The Romantic Age (0)

The Romantic Age.
Began in the 18th century .
There are some disagreements about when the period began so we can’t say the exact year of the beginning .
Characteristics of Romantic age:
The Romantic Age is a term used to describe life and literature in England in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries .
-Imagination was very important
Like William Blake an English poet has said “I know that this world is a World of Imagination and Vision ”
-Belief and appreciating nature
-Independency – Writers placed the individual , rather than society, at the center of their vision.
The assertion of nationalism became a central theme of Romantic age.
Literature
Emergence of new ideas and positive voices. Emphasis was women and children , the heroic isolation of the artist or narrator, and respect for nature. Some writings were also based on the supernatural.
Belief in the possibility of progress. Writers tended to be optimists and espoused democratic values .
Importance of feeling and imagination.
Inspiration for the romantic writers came from two French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau and German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe .
Greatest writers
William Wordsworth (1770-1850) : was a major English Romantic poet who, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature.
His major works are poems like “Nutting” , “ I wandered lonely as a cloud” and “ Lucy Gray”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (koʊlrɪdʒ/) (1772 -1834 ): was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher .
Some of his poems are : “ Frost at midnight” and “The Nightingale ”
Robert Southey (1774 –1843): was an poet of the Romantic school and Poet Laureate for 30 years from 1813 to his death in 1843.
Some of his major works are : “The fall of Robespierre” , “Thalaba the destroyer” and “ The Cid”
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (1771 – 1832 ): was a prolific Scottish historical novelist and poet, popular throughout Europe during his time.
Some of his novels : “ Rob Roy” , “ Ivanhoe ” and “The Pirate ”
George Gordon Byron (1788 –1824) a leading figure in Romanticism .
Major works: “ Don Juan ” and “Manfred”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 –1822) : is critically regarded among the finest lyric poets in the English language .
Major works: “ Frankenstein ” and “ Mont Blanc”
John Keats (1795 –1821): was an English poet who became one of the key figures of the Romantic movement.
Work : “Ode to a Nightingale”, “Women , wine and snuff ” and “ I stood tiptoe upon a little hill ”
Romantic age and the age of Reason . Differences.
Writers turned toward what they taught are more daring, individual and imaginative approach to both literature and life.
The Romantic writers understood the greatness of the writers of the Age of Reason , but they felt the need to strike out new directions.
They tended to believe that the Augustan dedication to common sense and experience , reasonableness and tradition had resulted in a limitation of vision.
Writers of The age of Reason tended to regard evil as basic part of human nature
Romantic writers generally saw humanity as naturally good .
In the picture is The encyclopedia of the Age of Enlightenment.
Music
In music composers started to use folk. There was larger variety of instruments , long dramatic melodies, extreme tempos, dissonant harmonies.
Some of the Romantic Era Composers: Ludwig van Beethoven , who was regarded by many as the first Romantic composer, Carl Maria von Weber , Daniel Auber, Ferdinando Carulli and many more.
Important to Composers was to move their audiences, rather than concerning themselves with the structural discipline of Classical forms .
Art
Increased Nationalism and exoticism - Artist used their works for highlighting national identity and displayed exoticism by painting new and foreign things, including far away places and odd objects.
More interest in Nature and the Supernatural - Artists often used nature to convey emotions . Also the supernatural represented emotions. For example: love-cupids, fear -demons, and many other characteristics.
Individuality- it was all about loosing formal constraints, giving way to artists to show their individual ideas and emotions.
Heroism- Heroism didn't just mean the supernatural. Many people, like Beethoven, believed that the common man could be heroes. Artists painted this idea during the Romantic Age.
Artists: J.M.W. Turner , Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Cole
The picture is painted by Thomas Cole : “ The voyage of life”