The Romantics And Romantic Sensibility Flashcards
Date of the romanticism movement
19th century : 1798-1837
What’s romanticism?
Artistic literary and intellectual movement
Where is romanticism from?
Europe
What’s the historical background of this movement?
1) Britain went from an agrarian economy (domestic workers, rural workers) to industrialized nation with many town and cities
2) depopulation of the countryside rapid development of crowded cities between 1750 and 1850
3) agricultural revolution and industrial revolution
What does the agricultural revolution involved?
Enclosure of the land, drove workers off the land
What does the industrial revolution provides?
Employment in factories and mills operated by machines driven by steam power
What does romantic mean at first?
It comes from “Roman” A poetic or prose heroic narrative in late medieval literature
How was the term romantic revived?
It described a movement or set of shared beliefs and themes representing a significant influence or tendency.
What’s romanticism as a political movement?
New democratics ideals that opposed monarchy and federalism (importance of the French Revolution)
What’s romanticism as an artistic movement?
A turn away from neoclassicism and the ancient models of Greek perfection and classical correctness
What’s romanticism as a philosophical movement?
Romanticism oppose rationalism (belief that truth could be discerned by logic and reason)
Give some important themes of romanticism
Many thinkers and artists see in the development if the society a threat to individualism (factory system make human being replaceable parts of a system)
The increased urbanization made people feel cut off nature
So :
1) artists highlight the individuality
2) Personal relationship with nature
3) Trust of emotions and subjective experience
Who are the important philosophers that influenced the romantics?
1) Jean Jacques Rousseau
He says : Human beings were more moral before civilisation
He prized childhood, imagination, primitive relationships with nature
2) Immanuel Kant :
Not a romantic philosopher but the Critique of Pure Reason influenced many romantics.
He speaks about who our relationship zith the world is real and not just a product of our minds.
Importance of human feelings about each other’s
Power of nature greater than us
What are the Key terms used by romantics?
Imagination (the ability to form mental images but also seen as productive) , Genius (free employment of cognitive faculties) and the sublime (something absolutely great compared to something small : transcendence)
Give painters and poets that are romantic
John Constable and J. M. W. Turner
They are English romantic painters
Close links between literature and painting
Gothic fashion
1) John Constable : rural scenes and idielization of simple and moral superior life
Aim to paint nature alive
2) J. M. W. Turner : More grandiose and pathetic scenes
Visual romantic genre through landscapes of sea and countryside
What’s romanticism as an esthetic category?
1) Romantic poets affrim the creative powers of the imagination
2) they introduce us to a new way of looking at nature : ideas of transcendence and unity of being with communication with nature
3) human society is a developed from organic model, borrowed from nature
4) artist is described as a sage, a philosopher, a prophet
Describe a romantic character :
1) Exceptional character put it exceptional situation
2) Confused, unsatisfied
3) Continually fighting himself and his limits
4) Belong to any social class
5) Has good and bad traits like any human being
Give the characteristics of the romantic artist :
1) Viewed as a supreme Being who doesn’t have to comply to the rules
2) has predilection for the fantastic, tragic, grotesque, macabre, mystery, occult, and even satanic
3) places the individual at the center of all things
