Romanticism
(1800 – 1850)
Goodbye, Age of Reason;
Hello, Age of Emotion!
Romanticism – What it is…
Characteristics of Romanticism:
 Emotion, instead of reason
 Rejected Enlightenment focus on reason
 Glorification of nature – good & bad
 Favored personal freedom
 Often looked to ideals of Middle Ages
(faith, honor, chivalry; also architecture)
 Expanded across Europe; also U.S.
Romanticism – Where it came from…
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
– “the first Romantic”
 “Noble savage” ideal
 Inspired by French
Revolution (early parts)
 Reaction to Industrial
Revolution – the “dark
Satanic mills” (Wm.
Blake)
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Romanticism – What it created…
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Romantic themes expressed in:
Literature
 Poetry
 Art
 Music
 Architecture
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Often closely tied with nationalist causes
Often led to political reform movements and
revolutions
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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German
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Sturm und Drang –
“Storm and Stress”
– intense emotion
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Sorrows of Young
Werther (1774) –
very influential
Faust (1806)
William Wordsworth &
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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English poets
Influenced by Rousseau
Lyrical Ballads (1798) –
launched Romantic
movement in England
Poems were simple themes
of nature (Wordsworth) or
moody, otherworldly pieces
(Coleridge)
Included “Tintern Abbey”
(WW) and “Rime of the
Ancient Mariner” (STC)
Wordsworth – “Daffodils” (1804)
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
Sir Walter Scott
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Scottish
Long narrative
poems and
historical novels
Deeply influenced
by Goethe
Lady of the Lake
(1810) (poem)
Rob Roy (1817)
Ivanhoe (1819)
(George Gordon) Lord Byron
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Byron in
Albanian attire
(1813) 
English poet
Scandalous, known for
excesses, mood swings
– “mad, bad, and
dangerous to know”
Don Juan (1819-1824,
unf.)
Died from fever while
fighting for Greek
independence
Byron – “She Walks in Beauty” (1814)
I
She walks in beauty—like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to the tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
II
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress
Or softly lightens o'er her face—
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.
III
And on that cheek and o'er that brow
So soft, so calm yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow
But tell of days in goodness spent
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
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English poet &
playwright
Married to Mary
Wollstonecraft Shelley,
close friend of Byron
Greater influence after
death than in life
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Prometheus Unbound
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(1820)
Drowned in Italy at 29
Shelley – “Ozymandias” (1818)
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away
Victor Hugo
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French
Poet, author
Often wrote of social
injustice in France
Politically active republicanism
The Hunchback of
Notre Dame (1831)
Les Misérables (1862)
Aurore Dupin - “George Sand”
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French author
One of the most
successful woman
authors of 19th century
Unorthodox,
scandalous personal
life
Stories of deep passion
and emotional
searching
Lélia (1831)
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
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German
Collected, preserved
German folk tales
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Children’s and
Household Tales (1812)
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Examples: Rapunzel,
Cinderella, Hansel and
Gretel, Little Red Riding
Hood, Sleeping Beauty,
Snow White among
dozens of others
Aleksander Pushkin
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Russian
Greatest Russian poet
Style defined Russian
literature for decades
Political radical
Boris Godunov (1831) play
The Captain’s
Daughter (1836)
Caspar David
Friedrich
Wanderer Above
the Sea of Fog
(1818) – Kunsthalle,
Hamburg
The Abbey in the Oakwood (1810)
The Sea of Ice (1824)
J.M.W. Turner
The Fighting Téméraire Tugged to Her Last Berth to
be Broken Up (1838) – National Gallery, London
Rain, Steam, and Speed – The Great Western Railroad (1844)
John
Constable
Dedham Vale (1802)
– Victoria and
Albert Museum,
London
The Hay Wain (1821) – National Gallery, London
Weymouth Bay (1816)
Théodore Géricault
Raft of the Medusa (1819) – The Louvre, Paris
Portraits of the Insane
Eugène
Delacroix
Massacre at
Chios (1824) The Louvre,
Paris
Liberty Leading the People (1830) – The Louvre, Paris
Ludwig van Beethoven
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1770-1826
German composer
Independent of
patronage – more
freedom to compose
“Ode to Joy”
“Für Elise”
5th Symphony
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ode to Joy” (part of 9th Symphony)
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5th
“Für
Elise”
Symphony
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1811-1886
Hungarian composer
Many works used
Hungarian folk tunes
Piano virtuoso – touring
inspired “Lisztomania”
across Europe
“Hungarian Rhapsody”
Franz Liszt
Frédéric Chopin
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1810-1849
Franco-Polish composer
Incorporated Polish folk
melodies into
compositions
Emigrated to France after
failed 1830 Polish
revolution
“Minute Waltz”
Died of tuberculosis in
Paris
Giuseppe Verdi
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1813-1901
Italian opera composer
Music associated with
strong Italian
nationalist views
“La Traviata”
“Aida”
“Rigoletto”
Richard Wagner
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1813-1883
German opera composer
German nationalism
found in operas -German
legends & myths
“The Ring of the
Nibelung” - 4 cycle
opera
“Ride of the Valkyries”
Music later used by
Nazis
Peter (Pyotr) Tchaikovsky
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1840-1893
Russian composer
Wrote symphonies,
operas, ballets
Blended Western
European style music
with Russian themes
First Russian
composer to find
success in West
Tchaikovsky’s Most Famous
Neo-Gothic Architecture
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Inspired by Gothic designs from Middle Ages
Contrast to the Neo-Classical movement of the
Renaissance
Reaction to Industrialism
Began in England in late 18th c., spread
through Europe & U.S.
AKA “Gothic Revival” or “Victorian Gothic”
Palace of Westminster, London
 Location of Houses of Parliament and the
famous “Big Ben” Clock Tower
Cologne Cathedral, Germany
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Begun in 13th c., finished in 1880 – tallest
building in world at time of completion
Gothic Revival
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Sir Walter Scott
Monument, Edinburgh
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Basilica of St.
Clotilde, Paris