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ROMANTICISM: 1800-1865

ROMANTICISM: 1800-1865. THE HEART OVER THE HEAD. ROMANTIC BELIEFS: INTUITION . Reason, logic, and rationality have shortcomings They have their place, but they are limited

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ROMANTICISM: 1800-1865

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  1. ROMANTICISM: 1800-1865 THE HEART OVER THE HEAD

  2. ROMANTIC BELIEFS: INTUITION • Reason, logic, and rationality have shortcomings • They have their place, but they are limited • Imagination, intuition, and emotion can discover deeper, abstract, more significant spiritual truths than reason can discover • Intuition: gut feeling; instinct • i.e.: Heaven; God; Beauty

  3. ROMANTIC VIEW OF GOD • Not anthropomorphic: didn’t see God as a person • God is good, loving, merciful and created the universe and us as good • God is a spirit, a presence, a being that pervades all • As such, God can be discovered by anyone at any time through intuitive insight, usually in Nature away from the noise and distractions of society • Greatest good is to become one with God; to lose the self and merge with the Divine. • Very Eastern Idea: Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism • Didn’t care much for organized religion; no need for the Bible, for a minister, for a Church to discover and worship God

  4. ROMANTIC BELIEFS: NATURE • Nature is good, pure, and innocent • Civilization is bad and the source of evil • Civilization takes man out of his natural, good state and corrupts him • The more sophisticated and complex our world is, the more disconnected from our natural, good state we become • “Noble Savage” • God, the Divine, is found in Nature • You discover God in Nature intuitively

  5. ROMANTIC BELIEFS: TRUTH • Beauty is truth • It is recognized intuitively, from the heart, not rationally through the brain • Truth is located in a “transcendent” reality that is beyond the physical world that can only be discovered through emotion, imagination, intuition • Truth often comes in spontaneous moments of insight: epiphanies • Truth is often found through insights gained in Nature

  6. ROMANTIC BELIEFS: THE INDIVIDUAL • Human nature is good and we are born good and pure; society and its forces corrupt • Individual is more important than society • Society usually is in conflict with the individual, restricting his/her independence, uniqueness, and power • Trust your self; YOU are the source of truth since the Divine is found within you • No need to give authority of your life to anyone else: you know best what to do

  7. ROMANTIC VALUES • Imagination; NOT logic • Intuition; NOT carefully reasoned thought • Spontaneity; NOT careful prudence and • Emotion; NOT detached, dry analysis • The Individual’s power; NOT mindless allegiance to the rules of society • Exploration: of Nature, of the mind, of the far away and distant, of the exotic and extreme • Deeper spiritual truths; NOT logical ones

  8. ROMANTIC VALUES • Youthful exuberance and energy over conservative, prudent, thoughtful experience • A nostalgia for the past • The raw, the natural, the unsophisticated over the polished, the refined, the carefully planned

  9. THE THREE BRANCHES OF ROMANTICISM

  10. DARK ROMANTICS: POE, MELVILLE, AND HAWTHORNE • How they differ from the other branches: • Not optimistic about life, human nature, or nature • The truths they discover beyond the rational are horrific, frightening, and painful • The emotions they tend to emphasize are fear, dread, disgust, etc • How they are similar to the other branches: • They do believe in deeper, irrational truths • Emphasis on imagination and emotion

  11. GOTHIC ELEMENTS • The bizarre: live burial; whales that carry a grudge; insanity • The exotic: castles, faraway places, the dreary and the dark • The supernatural: vampires; creating monsters • Classic Examples: • Dracula • Frankenstein • Anything by Poe

  12. ROMANTIC LITERATURE • Poetry: imitative of British: Bryant, Longfellow, Holmes • Essays: new unique ideas: Thoreau, Emerson • Short Stories: become a legitimate gnere: Poe, Hawthorne • Adventure Novels: idealizes Nature and frontier life: Cooper

  13. OVERALL SIGNIFICANCE • America’s literary, intellectual, cultural “Declaration of Independence” • Now producing unique, authoritative, timeless ideas and literature for the first time • The final escape from British influences other that the political: no more imitating British forms and ideas • We have matured and gained confidence to do our own thing as proven by the great American Romantics

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