Romantic Era Overview

1. Romantic Era Overview

2. Characteristics of Era • Focuses on feelings and emotion, not facts and logic (as did the Neoclassical Era) • Revolts against reason, Industrial Revolution • Focus on Nature, independence, individuality • Fluid logic and writing style (stream of consciousness) • Brooding artists (The “tortured” artist) • Historical paintings of Spanish Revolution, biased

3. Romanticism (1760 - 1870) was: • A reaction to the Industrial Revolution • A tendency to portray life as it is not; • Lilfe may distort the real world in order to escape from it. • (Romanticism stands opposed to realism) • Exotic • A defiance of the established artistic rules • Romanticism is the opposite of neoclassicism • Faith in the imagination. • Reason came in second to feeling and intuition. • Playwrights abandoned the old rules and started using stylized methods

4. Romanticism (1760 - 1870) was: • Faith in the individual. • Humanitarianism and interest in the common person became important • Patriotism • Intense interest in the past, especially Medieval and Gothic • Growing interest in nature as a positive force in man's existence • Nature was conceived of as good in opposition to society which was bad • Belief in the free individual. • Anyone, even a rebel or outlaw, standing outside the evil influence of society, was good if he or she lived by emotion, not reason. • It viewed man in isolation and a creature of emotion instead of man as part of a social order and a creature of reason.

5. Romantic Era Music • Music in Romanticism style contains strong emotion. • Beethoven's later music is considered a transition to the Romantic. • He produced beautiful melodies for piano and powerful symphonies with strong themes, but it must be noted that he was mainly known as a Classical composer. • Tchaikovsky wrote sweet, light ballet music. His ballets are recognized around the world. • Wagner composed stirring operas (in German, of course) based on Germanic themes.

6. The Nutcracker Suite • The Romanticism movement saw the Golden Age of ballet develop, as we see in Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. The ballet is a narrative fantasy, for it shows the toys of a child coming to life and having an adventure. Part of the Nutcracker Suite is the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy," a fantasy of magic, whim, and emotion so typical of the Romantic period. The Nutcracker shows two key elements of the Romantic Period: • a tendency to portray life as it is not; it may distort the real world in order to escape from it, and • reason came in second to feeling and intuition. Writers abandon the old rules and started using stylized methods.

7. Romantic Theater • Melodrama grew out of Romanticism. • Several differences between melodrama and Romantic drama: • Melodrama had three acts, romantic had five acts, • Romantic dramas avoided happy endings and were more poetic.

8. Melodrama • Three Acts   • "A drama, such as a play, film, or television program, characterized by exaggerated emotions, stereotypical characters, and interpersonal conflicts." • (from dictionary.com)   • The villain was more memorable than the hero. (Example: the villain who ties a lady to railroad tracks.)   • Highly developed cliffhanger