Romanticism

1. Romanticism A Movement Across the Arts American Romanticism: 1830-1865.

2. Why Romanticism? • It is called the Age of Romanticism because of the ‘romantic view of the writers and thinkers of the time towards nature and mankind, not love.

3. Definition • Romanticism refers to a movement in art, literature, and music during the 19th century. • Romanticism is characterized by the 5 “I”s • Imagination • Intuition • Idealism • Inspiration • Individuality

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

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

6. Idealism • Idealism is the concept that we can make the world a better place. • Idealism refers to any theory that emphasizes the spirit, the mind, or language over matter – thought has a crucial role in making the world the way it is. • Nature was highly idealized as well, seen as a source of inspiration and truth.

7. Inspiration • The Romantic artist, musician, or writer, is an “inspired creator” rather than a “technical master.” • What this means is “going with the moment” or being spontaneous, rather than “getting it precise.”

8. Individuality • Romantics celebrated the individual. • During this time period, Women’s Rights and Abolitionism were taking root as major movements. • Walt Whitman, a later Romantic writer, would write a poem entitled “Song of Myself”: it begins, “I celebrate myself…”

9. The Dark Side of Romanticism • Edgar Allen Poe, Herman Melville, and Nathaniel Hawthorne all reacted against the highly idealized nature of the Romantics notion of Transcendentalism. • These writers recognized evil, negativism, and the dark side of life. They saw power in acknowledging sin and the darkness of man.

10. Gothic Romanticism, continued • For Dark or Gothic Romantics, the natural world is dark, decaying, and mysterious; when it does reveal its truth to man, its revelations are evil and hellish. • Whereas Transcendentalists advocate social reform when appropriate, works of Gothic Romanticism frequently show individuals failing in their attempts to make changes for the better.

11. Major Motifs of Romanticism • Nature • A concern with natural surroundings, delight in rural life, understanding of “the other,” idealization of farm life • Lure of the Exotic • Foreign, unfamiliar, distant lands • The Supernatural • Ghosts, mysterious, the unexplained

12. Primary Creative Elements of Romanticism • Setting • Isolated, undesirable, picturesque, larger-than-life, supernatural elements, weather/lighting • Mood • Created through narrator’s thoughts, setting, vivid details • Suspense • Sequential, mix of physical and psychological, relies on imagination, ‘what if’ scenarios

13. Neoclassical art was rigid, severe, and unemotional; it hearkened back to ancient Greece and Rome Romantic art was emotional, deeply-felt, individualistic, and exotic. It has been described as a reaction to Neoclassicism, or “anti-Classicism.” Visual Arts

14. Visual Arts: Examples Romantic Art Neoclassical Art

15. Your turn to be a Romantic… Please create a half-page description of a place that utilizes the traits of Gothic Romanticism as articulated on earlier slides. Specifically, you should incorporate suspense, weather, dark and foreboding nature, a sense of imagination, and/or the supernatural. You may describe a real place or an imagined one. Be creative! Use vivid imagery and language.

16. The Arts • Romanticism was a movement across all the arts: visual art, music, and literature. • All of the arts embraced themes prevalent in the Middle Ages: chivalry, courtly love. Literature and art from this time depicted these themes. Music (ballets and operas) illustrated these themes. • Shakespeare came back into vogue.

17. “Classical” musicians included composers like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Franz Josef Haydn. Romantic musicians included composers like Frederic Chopin, Franz Lizst, Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky Music

18. 1730-1820. Classical music emphasized internal order and balance. 1800-1910. Romantic music emphasized expression of feelings. Music: Components

19. Literature • In America, Romanticism most strongly impacted literature. • Writers explored supernatural and gothic themes. • Writers wrote about nature – Transcendentalists believed G-d was in nature, unlike “Age of Reason” writers like Franklin and Jefferson, who saw G-d as a “divine watchmaker,” who created the universe and left it to run itself.