Lakhasly

But Geoffrey Chaucer must have had something" totally different in mind when in the sombre opening to the "Book Of The Duchess" he describes himself lying awake, myste- riously grieving, and asks for a'romaunce' to 'rede, and dive the night Eway: (I).

ROMANTICISM:HISTORY AND DEFINITION
"Art and antique poetry have never admitted the confusion of
heterogenous genres; the romantic spirit, on the oppositen,
delights in the permanent coexistence of the most contradictory
things.Nature and Art, poetry and prose, seriousness and mockery,
memory and presontiment, abstract ideas and vivid sensations, the
thxe the divine and the earthly, life and death meet and confound
in the most intimate mannor in the romantic genre".(I).
(Auguur Wilhelm SCHLEGEL)
"Let the Reverie turn away from libortinage, let her meet the
venerable Helancholy, tearful gdddess who likes to fold her
arma in deep sighs.Let us walk silently to the chamols, to
the dwellings of desolation, to the gothic churches, the vaults
and the tombs." (2)
(Thomas Harton).
"
The above definitions give us a picture of Romanticism which
is not far from the medieval themes of chivalry and courtly.
Porance. The distance travelled by the word roamnce leads, to:
adefinition of the word totally removed from its initial context.
What is now called 'romance' usually refers to popular, sub-litera
ture,magazines like 'True Romances' or lightweight commercials
deliberately written to flatter day dreams.Cheap, tear-dropping
sentimentality seems to connote the word 'roamntic in its
Present meaning. But Geoffrey Chaucer must have had something"
totally different in mind when in the sombre opening to the
"Book Of The Duchess" he describes himself lying awake, myste-
riously grieving, and asks for a'romaunce' to 'rede, and dive the night
Eway:
(I). My translation
(2). My translation.
For me thought it beter play
Then either play at ches or tables,
And in this bok were written fables
That clarkes had in oldix tyme,
And other poets, put in rime