The Portland daily press., 1894-02-21
Modern Romantic Literature.


Romantic writers of the day by saying
that it was always difficult to make
classifications in literature, as the vari-
Gus divisions SO ran into each other, and
a writer who had been classed on one
side was found to be straying over to
the opposite camp. Thus Miss Wilkins
and Miss Jewett were reckoned Realists,
and vet, as in a selection from story
called "The Town Poor" there is ten
der light of romance and poetry cast over
the so commonplacestheme. Hawthorne,
our greatest romancer, takes some mat
ter-of-fact scene, as the New England of
Puritan times, and casts over it a
spell and glamor. His "Note Books" !"
full of the strangest, and sometimes the
darkest, imaginings, often contain the
thoughts which were later expanded
into his stories. The flight of the Owls,
in the House of the Seven Gables, while
Judge Pyncheon sits dead in the dreary
mansion, was read, as giving somethin :
of the extraordinary fancy of the wizard
and his keen insight into the soul of a
sinful man, often noting the faint OF
evil in the outwardIy fair and decorous
The romantic movement began in Ger
many about the year 1880, with the
Schlegel Brothers, Heine and Tieck.
Goethe, though generally inclining to
the classical school, was Romanticfst in
his novels. The translation of some OF
Shakspeare's plays by Schlegel turned the
tide of thought towards the freer and
more plastic conception of life and lltera-
ture. Timerbach and Spielhagen unite
the rather heavy philosophy of Germany
with the sentimentality which is so
common in the fiction of that country.
Yet there are very great things in
Auerbach's ""On the Heights" The
French mind loves order and classifca-
tion and it is only the Gallo tempera-
ment that lends itself to romance. Vic
tor Hugo is half genius, half charlatan.
He always has touch of the melodrama,
aud does not ring quite true. Yet he has
very great genius, and if not. as Swim
burne calls him, second Shakespeare,
he has thrilling quality in his style
that, for the time being, carries us away
with him. He also has an intense en-
| thusiasm for humanity, and highly
served his fellow men. Extracts were
| read from "Les Misera bles" to show his
| great though sometimes rather artificial
power.
| George Sand was. as Mrs. Browning
said, very simple and noble spirit, who
was far grander than the life she had
selected for herself. She, too, loved her
fellow men, and. though misguided in
| many directions she only sought to
"help the life of the future A charming
poem was read from her delightfully."- out
door novel, "The Bagpipers."
Romanticism came in England as a
revolt from the hardness and cold in.
tellectualism OF Pope and his school,
through the poetry of Gray, Burns and
Wordsworth. The novels of Scott offer
large canvas full of stirring and splen-
did figures. He does not analyze humsn
nature, after the. modern fashion; his
heroes and heroines are not very real,
but his manly and brave spirit has Great
| ed world which, as Emerson says, is
"the delight of generous boys, "and OF
those who love high hearted action OF
| fuller years.
Dickens is going a little out of fash
ion; his humor and pathos are both ex-
aggerated, but there are great romantic
episodes in his books, like certain scenes
in "The Tale of Two Cities" The flight
OF "Little Emily" was read from
David Copperfield." George Meredith
hardly belongs with the Romanticists,
yet the very spirit of poetry and love and
youth is in his novels, as in some great
scenes in Richard Teverell's Ordeal. >
The lecturer closed with tribute to the
| genius of Robert Louis Stevenson. who,
| in the narrative of the widest and most
| improbable of events, always has dis
| tinction of style-a certain splendor and
| stateliness of diction. A humorous
reading from "The Wrong Box" conclud
ed the lecture.
Up S. C. Il.