Reading and Writing Skills for
Students of Literature in English:
Romanticism
Enric Monforte
Jacqueline Hurtley
Bill Phillips
Romanticism
Caspar David Friedrich
1774-1840
Der Wanderer über
dem Nebelmeer 1818
http://www.success.co.il/knowledge/
Romanticism
Highly influential movement in virtually every
country of Europe, the United States, and Latin
America lasting from about 1750 to about 1870.
J.M.W.Turner
1775-1851
S. Giorgio
Maggiore: Early
Morning
1819
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/turner/
Characteristics:
Imagination
Rebellion
Nature
Childhood innocence
The individual
Origins and Inspiration
Late 18th century in France and Germany literary
taste turns away from classical and neoclassical
conventions.
Giovanni Paolo
Pannini 1691-1765
Roman Ruins with the
Arch of Titus
1734
http://www.laputanlogic.com/articles/2006/05/index.html
http://www.laputanlogic.com/articles/2006/05/index.html
http://www.success.co.il/knowledge
Inspiration initially from two men: Jean Jacques
Rousseau and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
http://copepodo.wordpress.com
http://www.greatbooksandfilm.com/rousseauque
st.htm
Jean-Jacques
Rousseau 1712-1788
Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe 1749-1832
The Romantic Spirit
Rousseau established the cult of the individual and
the freedom of the human spirit: I felt before I
thought.
Frontispiece to
Songs of Innocence
by William Blake
http://www.anselm
.edu/homepage/d
banach/song.htm
Goethe and others extolled the romantic spirit as
manifested in German folk songs, Gothic architecture,
and the plays of Shakespeare.
http://www.
planetware.
com
Strasbourg (depicted in the late 18th c.) and Cologne
Cathedrals
Goethe justified revolt against political authority
and inaugurated the Sturm und Drang (storm
and stress) movement, a forerunner of German
romanticism.
Jean-PierreLouis-Laurent
Houel 17351813
Prise de la
Bastille
http://www.cheminsdememoire.
gouv.fr
The Sorrows of
Young Werther
(1774) exalts
sentiment to the
point of justifying
committing suicide
over unrequited
love.
http://brendenundefined.blogspot.com/
Edgar
Degas
1834-1917
Melanchol
y c. 1874
http://com
mons.wiki
media.org/
wiki/File:E
dgar_Dega
s_Melancho
ly.JPG
Romantic attitudes: frenzy, melancholy, worldweariness, self-destruction
http://tomyp
ledgedword
amtrue.blog
spot.com
http://web2.cc
.nctu.edu.tw
Samuel Taylor
Coleridge
1772-1834
William
Wordsworth
1770-1850
http://eboo
ks.adelaid
e.edu.au
Percy Bysshe
Shelley
1792-1822
http://www.fil
ipspagnoli.w
ordpress.co
m
George Gordon,
Lord Byron
1788-1824
http://w
ww.reco
rds.viu.c
a
http://www.ro
gervivier.wor
dpress.com
Mary Shelley
1797-1851
John Keats
1795-1821
The Preface to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads
(1802)
by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
http://tomypledgedwordamtrue.blo
gspot.com
http://web2.cc.nctu.edu.tw
http://etc.dal.ca
“I have said that poetry is the spontaneous
overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin
from emotion recollected in tranquility: the emotion
is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the
tranquility gradually disappears, and an emotion,
kindred to that which was before the subject of
contemplation, is gradually produced, and does
itself actually exist in the mind.”
“What is a Poet?”
“To whom does he address himself?”
“And what language is to be expected from him?”
“- He is a man speaking to men”
“a man, it is true, endowed with more lively sensibility”
“more enthusiasm and tenderness”
“who has a greater knowledge of human nature”
“and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed
to be common among mankind”
“And what language is to be expected from him?”
“The language, too, of these men* has been
adopted (purified indeed from what appear to be its
real defects, from all lasting and rational causes of
dislike or disgust) ...”
*men of humble and rustic life
Nature
“Humble and rustic life was generally chosen,
because, in that condition, the essential passions of
the heart find a better soil in which they can attain
their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a
plainer and more emphatic language...
...and, lastly, because in that condition the passions
of men are incorporated with the beautiful and
permanent forms of nature.”
Nature and the Countryside
Reaction to the industrial revolution
Rise of the bourgeoisie
Contrast with the corruption of government (pastoral)
Greenburn
Bottom, near
Grasmere,
Cumbria
http://www.wordsworthcentre.co.uk
Politics
Libertarian and abolitionist movements of the late
18th and early 19th centuries coincide with the
romantic philosophy: freedom from convention and
tyranny, the rights and dignity of the individual.
Eugène Delacroix
1798-1863
La Liberté guidant
le peuple 1830
http://www.theartwolf.com
Political and Social Causes
William Blake – antinomian, anti-institutional
http://www.todd44.wordpress.com
William Wordsworth – French Revolution
http://tomypledgedwordamtrue.blogspot.com
Lord Byron – Greek independence
http://www.filipspagnoli.wordpress.com
Shelley – political reform in England and Ireland
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au
Keats – opposition to political repression in England
http://www.ilisaurus.wordpress.com
The Lure of the Exotic
Lord Byron
http://www.listverse.com
The Gothic
The Middle Ages as an
inspiration for themes
and settings:
melancholy, ruins,
graveyards, the
supernatural
http://farm2.
static.flickr.c
om/1263/14
53564387_
80e77a57c
8.jpg