CHAPTER 21 ROMANTICISM
Romanticism (also the Romantic era or the Romantic period) was an artistic, literary, and
intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and in most
areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. Romanticism was
characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of all the past
and nature, preferring the medieval rather than the classical. It was partly a reaction to
the Industrial Revolution, the aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment,
and the scientific rationalization of nature. It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts,
music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education, and the natural
sciences. It had a significant and complex effect on politics, and while for much of the Romantic
period it was associated withliberalism and radicalism, its long-term effect on the growth
of nationalism was perhaps more significant.
The movement emphasized intense emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience,
placing new emphasis on such emotions as apprehension, horror and terror, and awe—especially
that experienced in confronting the new aesthetic categories of the sublimity and beauty of
nature. It considered folk art and ancient custom to be noble statuses, but also valued
spontaneity, as in the musical impromptu. In contrast to the rational and Classicist ideal models,
Romanticism revived medievalism and elements of art and narrative perceived as authentically
medieval in an attempt to escape population growth, early urban sprawl, and industrialism.
Although the movement was rooted in the German Sturm und Drang movement, which preferred
intuition and emotion to the rationalism of the Enlightenment, the events and ideologies of
the French Revolution were also proximate factors. Romanticism assigned a high value to the
achievements of "heroic" individualists and artists, whose examples, it maintained, would raise
the quality of society. It also promoted the individual imagination as a critical authority allowed
of freedom from classical notions of form in art. There was a strong recourse to historical and
natural inevitability, a Zeitgeist, in the representation of its ideas. In the second half of the 19th
century, Realism was offered as a polar opposite to Romanticism. The decline of Romanticism
during this time was associated with multiple processes, including social and political changes
and the spread of nationalism.
Culture in an Age of Reaction and Revolution: The Mood of Romanticism. At the end of the 18th
c., a new intellectual movement known as Romanticism emerged to challenge the
Enlightenment’s preoccupation with reason in discovering truth. The Romantics tried to balance
the use of reason by stressing the importance of feeling, emotion, and imagination as sources of
knowing
Characteristics of Romanticism: Emotion, Sentiment, and the Inner World: The Example of
Goethe. The Sorrows of the Young Werther...the individual who seeks freedom to attain personal
fulfillment; the tragic figure who is misunderstood and rejected by society, but believes in his/her
own worth through their inner feelings; tragic figure who ends up “tragically”.
Individualism...rebellion against middle-class conventions...for Romantics of the 19th c., long
hair, beards, and “outrageous” clothes served to reinforce the individualism that young
Romantics were trying to express. The Lure of the Middle Ages...passionate interest in the past
(YES!)...examples include the stories of Grimm brothers and Hans Christian Andersen, revival
of Gothic architecture, Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe. An Attraction to the Bizarre and
Unusual...Gothic literature of Edgar Allan Poe and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley...extraordinary
states of experience  focus on the dreamworld, use of drugs like cocaine and opium
Romantic Poets and the Love of Nature. Poetry ranked above all other literary forms as it was
the direct expression of one’s soul: Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)...Prometheus Unbound.
Lord Byron (1788-1824)...Child Harold’s Pilgrimage, Don Juan. William Wordsworth (17701850)...to WW, nature contained a mysterious force that the poet could perceive and learn
from...this worship of nature led some pantheism
Romanticism in Art and Music. Romantic artists typically : believed that all artistic expression
was a reflection of the artist’s inner feelings (for instance, a painting should mirror the artist’s
vision of the world and be the instrument of his own imagination), rejected the principles of
classicism (restraint, symmetry, balance)
Representative artist: Caspar David Friedrich...his landscapes convey a sense of mystery and
mysticism...Man and Woman Gazing at the Moon (pg. 440), Eugene Delacroix...Liberty Leading
the People, which glorified the French Revolution of 1830
Representative musicians. A probe into human emotions: Ludwig van Beethoven (17701827)...bridge between classical and romantic style