Romanticism

A Movement Across the Arts

Definition

• Romanticism refers to a movement in art, literature, and music during the 19^th century.
• Romanticism is characterized by the 5 “I”s
• Imagination
• Intuition
• Idealism
• Inspiration
• Individuality

Imagination

• Imagination was emphasized over “reason.”
• This was a backlash against the rationalism characterized by the Neoclassical period or “Age of Reason.”
• Imagination was considered necessary for creating all art.
• British writer Samuel Taylor Coleridge called it “intellectual intuition.”

Intuition

• Romantics placed value on “intuition,” or feeling and instincts, over reason.
• Emotions were important in Romantic art.
• British Romantic William Wordsworth described poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”

Idealism

• Idealism is the concept that we can make the world a better place.
• Idealism refers to any theory that emphasizes the spirit, the mind, or language over matter – thought has a crucial role in making the world the way it is.
• Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher, held that the mind forces the world we perceive to take the shape of space-and-time.

Inspiration

• The Romantic artist, musician, or writer, is an “inspired creator” rather than a “technical master.”
• What this means is “going with the moment” or being spontaneous, rather than “getting it precise.”

Individuality

• Romantics celebrated the individual.
• During this time period, Women’s Rights and Abolitionism were taking root as major movements.
• Walt Whitman, a later Romantic writer, would write a poem entitled “Song of Myself”: it begins, “I celebrate myself…”

Origins

• Romanticism began to take root as a movement following the French Revolution.
• The publication of Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1792 is considered the beginning of literary Romanticism.

The Arts

• Romanticism was a movement across all the arts: visual art, music, and literature.
• All of the arts embraced themes prevalent in the Middle Ages: chivalry, courtly love. Literature and art from this time depicted these themes. Music (ballets and operas) illustrated these themes.
• Shakespeare came back into vogue.

Visual Arts

• Neoclassical art was rigid, severe, and unemotional; it hearkened back to ancient Greece and Rome

• Romantic art was emotional, deeply-felt, individualistic, and exotic. It has been described as a reaction to Neoclassicism, or “anti-Classicism.”

Visual Arts: Examples

Neoclassical Art

Romantic Art

Music

• “Classical” musicians included composers like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Franz Josef Haydn.

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• Romantic musicians included composers like Frederic Chopin, Franz Lizst, Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky

Music: Components

• 1730-1820.
• Classical music emphasized internal order and balance.

• 1800-1910.
• Romantic music emphasized expression of feelings.

Literature

• In America, Romanticism most strongly impacted literature.
• Writers explored supernatural and gothic themes.
• Writers wrote about nature – Transcendentalists believed God was in nature, unlike “Age of Reason” writers like Franklin and Jefferson, who saw God as a “divine watchmaker,” who created the universe and left it to run itself.