The Romantic Period

1. The Romantic Period 1795-1835

2. Romanticism?

3. EWW. NO!

4. American Romanticism (review) • Edgar Alan Poe • Herman Melville • Emily Dickinson • Walt Whitman • Henry David Thoreau • Ralph Waldo Emerson • Washington Irving

5. Romanticism • From Science and Reason to Emotion and the Inner Self • Previously: Satire and bitterness: berating the power of human understanding • As to say “Humanity is Unreasonable” • Attitudes redefined • “our meddling intellect / Misshapes the beauteous forms of things-- / We murder to dissect”

6. FromEnlightenment toRomanticism French Revolution 1750 1789 1800 1850 Industrial Revolution Revolutions & Rise of Nationalism • Enlightenment Ideas • Reason • Universal Truths • Natural Order • Academics • Classical • (Think Mock Epic!) • Romantic Ideas • Love of Nature • • Idealization of Rural Living • • Faith in Common People • • Emphasis on Freedom and • Individualism • Spontaneity, intuition, feeling, • imagination, wonder

7. FromEnlightenment toRomanticism Descartes: “Cogito, ergo sum” (I think, therefore I exist.) Rousseau: “Exister, pour nous, c’est sentir” (For us, to exist is to feel.) Romanticism as a reaction to: • The Age of Reason • The Industrial Revolution • The French Revolution

8. Romanticism & The Industrial Revolution What might be some negative effects of The Industrial Revolution?

9. Romanticism& The French Revolution • - French emotional reaction • - Middle class dominance • - Underclass causes adopted • Frustration of common • people from lack of political • and economic agency • Out of this revolution comes… • Freedom • Nationalism • Individualism

10. The Massacre of Peterloo England- 1819 • Poor Economy • Lack of Suffrage • Bad Working Conditions 15 Killed, 400-700 Injured "Down with ‘em! Chop ‘em down my brave boys: give them no quarter they want to take our Beef & Pudding from us! ---- & remember the more you kill the less poor rates you'll have to pay so go at it Lads show your courage & your Loyalty!"

11. Defining Romanticism • Romanticism refers to a movement in art, literature, and music during the 19th century. • Romanticism is broadly characterized by: • Imagination • Emotion • Inspiration • Individuality

12. Imagination • Imagination was emphasized over “reason.” • This was a backlash against the rationalism characterized by the Neoclassical “Age of Reason.” • Imagination was considered necessary for creating all art. • British writer Samuel Taylor Coleridge called it “intellectual intuition.”

13. Emotion • Romantics placed value on feeling and instincts over reason. • Emotions were important in Romantic art. • British Romantic William Wordsworth described poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”

14. Inspiration • The Romantic artist, musician, or writer, is an “inspired creator” rather than a “technical master.” • Romantic writers were “going with the flow,” or being spontaneous, rather than “getting it precise” like Milton, Pope, John Donne.

15. Individuality • Romantics celebrated the individual. • Triumph of common man in French Revolution. • Women’s Rights and Abolitionism were taking root as major movements. • Walt Whitman, an American Romantic writer, wrote a lengthy poem entitled “Song of Myself”; it begins, “I celebrate myself…”

16. Romanticism • The Visual Arts • & • Literature

17. Visual Arts: Summary • Earlier art (neoclassical art) was rigid, severe, and unemotional. • Follows strict classical rules from ancient Greece and Rome… proportions, symmetry… simplicity • Romantic art was emotional, deeply-felt, individualistic, and exotic. It has been described as a reaction to earlier styles (neoclassical art). • Conveyed personal feeling of artist. • Glorified the common man. • Depicted the exotic (subjects). • Landscapes/Nature became important.

18. Visual Arts: Examples Romantic Art Neoclassical Art Death of Marat How are these two pieces of art different? What words best describe these paintings?

19. Romantic Art How does Nature appear in this painting? Turner’s The Slave Ship

20. Bottom Right Detail

21. Bottom Center Detail

22. What does this painting say about individualism and the common man? Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People

23. This painting depicts an 1808 shooting at Montana del Principe Pio. Can you tell Goya’s reaction to the event? What features indicate his reaction?

24. Romantic Literature • The publication of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge in 1798 is considered the beginning of literary Romanticism.

25. “[Romanticism] must have come on like punk rock to a public groaning under the weight of over-cooked Augustinisms.” “They said, we'd be artistically free When we signed that bit of paper.” -The Clash How can Romanticism be seen as a rebellion against The System, The Man, The Accepted? Augustinisms = classical, religious commentary from Augustine.

26. Romantic Literature Relationship with Nature “Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part Of me and my soul, as I of them?” - Byron “[A mountain is] the type of a majestic intellect, . . . There I beheld the emblem of a giant mind that feeds upon infinity.” - Wordsworth What is the relationship between Romantic Artists and nature?

27. Romantic Literature “Men of England, wherefore plough For the lords who lay ye low? Wherefore weave with toil and care The rich robes your tyrants wear? Wherefore, Bees of England, forge Many a weapon, chain, and scourge, Sow seed,-- but let no tyrant reap; Find wealth,--let no imposter heap” - Shelley What do Romantic Artists think about the Common Man and Individuality?

28. Romanticism Affected Effects Increase in nationalism (expansion!!! 2nd British Empire etc) Increase in individualism (French Revolutions, rise in freedom, rise of the common man) • Visual Arts • Literature

29. Ignoring the “love element” for a moment… • What makes this line romantic? My love for you is like a red, red, rose