movement of the 1830s
and 40s. The political left on the Continent as well as many
socialists, communists and anarchists also reflected their debt to
the heritage of the Enlightenment.The Romantics defined the
Enlightenment as something to which they were clearly opposed.
Thephilosophesoversimplified. But Enlightenment thought was and is
not a simple and clearly identifiable thing. In fact, what has
often been identified as the Enlightenment bore very little
resemblance to reality. As successors to the Enlightenment, the
Romantics were often unfair in their appreciation of the 18th
century. They failed to recognize just how much they shared with
thephilosophes. In doing so, the Romantics were similar to
Renaissance humanists in that both failed to perceive the meaning
and importance of the cultural period which had preceded their own
(seeLecture 4). The humanists, in fact, invented a "middle age" so
as to define themselves more carefully. As a result, the humanists
enhanced their own self-evaluation and prestige in their own eyes.
The humanists foisted an error on subsequent generations of
thinkers. Their error lay in their evaluation of the past as well
as in their simple failure to apprehend or even show a remote
interest in the cultural heritage of the medieval world. Both
aspects of the error are important.With the Romantics, it shows
first how men make an identity for themselves by defining an enemy,
making clear what they oppose, thus making life into a battle.
Second, it is evident that factual, accurate, subtle understanding
makes the enemy mere men. Even before 1789, the Romantics opposed
the superficiality of the conventions of an artificial, urban and
aristocratic society. They blurred distinctions between its
decadent, fashionable Christianity or unemotional Deism and the
irreligion or anti-clericalism of thephilosophes. Thephilosophes,
expert in defining themselves in conflict with their enemy -- the
Church -- helped to create the mythical ungodly Enlightenment many
Romantics so clearly opposed.It was during the French Revolution
and for fifty or sixty years afterward that the Romantics clarified
their opposition to the Enlightenment. This opposition was based on
equal measures of truth and fiction. The Romantics rejected what
they thought thephilosophesrepresented. And over time, the
Romantics came to oppose and criticize not only the Enlightenment,
but also ideas derived from it and the men who were influenced by
it.The period from 1793 to 1815 was a period of European war. War,
yes, but also revolutionary combat -- partisanship seemed normal.
Increasingly, however, the Romantics rejected those aspects of the
French Revolution -- the Terror and Napoleon -- which seemed to
them to have sprung from the heads of thephilosophesthemselves. For
instance,William Wordsworth(1770-1850) was living in Paris during
the heady days of 1789 -- he was, at the time, only 19 years old.
In his autobiographical poem,The Prelude, he reveals his experience
of the first days of the Revolution. Wordsworth read his poem
toSamuel Taylor Coleridge(1772-1834) in 1805--I might add thatThe
Preludeis epic in proportion as it weighs in at eight thousand
lines. By 1805, the bliss that carried Wordsworth and Coleridge in
the 1790s, had all but vanished.But for some Romantics,
aristocrats, revolutionary armies, natural rights and
constitutionalism were not real enemies. There were new enemies on
the horizon, especially after theCongress of Vienna(1814-1815). The
Romantics concentrated their attack on the heartlessness of
bourgeois liberalism as well as the nature of urban industrial
society. Industrial society brought new problems: soulless
individualism, economic egoism, utilitarianism, materialism and the
cash nexus. Industrial society came under attack by new critics:
the utopian socialists and communists. But there were also men
likeBenjamin Disraeli(1804-1881) andThomas Carlyle(1795-1881) who
identified the threat of egoism as the chief danger of their times.
Egoism dominated the bourgeoisie, especially in France and in
England. Higher virtues and social concerns were subsumed by the
cash nexus and crass materialism of an industrial capitalist
society. Artists and intellectuals attacked the philistinism of the
bourgeoisie for their lack of taste and their lack of an higher
morality. Ironically, the brunt of their attack fell on the social
class which had produced the generation of Romantics.Romanticism
reveals the persistence of Enlightenment thought, the Romantics
definition of themselves and a gradual awareness of a new enemy.
The shift to a new enemy reminds us that the Romantic Age was also
an eclectic age. The Enlightenment was no monolithic structure --
neither was Romanticism, however we define it. Ideas of an age
seldom exist as total systems. Our labels too easily let us forget
that past ideas form the context in which new ideas are developed
and expressed. Intellectuals do manage to innovate and their
innovations are oftentimes not always recombinations of what they
have embraced in their education. Intellectual and geographic
contexts differ from state to state -- even though French culture
seemed to have dominated the Continent during the early decades of
the 19th century. England is the obvious exception. Germany is
another example -- the movement known asSturm und Drang(Storm and
Stress) -- was an independent cultural development.National
variations were enhanced when, under the direct effect of the
Napoleonic wars, boundaries were closed and the easy international
interchange of ideas was inhibited. But war was not the only
element that contributed to the somewhat inhibited flow of ideas.
Profound antagonism and the desire to create autonomous cultures
was also partially responsible. This itself grew out of newly found
nationalist ideologies which were indeed characteristic of
Romanticism itself. And within each nation state, institutional and
social differences provided limits to the general assimilation of a
clearly defined set of ideas. In France, for example, the academies
were strong and during the Napoleonic era, censorship was common.
Artists and intellectuals alike were prevented from innovating or
adopting new ideas. In Germany, on the other hand, things were
quite different. The social structure, the heavy academism and
specific institutional traits blocked any possibility of learning
or expressing new modes of thought.Most important were the
progressive changes in the potential audience artists and
intellectuals now faced -- most of them now had to depend upon that
audience. Where the audience was very small, as in Austria and
parts of Germany, the results often ranged between the extremes of
great openness to rigid conservatism. Where the audience was
steadily growing, as in France or England, and where urbanization
and the growth of a middle class was transforming the expectations
of the artist and intellectual, there was room for experiment,
innovation and oftentimes, disastrous failure. Here, artists and
intellectuals could no longer depend upon aristocratic patronage.
Popularity among the new and powerful middle class audience became
a rite of passage.At the same time, intellectuals criticized the
tasteless and unreceptive philistine bourgeoisie. Ironically, they
were criticizing the same class and the same mentality from which
they themselves had emerged and which had supported them. In this
respect, the Romantic age was similar to the age of Enlightenment.
A free press and careers open to talent provided possibilities of
competitive innovation. This led to new efforts to literally train
audiences to be receptive to the productions of artists and
intellectuals. Meanwhile, literary hacks andGrub Streetwriters
produced popular pot boilers for the masses. All these
characteristics placed limits upon the activities of the Romantics.
These limits could not be ignored. In fact, these limits often
exerted pressures that can be identified as causes of the Romantic
movement itself.There were direct, immediate and forceful events
that many British and European Romantics experienced in their
youth. The French Revolution was a universal phenomenon that
affected them all. And the Napoleonic wars after 1799 also
influenced an entire generation of European writers, composers and
artists. Those who were in their youth in the 1790s felt a chasm
dividing them from an earlier, pre-revolutionary generation. Those
who had seen Napoleon seemed different and felt different from
those who were simply too young to understand. The difference lay
in a great discrepancy in the quality of their experience. Great
European events, such as the Revolution and Napoleon, gave identity
to generations and made them feel as one -- a shared experience. As
a consequence, the qualities of thought and behavior in 1790 was
drastically different from what it was in 1820. In the Romantic
era, men and women felt these temporal and experiential differences
consciously and intensely. It is obvious, I suppose, that only
after Napoleon could the cults of the hero, of hero worship and of
the geniustake full form. And only after 1815 could youth complain
that their time no longer offered opportunities for heroism or
greatness -- only their predecessors had known these
opportunities.The intellectual historian or historian of ideas
always faces problems. Questions of meaning, interpretation and an
acceptance of a particularZeitgeist, or climate of opinion or world
view is serious but difficult stuff. Although we frequently use
words like Enlightenment or Romanticism to describe intellectual or
perhaps cultural events, these expressions sometimes cause more
harm than good. There is, for instance, no 18th century document,
no perfect exemplar orideal type, to use Max Webers word, which can
be called "enlightened." There is, unfortunately, no perfect
document or ideal type of which we may pronounce, "this is
Romantic."We have seen that one way to define the Romantics is to
distinguish them from thephilosophes. But, for both
thephilosophesand the Romantics, Nature was accepted as a general
standard. Nature was natural -- and this supplied standards for
beauty and for morality. The Enlightenments appreciation of Nature
was, of course, derived wholly from Isaac Newton. The physical
world was orderly, explicable, regular, logical. It was, as we are
all now convinced, a Nature subject to laws which could be
expressed with mathematical certainty. Universal truths -- like
natural rights -- were the object of science and of philosophy. And
the uniformity of Nature permitted a knowledge which was rapidly
accumulating as a consequence of mans rational capacity and the use
of science to penetrate the mysteries of nature. The Enlightenment
defined knowledge in a Lockian manner--that is, a knowledge based
on sense impressions. This was an environmentalist psychology, if
you will, a psychology in which men know only what their sense
impressions allowed their faculty of reason to understand.The
Enlightenment was rationalist -- it glorified human reason. Reason
illustrated the power of analysis -- Reason was the power of
associating like experiences in order to generalize about them
inductively. Reason was a common human possession -- it was held by
all men. Even American "savages" were endowed with reason, hence
the 18th century emphasis on "common sense," and the "noble
savage." Common sense -- revealed by reason -- would admit a
groundwork for a common morality. As nature was studied in order to
discover its universal aspects, men began to accept that what was
most worth knowing and what was therefore most valuable, was what
they had in common with one another. Society, then, became an
object of science. Society revealed self-evident truths about human
nature -- self-evident truths about natural rights.Social and
political thought was individualistic and atomistic. As the
physical universe was ultimately machinelike, so social
organization could be fashioned after the machine. Science
pronounced what society ought to become in view of mans natural
needs. These needs were not being fulfilled by the past -- for this
reason, the medieval matrix and the ancien regime inhibited mans
progress. The desire was to shape institutions, to change men and
to produce a better society -- knowledge, morality and human
happiness. The intention was at once cosmopolitan and
humanitarian.The Romantics felt all the opinions of the
Enlightenment were fraught with dangerous errors and
oversimplifications. Romanticism may then be considered as a
critique of the inadequacies of what it held to be Enlightened
thought. The critique of the Romantics -- sometime open, sometimes
hidden -- can be seen as a new study of the bases or knowledge and
of the whole scientific enterprise. It rejected a science based on
physics -- physics was inadequate to describe the reality of
experience. "O for a life of sensations rather than of thoughts,"
wroteJohn Keats(1795-1821). AndWilliam Blake(1757-1827) admonished
us all to "Bathe in the waters of life." And Keats again, "Beauty
is truth, truth beauty, -- that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye
need to know."The Romantic universe was expanding, evolving,
becoming -- it was organic, it was alive. The Romantics sought
their soul in the science of life, not the science of celestial
mechanics. They moved from planets to plants. The experience was
positively exhilarating, explosive and liberating -- liberation
from the soulless, materialistic, thinking mechanism that was man.
The 18th century had created it. The Romantics found it oppressive
, hence the focus on liberation. Listen to the wayPercy Bysshe
Shelley(1792-1822) put it inPrometheus Unbound:The joy, the
triumph, the delight, the madness!The boundless, overflowing,
bursting gladness,The vaporous exultation not to be confined!Ha!
Ha! The animation of delightWhich wraps me, like an atmosphere of
light,And bears me as a cloud is borne by its own wind.The
Romantics returned God to Nature -- the age revived the unseen
world, the supernatural, the mysterious, the world of medieval man.
It is no accident that the first gothic novel appears early in the
Romantic Age. Nature came to be viewed historically. The world was
developing, it was a world of continuous process, it was a world in
the process of becoming. And this continuous organic process could
only be understood through historical thought. And here we have
come almost full circle to the views expressed by Giambattista Vico
(seeLecture 10) a century earlier. This is perhaps the single most
revolutionary aspect of the Romantic Age. An admiration for all the
potency and diversity of living nature superseded a concern for the
discovery of its universal traits. In a word, the Romantics
embraced relativism. They did not seek universal abstract laws
asImmanuel Kant(1724-1804) had. Instead, they saw history as a
process of unfolding, a becoming. Was not this the upshot of whatG.
W. F. Hegel(1770-1831) had argued in his philosophy of history? And
look at the time frame: Kant - 1780s, Hegel - 1820s and 30s.The
Romantics sought Natures glorious diversity of detail -- especially
its moral and emotional relation to mankind. On this score, the
Romantics criticized the 18th century. Thephilosophewas cold,
mechanical, logical and unfeeling. There was no warmth in the
heart. For the Romantics, warmth of heart was found and indeed
enhanced by a communion with Nature. The heart has reasons that
Reason is not equipped to understand. The heart was a source of
knowledge -- the location of ideas "felt" as sensations rather than
thoughts. Intuition was equated with that which men feel strongly.
Men could learn by experiment or by logical processbut men could
learn more in intuitive flashes and feelings, by learning to trust
their instincts. The Romantics distrusted calculation and stressed
the limitations of scientific knowledge. The rationality of science
fails to apprehend the variety and fullness of reality. Rational
analysis destroys the nave experience of the stream of sensations
and in this violation, leads men into error.One power possessed by
the Romantic, a power distinct and superior to reason, was
imagination. Imagination might apprehend immediate reality and
create in accordance with it. And the belief that the
unculturedthat is, the primitive -- know not merely differently but
best is an example of how the Romantics reinterpreted the
irrational aspect of reality -- the Imagination. The Romantics did
not merely say that there were irrational ways of intuiting
reality. They rejected materialism and utilitarianism as types of
personal behavior and as philosophies. They sought regeneration --
a regeneration we can liken to that of the medieval heretic or
saint. They favored selfless enthusiasm, an enthusiasm which was an
expression of faith and not as the product of utilitarian
calculation. Emotion -- unbridled emotion -- was celebrated
irrespective of its consequences.The 18th century life of mind was
incomplete. The Romantics opted for a life of the heart. Their
relativism made them appreciative of diversity in man and in
nature. There are no universal laws. There are certainly no laws
which would explain man. Thephilosophecongratulated himself for
helping to destroy theancien regime. And today, we can perhaps say,
"good job!" But after all the destruction, after the ancient idols
fell, and after the dust had cleared, there remained nothing to
take its place. In stepped the Romantics who sought to restore the
organic quality of the past, especially the medieval past, the past
so detested by the pompous, powdered-wigphilosophe.Truth and beauty
were human attributes. A truth and beauty which emanated from the
poets soul and the artists heart. If the poets are, as Shelley
wrote in 1821, the "unacknowledged legislators of the world," it
was world of fantasy, intuition, instinct and emotion. It was a
human world.
EUROPE (1815-1848)SummaryAt the Congress of Vienna in 1815, in
the aftermath of theNapoleonic Era, Europe's leaders worked to
reorganize Europe and create a stable balance of power. After that
Congress, The Austrian diplomat Metternich would call several more
congresses to try and preserve European stability: the Congress of
Aix-la-Chapelle (1818), the Congress of Troppau (1820), and the
Congress of Verona (1822). The Congress System that Metternich
established was Reactionary, that is, its goal was to preserve the
power of the old, monarchical regimes in Europe.Revolution was
brewing, however. In Britain, the Industrial Revolution continued
to accelerate, causing economic transformations that had serious
political and social implications. All across Europe, and
especially in France and Britain, the rising Bourgeoisie class
challenged the old monarchical Reactionaries with their Liberal
ideology. "Isms" abounded. Ideologies such as Radicalism,
Republicanism, and Socialism rounded into coherent form. In
response to events like the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, worker
consciousness of a class struggle between Proletariat and
Bourgeoisie began to emerge. The Bourgeoisie was clearly the
ascendant class between 1815 and 1848; the Proletariat began to
gain a sense of similar unification.Another "Ism" coming into its
own at this time was Romanticism, the intellectual response to the
French Enlightenment rationalism and emphasis on Reason. At the
same time, Romantic thinkers, artists, and writers posed powerful
challenge to the Enlightenment emphasis on rationalism and reason.
Such artists and philosophers as Herder, Hegel, Schiller,
Schinckel, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley,John Keats,William
Wordsworth, and Delacroix, to name a few, achieved remarkable
intellectual and artistic heights and gained a wide following
throughout Europe, particularly in Germany, Prussia, England, and
to a lesser extent France.Of all the "Isms" competing in this
period, perhaps the greatest was Nationalism, an ideology, like
Romanticism, which reacted against the universalist claims of
French enlightenment thought. Whereas Romanticism often focused on
intellectual and artistic matters, Nationalism, which proclaimed
the unique character of ethnic and linguistic groups, was more
overtly political. The Nationalist movements in Germany and Italy,
which involved an effort at national unification, and those in the
Austrian Empire, which involved efforts to carve the Austrian
Empire into ethnically or linguistically defined states, created a
great amount of instability in Europe.In 1830, the various
ideological beliefs resulted in a round of revolutions. These
revolutions began when the Paris Mob, manipulated by the interests
of the Bourgeoisie, deposed the Bourbon monarchy of Charles X and
replaced him with Louis Philippe. In the rest of Europe, the French
example touched off various nationalist revolts; all were
successfully quelled by conservative forces.Britain notably escaped
any outbreak of violence, but it by no means escaped change: the
battle between the formerly dominant landed aristocracy and the
newly ascendant manufacturers led to the passage of the Reform Bill
of 1832, which partially remedied the Rotten Boroughs and gave the
manufactures an increased amount of Parliamentary representation.
The working class benefited from the growing class rivalry between
aristocracy and middle-class. Often the aristocrats would ally with
the working class to act against the manufacturers, forcing the
manufacturers, in turn, to ally with the workers against the
aristocrats. Although the working class did not yet have the vote
in England, they were pushing for universal adult male suffrage in
the late 1830s and early 1840s via the Chartist Movement. While
this movement failed in the short- term, its demands were
eventually adopted.In the rest of Europe, political change would
not happen so peacefully. In 1848, the February Revolution broke
out in Paris, toppling Louis Philippe and granting universal
suffrage to adult French men, who elected Louis Napoleon Bonaparte
(Napoleon III) solely on name-recognition. Europe once again took
its cue from Paris, and revolutions broke out nearly everywhere in
Europe during 1848. Rebellion in Germany led to the establishment
of the Frankfurt Assembly, which was plagued by internal squabbling
and was unable to unify Germany. In the Austrian Empire, the
various ethnicities revolted, and the Magyar nationalists led by
Louis Kossuth pushed for an independent Hungary. Rioting in Vienna
frightened Metternich so much he fled the city. All of the Eastern
European rebellions were ultimately put down, a triumph for the
reactionaries. However, the events of 1848 frightened the rulers of
Europe out of their complacency and forced them to realize that
gradually, they would have to change the nature of their
governments or face future revolutions.ContextThe years from 1815
to 1848 provided a much-needed respite from the endless wars of
theNapoleonic Era. From 1799 to 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte rampaged
through Europe, conquering a vast empire and spreading the liberal
ideas of the Enlightenment and laws based on them (the Napoleonic
Code). When a coalition of European powers finally managed to
defeat Napoleon for the last time, all the rulers wanted to do was
return Europe "to normal". They didn't want Napoleon-style emperors
marching their armies all over Europe, they didn't want legal
equality among the classes, and they didn't want revolutions every
few years. In short, they wantedstability,and the reorganization of
Europe undertaken at the Congress of Vienna was aimed at creating
that stability.However, as much as the monarchs of Europe and their
advisors wanted stability, there were several historical dynamics
at the time that ensured that Europe could not "stay the same". In
Great Britain, the enclosure movement of the early 18th century had
created a large, socially mobile labor force, leading to the
Industrial Revolution in British manufacturing during the 18th and
19th centuries. The years from 1815 to 1848 marked a period of
particular industrial acceleration. While dramatically increasing
the general power and wealth of England, the industrial revolution
also particularly brought new wealth to the Bourgeoisie class of
entrepreneurs and manufacturers. With their wealth came both
influence and a desire for greater influence; the middle class
demanded increased political representation and power. The middle
class also developed a liberal ideology involving laissez faire
economics, which they tried to make the dominant ideology in
England. The battle between the once dominant aristocracy and the
rising Bourgeoisie would open a floodgate of reforms, and this
process would soon be replicated in the rest of Western Europe.Also
during this period, a young intellectual movement called
Romanticism, which was a response to French Enlightenment
Rationalism, held sway in Germany, Britain, and to an extent
France. Romanticism challenged the ideal of universal standards for
all mankind, and led to the glorification of the unique "national
genius" of each ethnic and linguistic group. Thus, it was also
during 1815 to 1848 that the modern phenomenon of nationalism was
explicitly formulated. Tired of existing as a loose federation,
many people in the fragmented German states hoped for German
unification. The various Italian states sought Italian unification.
Numerous groups within the ethnically diverse Austrian Empire
dreamed of forming their own nation. The possibility of
nationalists achieving their goals greatly frightened the
reactionary rulers of Europe, who knew how destabilizing these
changes might be.Thus, the years from 1815 to 1848, though not
plagued by rampant wars, can be seen as a more subtle battle
between conflicting worldviews. On one side were the powerful and
entrenched members of the Old Regime, who opposed change of any
kind. On the other side were the forces of change: the bourgeoisie
created by the dynamics of the Industrial Revolution, liberals,
socialists, republicans, radicals, romantics, and nationalists. The
struggle of ideas erupted in the form of various small-scale
revolutions, first in 1830 and then on a more widespread scale in
1848, the year of revolutions. Although the revolutionaries were
disappointed by results of 1848, ultimately change was on the way.
And what would replace the old guard? The new systems, which are
the "old regime" in our own time, owe a great deal to the
then-revolutionary concepts developed in the era immediately
following the Napoleonic Wars. The period from 1815 to 1848 was an
important crucible in which were forged many modern ideologies,
from classical "liberalism" (today's conservatism) to communism. In
some respects, the result of this battle between ideologies that
reached fever pitch in the early 19th century is still being
resolved today.Important Terms, People, and EventsTermsBourgeoisie-
Term used to refer to the "middle class." In the 19th century
concept of class struggle, the bourgeoisie were those who owned the
means of production and the proletariat consisted of their
workers.Bund- A confederation of the various fragmented German
states in the period after the Congress of Vienna
(1815).Burschenschaft- Student political groups that formed at
German Universities beginning around 1815. These groups were
expressions of German nationalism.Capitalism- Generally
middle-class economic ideology emphasizing free markets, the
ownership of private property, and the accumulation of wealth by
enterprising businesspeople.Carbonari- Liberal, Nationalist secret
society in Italy in the first half of the 19th century. They sought
a unified Italy under governments different from those the Congress
of Vienna had imposed on them.Cato Street Conspiracy- Conspiracy of
British Radicalism, plotting to assassinate the Tory cabinet. When
the conspiracy was discovered in 1820, several conspirators were
executed.Chartist Movement- Reform movement in Britain of the 1830s
and 1840s that demanded progressive political reforms like
universal adult male suffrage and the right of working- class
people to serve in Parliament. Although it failed at the time, the
goals of Chartism were eventually reached.Congress System- Term
referring to the Reactionary method for maintaining political
control; Metternich called a series of congresses between
conservative leaders during the years from 1815 and 1848. These
congresses included the Congress of Vienna, the Congress of
Aix-la-Chapelle, the Congress of Troppau, and the Congress of
Verona.Conservatism- British reactionary philosophy supporting
monarchy and old ways. Championed by Edmund Burke, who had been
horrified by theFrench Revolution, Conservatism argued for prudent
and gradual change.Corn Law- First passed in 1815, these laws put
high tariffs on grain coming into England. This protected the
profits of the land-owning aristocrats, but also increased food
prices, hurting both workers and their employers, who had to pay
higher wages if the price of bread went up. It is important to
realize that in the British usage here, "Corn" refers to grains in
general, not the kind of Corn (Maize) of which Americans usually
think.Dialectic- Theory of thought and historical progress in which
opposites are created, and then reconciled to create a synthesis.
This approach was pioneered by Hegel.Holy Alliance- In 1815,
Alexander I started the Holy Alliance to uphold Christian values.
However, it became a common name by which the reactionary Congress
System was referred to as a whole.Laissez Faire- In French, it
means "allow to do". This economic philosophy suggests that if
government interferes in the economy as little as possible (takes a
"hands off" approach) markets will equilibrate and the economy will
run as smoothly as possible.Liberalism- 19th century ideology that
sought self-government, increased male suffrage, and legal equality
for all and free-market economic policies. 19th century
"liberalism" is a far cry from what "liberalism" means today.
Because 19th century "liberalism" ultimately triumphed in Western
Europe and the United States, 19th century "liberalism" is actually
closer to what is "conservative" in our own time.Manchester-
Industrial city in Northern England, which greatly increased in
population during the Industrial Revolution. Because of the Rotten
Boroughs, its interests were underrepresented in Parliament during
the early 19th century.Monroe Doctrine- American policy announced
in 1823 in which President Monroe demanded that Europe not
interfere with goings-on in the Western Hemisphere. Monroe's
warning was initially followed not because of fear of the United
States, but because the other European powers knew Britain's Navy
would stop any further colonial adventurism in the New
World.Nationalism- Modern movement in which countries engineer a
sense of unity and common purpose among a large nation. The people
in these nationalist countries develop a strong sense of loyalty to
their nation. Though it seems automatoc to most people in the
modern world, nationalism really developed throughout Europe only
in the early 19th century.Pan-Slavism- Movement that seeks to unify
the Slavs, an ethnic classification in Eastern Europe that includes
Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs,
Croats, Slovenes, and Macedonians.Proletariat- In the 19th century,
a term developed to refer to the working class. Proletariats were
employed by, and involved in class struggle with, the
bourgeoisie.Radicalism- Anti-Church, anti-Monarchy reform group in
19th century England, largely based on the ideas of Jeremy Bentham.
Unconcerned by tradition, the British radicals challenged the old
ways.Reactionary- Having to do with what is opposed to change and
progress. In 19th century Europe, the Reactionary cause was
championed by Metternich, who wanted the old regimes of Europe to
stay in power.Republicanism- French equivalent of British
Radicalism, Republicanism glorified the social leveling
accomplished by theFrench Revolution.Romanticism- Intellectual
movement begun in reaction to the dominance ofEnlightenmentReason.
Romanticism criticized Reason, suggesting that it could not answer
all questions. Leading Romantic artists and writers included Hegel,
Schiller, Schinckel,Keats,Wordsworth, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley,
and Delacroix.Rotten Boroughs- In England in the 19th century,
voting districts were so poorly drawn that a city with
half-a-million people like Manchester received only as much
representation in Parliament as a small village. Though the
Industrial Revolution rapidly changed the population distribution
in England, the voting districts lagged behind, giving advantage in
Parliament to wealthy landowners while under representing the new
manufacturing cities.Socialism- Economic ideology, opposed to
Capitalism and Laissez Faire, that holds that key industry and the
means of production should be centrally controlled by the
government, so that workers will not be abused by bourgeoisie
factory owners.Textile- Threads, cloth and clothing. Early in the
Industrial Revolution, textiles were the mainstay of British
factory production.Tory- 18th and early 19th century British
political party, opposed to the Whigs. Although the Tories
comprised various factions, the party was opposed to Parliamentary
reforms.Utility- Utility is the measure of good or usefulness of
something. It is often held that something should be done if it
will maximize the overall utility of society. This belief is
formulated as "Utilitarianism," and is described in John Stuart
Mill's bookUtilitarianism.Volksgeist- German Romantic idea,
suggested by Herder, that each nation has its own particular
"special genius". Thus, what is right for one nation may not be
right for another nation, and, according to German Romantics and
Nationalists, each "nation" should strive to express its
individualVolksgeist.PeopleAlexander I- Russian Czar from 1801 to
1825. He briefly allied withNapoleonbeforeturning against him.
Though Alexander envisioned himself as an "enlightened despot",
Metternich managed to move him towards becoming a Reactionary after
the Congress of Vienna in 1815.Jeremy Bentham- English philosopher,
a father of Radicalism and Utilitarianism. One example of his
unconventional nature: when he died in 1832, he had his body
preserved and placed on display in a cabinet in University College,
London, where it remains to this day.Simon Bolivar- South American
freedom fighter who led the liberation of several Spanish colonies
around 1820. He subsequently became a South American dictator, with
hopes of uniting a South American empire.Louis Napoleon Bonaparte-
After the February Revolution in Paris in 1848, Louis Napoleon was
elected President in France simply on the basis of name recognition
among the newly enfranchised voters. He soon declared himself
Emperor Napoleon III. France prospered under him for two
decades.Bourbon- European royal family, which had kings on the
thrones of France, Spain, and Naples at various times during the
early 19th century.Edmund Burke- 18th century thinker, statesman,
and writer, whose 1790 work,Reflections on the Revolution in
France,became the classic text of British Conservatism.George
Canning- British foreign secretary and champion of Liberalism in
foreign affairs form 1822 to 1827. Canning briefly served as Prime
Minister in 1827.Castlereagh- British foreign secretary from
1812-1822. Castlereagh was a major architect of the new European
balance of power established at the Congress of Vienna in
1815.Charles X- Successor to Louis XVIII, Bourbon king of France
from 1824 to his overthrow in the July Revolution of 1830. He
believed in the divine-right of kings, and was unable to cope with
the new, post-revolutionary realities of France.Eugene Delacroix-
French Romantic painter, who painted exotic scenes, and whose use
of color over line inspired the Impressionists.Ferdinand- Austrian
Hapsburg Emperor who abdicated during the revolution of 1848,
turning the throne over to Franz Joseph.Charles Fourier- French
theorist of Socialism who wanted to reorganize society into
cooperative "phalanxes".Franz Joseph- Hapsburg Emperor of Austria
from 1848 to 1916. In 1867 he divided the Empire into Austria and
Hungary, creating the "Dual Monarchy".Goethe- 18th and 19th century
German writer, who worked in nearly every imaginable field, from
science to drama. Considered one of the greatest German writers,
Goethe was essential in the Nationalist construction of a German
Volksgeist.Hapsburg- Perhaps the greatest royal family of modern
European history, the Hapsburg dynasty once controlled Spain,
Austria, the Netherlands, and the Holy Roman Empire under one man.
By the 19th century, they only really controlled the Austrian
Empire. Emperors Ferdinand and Franz Joseph were both
Hapsburgs.Hegel- G.W.F. Hegel was a 19th century Romantic German
philosopher who held that progress is made through conflicting
opposites being resolved, via the dialectic, in a synthesis.
SeeIntroductory Lectures on History.Louis Kossuth- Magyar
(Hungarian) Nationalist who briefly controlled Hungary in 1848 and
1849, but was crushed by the Russian army.Louis Philippe- Also
called the Duke of Orleans, Louis Philippe ruled France as King
from 1830 to 1848, when his government toppled in the February
Revolution. Louis Philippe drew most of his support from the
Bourgeoisie; he alienated and marginalized the growing French
working class, leading to his overthrow in 1848.Louis XVIII-
Bourbon king of France from 1815 to his death in 1824, during which
time he proved moderately Liberal, allowing an advisory Parliament
to meet.Magyars- Dominant linguistic and ethnic group in
Hungary.Robert Malthus- Early British economist. His most famous
idea was that increasing the food supply would always increase the
population, meaning that eradicating the suffering of the lower
classes was impossible.Karl Marx- German economist and philosopher
who, along with Friedrich Engels, wroteThe Communist
ManifestoandDas Kapitalwhile in living in England. The ideology of
Communism draws its inspiration from Marx and Engels' work, which
was influenced by the social environment in Western Europe during
the first half of the 19th century.Joseph Mazzini- Italian
Nationalist from Genoa who founded Young Italy in 1832, a movement
that would inspire nationalist groups throughout Europe.Metternich-
Austrian foreign minister, Metternich was Europe's
arch-Reactionary. He was a leading architect of the balance of
power developed at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, and he called
the great powers to various Congresses throughout the coming decade
to put down European rebellions wherever they started. In 1848,
during a revolution in Vienna, Metternich fled the city.Nicholas I-
Succeeded Alexander I, serving as Russian Czar from 1825 to 1855.
Nicholas' more liberal brother Constantine was favored as successor
by Russian revolutionaries, but Nicholas used the army to destroy
this rebellion.Robert Owen- Manchester manufacturer who grew upset
by the conditions endured by workers in Industrial Revolution
Britain, and became a reformer.Robert Peel- Britain's conservative
prime minister from 1834 to 1835, and from 1841 to 1846. Peel
oversaw the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, partially due to the
ongoing Irish Famine.David Ricardo- Early British economist who
helped develop "Classical" economics. He was responsible for
formulating the "Iron Law" of wages, which stated that any attempt
to improve workers' lots would lead to such a population increase
that the increased competition for labor would ultimately bring
workers' wages back down. This argument held that no improvement in
workers' lives was possible, so the government should not bother
legislating wage increases.Saint-Simon- French theorist of
Socialism, he developed a concept of "Christian Socialism"
emphasizing the brotherhood of all men. His conception included the
centralization of industry and equal sharing of its profits.Jose de
San Martin- Much like Simon Bolivar, Jose de San Martin was a South
American military leader involved in the liberation of several
South American countries from Spanish colonial rule.Friedrich
Schiller- German Romantic dramatist of the late 18th and early 19th
century.Karl Friedrich Schinkel- German Romantic architect who
worked both in classical forms; a leader in the Gothic
Revival.Percy Bysshe Shelley- Influential British Romantic poet,
married to Mary Shelley. Read theSparkNote on Shelley's Poetry.Mary
Shelley- British Romantic writer, wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley, and
author ofFrankenstein(1818), a classic allegory of the flaws of
Reason and Science.Slavs- An ethnic and linguistic classification
in Eastern Europe and Western Asia that includes Russians,
Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs, Croats,
Slovenes, and Macedonians.EventsCarlsbad Decrees- 1819 regulation
in Germany that outlawed the Burschenschaft student groups, pushing
them underground. It also established censorship, and government
control of universities. Metternich, from his position of influence
in Austria, helped get this measure passed in the German
Bund.Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle- 1818 Congress in which the
European powers agreed to withdraw their armies occupying France.
Alexander I tried to convince the other powers to form an
international military coalition to suppress Revolution, but
Castlereagh refused British participation.Congress of Troppau- 1820
Congress, dealing with collapse of the government in Naples. At the
Congress, Metternich received permission to restore the old
government using the Austrian army.Congress of Verona- Congress
called by Metternich to deal with revolutionary stirrings in Spain
and Greece. France sent an army into Spain to quell the rebellion
there. Although Alexander I expressed an interest in putting down
the South American revolutions of Simon Bolivar and Jose de San
Martin, Castlereagh promised British naval opposition. Verona was
the last international Congress held in the period from
1815-1848.Congress of Vienna- 1814-1815 meeting of the Great powers
that led to the reorganization of Europe in the wake of
theNapoleonic Wars.Decembrist Revolt- The 1825 death of Czar
Alexander I of Russian sparked a succession dispute between
Alexander's two sons. Constantine, the younger brother of Nicholas,
received some support because he was known to be the more Liberal
of the two brothers. The revolt in favor of Constantine was put
down by the rightful heir, Nicholas I, and the army.Enclosure
Movement- 18th century movement among wealthy British landed
aristocrats to rationalize their farms. Using new farming
technology and systems of crop rotation, they forced the agrarian
poor off the old "village commons" that now became "enclosed" as
private property. The jobless poor ended up constituting the
proletariat working class in the upcoming Industrial
Revolution.February Revolution- 1848 Revolution in Paris, primarily
by lower-class workers, who overthrew Louis Philippe, established
universal adult male suffrage, and elected Louis Napoleon Bonaparte
president. Along with overthrowing Louis Philippe's regime, the
February Revolution sparked other revolutions throughout
Europe.Frankfurt Assembly- From 1848 to 1849, a group of German
bourgeoisie intellectuals and professionals who attempted (and
failed) to create a unified German state.Gothic Revival- 1830s
movement in architecture when buildings in the Gothic (high
medieval) style became popular. It was in this period that the
British Parliament building was built. This was the architectural
manifestation of Romanticism. Where the Enlightenment had looked
down on the Middle Ages as a "dark" period of ignorance, the
Romantics celebrated the Medieval period for its spiritualism,
depth, and sense of adventure.Industrial Revolution- 18th and 19th
century development, beginning in Britain, in which manufacturing
was increasingly done in factories by machines, rather than in
small workshops by hand labor. The Industrial Revolution, in
combination with the earlier the Enclosure Movement, radically
reshaped the world economy and social and political
development.July Revolution- 1830 overthrow of Charles X's
oppressive regime; ultimately, Louis Philippe became the new French
king.Peterloo Massacre- In 1819, manufacturers organized around
80,000 workers to protest the Corn Laws. When some of the peaceful
protesters were shot, the event was dubbed the "Peterloo Massacre",
likening the British government's shameful use of violence on a
peaceful crowd to the recent defeat ofNapoleonat Waterloo.Reform
Bill of 1832- This British bill simplified voting requirements,
though it actually didn't enfranchise many new people. Most
importantly, it partially corrected the problem of Rotten Boroughs,
giving a much larger amount of Parliamentary power to previously
under-represented manufacturers like those
Manchester.Timeline1814-1815:Congress of Vienna1815: Corn Law in
Great BritainDecember 1816: Corn Law riots in London1817:
Buschenschaft holds congress at Wurtburg1818: Prussian Zollverein
created1818: International Congress held at Aix-la-Chapelle1818:
Mary Shelley publishesFrankenstein1819: Metternich initiates
Carlsbad Decrees1819: Peterloo Massacre1820: Several members of
Cato Street Conspiracy executed1820s: British Radicalism gets
underway1820: Louis XVIII's nephew (the Duke de Berry)
assassinated1820: Te Congress of Troppau1822: The Congress of
Verona1823: Munroe Doctrine1824: Louis XVIII dies, Charles X
becomes French king1825: Decembrist Revolt put down in Russia,
Nicholas I comes to power1825: Robert Owen founds New Harmony,
Indiana1827: Anglo-French-Russian navy destroys Turkish fleet,
helping Greek nationalists1829: Nations of Europe recognize an
independent Greece1829: First truly successful locomotive
tested1830s: Gothic Revival in architectureJuly 1830: Charles X
passes "Four Ordinances" in FranceJuly 1830: July Revolution in
France. Charles X abdicates, Louis Philippe becomes French
king1831: Mazzini founds Young Italy1832: Goethe
completesFaust1832: Parliament passes Reform Bill1833: Factory Act
restricts child labor (Great Britain)1834: Poor Laws passed (Great
Britain)1838: Anti-Corn Laws League1838: Chartist movement
begins1839: Chartist movement gains 1 million signatures1840:
Frederick William IV comes to power in Prussia1840s: Corn Laws
repealed1840s: Railway construction begins in England and
Europe1842: Chartist movement gains 3 million signatures1847: Ten
Hour Act limits women and child labor to ten hours a day (Great
Britain)January 1848: Marx and Engels publishCommunist
ManifestoFebruary 1848: February Revolution in Paris, barricades in
the streets1848: Louis Napoleon Bonaparte becomes President of
FranceMarch 1848: Metternich, terrified of unrest, flees
ViennaMarch 15, 1848: Hungary granted independence within the
Austrian Empire, revolutions begin throughout Eastern EuropeJune
1848: Pan-Slavic Conference held in PragueMay 1848: Frankfurt
AssemblyDecember 1848: Ferdinand of Austria abdicates, Franz Joseph
becomes emperor
Britain's Industrial Revolution (1780-1850)page 1 of
2SummaryAlthough Western Europe had long had the basic trappings of
capitalism (private property, wealth accumulation, contracts), the
Industrial Revolution fueled the creation of a
trulymoderncapitalist system. Widespread credit, business
corporations, investments and large-scale stock markets all become
common. Britain led the way in this transformation.By the 1780s,
the British Industrial Revolution, which had been developing for
several decades, began to further accelerate. Manufacturing,
business, and the number of wage laborers skyrocketed, starting a
trend that would continue into the first half of the 19th century.
Meanwhile, technology changed: hand tools were replaced by steam-
or electricity-driven machines.The economic transformation brought
about the British industrial revolution was accompanied by a social
transformation as well. Population boomed, and demographics
shifted. Because industrial resources like coal and iron were in
Central and Northern England, a shift in population from Southern
England northward took place. Northern cities like Manchester grew
tremendously. These changes in social and demographic realities
created vast pressure for political change as well. The first act
to protect workers went into affect in 1802 (though in practice it
did very little). Pressure to redress the lack of representation
for the new industrial cities and the newly wealthy industrial
manufacturers also began to build.Meanwhile, industrialists
developed an ideology called Laissez Faire based on Adam
Smith'sWealth of Nations(1776) and continued by David Ricardo and
Robert Malthus. Based on this, the discipline known as "economics"
developed, largely to give the manufacturers a basis for arguing
for little or no regulation of industry. Instead of government
interference, these economists argued that a free market, in which
everyone followed their own self- interest, would maximize the
nation's utility.Britain, with its head start in manufacturing, its
many world markets, and its dominant navy, would dominate industry
for most of the 19th century. Towards the end of that century, the
United States and Germany would begin to challenge Britain's
industrial power.CommentaryAmong the Western European countries,
Britain was the ideal incubator for the Industrial Revolution
because an "Agricultural Revolution" preceded it. After the 1688
"Glorious Revolution", the British kings lost power and the
aristocratic landholders gained power. The landholders tried to
rationalize their landholdings and started the Enclosure Movement
to bring more and more of their own land under tighter control, a
process that went on throughout the 1700s. This policy had two main
effects: it increased the productivity of the land, and transformed
the people who used to work land into an unemployed, labor class of
poor in need of work. Thus, the first factories had a ready labor-
supply in Britain that was not available in other nations.
Important inventions like the "Spinning Jenny" to produce yarn
began to be made in 1760s, and soon the British textile industry
was booming, aided by Eli Whitney's invention of the "Cotton Gin"
in America, which provided a ready source of cotton.The Industrial
Revolution represented a shift in influence away from the
traditional power-holders in England. Aristocratic rule was no
longer supreme, for "upstart" manufacturers were now often more
wealthy and more important to the nation's overall well being than
the landed gentry. They also employed a far greater percentage of
the national economy. However, the aristocratic landholders did not
entirely lose out: they maintained some power, and only grudgingly
gave it up to business interests. Often, the aristocracy, trying to
take power away from the manufacturers, would ally with the working
class. As both sides, aristocrats and manufacturers, competed for
the support of the workers, reforms in Britain gradually took place
through Parliamentary deal- making without the need for a bloody
revolution. In its impact on human societies, the industrial
revolution was probably the most important change in its era, more
important, perhaps, than any events in the last few thousand years.
The Industrial Revolution allowed increasing urbanization and
greatly increased the overall wealth and production power of
humanity, although not everyone always shared in the benefits of
industrialization equally.Though industrialization was most
prominent in Europe, its transformative powers must be seen as a
theme through the period of 1815-1848. Capitalism and the
Industrial Revolution went hand-in-hand with the Western European
countries' liberal traditions. Many of the same principles
underlying theFrench Revolutionwere being developed via the
Industrial Revolution in Britain. Industrializing nations developed
middle classes who began to wield political clout. Further, the
Industrial Revolution would give Western Europe the economic system
and technology to dominate much of the world in the colonial period
towards the end of the 19th century. The countries that did not
transition to industrial systems very quickly got left behind, and
often ended up as satellites to the major powers.It would be some
time before workers developed a counter-ideology of their own. Yet
as manufacturing brought hundreds of thousands of workers into the
cities, they started thinking about organizing to protect their own
political interests. By 1825, the workers in the industrializing
nations would become a social and political force of their own.
EUROPE (1815-1848)Europe After Napoleonpage 1 of
2SummaryAfterNapoleon's domination of Europe from around 1800 to
1814, the rulers of Europe wanted to insure that no one would ever
be able to come so close to taking over all of Europe again. To
this end, the diplomats from all of the Great Powers met at the
Congress of Vienna to negotiate from 1814 to 1815. There they
reorganized European boundaries in hopes of creating a stable
Europe where coalitions of nations could always ally to defeat one
nation that got out of hand.The rulers after Napoleon were
dedicated to stopping revolution (like theFrench Revolutionin their
own countries. Louis XVIII, whose brother Louis XVI had been
executed during the French Revolution, certainly didn't want
another revolution in France. The Tory government in Great Britain
was archconservative and greatly opposed social upheaval.
Metternich, the foreign minister in Austria, was willing to do
anything to stabilize Europe and preserve Hapsburg power.FranceIn
France, Louis XVIII did his best to balance the tense situation
following Napoleon's defeat. On both sides, Louis granted
amnesties, hoping to "start over" in France. The wealthy, however,
remembering the leveling effects of the Revolution, became
passionately anti-revolutionary, or reactionary. The reactionary
element only increased after the King's nephew, the Duke of Berry,
was assassinated in 1820. In 1824, Louis XVIII died, and was
replaced by the assassinated Duke's father, Charles X. Unlike the
moderate Louis, Charles was a hard-core reactionary, and hated all
the changes taking place in France, even the ones Louis had
initiated. Charles believed himself to be a monarch appointed by
God, and he started trampling on basic elements of liberalism like
the French constitution.PolandPoland was a state recreated by the
Congress of Vienna and ruled by Czar Alexander I. Initially, its
government was quite liberal; though ruled by Alexander, Poland had
a constitution. Alexander considered himself an "enlightened
despot" and spoke often of granting freedom to the people, but he
soon found that when he did give the people some self-government,
they didn't always agree with what he wanted them to do. Liking
liberal reforms in theory more than practice, Alexander
increasingly curtailed Poland's right of self- government. As a
result of its frustrated desire for self-rule, Polish Nationalism
began to rise. Secret societies developed, and a university
movement (which Alexander put down in the 1820s) got
underway.GermanyIn Germany, nationalists motivated by Romantic
ideas such as the belief in a special German Volksgeist hated the
results of the Congress of Vienna, since the ongress split up into
a loose federation called the Bund. Dissatisfaction ce