 |
| "Coalbrookdale by Night" by Philip James de Loutherbourg |
The Industrial Revolution was a period of new inventions, new forms of government, and a seeming opposite view from the sentimentality; the Romantic Period embodied.
In Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s novel Sunset Song, he connects the Romantic Period and the Industrial Revolution through his main characters, Chris and Ewan Tavendale. As Ewan is drafted to go to war against the Germans at the beginning of WW1, Chris is left to maintain the farm and take care of the children. When Ewan returns, Chris laments the loss of her old Ewan, as he has been changed by war. Her sorrow relationship embodies Romanticism, as essentially it is a mode by which people lament a period that was different--when woods had not yet been replaced by factories, and communities were more important than the individual.
Just as Chris no longer recognizes her husband in the soldier that has come home to her, many living in the Industrial Age no longer recognized the places they had once known, due to the new innovations of the Second Industrial revolution--horses and buggies being replaced by automobiles, and a new social environment created through the invention of the telegraph and the telephone.
Romantic ideals held the land as sacred--as something holy to be worshipped; used with care and restraint. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, science seemed to be inexorably diminishing, even undermining the preeminence of nature. The problems of humanity could now be solved by machines, inventions, and people would no longer be slaves to seasons and weather.
For Chis and Ewan, the land was everything, but at the end of the novel, a forest above their farm is cleared for the construction of a new factory, destroying the productivity of the farmland below. As land became less important for monetary means and living, people traded traded enslavement to nature for enslavement to a different master: industry.
Adam Smith was apparently influenced by the Romanticism of his time, as he acknowledges the humanity of the workers in English society. “Great labour,” he says, “either of mind or body, continued for several days together is, in most men, naturally followed by a great desire of relaxation, which, if not restrained by force, or by some strong necessity, is almost irresistible … If it is not complied with, the consequences are often dangerous and sometimes fatal, … It will be found, I believe, in every sort of trade, that the man who works so moderately, as to be able to work constantly, not only preserves his health the longest, but, in the course of the year, executes the greatest quantity of work” (page 46, The Wealth of Nations)
In contrast to the Industrial Age ideal that people might be machines, capable of near-constant work and conforming perfectly to an industrial society, Adam Smith stresses the need for human workers to rest, unwind, and experience a moment of freedom from that great machine of societal structure.
Let’s learn the lessons of these two opposing times and work towards an ideal compromise, where productivity and creative freedom--industrialization and romanticism--are two complementary sides of the same coin.
Authors: Mitchell Bayles, Amelia Oross, Jake Smith, Kaylee Tanner
That Adam Smith quote is really interesting. I imagine industrial barons as trying to squeeze every last ounce of labor from their workers. Adam Smith is arguing that humane working conditions will lead to greater productivity, which might seem counterintuitive. It's a great example of a person very important to the time speaking out against some of the assumptions of the day.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Gabe - that quote is excellent! I also really enjoyed the metaphor you drew from the Sunset Song novel. It illustrated perfectly for me the point you were trying to make. - Kensie
ReplyDeleteI love the idea that both productivity and creativity can be used in conjunction. I think it’s really easy to look at romanticism and industrialization as two completely different periods with nothing in common, but I agree that both periods work towards creating a better version of one’s self—whether that be creatively or productively.
ReplyDeleteIt would definitely be a crazy time to live in! All the progress and inventions of the Industrial Revolution must have come as a shock to most of the inhabitants, especially those who supported the romantic ideals. This makes me think of my parents and grandparents and all the change they have witnessed throughout their lives. They have told me many times about their astonishment concerning the development of technology. It gives me an idea of how those people must have felt.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! It's really impressive that you were able to find a connection between the two conflicting eras through a novel! I liked how to emphasized the importance of land and how land is precious in different points of views: Land for 1) nature and 2) industry. What really sets the tone of the entire post was the picture. The dark colors shows that the land and its people live in a dark, soot filled, gloomy place; however, what's bright in this picture is the fire in the city. This is just my opinion but I think the fire represent the chaos and the destruction that comes from industry. Because our eyes goes to this part of the picture, it might suggest that the artist was opposed to the industrial movement.
ReplyDeleteI think Adam Smith responds to a major concern that Marx brought up in the "Communist Manifesto." Marx was worried about class struggle in a capitalistic society. He felt that this conflict was inevitable in capitalism. Smith is saying here that given enough time, the classes will balance things out and that the bourgeois will treat the working class right because they will be most productive in humane working conditions. Interesting how different people want the same thing but find very different ways of getting there.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting connection and one that is still being debated today. The interesting thing about the future I have always imagined would come is that it would be industry and science that would allow us to bring the focus back on creative freedom and also a healthier planet.
ReplyDeleteI also find the Adam Smith quote to ring true and I love how you used an economist to combine romanticism and industry. Before I switched to the linguistics major I started in Economics and while I didn't love everything about economics I was always very appreciative of the discipline's ability to come up with solutions to problems that were neither intuitive or apparent when you first approached the problem. I think we will need a lot more not obvious solutions like this to help us balance similar conflicts in the future of the technological revolution we are living in.
ReplyDeleteAs an Econ major, I thought your connection between Adam Smith and romanticism was absolutely fascinating. I've never thought of him as anything approaching a romantic because he was a huge proponent of efficiency and that has never tied into romanticism in my mind. I don't know that I entirely agree with the thought that he had ideals of human equality in mind when he wrote the above; I would argue his idea is more motivated by diminishing marginal returns, which is the theory that at some point adding more of something will be a detriment rather than a help. But I think perhaps romanticism influenced how he was able to apply that idea--to the common worker and trade.
ReplyDeleteI really love this post! I think that the book North and South is really similar to the novel that you mentioned in the way that it embodies industrial and romantic ideals. I think it is so interesting that these two movement were happening virtually at the same time. Do you think that the romantics were over powered by industrialism or do you think that romanticists held their own in competition with industrialism?
ReplyDeleteI think this is a really interesting post! I really like your connection between Adam Smith and romanticism. I think today we can see a lot of the struggle between more romantic ideals and more industrial ideals, and the Adam Smith quote, I think, demonstrates how these two things can coexist.
ReplyDelete