DO NOW: What is Romanticism? In your notebook, write down anything you know or think about Romanticism.

Romanticism: Artistic and intellectual movement that originated in the late 18th century and stressed strong emotion, imagination,

freedom from classical correctness in art forms, and rebellion against social conventions.

1. THE CULTIVATION OF SENSIBILITY, EMOTION, PASSION

• . . . in opposition to classic rationality [and] common sense.

• The Romantics believed that the emotions, spontaneously released, conduce to good conduct.

• The opposition appears clearly in the title of Jane Austen's novel Sense and Sensibility, 1811.

2. A REVIVED INTEREST IN AND APPRECIATION OF CHRISTIANITY

• Generally, but particularly Catholicism.

• Now valued for itsritual drama and emotional power.

3. RELISH OF MEDIEVALISM

• The eighteenth century had admired classical Greece and Rome, and used the term "Gothic" in derision.

• The Romantics rediscovered the Middle Ages.• They turned it into a rich costume drama which

still imposes itself on the historic picture of that time.

4. ACCLAIM OF THE EXCEPTIONAL MAN, THE TRAGIC HERO

• The individual genius/rebel who defies society's conventions.

• “Byronic hero”• Romantics preferred

melodrama.

5. FOR THE MYSTERIOUS, THE FANTASTIC, THE SUPERNATURAL (AND

THE NON-EUROPEAN)

• The rationalist mood of the early eighteenth century emphasized scientific clarity and had contempt for the miraculous, in faith and life.

• Romantics restored the miraculous, perhaps more for its artistic opportunities than out of conviction.

• “Gothic novel” is born – ex. Frankenstein

6. APPRECIATION OF NATURE

• Philosophically, as well as aesthetically. • Eighteenth century was predominantly urban

literature.• Pre-Romantics opened their eyes to the beauty

of wild nature and described it with loving exactness.

• Harmony between nature and man; nature is good, and man is good insofar as he cleaves to her. . .

The Sublime

7. RESPECT FOR THE SIMPLE, PRIMITIVE MAN

• Rejecting the aristocratism of the past, the pre-Romantics and the Romantics found inspiration in the virtues, sufferings, and emotional dramas of the common man.

• “Noble savage” – uncorrupted by civilization.• A mystical regard for DAS VOLK, “The Folk,”

especially in Germany, encouraged folkloristic studies, by which the Romantic writers profited.

8. CONTEMPT FOR THE BOURGEOIS, THE MIDDLE CLASS

• By definition, money-grubbing and materialistic, lacking the defiantly unconventional high-mindedness admired by the romantics.

CONTRASTED BY LITERARY REALISM• Refers to the trend, beginning

with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society "as they were.“

• Realist authors opted for depictions of everyday and banal activities and experiences, instead of a romanticized or similarly stylized presentation.

CLOSING ACTIVITY:

• Get into group of 4•Write the plot line for a Romantic short story•Include characters and settings•Remember to incorporate the elements we discussed!