Elements of Romanticism

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Elements of Romanticism

• Rebellion against Neoclassicism
• Primitivism
• Love of Nature

• Sympathetic Interest in the Past
• Mysticism
• Individualism

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Romanticism Defined
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Artistic and intellectual movement that
originated in the late 18th century and stressed
emotion, imagination, freedom from classical
correctness in art forms, and rebellion against
social conventions.
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Romanticism as a Rebellion

• Rejection of precepts of order, calm, harmony,
  balance, idealization, and rationality typical of
  Neo-classicism and The Enlightenment
• Reaction against 18th century rationalism and
  materialism (Industrial Revolution)

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Mind and Heart

• Romanticism exalted emotion over reason, the
  senses over the intellect

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Primitivism

• Noble Savage The idea that primitive human
  beings are naturally good and that whatever evil
  they developed is the product of the corrupting
  influences of society and civilization

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Primitivism

• Human beings were potentially perfect, their
  faults are due to the vicious influence of the
  type of society in which they live, one which
  tended progressively to restrict freedom and
  lessen moral goodness

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Love of Nature

• Earl of Shaftesbury contended that God had
  revealed himself completely through Nature
• Nature was perfect
• Primitive People closer to God
• Human nature prone to good evil result of
  self-imposed limitations on freedom

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Mysticism

• Knowledge of God is attainable through the use of
  human faculties, transcends intellect and does
  not use normal human perceptions and logical
  processes

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Individualism

• Heightened awareness of moods and mental
  potentials as well as personality

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Dark RomanticismGothic

• Most gothic novels or stories tales of mystery
  and horror and include the elements of
•   the supernatural,
•   wild and desolate landscapes (dark forests,
  feudal halls, mysterious castles),

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• monstrous apparitions and curses
•   stupefying atmosphere of doom and gloom
•   heroes and heroines in the direst of
  imaginable straitswho do not always triumph
•      

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• wicked villain (witches, monsters, evil lords and
  ladies)
• a keen focus on the gloomy atmosphere and setting
  

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Transcendentalism

• Emphasis on imagination as a gateway to
  transcendent experience and spiritual truth

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Individualism

• the spiritual center of the universe - and in an
  individual can be found the clue to nature,
  history and, ultimately, the cosmos itself. It is
  not a rejection of the existence of God, but a
  preference to explain an individual and the world
  in terms of an individual.

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Mysteries of Nature

• Transcendentalists accepted the neo-Platonic
  conception of nature as a living mystery, full of
  signs - nature is symbolic.

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The structure of the universe
literally duplicates the structure of the
individual self - all knowledge, therefore,
begins with self-knowledge. This is similar to
Aristotle's dictum "know thyself."
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Individual Virtue
The belief that individual virtue and happiness
depend upon self-realization - this depends upon
the reconciliation of two universal
psychological tendencies
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• the expansive or self-transcending tendency - a
  desire to embrace the whole world - to know and
  become one with the world.

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• the contracting or self-asserting tendency - the
  desire to withdraw, remain unique and separate -
  an egotistical existence.