Romanticism-nature and Eternity

7/28/2019 Romanticism-nature and Eternity

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Contrary to what youmay think, the termRomanticism is notjust about romanticlove (although love issometimes thesubject of romantic

art).


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Romanticism is

characterized by the 5 Is


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Imagination was emphasized overreason.

This was a backlash against therationalism characterized by theNeoclassical period or Age of Reason.

Imagination was considered necessary forcreating all art.


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AsthepoetWordsworthwouldsuggest,humansnot

onlyperceiveandexperiencetheworld

aroundthem;theyalso,in

part,createit.Theimaginationunitesreasonandfeeling,enablinghumanstoreconcile

differencesandoppositesthisreconciliationisa

centralidealforRomantics.Finally,theimagination

enableshumanstoread

natureasasystemofsymbols.


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Romantics placed value onintuition, or feeling andinstincts, over reason.

Emotions were important inRomantic art.

British Romantic WilliamWordsworth described

poetry as the spontaneousoverflow of powerfulfeelings.


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Idealism is the concept thatwe can make the world abetter place.

Immanuel Kant, a Germanphilosopher, held that themind forces the world we

perceive to take the shape ofspace-and-time.


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The Romantic artist,musician, or writer, is aninspired creator rather

than a technical master.What this means is going

with the moment or beingspontaneous, rather than

getting it precise.


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Romantics celebrated theindividual.

During this time period,

Womens Rights andAbolitionism were takingroot as major movements.

Walt Whitman, a later

Romantic writer, wouldwrite a poem entitledSong of Myself: it begins,I celebrate myself


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Embracing the uncivilized, the

wild, the pre-civilized.

Rousseau: Man is born free

and everywhere he is in

chains. In other words,

civilization is in part the causeof our corruption.

The noble savage, and James

Fennimore Coopers

Leatherstocking novels, I.e. The

Last of the Mohicans.


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The first viewed

nature as

peaceful, calm,nurturing, a

source for

spiritual renewal.


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The beautiful

andThe sublime


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Nature often presented as a work of art

from the divine imaginationNature as a healing power

Nature as a refuge from civilization

Nature viewed as organic, (alive) rather

than mechanical or rationalistNature viewed as a source

of refreshment and

meditation


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Valued as the human means

for imitating nature in art

Could simultaneously

suggest many things in acreative way

Based on a desire to

express the inexpressible

through the resources oflanguage


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As the Romantic writers

show us, our heroes were

not always cowboys:

1. The hero as artist

2. The hero striving beyond

the moral restrictions of

society 3. The hero who reappears

from the ancient classics


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Romantic writers embracedeveryday realism (poetry ofWordsworth)

Also sought the folk legends

of the past Promoted exotic ideas

suggested by technology andthe imagination (a beautiful

soul in an ugly body, as inMary Shelleys Frankensteinor Victor Hugos TheHunchback of Notre Dame).


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The Romantics were

often ambivalent toward

the outside world. On

the one hand, they weresocially and politically

passionateinvolved in

worthy causes and social

issues. On the otherhand, they isolated

themselves from the

public.


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Today a number of literary theorist have called

into two major romantic perceptions:

1. That the literary text is a separate,individuated, living organism.

2. That the artist is fiercely independent genius

who creates original works of art


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Romanticism-nature and Eternity

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