romanticism-nature and eternity
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Contrary to what youmay think, the termRomanticism is notjust about romanticlove (although love issometimes thesubject of romantic
art).
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Romanticism is
characterized by the 5 Is
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Imagination was emphasized overreason.
This was a backlash against therationalism characterized by theNeoclassical period or Age of Reason.
Imagination was considered necessary forcreating all art.
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AsthepoetWordsworthwouldsuggest,humansnot
onlyperceiveandexperiencetheworld
aroundthem;theyalso,in
part,createit.Theimaginationunitesreasonandfeeling,enablinghumanstoreconcile
differencesandoppositesthisreconciliationisa
centralidealforRomantics.Finally,theimagination
enableshumanstoread
natureasasystemofsymbols.
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Romantics placed value onintuition, or feeling andinstincts, over reason.
Emotions were important inRomantic art.
British Romantic WilliamWordsworth described
poetry as the spontaneousoverflow of powerfulfeelings.
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Idealism is the concept thatwe can make the world abetter place.
Immanuel Kant, a Germanphilosopher, held that themind forces the world we
perceive to take the shape ofspace-and-time.
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The Romantic artist,musician, or writer, is aninspired creator rather
than a technical master.What this means is going
with the moment or beingspontaneous, rather than
getting it precise.
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Romantics celebrated theindividual.
During this time period,
Womens Rights andAbolitionism were takingroot as major movements.
Walt Whitman, a later
Romantic writer, wouldwrite a poem entitledSong of Myself: it begins,I celebrate myself
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Embracing the uncivilized, the
wild, the pre-civilized.
Rousseau: Man is born free
and everywhere he is in
chains. In other words,
civilization is in part the causeof our corruption.
The noble savage, and James
Fennimore Coopers
Leatherstocking novels, I.e. The
Last of the Mohicans.
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The first viewed
nature as
peaceful, calm,nurturing, a
source for
spiritual renewal.
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The beautiful
andThe sublime
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Nature often presented as a work of art
from the divine imaginationNature as a healing power
Nature as a refuge from civilization
Nature viewed as organic, (alive) rather
than mechanical or rationalistNature viewed as a source
of refreshment and
meditation
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Valued as the human means
for imitating nature in art
Could simultaneously
suggest many things in acreative way
Based on a desire to
express the inexpressible
through the resources oflanguage
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As the Romantic writers
show us, our heroes were
not always cowboys:
1. The hero as artist
2. The hero striving beyond
the moral restrictions of
society 3. The hero who reappears
from the ancient classics
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Romantic writers embracedeveryday realism (poetry ofWordsworth)
Also sought the folk legends
of the past Promoted exotic ideas
suggested by technology andthe imagination (a beautiful
soul in an ugly body, as inMary Shelleys Frankensteinor Victor Hugos TheHunchback of Notre Dame).
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The Romantics were
often ambivalent toward
the outside world. On
the one hand, they weresocially and politically
passionateinvolved in
worthy causes and social
issues. On the otherhand, they isolated
themselves from the
public.
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Today a number of literary theorist have called
into two major romantic perceptions:
1. That the literary text is a separate,individuated, living organism.
2. That the artist is fiercely independent genius
who creates original works of art
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