Collections Essay Aesthetic theory / gender / romanticism vs realism Flashcards
Order of Paragraphs
- Context of Realism as response to Romanticism + Definition of Romanticism
- Brontë’s thoughts on importance of realism
- Inversion of typical romantic marriage
- Role of Art & metafiction - development of art from romantic to realist
- Romanticism as a form of masculine ideology
Quotes on Brontë’s thoughts on importance of realism (5)
Charlotte Bronte: “Novelists never should allow themselves to weary from the study of real life”
Charlotte on Emily: Her novels were “passionate and, at some times, violent”
Charlotte on Anna: Best excelled at the “Simple and natural, quiet description and simple pathos”
Realism emerged as a response to romanticism in mainland Europe in the mid 19th century and made its way to England
Derek Traversi: “Astonishing mixture of romantic commonplace and personal inspiration, primitive feeling and spiritual exaltation”
Quotes on Marriage (5)
Women were forced to sacrifice everything as part of marriage - their estates, their fortunes, their legal rights and their freedoms
Lady Audley was better of marrying for realistic terms to Lord Audley “40 years her senior” than the romantic first marriage in which she was left “abandoned, penniless, helpless”
Jane better of in realist marriage: “reader I married him” vs “wrapped my existence around you”
Helen’s Aunt at start of the novel:
“Be watchful and circumspect from the very commencement of your career, not to suffer your heart to be taken from you by the first foolish or unprincipled person that may covet possession of it”
VS to Markham
She “received him remarkably well” and the pair “got on marvellously”
Quotes on Role of art (4)
Gordon: “Tenant quickly calls attention to itself as the longest single narrative, enclosed epistolary novel of the 19th century”
Markham: “An old world story to share”, “a long story”, “Begin with chapter first - for it is a tale of many chapters”
Jane explains how she would sketch “fancy vignettes of any scene that happened to momentarily shape itself into the kaleidoscope of ever-shifting imagination”
Robyn Warhol: Realism & Romanticism in “continuous oscillation with each other”
Quotes on Romanticism as masculine ideology
Charles Donelan - Romanticism & the male fantasy - notes the interrelationship between romantic love and male domination
Helen’s early romanticised love of Huntingdon: “His own face” in her “portfolio”, “spring just opening into summer; morning just approaching noon” –> “If you don’t value me, I will turn to somebody that will” + “Stained with the blood of his prey”
VS
“View of Wildfell Hall, faithfully drawn and coloured”
–> Dealer “sells her art” “sends her money”
Allowing her independence & the ability to operate in the public sphere
Jane responds with a “shudder” to Rochester’s claim that he would “wrap his existence around her”
Elizabeth Shand notes that Tenant is a Kunstlerroman - growth of the artist (from romanticist to realist)
Nicole Deidrich notes similarity between “Arthur” and “her art:
Lady Chiltern “set him up too high” –> Only when she accepts this does she gain influence of politics and empowers herself
Definition of Romanticism
Stuart Curren: “Romanticism is a literary, artistic and philosophical movement originating in the 18th century, characterised predominantly by a response to neoclassicism and an emphasis upon imagination and emotion”
