The Romantic Movement

1
The Romantic Movement

• France, Germany, England

2
Romanticism

• Defining Romanticism is difficult because the
  idea of what is romantic varies. Arthur Lovejoy
  claimed that what had truly existed was not
  Romanticism but a veritable plurality of
  Romanticisms.
• Common factors which shaped Romanticism, such as
  the French Revolution and the British Industrial
  Revolution. Both of these crisis caused writers
  to look for explanations.
• Myths of creation and nature natural beauty
  harmony vs. artifice became more important, and
  replaced the Neoclassical ideals of rationalism,
  traditionalism, and formal harmony.
• Romantics emphasized individualism the
  individual spirit, mind and capabilities,
  imagination thought, and emotion bliss and
  agony as their guiding principles.

3
French Romanticism

• Reaction to the cruel realities of the French
  Revolution - trying to make sense of the chaos of
  their society.
• A sense of loss for what might have been, part of
  the French post revolutionary sentiment, was
  reflected in its many romantic writings
• Rousseaus Confessions had a major influence on
  the French Romantic movement.
• Focus on the past and individual remembering
  became one of the focuses of French Romanticism.
• The idea of living a solitary and imaginative
  life away from society was another important
  focus.
• Writings dealing with the emotions and the idea
  of the tragedy of love rather than a utopian
  bliss.
• Desire for freedom and escape authority

4
French Romantic Heroes

• Conscious that they are unlike others
  exceptional
• Solitude, leading to melancholy
• Feeling of being outside society so not bound to
  its laws
• Often an outlaw figure with a grudge against
  society more sinned against than sinning
• Love and fate go together
• Mysterious in past/origin and usually die

5
German Romanticism

• In Germany, Romanticism was a combination of
  spirit and life, of universe and the individual.
  Romanticism in Germany pertained not only to art
  and literature, but also to the sciences and
  everyday life.
• Journeys of self-realization
• Infusion of nature with the mysterious to make
  it unique and beautiful
• Life is poetry, and that all things are
  connected in such a way that a beautiful harmony
  and peace can exist.
• Some aspects of loss modern society is out of
  touch with something important.
• pain of unrequited love or love triangle
• Impossible loves
• Romanticism was seen as a diversion from present
  problems but the end product was a piece that
  acknowledged what was happening politically while
  providing a respite from reality.
• Goethes tales included ghost stories, love
  stories and moral tales.

6
German Romantic Heroes

• Conscious that they are unlike others
  exceptional
• Need for individual spiritual growth
• Suffer emotional pain loss in love
• Somehow hopeful that harmony can be achieved
• Stunned by natural beauty find the mysterious
  in nature
• Fantastical realms combined with reality magic,
  gods, devils

7
British Romanticism

• The great flowering of English Romanticism
  occurred about the middle of the second decade of
  the 19th century when for some ten years England
  became the focus of European Romanticism. Poets
  such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Blake,
  Byron and Keats were the major writers of this
  period. These writers not only wrote poetry, but
  wrote about poetry itself.
• The natural and the supernatural an attempt to
  see the unique and beautiful in the simple and
  ordinary. The idea we are still connected to
  nature.
• Poetry is often remembrances of the past, and
  through memories we regain our link to the
  natural.
• It may take a supernatural event to make us
  recognize our link to the natural.
• Imagination was another important theme of
  English Romanticism.
• Imaginative mind can lead to real freedom.
• It is within imagination and emotion that truth
  can be found.
• Reason must be combined with emotion.
• Much of the poetry of this period was lyrical in
  style.
• Some of the distinguishing characteristics
  included emotion, subjectivity, melodiousness,
  imagination, description, and (sometimes)
  meditation.
• Many poems were elegies, odes and sonnets.

8
British Romantic Hero

• Often rebellious in nature doesnt wish to
  follow the norms of society
• He is usually isolated from society as a wanderer
  or is in exile of some kind.
• Because he rejects the values and moral codes of
  society, he is often unrepentant by society's
  standards.
• Larger than life intellectual capacity, pride,
  and passion.
• These heightened abilities often make the hero
  arrogant, extremely confident, abnormally
  sensitive, and extremely conscious of himself.
• Moody by nature or passionate about a particular
  issue.
• Often plagued by a guilty memory of some terrible
  unnamed crime.
• With the possibility greatness, yet seriously
  flawed in some manner, our hero usually meets
  with sad a end.
• Due to these characteristics, the hero is often a
  figure of repulsion, as well as fascination.