Romanticism Quotes

“The romantic is always intelligent, and I only meant to observe that although we have had foolish romantics, they don't count.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground

“By 1938, Scotland had for nearly 200 years lived within a classic peripheral identity assigned to it by the artists and ideologues of the great European core cultures through the mode of Romanticism and their control of the means of (ideological) production. However, the brute fact of subsequent uneven economic development compelled the Scots to bring into collision with that historically assigned identity a new-fashioned identity more appropriate to a dynamic modern nation. Great national moments of self-presentation, such as the Glasgow Empire Exhibition of 1938, were the occasions when the ongoing dialectic of modern/urban against rural/ancient emerged in its most public and delirious form. Such occasions therefore hold a political lesson. The process of speaking with two voices - the fissures; the uncertainties; the grating shifts of gear from one discourse to another - assert once more, the fluid, unstable character of national identity. Such occasions proclaim that national identity is not a set of inborn, natural characteristic in a people, but the product of that people's history. With the realisation of instability comes the realisation of the possibility of change.”
― Colin McArthur, Popular Culture and Social Relations

“Scotland was not imune to these developments, but since their role in France, Germany, Itay and Poland was to provide the ideological amunition to further political (and sometimes military) advance, there was no obvious use for them in Scotland, given that its polity and economy had already been defined in 1707. As a cosequence, the characteristic tropes of romantic nationalism were, in the Scottish context, diverted into non-political and non-military (in the sense of nationalist struggle) channels. This produced a particularly demented, introverted and sentimental romanticism which, since it could not focus on the future, oriented itself obsessively to the past. To the extent that this introverted nationalism found a contemporary role, it was in the service of British imperialism within which Scottish administrators and soldiers were disproportionately prominent.”
― Colin McArthur, Cinema, Culture, Scotland: Selected Essays

“Macpherson's [work] was largely inauthentic with respect to any genuine Gaelic verse tradition, but it was the very voice of authenticity for the developing sentiments of Romanticism in Europe.”
― Malcolm Chapman, The Gaelic Vision in Scottish Culture

“The shapes I seemed to see - or saw, for if a man sees visions with the interior sight he sees them, fo himself at least, as surely as if he saw them with the outward eye - loomed lofty and gigantic, and peopled once again Menteith with riders, as it was peopled in the past. The shadowy and ill-starred earls, their armour always a decade out of fashion, and now and then surmounted by a Highland bonnet set with an eagle's feather, giving them the air half of the Saxon half of the Kelt, their horses lank and ill-groomed, their followers talking in shrill Gaelic seemed to defile along the road. Their blood was redder than the King's, their purses lighter than an empty bean-pod after harvest, and still they had an air of pride, but all looked "fey", as if misfortune had set its seal upon their race.”
― R.B. Cunninghame Graham, Faith

“Perhaps the most significant intellectual trend of the eighteenth century was that towards what we now label 'Romanticism'. Within this often rather monstrous historical figment of retrospective definition, one of the commonest of theoretical concerns was to speculate on the nature of society, and on the nature of social development. Theories of Man's primitive nature blossomed, and the Romantics looked both to nature and to this primal human essence for their poetic and intellectual inspiration. At the same time as British intellectuals were becoming more and more interested in the nature of primitive man and primitive society, they had within their own national boundaries a fitting subject for their attention. The Scottish Gael fulfilled this role of the 'primitive', albeit one quickly and savagely tamed, at a time when every thinking man was turning towards such subjects. The Highlands of Scotland provided a location for this role that was distant enough to be exotic (in customs and language) but close enough to be noticed; that was near enough to visit, but had not been drawn so far into the calm waters of civilisation as to lose all its interest.”
― Malcolm Chapman, The Gaelic Vision in Scottish Culture

“The state is the coarse husk around the seed of life, and nothing more. It is the wall around the garden of human fruits and flowers.”
― Friedrich Hölderlin

“Not to be born is, past all prizing, best; but, when a man has seen the light, this is next best by far, that all speed he should go thither, whence he hath come.”
― Sophocles

“MILTON! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! Raise us up, return to us again,
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power!”
― William Wordsworth, London, 1802

“The Price

Love will probably kill me,
Long before I fell out of it,
Or madly in with another.

It will rush like a red hand,
With doubt and steady stillness,
Of another lover into something else.

It will kill with everything,
But a feeling of full self-despair,
And a moment of bitter nostalgia.

Love will probably kill me,
Leaving everything I am behind,
Or giving me anything I owe it in return.

It will blush my cheeks with tenderness,
Wailing my veins into stray lines
Of another’s love, an undying lie.

It will be neither slow nor gentle,
But rushed into words and memories,
And give out nothing but love, again.”
― Laura Chouette, The Willow Song

“The Weight of Falling Leaves

Winter swept onto my doorstep quite easily,
Like it overtook every part of my heart,
The moment you left my autumn to fall.

So I kept things as you left them – frozen,
Showing no sign of any emotion or feeling,
Like the leaves that wither and die in the ice.

Never fulfilling the purpose for which they fell,
Yet crumbling under shoes heavier than the burden
The tree gave them by letting them go.

They long to be carried away by the wind or the elements,
Not trapped forever in this frozen expanse of white,
Beneath starry skies that gaze upon each December night.

I can no longer bear to look upon them,
So I set them free with a kiss to keep;
Filled with the fire of your lips, finally redeemed –
See how they gleam with beauty, long before spring.”
― Laura Chouette

“A HOTEL ROOM IN PARIS #31

At the bottom of the lonely window,
The sky looks almost velvety lilac.

While at the top, the window frame
Seems to drown in front of an ocean of blue satin.

White window frames in uneven walls
Cast no shadow, so the light projects the soul of each traveller instead.

So I sit here in silence, filtering out the noise
That the boulevards inhabit and sing each day.

Only the music I keep in my room, the silent solitude each one carries;
Carries far and – may I hope – home soon.”
― Laura Chouette, The Willow Song

“White blossoms on cold sheets;
Roses outside the garden's wall.

Falling feels easier than growing
Once you've reached each peak.”
― Laura Chouette, The Willow Song

“Whatever I take from you,
Trust me, it is not enough
To build me back up.

I stare into walls you build
For hours on end,
Just to reflect myself in cracks.

A home built without love.”
― Laura Chouette, The Willow Song

“What speaks slowly becomes bold.
What begins as a letter becomes a book.

Whoever crosses a line is a poet.
Whoever is a poet becomes a revolt.”
― Laura Chouette, The Willow Song

“Paris

The Seine dresses in light black,
Mimicking the dark grey of the sky,

And so, I drown my ink into it.
Each poem becomes art,

Reflecting and dancing
Around my hands with care.

The notes the river shares
Become a painting that inspires
All the great artists housed in its museums.

Still, I vow and pray by its sight —
Yet I dare not claim to be an artist
As great as the one in sight.

In Paris.”
― Laura Chouette, The Willow Song

“Parisian Endings

Endings share a bond between right and wrong,
Upon every poet who dares to cross a line.

The Parisian sky glows light with blue and orange,
Each hill a line of fortune, unique to every soul.

Words cross the heart I call cœur,
And dawn in the same eternal hues behind her.

By noon, I become the city itself,
Only to return as her passenger,
By walking far enough to lose her.”
― Laura Chouette, The Willow Song

“I Am the City

The spaces between streets,
The lights that bloom on corners,
The lines that hold us together.

I may be a name,
I may be a crossroad,
I may be a saint.

I am a city.
I am a name.
I am.”
― Laura Chouette, The Willow Song

“A Line Across the Seine

Whatever I made of you
Surrenders to beauty.

For I am a simple line
That crosses the Seine,

Remembering each wave
Upon the stones of light.

However often the light shines
Towards the blue of morning skies,

I’ll be here.
I’ll write.”
― Laura Chouette, The Willow Song

“Poem with Adjustments

And I write out of worry,
I write out of fear,
I write for writing's sake,
And I drown in between these motives.

I become a poet,
I become a lover,
I become a human,

And still, I seek to become a writer.

I become still in the seeking.”
― Laura Chouette, The Willow Song

“The collar sleeve I hold up to wish you farewell

The scars on each shirt that share a needle
Becomes a sea of white in between stitches.”
― Laura Chouette, The Willow Song

“The City That Holds Me

The sidewalks I stumble on more than once
Make me feel like I am walking home.
The place cold enough to die for,

Yet I walk towards the next day without freezing.
The river that drowns my words,
As I wander its same stretch, up and down.

My chapels know my favourite corners,
Where I light my candles each good Sunday.”
― Laura Chouette, The Willow Song

“Pothole in the Sky

My veins ground too deep to become a statue,
And the flight is delayed too late—
So I take off again.

I take off without the vein of the city
That lifts me to heaven with a million lights
And a few streets in between.

The darkness blooms like a desert,
And in my aeroplane, I become a small flower,
Travelling too far and without sight.

Clouds outside windows become a stair frame,
And the dark blue of mornings drifts by,
While I dream of Paris and every thought

That drifted by.”
― Laura Chouette, The Willow Song

“A Laptop in One Room

The corners I turned became a city,
While remembering the sidewalks.

Each street I crossed turned into art,
For poets past than turned lines upside down.

Horizons in blue and grey
Became a shallow water's sight.”
― Laura Chouette, The Willow Song

“Tears Above a Keyboard

The words you built inside a mind
One day destroyed you.

You became a single tear
Without the memory.”
― Laura Chouette, The Willow Song

“My Lines

My lines cross tragedy,
Hope, and love;

A mere poetry of life
Keeps anyone alive.

I may wander along,
Yet I’ll be a part of it—

Life—I seek.”
― Laura Chouette, The Willow Song

“All The Ink I Wasted

All the ink I wasted
Climbing up ivory pages and cursive titles
Of whoever asked to buy and sell -
Words and souls and hope and pain.

All the nights I spent
Crying out to the world what I thought
Or blaming myself for not hearing back -
Worlds are crashing inside myself.

All the fights I fought
Calming my strife to succeed and feel
Overwhelming hopes and dreams in spare -
Wondering if I write my fate or dare to seal.

All the wasted words
Counting each number up I tried to spell
Only to be reminded of despair once again -
Worth is nothing nowadays with a price to sell.”
― Laura Chouette, The Willow Song

“What Other Can a Man Lay but Tragedy?

What other can a man lay but tragedy?
No other thing would be ripe in time.

Grief is a flower that blooms often,
And sorrow is the rain that waters it sometimes.

Each man reaps what he once sows—
With pain, and some with bitter ease.

The sky above every head of gloom
Grows thicker with clouds and earthly deeds.

The field does not bloom in summer
But on the last day of every man's each.”
― Laura Chouette, The Willow Song

“The Ghosts We Leave Behind

When I meet you again,
I will walk past you;
Leaving the ghost behind
That haunted me for years.

I will walk fast and steady,
Not looking back.
May I think about today
Or tomorrow? — Nobody knows.”
― Laura Chouette, The Willow Song

“I Will Go Back to Paris in Spring

I will go back to Paris in spring,
To see its life and not the still,
To watch the sky in a different hue,
With the same buildings at each rue.

I will walk and pass the same things by,
And wonder again with a sigh.
Till winter comes, it will be long,
Yet I wonder when I will come back along.”
― Laura Chouette, The Willow Song