Romanticism View of Nature Essay Example

To understand how the Romantic lens will aid in answering the question of “Do we have an obligation to preserve nature?”, it is critical to dissect the key values of Romanticism, how Romantics have felt historically about preservation, and how their ideas can guide us. The definition of Romanticism and how the values of that era relate to nature and the preservation of nature are integral to comprehending this lens in relation to the question. Romanticism is a movement of the late eighteenth century that emphasized individual imagination and intuition pertaining to liberty of various causes, a major one being nature.

A fundamental value that the Romantics held, pertaining to their view of nature, is worshiping it as a higher power. In the article, “Nature and the Romantic Poet”, Catherine Peck describes how the Romantics feel about nature and the spirituality they saw behind it. They hold “the idea of pantheism where God or a divine creative force is inherent within nature”. Romantics see God in nature. They worship it and see it as holy. As pantheists, they feel as though God is within everything to exist, with earth and nature being the most divine. “Nature was seen as pure and a spiritual source of renewal.”(Oosthoek) For people to use it for selfish gain is to betray it. They would not support the use of it in the inconsiderate way that people use it now. Worshiping nature means that we consider what is best for nature and not solely what is best for us. While they may feel that all of our use of nature is selfish, we cannot fully adopt the Romantic approach because it is unsustainable for us in the modern era. As the masses shifted from the Romantic type of thinking to selfish motives, it was clear that people started objectifying nature for economic gain.

The alienation of nature was the beginning of the mistreatment of the environment, which caused great distress for the Romantics. This contrasted their primary ideology as they had “a tendency to personify nature and to identify emotionally with its processes and forces” (Angeles). The Romantics emulate a multitude of personifications of nature in their writings. They personally must feel for it, meaning that preservation would be their ultimate goal. Destroying it or taking advantage of it as others have is not in the Romantics' best interest. Even though the Romantics felt this way more and more of the population considered nature to be a tool and something to use to their advantage. Romantics were fearful of the evolution of technology as it caused people to not think as wholly towards the environment. Romantics worried that “modern science alienated …human beings from nature”(Gorodeisky). More people were seeing nature through the lens of science where nature is “a domain of brute, determined, mechanical causality”(Gorodeisky).  Romantics saw that others focused more on all the problems it was alleviating instead of the problems it was creating. This alienation means that we are not connected to ethical treatment of how nature should be cared for by people. We are not thinking about or understanding the harm that we do to the environment regularly. The more we destroy, the more alienated we are from nature, and the more alienated we are the easier it is. It is a positive feedback loop that has continued since the Industrial Revolution.  

It is important to also look at how Romantics have felt historically. The Romantic era was during the Industrial Revolution, a time when people were rapidly using natural resources and polluting. “Nature was a predominant Romantic theme in the light of the Industrial Revolution, which…posed a threat to its preservation…” (Peck). Romantics didn’t support the Industrial Revolution because harming it was to nature. Romantics felt that the Industrial Revolution had ‘“degraded and despoiled”... the environment” because they had led “to spiritual alienation of the masses from the land and nature.”(Oosthoek). People were only economically focused during the Industrial Revolution. Romantics saw this time as very harmful because it caused people to begin to truly ruin the environment. They would feel similarly about our lives today. Preservation is necessary for nature to continue to flourish under our hands. Understanding how they felt then can relate to their general views on preservation, and, in turn, what we should be doing now.

The values associated with Romanticism are still reflected in today’s society when it pertains to the preservation of nature. While it may be hard to exactly emulate what Romantics felt was essential to preservation, having their ideals in mind can be very useful in order to become successful in environmental protection. Romantics felt that “Spoliation of a pure natural landscape was regarded as undesirable and destructive.” (Oosthoek). Harvesting nature and using it in a way to economic gain was so unfathomably terrible for the Romantics. It led to a disconnection between seeing nature as something to value and to be in awe of. Industrialization made people objectify it in a way that was opposite of the Romantic’s ideas. While this can be hard for us to emulate in the modern world, we can certainly make a greater effort in being more mindful of the environment and the effect we have on it. In Sandra Hinchman and Lewis Hinchman’s book, What We Owe the Romantics, they explain that “Romanticism is recognized as a wellspring of modern-day environmental thought and enthusiasm for nature-preservation”. Romanticism has shaped how people today view nature. Romantics value nature and observe it as something that is not only equal to us but above us. It is something to worship. If we today have that same mentality then we will find that preservation of nature is our obligation. We should be respecting and caring for it in as many ways as possible. Having even a fraction of that mentality can go a long way for us and severely aid in our conservation efforts. 

Based on the values of Romanticism and the Romantic view of the Industrial Revolution it is unquestionably human's obligation to preserve nature. The most critical part of that obligation is determining the degree to which that preservation is possible within the modern era. Romantics felt that not one aspect of nature should be used for economic gain, which is not currently feasible. A lens that could be significant in this question would be the Ethics of our obligation behind preservation. It would be interesting to see if that lens could clarify to what extent preservation should be taken to.