2. American Revolution French Revolution
Exoticism
Emotion Gothic Imagination
Industrial Revolution Nationalism
Individualism
Rousseau Nature Shakespeare
3. No other period in English literature displays more variety in style, theme, content
Romanticism saw a shift:
Faith in reason to faith in the senses, feelings, and imagination
From interest in urban society to an interest in the rural and natural
From public, impersonal poetry to subjective poetry
Concern with the scientific and mundane to interest in the mysterious and infinite
Cared about the individual, intuition, and imagination
4. Romanticism neither has a set beginning or end, but it does have
an inspiration point for many early romantic authors
CONTRAST WITH NEO CLASSICISM: In their attitudes toward to
Individualism
Emotion
Imagination
Nationalism
Nature
Shakespeare
Intuition and reliance on
“natural” feelings
as a guide valued over
controlled rationality
5. Widely recognized as one of the most influential events of late 18th
Far reaching consequences in political, cultural, social, and literary arenas
Supporters rallied around more abstract concepts of freedom and equality
Ideals of equality, citizenship, human rights had influence on Romantic poet
French Revolution changed the lives of virtually everyone in the nation and even
continent because of its drastic and immediate shift in social reformation
6. The newly acquired freedom of the common people bring about
1- Just laws and living
2- Ordinary people had the freedom to think for themselves
3- The freedom to express themselves
The influence the French Revolution had on Romanticism is clear in many well-known
Romantic authors texts including William Blake, William Wordsworth, Edmund Burke,
and Percy Shelley
7. In 1765–1783, The Thirteen American Colonies broke from the British Empire,
formed the independent nation
The British sent invasion armies and their powerful navy to blockade the coast
George Washington was elected the first president of United States in 1789
The bill of rights or 10 amendments were added to constitution in 1791, an attempt
to balance a strong national government with strong state governments and broad
personal liberties
The American shift to liberal republicanism, and the gradually increasing democracy,
caused an upheaval of traditional social hierarchy and gave birth to the ethic that has
formed a core of political values in the United States
8. America's first great creative period
Moral qualities were significantly present in the verse and practiced the writing of short
stories through the period
Poe formulated his theories of poetry
In the 1850s emerged the powerful symbolic novels
It was to demand and receive a new literature less idealistic and more practical, less exalted
and more earthy, less consciously artistic and more honest
9. The greatest of histories epochs of change and dynamic redefinition of how
humans live and interacted with nature
A shift in the technological, socioeconomic and cultural conditions
Living conditions in cities became unsanitary
Factories subjected men, women, and even children workers to low wages,
harsh punishments, and unprotected work around dangerous machinery
The emergence of new production methods, steam power, industrial production
techniques, canals, railways
10. A major turning point in human history, in every aspect of daily life
The movement stressed the importance of “nature” in art and
language in contrast to monstrous machines and factories
The destruction of the natural beauty of the landscape triggered a
nostalgic reaction in art and literature
Includes essays, fiction, and poetry that respond to the enormous
growth of technology
11. The high priest of Romanticism was Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
His mother died at his birth, so raised with no discipline
Grew up in beautiful, rural Switzerland
His writings are celebrations of the joys of radical individual freedom
His books were very popular and made a profound impression on European
thinking, especially influencing the Romantic movement
12. Has been called the father of the Romantic movement
Enthusiasm for nature
Appeal to the emotions
His ideas stimulated or inspired many other writers
Romanticism, a philosophy strongly attributed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau
13. Before the 18th Century: no concern to discover their own individual identities
They were what they had been born
Mercantilism and capitalism gradually transformed Europe
It destabilized the old patterns
Developed their own tastes in the arts
New social and artistic movements alien to the old aristocracy
Asserted the importance of the individual, the unique, even the eccentric
“Inspired" creator over the artist as "maker" or technical master
14. The changing economy: the possibility of a free market in the arts
SO: Artists seek out sympathetic audiences to a pay them for their works
No more being confined to handful of Church and aristocratic patrons
To afford to pursue their individual tastes in a way not possible in the
Renaissance
Byron in literature and Beethoven in music and Napoleon Bonaparte
15. The imagination was elevated to a position as the supreme faculty of the mind
The ultimate "shaping" or creative power, an active, rather than passive
Greater emphasis on the importance of intuition, instincts, and feelings
The spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings
The shift from a mimetic to an expressive orientation for poetry
Mimetic quality: valuing art primarily for its ability to imitate human life
16. Art was valuable not as a mirror of the external world, but a source
of illumination of the world within
Products of the uncultivated popular imagination, equal or surpass
those of educated court poets and composers
Unrestrained imagination
17. Evocation of strong, irrational emotions
Prized the more tender sentiments of affection, sorrow, and romantic longing
Emotions as a necessary supplement to purely logical reason
Included social and political consciousness
18. Presented as itself a work of art
A healing power
A source of subject and image
A refuge from the artificial constructs of civilization, including artificial language
As the status of an organically unified whole
Viewed as "organic," rather than, as in the scientific or rationalist view
19. The Enlightenment had talked of "natural law" as the source of truth
view the human and the natural as opposite poles
Here Rousseau is an important figure, generally "commune with nature."
Paradoxical that it was just at the moment when the industrial revolution
destroying woods and fields
The beauties of nature and the simple life as opposed to the corrupt and
artificial life in the cities
Return to nature and the natural state of human goodness
20. The language, race, culture, religion and customs of the "nation“
Full of themes relating to the tumultuous political events of the period
Draws its inspiration from national folk music
Arose in reaction to dynastic or imperial hegemony
Folklore developed as a romantic nationalist concept
21. Arose in Germany--with Wilhelm Grimm collecting popular fairy tales
In England with Joseph Addison treating old ballads as high poetry
Romantic taste favored simplicity and naturalness
The "spontaneous" outpourings of the untutored common people
Scholars celebrated the anonymous masses who invented, transmuted these works
22. Europeans traveled more than ever to examine at first hand the far-off lands
Attitudes fostered by European colonialism
A respond to the longing of people for a distant past, and consequently images of
distant places
Spain was a favorite "exotic" setting for French Romantics
North Africa and the Middle East provided images of "Asia" to Europeans
Exoticism in literature was inspired more by Lord Byron--especially his Childe
Harold's Pilgrimage (1812-1818)
23. Shakespeare was a popular rather than a courtly writer
He was the essence of folk poetry, the ultimate vindication of their faith in
spontaneous creativity
It was the rise and spread of the reputation of William Shakespeare
Much of the drama of the European 19th century is influenced by him,
painters illustrated scenes from his plays
24. Rejecting the Enlightenment ideal of balance and rationalism
Sought out the hysterical, mystical, passionate adventures of terrified
heroes and heroines
Frightening, mysterious forces
The modern horror novel and woman's romance are both descendants of
the Gothic romance
25. Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre
her sister Emily's Wuthering Heights
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Twilight
26. Prior to romanticism, Europeans tended to think of medieval era as
‘dark ages’
Embraced the mysterious, supernatural elements of time period
Edmund Burk: sublime is mixture of awe and fear
The most intense human emotions are marked by pain and fear
Goethe's play: Faust
27. The Gothic novel embraced the Medieval culture
For the first time since the Renaissance the wilder aspects of the creativity of
Western Europeans from the 12th through the 14th centuries
Tales of Robin Hood and his merry men, and--above all--the old tales of King
Arthur and the knights of the round table became popular
Fairies, witches, angels-creatures of the Medieval popular imagination came
flooding back into the European arts
28. Christianity became more evident
Catholicism is accepted in Europe; pope regains authority in Italy
Transformation of religion into a subject for artistic treatment far removed
from traditional religious art
More Biblical themes and references, wide variety of Christian materials
Religion in favor of the idea that each person must create his own
relationship with God
