A Tilt towards Romanticism: Thomas Gray

Abstract

The dominant spirit of the 18th century was a controlled and rational scepticism. Poets did not expect great or noble deeds from their fellows nor even from themselves. Fears about man’s inherent incapacity for self-improvement and doubts about his ability to alter his environment for the better led to a laisse?-faire attitude towards politics. Man, in Pope’s words, was a ‘chaos of thought and passion, all confused’ and any alteration in the structure of his government must, given mankind’s centrifugal tendency towards anarchy, be an innovation for the worse. Hence the conservatism for which the 18th century is renowned. As such attitudes became more entrenched the longer the century advanced, it was not surprising that they invited reactions. The most notable of these was the French Revolution of 1789, which wiped out the French monarchy and aristocracy and challenged all the previously held assumptions about the sacred and inviolable structure of society. This event had repercussions throughout Europe, causing many a monarch to tremble on his throne; and it was probably the French Revolution that encouraged the nascent Romantic movement in Britain to burst forth into full flower at the end of the century.