What’s your definition of romantic?
My definitions hail from the realm of literature.
They do not and never had anything to do with love.
Let me be clearer.
The Cid is a play authored by Corneille, the great French classical playwright in late 17th century.
This play was written during the glorious reign of Louis XIV, whose culinary habits favoured salt and pepper so much so that it launched the table fad-fashion of the salt and pepper shakers, which quickly engulfed the old continent… and the world.
The whole storyline of this classical play revolves around Rodrigo de Bivar (El CID), a Spanish knight from the 12th century, whose exploits encapsulated the spirit of the Reconquista: live a hard simple life, love madly, fight boldly, protect the weak against all, cherish God Almighty fiercely, and never surrender.
El Cid was the valiant response of a dark age in European History to the Muslim militant Jihad that threatened, really threatened the whole of Christendom with annihilation or forced conversion.
This play defined the nature of classical genre: a lone hero pitted against overwhelming odds fighting for honour, faith, sacred and profane love, only to die the tragic death of the pure knight.
The Cid is an unadulterated classical tragedy the audience recognizes from the first line of act one.
It sacrifices a doomed hero on the altar of his love for his God, king, realm, and brethren.
You know, come to think about it, it is not too removed from the spirit or the letter of Ancient Greek tragedies by Sophocles, Eschilus, and their ilk.
In point of fact, even the “classical” name of this time is an homage paid by the neo-classical age of the 17th century to its illustrious Greco-Roman predecessor.
But enough about the Classics.
Let us move on to the Romantics.
Sir Walter Scott is a Romantic such writer, whose early 19th century novels entranced many a young and not so young minds back when people could still choose how to dream.
Spoiler alert: they usually chose to dream big.
Scott provided some of the finest examples of romantic thought that ever graced the pages of a book.
The man wrote a fine prose that went against the established grain of classicism.
Instead of choosing to doom his hero from the start, he chose to depict Louis XI, the 15th century King of France that made France great after the chaos of the Hundred Years War, as a malevolent Machiavellian villain who killed Chivalry dead.
He also made Quentin Durward, a Scotsman, graven in his own image undoubtedly, as the brave hero, whose wit and brawn are only reinforced by copious amounts of fortune.
The same fortune that eludes his suzerain King-liege, at least until the smart but ill-meaning prince realizes his archer’s merits and luck, and decides to appropriate it with the unabashed, unapologetic and calculated callousness he so often gave proof of during his reign (1461-1483).
Scott made his mark by defining the Romantic genre in a few bold strokes.
A Romantic novel is based on a hero who places love, sacred or profane, above duty to one’s country.
A Romantic acts in defence of the weak and poor out of the goodness of his heart. His or her morality is based not on reciprocity or lofty ideals. It is based on the novel idea of saving one’s soul by reconnecting with the holy ideals of medieval chivalry.
A romantic, a true Romantic, chooses to sacrifice himself not solely on the altar of his country but also in the name of his Love for others.
Perhaps the greatest lines of poetry written in the English language belong to another Romantic, whose words will one day adorn my tombstone:
“For how is Man to die better,
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods.”
Thackeray – Horatius at the Bridge.
I can only hope, as the vainglorious romantic I am, to be worthy of their spirit, when my time comes.
Götterdämmerung 