The Romantic Era

A few days ago I had been listening to some lectures from a course called 'European Thought and Culture in the 19th Century'.  It is taught by Professor Lloyd Kramer and my main blog for today will be on lecture 09 - Literary Culture of Romanticism.  Romanticism is a vast cultural and literary movement, so it is highly unlikely that my blog will do it any justice with just one topic.  I am hoping to revisit this subject in more detail later, but I feel compelled to write something about it now from what I have learnt on this wonderful course.

So then, what are the romantics? And why did they form? What did they have to say? I think a good start would be that romanticism formed as a reaction against the notion that rationality was the best and noble trait humans could aspire to. This was portrayed in the age of Enlightenment.

The Romantics who were usually novelists, artists, political activists and musicians wanted to persuade the establishment the following ideas.

• Where there is order, there is disorder and that there was nothing wrong with it.
• Where there is reason, in life there is also beauty in the irrational.
• Where nature can be contained and controlled, there is nature all around us and it astounds us with its wonder.
• Where there is urban sprawl and the order of the city, there is peace, wonder and tranquillity in open spaces, far places. We can learn much from tribes far away.  Perhaps city life is not all that great; maybe we were much happier living in the wild.

 The list could go on and on and I know for sure I have missed many important distinctions about romantic era. Prof Lloyd also went through the meaning of romanticism and why historians actually look to the works of art and literature to understand the culture of the age past. One thing the romanticists where good at is producing major works of art, literature and music.

Just look at some of the pictures below.   

As you can see the painting called 'Wanderer above the Sea of Fog' by Caspar David Friedrich. Shows us how astounding nature can be.  This painting shows how a young man has reached a top part of a mountain and looks down at the mist.  This is how the romantics look at nature, how vast, open and enormous.  The man has not conquered the mountain; he is just there to take in its sites.  Nature cannot be controlled; it is disorder and goes where it pleases.  Surprisingly, this picture is used to represent a cover of one of Fredrick Nietzsche’s book.  He used to go on many long walks.  I would not be surprised if many of his theories were formed on one of his long walks.

 Let’s look at another romantic era painting.   

Here we have The Forest of Countess Mordvinova by Ivan Shishkin.  Yet again, it is another painting of nature, but this time in a forest.  Just look how vast the forest is and how it fills the painting.  The painting is practically dark and the forest dwarfs the figure wandering the area.  If we place ourselves as the man in the painting, you can just imagine how happy and free he feels walking amongst the trees.

We also had many great books produced in the romantic era.  William Wordsworth who did many great sonnets and had wrote over five hundred of them. William Blake producing many poems, art and other works and we had Mary Wollstonecraft a famous feminist who wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women.

The lecture centred on three famous artists in this period. Friedrich Schelling was the German idealist who developed many philosophies on nature, art and linking rationality to the external idea of spirit.

Next we looked at Madame de Staël who was the exiled romantic writer that expressed her political ideas, she was to link German romanticism with French romanticism.

Last but not least we moved on to Lord Byron an English poet who had many lovers. He tried to live and express his idea through romanticism. His young death also was the expression of the romantic period.