American Romanticism (1820-1865) Early romanticism New England transcendentalism High romanticism.
Romanticism - Yolamrdivis.yolasite.com/resources/Romanticism.pdf · Romanticism Music • Start of...
Transcript of Romanticism - Yolamrdivis.yolasite.com/resources/Romanticism.pdf · Romanticism Music • Start of...
Romanticism Music • Start of what is known as Classical era in music
• Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) – German composer and pianist
– moved to Vienna in 1792 to study, though
– dedicated his third symphony to Napoleon • but in 1804 crossed out Napoleon's name on the title page
upon which he had written a dedication to him, as Napoleon's imperial ambitions became clear
– at 28, he began to lose his hearing • it has variously been attributed to syphilis, lead poisoning,
and typhus
• Beethoven's hearing loss did not affect his ability to compose music, but it made concerts -- lucrative sources of income -- increasingly difficult
– last public concert was in 1811
• Google honored Beethoven on his 245th birthday in 2015…
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/google-doodle/12054422/How-well-do-
you-know-Beethovens-most-famous-melodies-Google-Doodle-challenge-marks-
genius-composers-245th-anniversary.html
• http://www.google.com/doodles/celebrating-ludwig-van-beethovens-245th-year
• Richard Wagner (1813-1883) – German composer known for his operas
– supported by Bavaria’s King Ludwig II who was obsessed with his operas
– Wagner frequently accused Jews, particularly Jewish musicians, of being a harmful alien element in German culture
• Characters in his operas like Mime in "Siegfried" and Kundry in "Parsifal,” are evil caricatures of the supposedly inferior Jews
• His most controversial essay on the subject was "Jewry and Music” (1851)
– He argued that Jewish musicians were only capable of producing music that was shallow and artificial, because they had no connection to the genuine spirit of the German people
– "Wagner was more than an anti-Semite. He wanted the extermination of all Jews.”
» Israeli journalist Noah Klieger in 2013
• referred to Jews as worms, rats, warts and trichinae (an intestinal parasitic worm)
Romanticism Music
Wagner and Hitler
• Wagner greatly influenced Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich – Hitler was 12 when he first heard Wagner’s music
live in Austria in 1901
– Hitler was a student and admirer of Wagner's ideology and music, and sought to incorporate it into his heroic mythology of the German nation
– In 1933, Hitler ordered that each Nuremberg Rally open with a performance of The Mastersingers of Nuremberg overture
– "Richard Wagner taught us what the Jew is.” • Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels
• Joachim Köhler’s
2007 book, where
he portrays Hitler
as Wagner's
creation
– According to
Köhler, Wagner
was the forefather
of the Holocaust
Wagner’s daughter-in-law, Winifred, and Hitler
• Even though Wagner
died before Hitler's rise
to power, the Wagner
family had close ties
with Hitler
• Wagner's daughter-in-
law Winifred Wagner
(pictured here) often
invited Hitler to a festival
of the composer's
operas in Bayreuth,
Germany
• When he was in prison
writing "Mein Kampf,"
she even sent him ink,
pencils and erasers
Romanticism Music • Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
– Austrian composer
– Beethoven: "Truly, the spark of Divine genius resides in this Schubert!"
– died early b/c of typhoid and mercury treatments for his syphilis
• Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) – Polish pianist and composer of the Romantic era
– Played for Russian tsar Alexander I at the age of 11
– Moved to Paris and became a musical sensation • Performed in the Tuileries at the court of Louis Philippe I
– Had an affair with George Sand (real name: Aurore Dupin), a French novelist
– Fled Paris in 1848 to escape revolution
– died of tuberculosis
– requested that Mozart’s Requiem be sung at his funeral
Romanticism Music • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840—93)
– Russian composer
– used Western European forms instead of Russian
forms
– composer of Swan Lake
• He composed the music for the ballet, which was
fashioned from Russian folk tales
• tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by
an evil sorcerer's curse
– composer of The Nutcracker
– composer of The 1812 Overture
• Commemorates Russia’s defeat of Napoleon following his
1812 invasion • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BbT0E990IQ
Romanticism
• Revolt against Neo-Classicism and the Enlightenment
• Crystallized in England and Germany in 1790s until the 1840s
• Belief in emotional exuberance, unrestrained imagination, and spontaneity
• Artists led Bohemian lives filled with emotional intensity – Rejected materialism and rationalism
– choose to grow their hair long rather than wear powdered wigs
• Believed development of one’s unique human potential was the purpose in life
The Enlightenment
Reason
Human Nature
Man Over Nature
Forward Looking
Romanticism
Passion / Emotion
Nature
Nature Over Man
Backward Looking
Romanticism
• Enchanted by nature as a source of spiritual
inspiration
– Saw the growth of industry as ugly, brutal attack
on their beloved nature
– Rejecting the "truths" of logic and mathematics,
the Romantics praised instead the powers of
imagination and emotion
• championed the individual's subjective right to
discover his/her own "truths"
• An artist’s imagination was God at work in the
mind
Romantic
artists enjoyed
painting
landscapes.
Humans often
take a back seat
in Romantic
paintings.
The Lake of Zug, 1843
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Romanticism
• Artists:
–Caspar David Friedrich
–Theodore Gericault
–John Constable
–Eugene Delacroix
–J.M.W. Turner
Caspar David Friedrich
• 1774-1840
• Germany’s greatest romantic painter
• Showed beauty of northern German hillsides and even expressions of a religious mysticism
• Related several paintings to the search for the meaning of life
Theodore Gericault
• 1791-1824
• French romantic painter
• Influenced by Rubens
• wanted to create a profound art based on real scenes of real people
The Raft of the “Medusa” • depicts the aftermath of a contemporary French shipwreck in
which the incompetent captain had left the rest of the crew to die
• July 2, 1816, the Medusa, a French ship bound for Senegal, ran aground off the coast of West Africa
– There weren’t enough lifeboats on board, so 150 people were packed onto a hastily-constructed raft
– After 15 days of cannibalism and mutiny, 15 survivors were picked up
• The incident became a national scandal
• Gericault spoke to the survivors to understand how to paint the horror
– The painting was first shown during the trial of the captain of the Medusa
• The painting's notoriety stemmed from its indictment of a corrupt establishment, but it also dramatized a more eternal theme, that of man's struggle with nature – The freedom of all humanity will only occur when the most
oppressed member of society is emancipated
The Raft of the Medusa
John Constable
• 1776-1837
• English romantic painter
• Specialized in
landscapes
– Constable once
remarked that “painting
is but another word for
emotion.”
• his poetic approach to
nature paralleled in spirit
that of his contemporary,
the poet Wordsworth
Salisbury Cathedral
• Portrayal of a stable world in which
neither political turmoil or industrial
development challenged the traditional
dominance of the church
• The sky looks as if a storm has just
passed
– The trees have withstood this storm, and
the cathedral, which has stood since the
Middle Ages, has come through intact
Eugene Delacroix
• 1798-1863
• French romantic
painter
• Influenced by
Michelangelo and
Rubens
• Picasso was heavily
influenced by him
Massacre at
Chios • The Greeks
struggle for freedom and independence won the enthusiastic support of liberals and nationalists – Delacroix saw in the
Greek struggle for independence against the Turks an affirmation of the ideal of liberty
• The Ottoman Turks are portrayed as cruel oppressors holding them back
Greece on the
Ruins of
Missolonghi
• commemorated the defeat of the Greek nationalists
• In the painting, Greece is personified as a young woman – The blood-spattered
ruins on which she stands indicate defeat
– symbolizes the defeat of a noble cause
The Slave Ship
• Turner was inspired to paint The
Slave Ship after reading The
History and Abolition of the Slave
Trade by Thomas Clarkson
• About the Zong massacre
– In 1781, the captain of the slave ship
Zong had ordered 133 slaves to be
thrown overboard so that insurance
payments could be collected
• Argument for slavery to be
outlawed throughout the entire
world
Romantic Literature
• Believed poetry was enhanced by freely following the creative impulses of the mind
• British authors, playwrights, and poets – Mary Shelley
– William Wordsworth
– Lord Byron
– Jane Austen
– Charlotte and Emily Bronte
Mary Shelley
• English author
• 1797-1851
• her mother was Mary
Wollstonecraft
• Frankenstein (1818)
– a critique of the
excesses of science
– Goal: Perfect man
– Outcome: Monster
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
• Loved simplicity of nature
• Called the “poet of nature”
• “. . . poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility...”
• Said childhood was the bright period of creative imagination – Aging and urban living
corrupted and deadened the imagination
Lord George Gordon Byron (1788-1824)
• Was a member of the
House of Lords and was
very liberal in his writing
• Don Juan, his satiric
masterpiece
– a prevailing focus on external
beauty illustrating the
shallowness of humans
– Shows humans fascination
with beauty
• Fought in Greece for their
independence in the 1820s
where he died of cholera
Jane Austen
• 1775-1817
• English novelist
• Harsh social commentary
• Wrote a series of comedies of manners of British society
• Sense and Sensibility (1811) – About sisters with opposite
temperaments
– Elinor is the eldest daughter, and represents "sense" (reason), while Marianne is younger and represents “sensibility" (emotion)
• Pride and Prejudice (1813) – courtship and marriage among
the landed gentry in the early 19th century
Charlotte Brontë (bron-tay) (1816-1855)
• English novelist
• Published her first
novels under the
pseudonym "Currer
Bell"
– Chose a male name to
prevent readers from
reading it with a
prejudice
– Including her most
well-known novel,
Jane Eyre (air), in 1847
Jane Eyre
• a unique Victorian novel
• Follows the life of Jane Eyre
– Jane's childhood, where she is emotionally abused by
her aunt and cousins
– her education
– Her time as governess (a paid servant of low social
standing) at a manor for a young French girl
• Including her relationship with the master of the estate
• Through Jane, Brontë refutes Victorian
stereotypes about women
• sparked a movement in feminism in literature
• “…[women] suffer from too rigid a
restraint, too absolute a stagnation,
precisely as men would suffer; and it is
narrow-minded in their more privileged
fellow-creatures to say that they ought to
confine themselves to making puddings
and knitting stockings, to playing on the
piano and embroidering bags.”
– Charlotte Brontë
Emily Brontë (1818-1848)
• The younger sister of
Charlotte
• English novelist
• published under the
pen-name “Ellis Bell”
• In 1847, she
published her only
novel, Wurthering
Heights
• Died of tuberculosis
Wurthering Heights
• Story of the passionate,
yet thwarted, love
between two people, and
how this unresolved
passion eventually
destroys them and many
around them
• Wuthering Heights is the
Yorkshire manor that the
novel is centered around
Robert Burns (1759-1796)
• widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland
• wrote passionately on nature, his country, and his country’s culture – Also wrote of social injustice,
egalitarianism, and anti-authority themes
• Wrote many famous poems, like Tam O'Shanter and Highland Mary
• Also wrote songs, including Auld Lang Syne – about love and friendship in
times past
Walter Scott (1771-1832)
• introduced Scottish readers to their own history, and English readers to Scotland's history – Until then, Scotland had been, in the
English view especially, a wild and lawless place that had to be subdued by force
– Scott made it romantic, and this Scottish culture was spread by Britain around the world
• Rob Roy (1818) – Takes place during the Jacobite
Uprisings
– Glorifies Rob Roy, a Jacobite rebel leader attempting to restore the Stuart kings to the thrones of England and Scotland
Romantic Literature
• German authors, playwrights, and poets
–Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
–Johann Gottfried Herder
–The Brothers Grimm
• Bebelplatz in Berlin
• the site of the book burning ceremony held on May 10, 1933 by members of Hitler’s SA and Nazi youth groups – burned around 20,000 books
• students at Humboldt University hold a book sale in the square every year on that day
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (“gur-tuh”)
(1749-1832)
• Known mostly for his poem Faust – His literary
masterpiece
– best known version of the classic Faust story
– Considered to be the greatest work of German literature
Faust
• The devil makes a bet with God – he says that he can
deflect God's favorite human being (Heinrich Faust) away from righteous pursuits
• Faust makes a pact with the devil, exchanging his soul for greater knowledge
Johann Gottfried Herder
(1744-1803)
• Resented French cultural dominance in Germany
• Revived German folk culture by urging the collection and preservation of distinctive German songs and sayings
• Led to emergence of nationalism in Germany
The Brothers Grimm
• Jakob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm (1786-1859) Grimm – Followers of Herder and his
German nationalism
• desire to help create a German identity
– Famous for their collection of fairy tales
• Wrote a German dictionary, the Deutsches Wörterbuch – the first major step in creating a
standardized "modern" German language since Luther’s translation of the Bible into German
• 1857 Children’s and Household Tales – contained 86 German fairy tales
The Brothers Grimm • Children’s and Household Tales
– one of the most frequently read books
in the world
• Aside from the Luther Bible, it is the
considered to be the most widely
distributed literary work of German
origin
– Stories included Red Riding Hood,
Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Hansel
and Gretel, Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs, and Rapunzel
– Connection to Nazism
• Stressed discipline, obedience,
authoritarianism, glorification of
violence and nationalism, which
became part of the national character
• Led to the Allies banning the book in
schools after WWII
Romantic Literature
• French authors, playwrights, and
poets
– George Sand
– Flora Tristan
– Victor Hugo
– Alexander Dumas
George Sand (1804-1876)
• George Sand was the
pen-name of a woman by
the name of Aurore Dupin
– French novelist
– Adopted a male pen-name
in hopes of greater success
in the literary world
• Strong advocate for
women’s rights
• Her female characters
were educated, intelligent
individuals, unafraid to
speak their minds and
admired by men
George Sand
• Indiana (1832)
– the heroine Indiana is a young woman married to an
older man
• She doesn’t love him but is bound to him and subservient to
his wishes by custom and law
– Indiana to her husband…
• "I know that I am the slave and you are my lord. The law of
the land has made you my master. You can bind my body, tie
my hands, govern my actions: you are the strongest, and
society adds to your powers; but with my will, sir, you are
powerless."
• “You may impose silence upon me, but you can not prevent
me from thinking.”
• “I have been breathing the air of liberty, to show you that you
are not morally my master, and that I depend upon myself
alone on this earth.”
Flora Tristan (1803-1844)
• French novelist and activist
• Advocate of women’s rights
• wrote newspaper articles and books to inspire the workers of France to form unions together and fight for their rights – The Workers' Union
(1843)
• “Divided, you are weak and fall, crushed underfoot by all sorts of misery! Union makes power. You have numbers in your favor, and numbers mean a great deal.”
• Through union dues, she insists on plans to provide…
– the workers’ children with safe havens and increased access to education
– to build homes for the ill and wounded workers
• acknowledges the need for the liberation of women in order to complete the emancipation of the working class
– women’s liberation will lead to the greatest good for the greatest amount of people
• Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) – His first full-length novel; deals
with social injustice
• Les Miserables (1862) – about social misery and injustice of
France
• Hugo urged his fellow artists to free themselves from the restrictions imposed by the French classical style of theatre
• Equated freedom in literature with liberty in politics and society – Supporter of republicanism
Victor Hugo (1802-1885)
Alexander Dumas (1802-1870)
• became a captain in the artillery of the National Guard
• The Three Musketeers (1844) – Set in 1625, dealing with Cardinal
Richelieu and Louis XIII
• The Count of Monte Cristo (1845) – originated his acquaintance with
Napoleon Bonaparte's brother, whose younger son Dumas took occasionally on short educational journeys
• The Man in the Iron Mask – concludes the epic adventures of the
three Musketeers
• Traveled to Naples in 1860 where the political insurgent Giuseppe Garibaldi, who would later lead Italy to unification, had requested his presence – he supported Garibaldi and Italy's
struggle for independence
Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837)
• Considered Russia’s greatest poet
• Rejected attempts to force Russian poetry into a classical mold
• Czar Alexander I exiled Pushkin to the south of Russia because of the political ideas in his 1820 poem "Ode to Liberty"
– When Alexander’s brother, Nicholas I, came to power in 1825, he invited Pushkin back to the capital, and gave him a government post
– However, Nicholas acted as his personal censor, making sure that Pushkin didn't publish anything that would hurt the government
• They opened his mail, had spies follow him, and cut out whole stanzas from Pushkin's manuscripts
Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855)
• Polish poet who wrote passionately about Poland and its history and greatness
• Met and worked with Goethe and Chopin
• 1828’s Konrad Wollenrod poem – Spoke of the burning hatred
which had characterized the long feuds of the Russians and Poles
• Adam Michnik called him “the greatest poet of anti-Russian protest”
• in 1855, he organized a Polish legion against Russia during the Crimean War
• “For the Polish nation did not die: its body
lieth in the grave, but …the soul shall
return to the body, and the nation shall
arise and free all the peoples of Europe
from slavery… And as after the
resurrection of Christ bloody offerings
ceased in all the world, so after the
resurrection of the Polish nation wars shall
cease in all Christendom.” – The Books of the Polish Nation (1832), written in
response to the crushed Polish uprising of 1830-1831
Romantic Philosophy • Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
(1770-1831) – German
– Most important philosopher of the Romantic period
– developed the philosophical concept of Dialectics
• understand the way things are and the way things change
– Ideas develop in an
evolutionary fashion that
involves conflict
• Thesis (set of ideas), antithesis
(conflicting ideas that challenge
the thesis), and synthesis (new
ideas emerge and becomes the
new thesis)
Romantic Architecture
• Look back to Middle Ages as a time of
social stability and religious reverence
– Many medieval churches were restored
and many more were built to resemble
their medieval forerunners
Neuschwanstein
• built in 1886 in German
state of Bavaria by King
Ludwig II
– “the Swan King”
– Reigned from 1864-1886
– Obsessed with the work
of German composer
Richard Wagner
– The building almost
bankrupt the Bavarian
monarchy
• In Fussen, Germany
amidst the Bavarian
Alps
Abbey with Oak Trees
• represents both the church shaken by the Reformation and
the transparency of earthly things
A Mameluke of the
Imperial Guard
Defending a
Wounded Trumpeter
against a Cossack
• a print depicting the
Napoleonic Wars
• Nostalgic look at the
glory of the empire
• Shows the French
interest in Near
Eastern and Northern
African cultures
Series on the Insane • Gericault was commissioned to do a series of
10 portraits of the insane – They were patients of a friend, Dr. Etienne-Jean
Georget, a pioneer in psychiatric medicine, with each subject exhibiting a different affliction
• Dr. Georget wanted them for use as a diagnostic tool
– of which only 5 survive of the insane
• each subject exhibited a different affliction: – Portrait of a Woman Suffering from Obsessive
Envy
– Portrait of a Woman with Gambling Mania
– Portrait of a Kleptomaniac
– Portrait of a Child Kidnapper
– Portrait of a Man Suffering from Delusions of Military Rank
Delacroix
• Interest in going to Northern Africa
– Looking for inspiration, both in figures
and colors
– Shows the history and people of
Northern Africa
– Same with Gauguin in the late 1800s
John Keats (1795-1821)
• “The great beauty of Poetry is, that it makes every thing, every place interesting”
• Rivalry with Lord Byron – “You speak of Lord Byron
and me - There is this great difference between us. He describes what he sees - I describe what I imagine - Mine is the hardest task.”
• Harshly criticized in his time that his work was not original
Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829) • married the daughter
of Moses Mendelssohn
• Lucinde (1799) attacked prejudices against women as being little more than lovers and domestics
– described Lucinde as equal to any male hero
• became opposed to the principles of political and religious freedom
Madame de Staël (1766-1817) • Permanently banished from
France by Napoleon in 1803 for criticizing his dictatorial rule
• Urged France to overthrow their worn-out classical models – Urged experimentation,
emotion, and enthusiasm – the keys to creativity
• Criticized by most men, except Lord Byron, who called her “the most eminent woman author of this, or perhaps any, century.”
• Fought for women’s rights
-Portrait of "Cosette" by Emile Bayard, from the original
edition of Les Miserables
Robert Burns
• In 1801, some of Burns' friends and admirers decided to honor the departed poet with a dinner, thus starting Burns Night (January 25th)
– Includes the traditional Scottish dish of haggis served with "neeps and tatties" (turnips and potatoes) and a "dram" (a glass of Scotch whisky)
• Haggis is a sheep’s heart, liver, and lungs minced with onion, oatmeal, and spices, and boiled in the sheep’s stomach lining
– haggis was a popular dish for the poor, as it was very cheap, being made from leftover, otherwise thrown away, parts of a sheep (the most common livestock in Scotland)
Goethe
• The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774)
– Written as a collection of letters written by
Werther, a young artist who is highly sensitive
sent to his friend Wilhelm
• Werther commits suicide after not being able to be
with the woman he loves as she is married
– led to some of the first known examples of copycat
suicide; supposedly more than 2,000 readers committed
suicide as Werther did
» “Werther fever”
– Napoleon considered it one of the great works
of European literature
• German Jew
• Loved Germany, but hated vulgar German nationalism – Books later burned
by Hitler in the 1930s
• “Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.” – From his play
Almansor (1821)
Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)
George Sand on marriage • found marriage as a male
dominant system that enslaved women
• “[Marriage is nothing but] conditions of inequality, inferiority, and of dependence of one sex upon the other.”
• “I cannot advise anyone to enter into a marriage, sanctioned by the civil law which continues to support the dependence, inferiority and social nullity of the woman.”
• “The laws which still govern a woman’s existence in wedlock, in the family, and in society are unjust and barbarous.”
• “Most women…are so desperate not to lose the men they love that they allow these men to rule their lives absolutely.”
Victor Hugo (cont.)
• elected to the Legislative Assembly and the Constitutional Assembly following the 1848 Revolution
• But he declared Napoleon III a complete traitor to France when he took over complete power in 1851 – Fearing for his life, he went into self-imposed exile
outside the country for the next 19 years
– While in exile, Hugo published political pamphlets against Napoleon III, which were subsequently banned in France
• When Napoleon III fell, Hugo returned to France in 1870, where he was promptly elected to the National Assembly and the Senate