The Age of Romanticism

The Characteristics of Romanticism

Romanticism was a literary movement in virtually every country of Europe, the United States, and Latin America that lasted from about 1750 to about 1870.

It was characterized by reliance on the imagination and subjectivity of approach, freedom of thought and expression, emotion and an idealization of nature.

The term romantic first appeared in 18th-century English and originally meant "romancelike"—that is, resembling the fanciful character of medieval romances.

Sturm und Drang

Rooted in the German movement called Sturm und Drang -- ("Storm and Stress")

A Belief in the importance of allowing emotions to have free reign outside of the constraints of the rationalist ideologies of the Enlightenment and Age of Reason.

Johann Heinrich Füssli

"I felt before I thought." Goethe's novel The Sorrows of

Young Werther (1774) was one of the great influential documents of romanticism, this work exalts sentiment, even to the point of justifying committing suicide because of unrequited love.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The book set a tone and mood much copied by the romantics in their works and often in their personal lives: a fashionable tendency to frenzy, melancholy, world-weariness, and even self-destruction.

As romantic literature developed, imagination was praised over reason, emotions over logic, and intuition over science—making way for a vast body of literature of great sensibility and passion.

The Great Romantic Themes

Libertarianism - the desire to be free of convention and tyranny, and the new emphasis on the rights and dignity of the individual.

Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, who most typify the romantic poet (in their personal lives as well as in their work), wrote resoundingly in protest against social and political wrongs and in defense of the struggles for liberty in Italy and Greece.

Nature Romantic poetry

was often concerned with nature and natural surroundings, and delighted in the unspoiled scenery and in the innocent life of rural people.

This theme can be found in "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" (1751) by Thomas Gray, and in "Ode on Melancholy" (1820) by John Keats, or—in a different time and place—in the works of American writers: such as the tales of Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771)Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,

The plowman homeward plods his weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimm'ring landscape on the sight,

And all the air a solemn stillness holds…

Ode on Melancholy – John Keats

But when the melancholy fit shall fall  Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,   And hides the green hill in an April shroud; Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,     Or on the wealth of globed peonies; Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,   Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,     And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.    

She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;  And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,   Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips: Ay, in the very temple of Delight  Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine,    Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine;   His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,     And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

The Lure of the Exotic

The Romantics studied history and turned back to the Middle Ages for themes and settings and chose locales ranging from the Hebrides to the Asian setting of Xanadu evoked by Coleridge in his lyric poem "Kubla Khan“

Kubla Khan

In Xanadu did Kubla KhanA stately pleasure-dome decree :Where Alph, the sacred river, ranThrough caverns measureless to manDown to a sunless sea.

It was a miracle of rare device,A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !

The Supernatural

The trend toward the irrational and the supernatural was an important component of English and German romantic literature.

Historical mindedness and interest in the supernatural led to a rediscovery of a body of older literature—folktales and ballads—collected by Percy and by German scholars Jacob and Wilhelm Karl Grimm (The Brothers Grimm) and by the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen.

TheFrog King

Gothic Literature

The preoccupation with the supernatural also gave way to the writing of “Gothic” horror stories such as Frankenstein by Mary Shelly and the writings of the American author Edgar Allan Poe.

Romantic Poetry

To the Romantics, poetry ranked above all other literary forms because they believed it was the direct expression of one’s soul.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

The author of Prometheus Unbound,

Thou speakest, but thy words Are as the air; I feel them not. Oh, lift Thine eyes, that I may read his written soul!

July 1822, less than a month before his 30th birthday, Shelley drowned in a sudden storm while sailing back from Livorno to Lerici in his schooner, Don Juan.

The Death of Percy Shelley

John Keats (1795-1821)

Keats's published his first volume of works in 1817 to several harsh reviews.

Then, in 1818, Keats went to take care of his brother, Tom, who had tuberculosis. Tom died in December of 1818. Soon after, Keats contracted tuberculosis himself.

Keats left England on the advice of his doctor and traveled to Rome.

While there, Keats tried to recover in the warm Mediterranean climate, but his physical condition continued to deteriorate and on February 23, 1821, Keats died – he was 25 years old.

WHEN I HAVE FEARS

When I have fears that I may cease to be   Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high pilèd books, in charact'ry,   Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain ; When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,   Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace   Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance ;

And when I feel, fair creature of an hour !   That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power   Of unreflecting love ! - then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

Keats’ EpitaphThis Grave

contains all that was Mortal of a

YOUNG ENGLISH POET Who,

on his Death Bed, in the Bitterness of his Heart,

at the malicious Power of his EnemiesDesired

these Words to be engraven on his Tomb Stone:

“Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water “

Feb 24th, 1821.

“Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget  What thou among the leaves hast never known”

Romanticism in Art

Romanticism can be seen as a rejection of the precepts of order, calm, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality that typified Classicism in general and late 18th-century Neoclassicism in particular.

The characteristic attitudes of Romanticism

appreciation of the beauties of nature

emotion over reason and of the senses over intellect

a turning in upon the self and a heightened examination of human personality and its moods and mental potentialities

a preoccupation with the genius, the hero, and the exceptional figure in general, and a focus on his passions and inner struggles.

an emphasis upon imagination as a gateway to transcendent experience and spiritual truth

interest in folk culture, national and ethnic cultural origins, and the medieval era

and a predilection for the exotic, the remote, the mysterious, the weird, the occult, the monstrous, the diseased, and even the satanic.

Eugène Delacroix

Liberty leading the People

The Death of Sardanapal

J. M. W. Turner - Snowstorm

William BlakeThe Ancient of Days

To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour.

Caspar David FriedrichWanderer in the Mists1818

Ludwig von Beethoven