Hannah Ridley
Science in Perspective
The British Romantics, the French Revolution and the Environment
Romanticism is a literary movement that swept across Europe starting around 1750 and lasted up until the mid nineteenth century. The movement began as a pushback against the strict rules regarding the structure and subject matter of poetry during the Neoclassical Period. The Romantic period was marked by a focus on the mind and imagination, rather than reason, and there was an emphasis on the idea that nature was the only way to access one’s creative and imaginative abilities. Many of the British Romantic poets left England to travel Europe and many settled in France, particularly around the time of the French Revolution. The French Revolution had a huge impact on the Romantic poets as initially, many of the poets supported the philosophical ideas that had sparked the Revolution. The Revolution also had a devastating impact on the environment, both literally and in terms of how French citizens began to think about the environment. While the Romantic poets wanted to keep the land pristine and revert back to a simpler and more pastoral way of life, their involvement with the Revolution damaged the very thing that they were attempting to protect.
the French countryside that inspired many Romantic poets
Now, many people can question why it is important to understand environmental science through literature seeing as the two are not seemingly related. However, in Tilar J. Mazzeo’s essay “Teaching Green Romanticism to Environmental Studies Majors,” he discusses why science majors, particularly environmental science students, should study literature, especially the Romantic period. In his essay, he explores the issues often associated with teaching a literary movement to students who may not be interested in literature or have been exposed to it on a collegiate level. He developed an entire course devoted to the cross-study of environmental science and the British Romantics, claiming that “we study the Romantic period as a moment in Western cultural history that was concerned with issues of the environment and ecological apocalypse, in order to consider how the literature of the period has shaped contemporary expectations regarding the nature and the development of environmental studies” (Mazzeo). Romanticism and the environment should be studied together because it became the first literature movement where nature was revered.
There has always been a focus on nature in literature because environmental phenomenon cannot be explained and the beauty in nature cannot be rivaled. In A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold states “our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language” (Leopold). But during the Romantic period, the focus on nature intensified and changed. Nature was seen as the source for all creative and imaginative abilities, which were seen as extremely important during the time period as it was a pushback from the Age of Reason. In some cases, nature was seen as a replacement for religion and a space where transcendence through self awareness could occur. The Romantic poets were astounded by nature and often spent months travelling through the countryside of France and England. Percy Shelley spent extensive time in the French countryside, especially in the Chamonix region where Mont Blanc, the tallest mountain in the Alps. Shelley wrote an entire ode “Mont Blanc: Written in the Vale of Chamouni” that was dedicated to the beauty of this mountain. He describes the mountain using adjectives that would typically describe humans–
“Thus thou, Ravine of Arve—dark, deep Ravine—
Thou many-colour’d, many-voiced vale,
Over whose pines, and crags, and caverns sail
Fast cloud-shadows and sunbeams: awful scene,
Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down
From the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne,
Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame
Of lightning through the tempest;” (Shelley).
The Romantic poets saw the natural world as something that could never be fully captured by language or art, like Leopold stated. Instead, their poems were meant to inspire others to go back to nature and to meditate and reflect on the surrounding environment.
During my time in Europe, I’ve had the ability to travel to beautiful places and gain a deeper understanding and appreciation for the Romantic poets respect, awe and love for nature. Living in Texas, I have never had the opportunity to watch the leaves change color on the trees before, and I am amazed at how beautiful the environment is in Angers during the fall. One weekend, I had the opportunity to visit Portugal and Spain with a few of my friends. The environments surrounding Barcelona and Lisbon stunned me– it was completely breathtaking. The beaches and mountains surrounding Barcelona were in stark contrast with each other but created a beautiful backdrop for the city. Literature from the Romantic period serves as an excellent reminder as to why it is important to spend time in nature away from the bustle of the city and to keep the environment in good condition. It also shows that this time period really was the birth of thinking consciously about the environment and our actions towards the environment.
The French Revolution had a profound impact on the Romantic poets as well as the French environment. After the overthrow of the French monarchy, France existed in chaos for several years really without any type of firm structure or laws. During that time, the peasants, who had previously lived with extreme restrictions on land use, destroyed the environment. After the Revolution, “the French peasantry… took advantage of the breakdown of rural authority to invade and pillage forests and to clear wasteland” (Plack). During the time of the monarchial government, forests had been regulated with rules about hunting and tree chopping; however, that effectively collapsed with the dismantling of the monarchy and the failed Revolution assemblies. During the Revolution, it was also passed that common land in villages was to be voted on and divided so all French citizens could own land instead of just the king. While the peasants may have done damage to the forests, they understood the environment in terms of agriculture much better than the elite class, and during the division of the common land in villages, they knew “about which crops would grow on dry rocky hillsides or about the balance between arable and pasture” land (Plack). The French Revolution also marked the first time that environmental problems or processes were truly recorded.
While I have never experienced an uprising like the French Revolution, it is obvious that any political upheaval or unrest affects the environment and puts strain on the local environment. And the literature we read reflects that strain and the tension between cultural revolution and progress and the environment. This year’s Nobel Prize in literature is Svetlana Alexievich and she is one of the few who have won with non-fiction works. Her compilation of transcripts taken when she was a journalist give us insight into the “survivors of events such as the Chernobyl nuclear disaster (Voices from Chernobyl), the Soviet war in Afghanistan (Zinky Boys), or the collapse of the Soviet Union (Second-Hand Time),” all of which had a profound and extreme effect on the environment and how humans interact with the environment (Kononov). Literature allows us to see the ‘human’ side of environmental science, which can often be difficult for non-science or lay people to understand. In order for more people to start becoming concerned with environmental issues, even just historical problems, we need to go back to the literature and art that can explain the environmental problems of times like the Industrial Revolution, the Civil War and the westward expansion of America.
Bibliography
Kononov, Nickolay, and Gideon Lichfield. “Her Compatriots Hardly Read Her, Making Svetlana Alexievich’s Nobel Win Especially Fitting.” Www.qz.com. Quartz, 10 Oct. 2015. Web. <http://qz.com/521570/why-a writer-whose-own-compatriots-hardly-read-her-won-this-years-nobel-literature-prize/>.
Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac. New York: Oxford UP, 1949. E-Book.
Mazzeo, Tilar J. “Teaching Green Romanticism to Environmental Studies Majors.” Www.rc.umd.edu. Colby College/Romantic Circles, Dec. 2006. Web. 9 Oct. 2015. <https://www.rc.umd.edu/pedagogies/commons/ecology/mazzeo/mazzeo.html>.
Plack, Noelle. “Environmental Issues during the French Revolution: Peasants, Politics and Village Common Lands.” Thesis. Newman University College, 2010. Australian Journal of French Studies (2010): 290 301. Print.
Shelley, Percy. Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni. N.p.: Mary Shelley, 1817. Print.