The Romantic Imagination

Abstract

As a youth Butterfield absorbed the self-educational literature acquired by his father, as well as detective stories and ‘innumerable sentimental novels’ such as those of Alexandre Dumas. His father’s Methodism was consistent with an emotive romantic disposition. His first aspiration was to be a writer. In Herbert this came to expression in a love of Beethoven, old York and the moors.1 However, Butterfield’s secondary school was not congenial to one harbouring literary intentions. It was an institution founded by industrialists and intended for those seeking a future in manufacturing. The emphasis was on mathematics and the natural sciences, not the humanities. Contrary to this tradition, Butterfield aspired to the study of the classics, even as his headmaster urged the merits of mathematics. The turning point came when his headmaster proposed history as a compromise. The young man’s initial response was unenthusiastic and confirms that his aversion to dry-as-dust history was that of a young romantic, pre-dating his arrival at Cambridge.2 Much of Butterfield’s subsequent methodological writing was concerned with relating his basically romantic approach to the requirements of both academic history and his religious standpoint.