I have always been fascinated by romantic literature and have always preferred Changampuzha to Kumaranasan, and Keats to Shelley on the basis that whose poems express more of the romantic culture.
Every art form is romantic. I am not confining the word 'romantic' to its technical definition. Rather, I am using the word in the sense that the essence of every art form or what renders it the artistic nature is but beauty. To be artistic means to be beautiful. Whatever be the genre that an art form falls on, it should have the quality of being beautiful. No art can't help being beautiful, so I don't think romantic art is a substandard one. Even in literature intended to reform society, you can't set aside the aspect of beauty. You can see beauty at least in its structure or the way words are arranged. That means beauty is more evident in the selection and organisation of words and their patterning than in the theme. In short, what makes a work artistic is its beauty.
Many a person voices his or her concern over how much it's feasible to be romantic in this era when immense scientific progress is on the rise. Keats, one of the accomplished romantic poets in English, is said to have complained of Newton who 'tampered with' the beauty of the rainbow by exploring the science behind it. But it has to be noted that it was the same Keats who put forth the concept of 'negative capability'. Negative capability can be interpreted as the writer's ability to suspend logic and reason for the time being and to work on his or her creativity without 'intellectual confusion'. Even a scientist can write a poem without allowing his scientific knowledge to interfere with his or her creativity.
Plato opined that poetry is the mother of lies. But, If you need only facts, follow science, not poetry. Poetry is not supposed to give you facts; rather, it reveals the poetic truth.
Man has cherished stories and myths since ancient times. Is there anyone who doesn't like to nestle at times into the nest of lies to get away from the stark realities of life? And that's what art meant for in the first place!
Birches-Robert Frost
