ROMANIA ROMANTIC. 



89/5 



ours of verse. (S<-e Italian Literature, division 

 Poetry.) The spiritual romance differed from the 

 chivalrous in recording the deaths of martyrs and the 

 miracles of saints, but, in point of style and composi- 

 tion, was not essentially different from it. Among 

 the works of this class are the Golden Legend, the 

 Contes Devots of the French, and one of the most 

 remarkable works of fiction, the Pilgrim's Pro- 

 gress. (See Bunyan.) The comic romance was 

 the production of a later age, when the spirit of 

 chivalry had become extinct, and new forms of 

 society succeeded. Rabelais, Cervantes (whose 

 Don Quixote was the death-blow of the romances 

 of chivalry), Mendoza, author of Lazarillo de Tor- 

 mes, the first romance in the style called gusto pi- 

 caresco, Scarron (Roman Comique), were the prin- 

 cipal writers of this kind of romantic composition. 

 The political romance also forms a class by itself, 

 to which the Cyropedia of Xenophon may be con- 

 sidered to belong ; Barclay's Argenis, Telemachus 

 (see Fenelori), and Sethos, are the principal works 

 of this class. In the time of Cervantes, the pas- 

 toral romance, founded upon the Diana of Monte- 

 mayor, was prevailing to such an extent as to at- 

 tract his satire. In imitation of it, D'Urfe wrote 

 his well known Astree, which gave rise to the 

 heroic romance of the seventeenth century. Gom- 

 berville, Calpren&le and madame Scuderi composed 

 these insipid and interminable folios, in which the 

 heroines are all models of beauty and perfection, 

 and the heroes live through their long-winded 

 pages for love alone. See, on the subject of ro- 

 mance in general, Dunlop's History of Romantic 

 Fiction ; Ellis's Specimens of Early English Fic- 

 tion; Panizzi's Essay on the Romantic Narrative 

 Poetry of the Italians, prefixed to his edition of 

 Boiardo and Arisosto (London, 1830); Sir Walter 

 Scott's Introduction to Sir Tristram, and his arti- 

 cles Chivalry and Romance, printed in his miscel- 

 laneous works. See also the article Romantic, and 

 the works there referred to. 



ROMANIA, RUMELIA, OR RUM ILL This 

 name (signifying the country of the Romans) is ap- 

 plied by the Turks to the greater part of the Turk- 

 ish empire in Europe, and by European writers to 

 that part lying south of the Balkan, comprising 

 the ancient Macedonia, Thrace and (previous to 

 the Greek revolution) Greece. See Turkey in 

 Europe. 



ROMANIC LANGUAGES, OR ROMANCE. 

 In the countries belonging to the Western Roman 

 empire, where Latin had been introduced, new dia- 

 lects were formed at the time of the decline and fall 

 of the empire, from the mixture of Latin with the 

 languages of the barbarians, by whom the coun- 

 tries had been overrun. These were called Romanic 

 idioms, or. Romance. In all of them Latin was 

 tlie Imsis and chief ingredient, and from them have 

 sprung the languages now prevalent in the South 

 of Europe the Italian, French, Spanish, Portu- 

 guese, and the Rhaetian, or Romanic in the nar- 

 rower sense. Raynouard believes in an original 

 Romanic language, which served as a common 

 stock to the above dialects; but A. W. von Schle- 

 gel denies this, and has investigated the matter 

 in his Siemens de la Grammaire de la Langue Ro- 

 mane avant I' An 1000 (Paris, 1816). A further 

 corruption of the Italian gave rise to the lingua 

 Franca, (q. v.) 



ROMANO, GIULIO. See Giulio Romano. 



ROMANTIC, in aesthetics, is used as contradis- 

 tinguished to antique, or classic. (See these two 

 articles.) Christianity turned men's thoughts from 

 the external world, and the present condition of 

 man, which had engrossed the attention of anti- 



quity, to his spiritual nature and future destiny; 

 and all the works of imagination soon testified of 

 the change. An unbounded world of imaginary 

 beings, good and bad, beautiful and deformed, hu- 

 man, animal, angelic and demoniac, was created. 

 The effect was increased by the mixture of the 

 northern element with that of the south ; for the 

 northern mythology was full of supernatural, sha- 

 dowy beings. A further consequence of Chris- 

 tianity was the giving of increased importance to 

 the individual. The love and hatred, success and 

 sufferings, of individual men assumed a more pro. 

 niinent place than had been allowed them in anti- 

 quity; the sense of personal dignity was heightened, 

 and the longing for something better than the pre- 

 sent world can afford, became more intense. These 

 circumstances furnished the chief elements of ro- 

 mantic poetry the poetry of the middle ages. 

 The Greek lived in what is and was, the Christian 

 in what is to come. So much is the spirit of ro- 

 mantic poetry connected with Christianity, that 

 Jean Paul says, in his F'orschule zar JEstheti/c : 

 " The origin and character of the whole modern 

 poetry is so easily to be derived from Christianity, 

 that the romantic might be called with equal pro- 

 priety the Christian poetry." And so much is ro- 

 mantic poetry impressed with the longing for some- 

 thing beyond the existing world, that Viennet, in 

 his Epitre aux Muses sur les Romantiques (Paris, 

 1824), says: 



C'est la melancolie et In myiticite, 



C'est Caffectation de la namete; 



C'eit un monde ideal qu'on voit dam ksnuages: 



Tout, jusqu'au sentiment, n'y parle qu'en image*. 



C'est un je ne sais quoi dont on e>t tramportt; 



Et mains on le comprend, plus on est enchantt. 



'"Tis melancholy and mystery. 



The affectation of sage quaintness. 



An ideal world seen in the clouds, 



Where thought itself is clothed in imagery. 



It is an indescribable ecstasy. 



The more unknown the more enchanting." 



Romantic poetry first grew up in the south of 

 Europe, as its name would naturally lead us to 

 suppose (see Romanic Languages), and was imbued 

 with the spirit of chivalry, which also had its origin 

 there. Hence the reason why love holds so pro- 

 minent a place in romantic poetry. The reader 

 will find some remarks applicable to this subject 

 in the article Chivalry, where we have attempted 

 to trace the causes of this singular institution. The 

 age of chivalry has passed; the chivalrous spirit 

 has taken a different direction; but the causes 

 which produced the romantic poetry are by no 

 means all extinct; and the poetry of our time has 

 much more resemblance to that of the middle ages 

 than to the Greek. The same circumstances which 

 gave its character to the poetry of the middle ages, 

 had a corresponding influence on the fine arts in 

 general, and music, painting and architecture were 

 imbued with a peculiar spirit. The magnificent 

 Gothic cathedrals which still remain, bear witness 

 to the aspirations which Christianity awakened, and 

 the solemnity which it inspired. The term roman- 

 tic, therefore, is frequently applied to modern art 

 in general, as contradistinguished to the antique 

 classic or plastic. See the article Middle Ages, 

 also the excellent work of Bouterwek, History of 

 Arts, Sciences, &c. ; Jean Paul's Forschule ; an 

 Essay on the Romantic Narrative Poetry of the 

 Italians, in Panezzi's edition of Bojardo and Arios- 

 to, vol. i. (London, 1830), and Storia ed Analisi 

 degli antichi Romanzi di Cavalleria e dei Poemi 

 Romanzeschi d Italia con Dissertazioni sull' Ori- 

 gine, sugi Instituti, sulle Ceremonie de' Cavalieii, 

 sulle Corti d'Amore, &c., by Giulio Ferrario (Milan, 



