The Humanistic Tradition, Book 5 Romanticism, Realism, and the Nineteenth-Century World

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LOOKING AHEAD

Nationalism and the Hero

CHAPTER 28 The Romantic Hero 29

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As the Romantics embraced nature, so they exalted the creative

individual in the person of the hero. Heroes, whether mortal or

divine, symbolize humanity at its best, most powerful and godlike.

Like the literary heroes of the past—Gilgamesh, Achilles, and

Roland—the Romantic hero was a larger-than-life figure with

extraordinary expectations, abilities, and goals. But whereas the

literary hero defended the traditions and moral values of a society,

the Romantic hero might challenge or seek to reform them.

The Romantics saw themselves as the visionaries of their time:

as champions of a cult of the senses and of the heart. “Exister,

pour nous, c’est sentir” (“For us, to exist is to feel”), proclaimed

Rousseau, the late eighteenth-century prophet of Romanticism.

The spirit of the heroic self was anticipated in Rousseau’s

declaration: “I am made unlike anyone I have ever met; I will even

venture to say that I am like no one in the whole world. I may be

no better, but at least I am different.” Working to fulfill their own

personal vision, Romantic poets, painters, and composers freed

themselves from dependence on the patronage of the Church and

state. At the same time, they defended the ideals of liberty and

brotherhood associated with emerging nationalism. They opposed

entrenched systems of slavery and institutional limitations to

personal freedom. The nineteenth century did not produce more

heroes than other centuries, but it celebrated the heroic

personality as representative of the Romantic sensibility.

Nationalism—the exaltation of the sovereign state—was
one of the shaping forces of nineteenth-century culture.
While the beginnings of the modern nation-state go back
at least to the fourteenth century (see chapter 15), nation-
alism, an ideology (or belief system) grounded in a people’s
sense of cultural and political unity, did not gain wide-
spread acceptance until roughly 1815. Modern nationalism
flourished in the wake of the French Revolution and,
thereafter, in resistance to the imperialistic expansion of
Napoleonic France. One after another, European states, as
well as some in Africa and in Latin America, rose up
against foreign rulers. Love of nation and love of liberty
became synonymous with the ideals of self-determination
and political freedom. In its positive aspects, nationalism
cultivated the revival and celebration of a common lan-
guage, common customs, and a shared history, as expressed
in poetry, music, and art. The collection of German fairy
tales (1812–1815) by the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm
Grimm serves as an example. But nationalism also mani-
fested a malignant aspect: well into the twentieth century,
nationalism and patriotic chauvinism motivated policies of

imperialism and ignited warfare, not only between nations,

but among the ethnic populations of various regions.

Indeed, as these chapters reveal, much of the art of the

nineteenth century is a visceral response to brutal events

associated with nascent nationalism.

Nineteenth-century intellectuals celebrated the heroic

personality, especially in its dedication to the causes of

liberty and equality. The British historian and essayist

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) published a series of lectures,

On Heroes and Hero-Worship, in which he glorified hero-

gods, prophets, poets, priests, men of letters, and the quasi-

legendary Napoleon Bonaparte. Walter Scott (1771–1832)

and Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) wrote historical novels

that described the heroic adventures of swashbuckling

soldiers and maidens in distress, while Victor Hugo (1802–

1885) made sentimental heroes out of egalitarian patriots

in the novelLes Misérables. Real-life heroes challenged lit-

erary heroes in courage and daring. The Zulu warrior Shaka

(1787–1828) changed the destiny of the southern region of

Africa by leading aggressive campaigns that united the

local clans, thus forming the Zulu nation.

In America, heroic themes occupied the attention of the

novelists Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) and Herman

Melville (1819–1891). Each created brooding, melancholic

fictional heroes whose moral strength was tested by the

forces of evil. The two leading figures (Ishmael and Ahab)

in Melville’s great sea novel Moby Dick are semiautobio-

graphical characterizations, inspired by Melville’s adven-

tures as the foremast hand on a whaling ship and as a sailor

in the United States Navy. Then too, the Americas pro-

duced some notable real-life heroes and champions of polit-

ical freedom, such as Simón Bolívar (1783–1830)—whose

victories over the Spanish forces in South America won

independence for Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and

Venezuela—and Frederick Douglass (1817–1895), the lead-

ing antislavery spokesman, whose autobiography details a

heroic life of oppression and struggle.

Napoleon as a Romantic Hero

In 1799 the thirty-year-old Corsican army general

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) seized control of the

government of France. He ended civil strife, reorganized

the educational system, and institutionalized the system of

civil law known as the Code Napoléon. “The Revolution is

ended,” announced Napoleon as he proclaimed himself

emperor in 1804. In the following ten years, he pursued a

policy of conquest that brought continental Western

Europe to his feet. Throughout much of the West he abol-

ished serfdom, expropriated Church possessions, curtailed

feudal privileges, and introduced French laws, institutions,

and influence. Spreading the revolutionary ideals of liber-

ty, fraternity, and equality throughout his empire (Map

28.1), he championed popular sovereignty and kindled

sentiments of nationalism.

If Napoleon’s ambitions were heroic, his military

campaigns were stunning. Having conquered Italy, Egypt,