RomanticismRestoration Period 1660-1700Romantic Period 1700-1837

Beginning and End• Inclusive of work between 1770-1870:

this permits work by Blake and Burns as well as the influence of Rousseau’s writings

• “Officially” starts in 1798 when Wordsworth and Coleridge published Lyrical Ballads and when German poet Novalis put together Hymns to the Night (Hymnen and Die Nacht)

• “Officially” ends in 1832 around the time of Sir Walter Scott’s and Goethe’s death

Major Precepts of Romanticism• Imagination• Nature• Symbolism & Myth• Emotions & the Self• The Romantic Hero• Paradoxical Combinations• Criticism of Bourgeoisie and the

Philistine• Self-Consciousness & The Individual• Relativism

Imagination

• Contrast to the supremacy of reason and the Enlightenment

• The creative mind is the human equivalent of the creative powers of a deity

• Allows humans to constitute reality (we not only perceive the world around us but we, in part, create it)

• Focus on “intellectual intuition” and reconciliation of differences and opposites

Nature

• Nature itself was viewed as a work of art, created by a divine imagination

• Nature was viewed as “organic”• Romantic nature poetry is essentially a

poetry of meditation and reflection• Strong shift away from the

industrialization and globalization of the world

• Put the myth back into nature—returned God to mystical and supernatural state

Symbolism & Myth

• Symbols were the human aesthetic correlatives of nature’s representative language

• Symbolism was valued over allegory because there could be several responses to a symbol

• Used symbolism and myth to express the “Inexpressible” or the infinite through the use of an organic perception

Emotions & The Self

• Greater importance on intuition, instincts, and feelings

• Wordsworth describes poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”

• Shift in literary criticism from mimetic to expressive. Art does not reflect nature, but it helps to better understand it

• The artist has become the hero

The Romantic Hero• The hero-artist: free experimentation over

rules of genre, composition, and decorum– Artist is an “inspired” creator rather than a

technical “maker”– Lauded Shakespeare as a model writer, but

rejected the rules that he followed/created

• The heaven-storming hero: striving for the unattainable even though it is often beyond what is permitted

• Boldness is now preferred: each person must create a system by which to live—individualism rather than absolutes

Paradoxical Combinations• Realms of existence prior to the

conceptions of “objective” reason were explored.

• The merger of everyday and exotic, nature and supernatural, appeared in combinations– Beautiful soul and ugly body: Hugo’s

Hunchback of Notre Dame and Shelley’s Frankenstein

Criticism of Bourgeoisie and the Philistine

• The rich aristocrat praising the rural life even though their money came from urban industry or occupations; Romance poets funded by rich aristocrats–Wordsworth’s father was an attorney for an

Earl–Blake was gifted tuition to the Royal Academy–Lord Byron inherited his wealth from several

family members• “Philistine” is a person who does not value or

know anything about Art• “Bourgeoisie” is a person of the upper class—

non-working class

Self-Consciousness and Individualism

• Opening statement of Rousseau's Confessions, first published in 1781—

"I am not made like anyone I have seen; I dare believe that I am not made like anyone in existence. If I am not superior, at least I am different.”

•“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Romantic writer)

Relativism• Conflict to the Enlightenment: there

does not need to be one truth:– The concept that points of view have no

absolute truth or validity, having only relative, subjective value according to differences in perception and consideration

• The heart has reasons that Reason is not equipped to understand. The heart was a source of knowledge -- the location of ideas "felt" as sensations rather than thoughts.

Romanticism in Music

• Beethoven, Wagner, Brahms: works pushed the standards of composition by including sorrowful moods, melodramatic climaxes, and extreme crescendos

• Beethoven’s “Eroica” (Italian for “heroic”) is an example of Romantic composition