Lecture #15--Romanticism

III.  Romanticism, unlike the isms we have seen so far, was a cultural movement, not a political one. It was a wide-ranging and diverse artistic, literary and cultural movement with enormous influence on standards of and attitudes towards creative arts and life-styles in Western society.  The Romantics also clashed with the Enlightenment over the view of nature.

                        1. The Enlightenment or classical view of nature was controlled. Nature was mechanical, and mathematically precise. It could be understood and controlled by man. Examples of Gardens at Versailles.

                        2. The romantics however said that nature was not to be tamed by man. Nature was awe-inspiring, filled with hidden meaning. Humanity paled beside the immense power of nature. Gardens were vast and rolling and the paintings of J.M.W. Turner demonstrated the vast insignificance of man in comparison to nature. "Devil's Bridge, St. Gothard's Pass"; "Fire at Sea", "View in North Wales".

                        3. This view of nature also meant that there was a difference in the view of humanity. The classical view was that humanity was rational, finite, and needed restraints and rules to guide behavior, just as the conservatives in government believed.

                        4. But, for the romantics, the sleep of reason bred monsters. There was more to humanity than rules and reason. Man was deep, complex, profound, and mysterious. -- Readings -- John Keats, "When I Have Fears"; Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Kubla Khan"

                 E. Religion, and Philosophy were also affected by the romantic view of the world.

                        1. The Enlightened classical view was the religion was to unemotional, impersonal and rational -- in other words, Deism. For the romantics, religion should be emotional, mystical. The Romantics were admirers not of the classical era, but of the medieval, as in the works of Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). The classical view drained the spirit, and the spiritual nature must be attended to. Reading -- Wordsworth -- "The World is too Much With Us" The saw the divine everywhere, and admired the Roman Catholic Church and its acknowledgment of the mystical properties of life. Blake -- "The Last Judgment". Reading Blake -- "The Tyger"

                        3. Philosophy for the classical era was knowledge rooted in sensory experience. Science and reason determined ideas; everything was reasonable and objective. The romantics turned this on its head. Each mind impressed itself upon a world of sensory experience, and no two were alike. Everyone saw differently.

V. Romantic Literature & Life

            A. All of these ideas permeated every aspect of life for the Romantics, and the ideas emerged first among a group of English poets in the late 18th century.

                        1. Just as the young men in the film went out into the woods to meet and began challenging the world around them, so did the original Romantics of the 19th century, and this took many different forms.

                        2. The Romantics drew their roots from the ideas of Rousseau and his idea that the uncivilized person in touch with nature was the ideal. This concept and the rebellion against the Enlightenment appeared first in the English poets, particularly in the works of Blake.

            B. The clearest expression of what the romantics believed came from the English poets -- William Wordsworth & Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1798 with Lyrical Ballads

                        1. In Wordsworth & Coleridge published several poems, but they also put forth a theory of art and poetry that completely rejected classical forms. They wanted natural, humanized subjects and expressions.

                        2. They wrote about everyday people and matters with sublime expression, but in plain language, not flowery unintelligible vocabulary. The glory in the ordinary.

                        3. The world of the imagination reigned supreme. The supernatural was often their focus, and children were those who best understood this world. In the United States, the Romantics were often known as transcendentalists because of their belief in the transcendental realm.

            C. Poetry was the highest and best form of romantic expression, but there were other expressions, as well, as we have seen from art to music to literature.

                        1. In Germany, romantic literature focused on the inner person and understanding emotions. One of the foremost was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). Goethe wrote The Sorrows of Young Werther and Faust. In the first novel, he explores how socciety did understand this young man and his grand passions which led him to suicide. Life in both works was futile without compassion, despite great knowledge or indulgences of in the pleasures of the flesh.

                        2. The idea of dying young at the height of one's powers carried the aroma of great tragedy and pathos to the Romantics. Yet, one of the most powerful expressions of romanticism was in connection with nationalism. Nationalistic fervor and the idea of nation as natural expression found its way into many of the Romantics. "Liberty Leading the People"

                        3. The Greek Revolution inspired the Romantic artists, particularly Delacroix. but also inspired many of the young Romantics to go and fight for the Greeks, particularly Georg Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824), who died there.

            D. Part of the Romantic emphasis on mystery and supernatural also meant that a new form of literature also emerged -- the Gothic novel.

                        1. The master of the gothic mystery and the father of the detective story would be the American Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849). The horror of the supernatural and the mysterious aspects of this life and its interaction with other realms were part and parcel of Romantic thought. "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", "The Fall of the House of Usher"; "The Tell-Tale Heart".

                        2. The supernatural always had a part in these stories of horror. The best of all the Gothic stories and the best expression of the Romantic rejection of classical science came from a contest among the English Romantic writers to see who could write the best expression of man, science, and emotion.

                        3. The winner was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, and wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley -- Mary Shelley and the work was Frankenstein. It was not designed as a horror story but as a work depicting what happens when science attempts to master nature. Monsters are formed when man believes that science holds all the answers to the mysteries of life.

            E. The stories and works of the writers of the Romantic movement are some of the most important from Dumas and The Three Musketeers, to Victor Hugo, to Poe to Scott. The detective story, the horror film, the views of nature as sacred or to be protected, the romance all have their roots in the romantic movement. Even the idea that actor should be the audience feel comes from the Romantic rejection of Enlightenment rules.