Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic and intellectual movement in the history of ideas that originated in late 18th century Western Europe. It stressed strong emotion—which now might include trepidation, awe and horror as aesthetic experiences—the individual imagination as a critical authority, which permitted freedom within or even from classical notions of form in art, and overturning of previous social conventions, particularly the position of the aristocracy. There was a strong element of historical and natural inevitability in its ideas, stressing the importance of "nature" in art and language. Romanticism is also noted for its elevation of the achievements of what it perceived as heroic individuals and artists. It followed the Enlightenment period and was in part inspired by a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms from the previous period, as well as seeing itself as the fulfilment of the promise of that age.

Art and literature

In art and literature, 'Romanticism' typically refers to the late 18th century and the 19th Century.

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The British poet James Macpherson influenced the early development of Romanticism with the international success of his Ossian cycle of poems published in 1762, inspiring both Goethe and the young Walter Scott. An early German influence came from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe whose 1774 novel The Sorrows of Young Werther had young men throughout Europe emulating its protagonist, a young artist with a very sensitive and passionate temperament. At that time Germany was a multitude of small separate states, and Goethe's works would have a seminal influence in developing a unifying sense of nationalism.

Related Topics:
James Macpherson - Ossian - 1762 - Walter Scott - German - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - 1774 - The Sorrows of Young Werther - Europe - Nationalism

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Romanticism in British literature developed in a different form slightly later, mostly associated with the poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whose book "Lyrical Ballads" (1798) sought to reject Augustan poetry in favour of more direct speech derived from folk traditions. Both poets were also involved in Utopian social thought in the wake of the French Revolution. The poet and painter William Blake is the most extreme example of the Romantic sensibility in Britain, epitomised by his claim 'I must create a system or be enslaved by another man's'. Blake's artistic work is also strongly influenced by Medieval illuminated books. The painters J. M. W. Turner and John Constable are also generally associated with Romanticism. Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley and John Keats constitute another phase of Romanticism in Britain. The historian Thomas Carlyle and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood represent the last phase of transformation into Victorian culture. William Butler Yeats, born in 1865, referred to his generation as "the last romantics."

Related Topics:
William Wordsworth - Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Lyrical Ballads - 1798 - Augustan poetry - Utopia - French Revolution - William Blake - J. M. W. Turner - John Constable - Lord Byron - Percy Bysshe Shelley - Mary Shelley - John Keats - Thomas Carlyle - Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood - Victorian - William Butler Yeats - 1865

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In Roman Catholic countries, Romanticism was less pronounced than in Protestant Germany and Britain, and tended to develop later, after the rise of Napoleon. In France, Romanticism is associated with the 19th century, particularly in the paintings of Théodore Géricault and Eugène Delacroix, the plays of Victor Hugo and the novels of Stendhal. The composer Hector Berlioz is also important.

Related Topics:
Roman Catholic - Protestant - Napoleon - Théodore Géricault - Eugène Delacroix - Victor Hugo - Stendhal - Hector Berlioz

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In Russia, the principal exponent of Romanticism is Alexander Pushkin; though Russian composers are also given the label. Pushkin's Shakespearean drama 'Boris Godunov' (1825) was set to music by Modest Mussorgsky.

Related Topics:
Russia - Alexander Pushkin - Boris Godunov - 1825 - Modest Mussorgsky

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Romanticism played an essential role in the national awakening of many Central European peoples lacking their own national states, particularly in Poland, which had recently lost its independence. Revival of ancient myths, customs and traditions by Romanticist poets and painters helped to distinguish their indigenous cultures from those of the dominant nations (Russians, Germans, Austrians, Turks, etc.). Patriotism, revolution and armed struggle for independence also became popular themes in the arts of this period. Arguably, the most distinguished Romanticist poet of this part of Europe was Adam Mickiewicz, who developed an idea that Poland was the Messiah of Nations, predestined to suffer just as Jesus had suffered to save all the people.

Related Topics:
Poland - Adam Mickiewicz - Jesus

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In the United States, the romantic gothic makes an early appearance with Washington Irving's Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1819), followed from 1823 onwards by the fresh Leatherstocking tales of James Fenimore Cooper, with their emphasis on heroic simplicity and their fervent landscape descriptions of an already-exotic mythicized frontier peopled by "noble savages", similar to the philosophical theory of Rousseau, like Uncas, "The Last of the Mohicans." There are picturesque elements in Washington Irving's essays and travel books. Edgar Allan Poe's tales of the macabre and his balladic poetry were more influential in France than at home, but the romantic American novel is fully developed in Nathaniel Hawthorne's atmosphere and melodrama. Later Transcendentalist writers such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson still show elements of its influence, as does the romantic realism of Walt Whitman. But by the 1880s, psychological and social realism was competing with romanticism. The poetry which Americans wrote and read was all romantic until the 1920s: Poe and Hawthorne, as well as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The poetry of Emily Dickinson – nearly unread in her own time – and Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick can be taken as the epitomes of American Romantic literature, or as successors to it. Novels written during this time such as Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and Herman Melville's Moby-Dick evoked a more realistic, and sometimes deeply psychological and philosophical, view of the world as opposed to the very early romantic tales from the Middle Ages, such as The Green Knight, that used magical occurrences and enchanted lands as literary devices while giving little recognition and descriptive detail to the actual realistic difficulties faced by characters in such works.

Related Topics:
United States - Washington Irving - Legend of Sleepy Hollow - Leatherstocking - James Fenimore Cooper - Noble savage - The Last of the Mohicans - Edgar Allan Poe - Nathaniel Hawthorne - Transcendentalist - Henry David Thoreau - Ralph Waldo Emerson - Walt Whitman - Social realism - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Emily Dickinson - Herman Melville - Moby-Dick - Hawthorne - The Scarlet Letter - Middle Ages - The Green Knight

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