Lauren Moyle’s “Sublime Desolation” is a lyrical response to the experience of British Romantics in 19th-century Rome. Lauren, double majoring in History and Creative Writings with a minor in Italian Studies, started this project within the context of the travel class The Presence of the Past: An Experience of Rome taught by Dr. Pacchioni in January 2024.
Her poetry is introduced by a reflection on the evolution of her thinking during her stay in Rome.
“Come to Rome—it is a scene by which expression is overpowered, which words cannot convey”
- Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Baths of Caracalla,” letter to friend Thomas Love Peacock
When reflecting on my time in Rome, Shelley’s sentiment captures well the feeling I have been left with after my time in the Eternal City. To be so engulfed by the evidence of time is dizzying and electrifying, and I have found it difficult to put into words all that I have experienced. Nonetheless, I did find a wealth of creative inspiration within this city.
At the beginning of this project and exploration of the British Romantics in 19th century Rome, I was searching for what these writers were inspired by during their time in the city. I poured over their poetry that corresponded to the time they were in Rome in search of direct references that might tell me something about how their writing was impacted by it. But what I found interesting was that Rome is not always explicitly mentioned in their work. I admit I was worried then about how I would go about my project if I could not find any direct mention of the city in the Romantics’ poetry. However, I think this led me into a different, more profound direction.
While in Rome, I pondered the poetry I was reading and reflected on what was significant to me about it. This led me to pull back my perspective from searching for something specific within the work, rather than how each of their bodies of work were written. I began to question what “romanticism” really meant, both to the Romantics and myself. Often, in the present “to romanticize” is used to describe the act of looking upon something with rose-colored vision, to ignore flaws and only see what we want to see—what makes us comfortable and what reflects a sense of perfection, albeit a false perception. In fact, the very perception of Rome to those who do not live there—especially Americans, I have noticed—is a romanticized one. They think of a beautiful, historical, perfect place as the real Rome. While the modern sentiment of romanticism has both positive and negative results, I do not think this is what the Romantics meant to apply to the world through their writing.
The Romantics, I believe, did not aim to curate perfection out of the world around them. Mary Shelley’s description of the Creature in her novel Frankenstein comes to mind when thinking about this idea. Victor specifies that the Creature is in perfect proportion just before he brings his creation to life. Yet, the Creature is, in the end, ugly to those who see him. Despite the Creature’s objective perfection achieved through scientific proportion, he is feared and cast out of society which leads to his and Victor’s descent into corruption. In contrast, Mary Shelley spends pages describing nature using beautiful and lush prose, as many Romantics do in their work. However, nature is not objectively perfect; nature is wild and vast, and terrifyingly so, but in a way that moves the soul. This is what the Romantics would call “the sublime.”
In my reading of Percy Shelley’s work, I noticed that he wrote beautifully about flawed things such as people, governments, history, and places, or about the unsettling and unsavory like war and death. Another example is what he writes to his friend, Thomas Love Peacock, on the Baths of Caracalla: “Never was any desolation more sublime and lovely.” When I read this line, I was struck and noticed that this idea was what had been in the recesses of my mind while exploring the city. Rome is a source of inspiration because of the beauty of the past, not because it is perfect or well-preserved, but because it is not that. I felt most moved by the ruins of the past, by the death of it—whether that be through ruins of buildings, statues, or people—and the rebirth of the past through the legacy it holds within our memory and experience of it.
The places that I felt most inspired by for the creation of my project were ones that provided me with a window into the past. They connected me to the passage of time, which felt all the more impactful when specifically experiencing the past while remaining fully aware of the present. The Keats-Shelley Memorial House put me into the position of the Romantics more directly, and it was a way for me to actively communicate with them in their time. On the other hand, the Non-Catholic Cemetery allowed me to experience their legacy through witnessing and ruminating on their mortality. The Museo Nazionale Romano at Palazzo Massimo was the doorway into my own connection to Rome. I was moved most by the remnants of history, specifically seen through statues without eyes, noses, arms, and even faces. Aphrodite bathing was one in particular that inspired me. While all of these places were impactful for my creativity, the Roman Forum was perhaps the most impactful. At the Forum, there is an abundance of evidence of various points in time in one space, from the dirt to the plants to the ruins and even the current signage that has been put there recently.
I have written a collection (one that will continue to grow beyond this class) of fragments to mirror the fragments of Rome that I witnessed. They are inspired by the places I have described above, as well as inspired by how I experienced them and how they sit within my mind.