Neoclassicism vs. Romanticism, Coursework Example

Pope’s “An Essay on Criticism” is a work that exemplifies the Neoclassical movement in eighteenth century Western poetry. Neoclassicism was a movement that endorsed the use of poetic forms and theoretical rules. This approach is also usually referred to as traditionalism in poetry. Pope not only expressed themes of Neoclassicism in “An Essay on Criticism,” he demonstrated the precepts and ideas that were discussed in the work through the form and content of the work itself. In keeping to the classical theories of poetic composition and function, Pope also articulated a reason for the ideas and rules of classical composition. In other words, rather than blindly following tradition, Pope subjected traditional idea?s to scrutiny and tried to understand the purpose and meaning of traditional poetic rules and forms. While carrying out his argument, Pope simultaneously elevates the function of reason and rationality in both poetic composition and the experience of reading poetry.

Rationality can be, in fact, considered the “touchstone” of Neoclassical poetry and also of Poe’s particularly perspective on the elements of poetic composition and the use of poetic forms. For example, “An Essay on Criticism” is written in heroic couplets which lends a strong, almost confining sense of regularity to the stanzas. This brings forth what is commonly known as a didactic (or teaching) function purely in the employment of the poem’s meter alone. To take the influence of meter and regularity as a function of rationality and instruction a step further it is necessary only to consider the form and theme of the work itself: a poem on the function of criticism. This means in a most obvious fashion that one of the functions Pope ascribes to poetry is a didactic function.

It’s likewise telling that Pope feels that poetry in heroic couplets is a suitable and desirable form for a discourse on criticism. This indicates that Pope believed that the metrical precision and sharpness of the rhyme scheme aided in stressing a rational approach to both criticism and art. This places Pope’s theory and work firmly in the Neoclassical school. However, Pope embraces rationality to an even more profound extent when he attempts to trace the origin of formal literary theory to nature itself. Due to the fact that forms and harmonious interactions are found widely in nature, pope reasoned that the forms and rules of metrics and composition were also drawn from nature. In effect what Pope was suggesting was that humanity’s rational and intellectual capacity formed the basis for the most meaningful interpretation of nature and also of human experience. It is not so much that Pope was advocating an “all head and no heart” approach, rather, he was suggesting that human rationality was an indication of nature at its most harmonious. By association, poetry should reflect what is most meaningful and harmonious in nature and this accomplished through the use of traditional rules and forms.

In direct contrast to this perspective on poetry and nature, the Romantic movement in Western literature which began at the end of the eighteenth century stressed a break with traditionalism and the elevation of emotion above rationality as the chief concern of poetry. William Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” (1798) is an example of a Romantic poem that directly challenges the ideas laid out by Pope. The poem, like Pope’s “An Essay on Criticism” uses the form of a poem to forward ideas about the nature of composition and aesthetics. However, in the case of Wordsworth, the artistic philosophy that is being advocated is not Neoclassicism, but Romanticism. “Tintern Abbey” expresses all of the important artistic ideas that were part of the Romantic movement.

One of the most important ideas that the Romantic poets believed in was that traditional meter and traditional forms had no real place in the creation of modern poetry. Instead, what mattered was to create poetic forms that were vivid and that seemed more like the rhythms of natural speech. Along with this idea, the notion that poems should involve not only the intellect but the emotions and imagination of the reader. For the Romantic poets, such as Wordsworth, the idea that poetry should follow a regular, predictable meter or a confining form was contrary to the purpose and spirit of poetry itself. The Romantic saw poetic composition as a kind of spontaneous recording of emotional and psychological responses. Rather than stressing the ability of the poet to craft ,language into predetermined stanza forms, the Romantics saw language as a vivid, living expression of personal experience. In this way, the emotion, color, and theme of the poem was mean to dictate its form. So, rather than transmitting ideas from one rational mind to others, poetry functions as a conduit of emotional and psychological sensations that may or may not rely on logical association for their impact. Due to this radical break from Neoclassicism, the Romantic movement is best understood as a reaction against the predominantly didactic function of poetry in traditional theory.

So, just as Pope’ “An Essay on Criticism” was meant to celebrate and demonstrate the power and capacity of the human intellect as a product of nature, Romantic poetry was an attempt to celebrate and demonstrate the emotional and imaginative function of the human experience, also viewed as a product of nature. Interestingly enough, while both schools regarded their aesthetic as being grounded in nature, the two schools differed radically in interpreting not only the specifics of nature, but the way in which nature was to be best observed. Pope and the Neoclassicists offered an objective experience of poetry and nature while the Romantics openly embraced the subjective, emotional, and psychological functions of nature and human perception.