Romanticism in Two Countries: A Comparison of its Effect on Literature, Culture and Politics in Iceland and England

Abstract

This thesis discusses Romanticism, a literary movement from the late eighteenth century that traces its origins to the French Revolution. Defining the Romantic movement has been a delicate subject for the many literary critics who have argued about its meaning. Romanticism took hold in different nations at different times, and thus it developed in various ways depending on the condition of the nation where it took place. Romanticism has always lacked an unequivocal universal meaning as it differed so significantly between each country. To approach this subject two countries, England and Iceland, are compared. At the time of Romanticism England was part of an Empire where the effect of the Industrial Revolution was on the rise, while Iceland was a nation of rural farmers living in difficult conditions under the Danish Crown. An analysis of the poetry written by each countrys’ greatest Romantic poets uncovers the differences between them. In England they focused more on their emotions, feelings, and inner self, while in Iceland they preferred an approach that had nature and independence for Iceland as the main themes of their poetry. This leads to the conclusion that the English poets were mostly introverted, while the Icelandic ones were extroverted. The result of this comparison is in line with what other literary critics have emphasized, that Romanticism cannot be viewed as a singular movement because each country developed its own unique strand of Romanticism.