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Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and
individualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and to value independence and self-reli ...
,
clandestine literature Clandestine literature, also called "underground literature", refers to a type of editorial and publishing process that involves self-publishing works, often in contradiction with the legal standards of a location. Clandestine literature is often an ...
,
paganism
Paganism (from classical Latin ''pāgānus'' "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christianity, early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions ot ...
, idealization of nature, suspicion of science and industrialization, and glorification of the past with a strong preference for the medieval rather than the classical. It was partly a reaction to the
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
, the social and political norms of the
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
, and the scientific rationalization of nature.
It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on
historiography
Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians ha ...
, education,
chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...
,
social sciences
Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soci ...
, and the
natural sciences
Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...
. It had a significant and complex effect on politics, with romantic thinkers influencing
conservatism
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilizati ...
,
liberalism
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for c ...
,
radicalism, and
nationalism
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...
.
The movement emphasized intense emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as fear, horror, terror and awe — especially that experienced in confronting the new aesthetic categories of the sublime and beauty of nature. It elevated folk art and ancient custom to something noble, but also spontaneity as a desirable characteristic (as in the musical impromptu). In contrast to the
rationalism
In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".Lacey, A.R. (1996), ''A Dictionary of Philosophy' ...
and
classicism
Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for a classical period, classical antiquity in the Western tradition, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. In its purest form, classicism is an aestheti ...
of the
Enlightenment, Romanticism revived
medievalism
Medievalism is a system of belief and practice inspired by the Middle Ages of Europe, or by devotion to elements of that period, which have been expressed in areas such as architecture, literature, music, art, philosophy, scholarship, and variou ...
and elements of art and narrative perceived as authentically medieval in an attempt to escape population growth, early
urban sprawl
Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city." Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted growt ...
, and
industrialism
Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econom ...
.
Although the movement was rooted in the German ''
Sturm und Drang
''Sturm und Drang'' (, ; usually translated as "storm and stress") was a proto- Romantic movement in German literature and music that occurred between the late 1760s and early 1780s. Within the movement, individual subjectivity and, in particul ...
'' movement, which preferred intuition and emotion to the rationalism of the Enlightenment, the events and ideologies of the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
were also proximate factors since many of the early Romantics were cultural revolutionaries and sympathetic to the revolution. Romanticism assigned a high value to the achievements of "heroic" individualists and artists, whose examples, it maintained, would raise the quality of society. It also promoted the individual imagination as a critical authority allowed of freedom from classical notions of form in art. There was a strong recourse to historical and natural inevitability, a ''
Zeitgeist
In 18th- and 19th-century German philosophy, a ''Zeitgeist'' () ("spirit of the age") is an invisible agent, force or Daemon dominating the characteristics of a given epoch in world history.
Now, the term is usually associated with Georg W. F. ...
'', in the representation of its ideas. In the second half of the 19th century,
Realism
Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to:
In the arts
*Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts
Arts movements related to realism include:
*Classical Realism
*Literary realism, a move ...
was offered as a polar opposite to Romanticism. The decline of Romanticism during this time was associated with multiple processes, including social and political changes.
Defining Romanticism
Basic characteristics
The nature of Romanticism may be approached from the primary importance of the free expression of the feelings of the artist. The importance the Romantics placed on emotion is summed up in the remark of the German painter
Caspar David Friedrich, "the artist's feeling is his law". For
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798).
Wordsworth's ' ...
, poetry should begin as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings", which the poet then "recollect
in tranquility", evoking a new but corresponding emotion the poet can then mould into art.
To express these feelings, it was considered that content of art had to come from the imagination of the artist, with as little interference as possible from "artificial" rules dictating what a work should consist of.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake ...
and others believed there were natural laws the imagination—at least of a good creative artist—would unconsciously follow through
artistic inspiration
Inspiration (from the Latin ''inspirare'', meaning "to breathe into") is an unconscious burst of creativity in a literary, musical, or visual art and other artistic endeavours. The concept has origins in both Hellenism and Hebraism. The Greek ...
if left alone. As well as rules, the influence of models from other works was considered to impede the creator's own imagination, so that
originality
Originality is the aspect of created or invented works that distinguish them from replica, reproductions, clones, forgery, forgeries, or substantially derivative works. The modern idea of originality is according to some scholars tied to Romantici ...
was essential. The concept of the
genius
Genius is a characteristic of original and exceptional insight in the performance of some art or endeavor that surpasses expectations, sets new standards for future works, establishes better methods of operation, or remains outside the capabiliti ...
, or artist who was able to produce his own original work through this process of ''creation from nothingness'', is key to Romanticism, and to be derivative was the worst sin.
[Ruthven (2001) p. 40 quote: "Romantic ideology of literary authorship, which conceives of the text as an autonomous object produced by an individual genius."][Spearing (1987) quote: "Surprising as it may seem to us, living after the Romantic movement has transformed older ideas about literature, in the Middle Ages authority was prized more highly than originality."][Eco (1994) p. 95 quote:
Much art has been and is repetitive. The concept of absolute originality is a contemporary one, born with Romanticism; classical art was in vast measure serial, and the "modern" avant-garde (at the beginning of this century) challenged the Romantic idea of "creation from nothingness", with its techniques of collage, mustachios on the Mona Lisa, art about art, and so on.] This idea is often called "romantic originality". Translator and prominent Romantic
August Wilhelm Schlegel
August Wilhelm (after 1812: von) Schlegel (; 8 September 176712 May 1845), usually cited as August Schlegel, was a German poet, translator and critic, and with his brother Friedrich Schlegel the leading influence within Jena Romanticism. His trans ...
argued in his ''Lectures on Dramatic Arts and Letters'' that the most phenomenal power of human nature is its capacity to divide and diverge into opposite directions.
Not essential to Romanticism, but so widespread as to be normative, was a strong belief and interest in the importance of nature. This particularly in the effect of nature upon the artist when he is surrounded by it, preferably alone. In contrast to the usually very social art of the
Enlightenment, Romantics were distrustful of the human world, and tended to believe a close connection with nature was mentally and morally healthy. Romantic art addressed its audiences with what was intended to be felt as the personal voice of the artist. So, in literature, "much of romantic poetry invited the reader to identify the protagonists with the poets themselves".
According to
Isaiah Berlin
Sir Isaiah Berlin (6 June 1909 – 5 November 1997) was a Russian-British social and political theorist, philosopher, and historian of ideas. Although he became increasingly averse to writing for publication, his improvised lectures and talks ...
, Romanticism embodied "a new and restless spirit, seeking violently to burst through old and cramping forms, a nervous preoccupation with perpetually changing inner states of consciousness, a longing for the unbounded and the indefinable, for perpetual movement and change, an effort to return to the forgotten sources of life, a passionate effort at self-assertion both individual and collective, a search after means of expressing an unappeasable yearning for unattainable goals".
Etymology
The group of words with the root "Roman" in the various European languages, such as "romance" and "Romanesque", has a complicated history. By the 18th century, European languages – notably German, French and Russian – were using the term "Roman" in the sense of the English word "
novel
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...
", i.e. a work of popular narrative fiction.
This usage derived from the term
"Romance languages", which referred to
vernacular
A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...
(or popular) language in contrast to formal
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
.
Most such novels took the form of "
chivalric romance
As a literary genre, the chivalric romance is a type of prose and verse narrative that was popular in the noble courts of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a chivalri ...
", tales of adventure, devotion and honour.
The founders of Romanticism, critics
August Wilhelm Schlegel
August Wilhelm (after 1812: von) Schlegel (; 8 September 176712 May 1845), usually cited as August Schlegel, was a German poet, translator and critic, and with his brother Friedrich Schlegel the leading influence within Jena Romanticism. His trans ...
and
Friedrich Schlegel
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich (after 1814: von) Schlegel (; ; 10 March 1772 – 12 January 1829) was a German poet, literary critic, philosopher, philologist, and Indologist. With his older brother, August Wilhelm Schlegel, he was one of the main figure ...
, began to speak of ''romantische Poesie'' ("romantic poetry") in the 1790s, contrasting it with "classic" but in terms of spirit rather than merely dating. Friedrich Schlegel wrote in his 1800 essay ''Gespräch über die Poesie'' ("Dialogue on Poetry"): "I seek and find the romantic among the older moderns, in Shakespeare, in Cervantes, in Italian poetry, in that age of chivalry, love and fable, from which the phenomenon and the word itself are derived."
The modern sense of the term spread more widely in France by its persistent use by
Germaine de Staël
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein (; ; 22 April 176614 July 1817), commonly known as Madame de Staël (), was a French woman of letters and political theorist, the daughter of banker and French finance minister Jacques Necker and Suzan ...
in her ''
De l'Allemagne'' (1813), recounting her travels in Germany.
[Ferber, 7] In England Wordsworth wrote in a preface to his poems of 1815 of the "romantic harp" and "classic lyre",
but in 1820
Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the ...
could still write, perhaps slightly disingenuously, "I perceive that in Germany, as well as in Italy, there is a great struggle about what they call 'Classical' and 'Romantic', terms which were not subjects of classification in England, at least when I left it four or five years ago". It is only from the 1820s that Romanticism certainly knew itself by its name, and in 1824 the
Académie française
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
took the wholly ineffective step of issuing a decree condemning it in literature.
Period
The period typically called Romantic varies greatly between different countries and different artistic media or areas of thought.
Margaret Drabble described it in literature as taking place "roughly between 1770 and 1848", and few dates much earlier than 1770 will be found. In English literature,
M. H. Abrams
Meyer Howard Abrams (July 23, 1912 – April 21, 2015), usually cited as M. H. Abrams, was an American literary critic, known for works on romanticism, in particular his book ''The Mirror and the Lamp''. Under Abrams's editorship, ''The Norton An ...
placed it between 1789, or 1798, this latter a very typical view, and about 1830, perhaps a little later than some other critics. Others have proposed 1780–1830. In other fields and other countries the period denominated as Romantic can be considerably different;
musical Romanticism, for example, is generally regarded as only having ceased as a major artistic force as late as 1910, but in an extreme extension the ''
Four Last Songs
The ''Four Last Songs'' (german: Vier letzte Lieder, link=no), Op. posth., for soprano and orchestra are – with the exception of the song "Malven" (Mallows), composed later the same year – the final completed works of Richard Strauss. They ...
'' of
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss (; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wag ...
are described stylistically as "Late Romantic" and were composed in 1946–48. However, in most fields the Romantic period is said to be over by about 1850, or earlier.
The early period of the Romantic era was a time of war, with the French Revolution (1789–1799) followed by the
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...
until 1815. These wars, along with the political and social turmoil that went along with them, served as the background for Romanticism.
[Greenblatt et al., ''Norton Anthology of English Literature'', eighth edition, "The Romantic Period – Volume D" (New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2006): ] The key generation of French Romantics born between 1795 and 1805 had, in the words of one of their number,
Alfred de Vigny
Alfred Victor, Comte de Vigny (27 March 1797 – 17 September 1863) was a French poet and early French Romanticist. He also produced novels, plays, and translations of Shakespeare.
Biography
Vigny was born in Loches (a town to which he never r ...
, been "conceived between battles, attended school to the rolling of drums". According to
Jacques Barzun
Jacques Martin Barzun (; November 30, 1907 – October 25, 2012) was a French-American historian known for his studies of the history of ideas and cultural history. He wrote about a wide range of subjects, including baseball, mystery novels, and ...
, there were three generations of Romantic artists. The first emerged in the 1790s and 1800s, the second in the 1820s, and the third later in the century.
Context and place in history
The more precise characterization and specific definition of Romanticism has been the subject of debate in the fields of
intellectual history and
literary history
The history of literature is the historical development of writings in prose or poetry that attempt to provide entertainment, enlightenment, or instruction to the reader/listener/observer, as well as the development of the literary techniques ...
throughout the 20th century, without any great measure of consensus emerging. That it was part of the
Counter-Enlightenment
The Counter-Enlightenment refers to a loose collection of intellectual stances that arose during the European Enlightenment in opposition to its mainstream attitudes and ideals. The Counter-Enlightenment is generally seen to have continued from t ...
, a reaction against the
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
, is generally accepted in current scholarship. Its relationship to the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
, which began in 1789 in the very early stages of the period, is clearly important, but highly variable depending on geography and individual reactions. Most Romantics can be said to be broadly progressive in their views, but a considerable number always had, or developed, a wide range of conservative views, and nationalism was in many countries strongly associated with Romanticism, as discussed in detail below.
In philosophy and the history of ideas, Romanticism was seen by Isaiah Berlin as disrupting for over a century the classic Western traditions of rationality and the idea of moral absolutes and agreed values, leading "to something like the melting away of the very notion of objective truth", and hence not only to nationalism, but also
fascism
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...
and
totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and reg ...
, with a gradual recovery coming only after World War II. For the Romantics, Berlin says,
in the realm of ethics, politics, aesthetics it was the authenticity and sincerity of the pursuit of inner goals that mattered; this applied equally to individuals and groups—states, nations, movements. This is most evident in the aesthetics of romanticism, where the notion of eternal models, a Platonic vision of ideal beauty, which the artist seeks to convey, however imperfectly, on canvas or in sound, is replaced by a passionate belief in spiritual freedom, individual creativity. The painter, the poet, the composer do not hold up a mirror to nature, however ideal, but invent; they do not imitate (the doctrine of mimesis), but create not merely the means but the goals that they pursue; these goals represent the self-expression of the artist's own unique, inner vision, to set aside which in response to the demands of some "external" voice—church, state, public opinion, family friends, arbiters of taste—is an act of betrayal of what alone justifies their existence for those who are in any sense creative.
Arthur Lovejoy
Arthur Oncken Lovejoy (October 10, 1873 – December 30, 1962) was an American philosopher and intellectual historian, who founded the discipline known as the history of ideas with his book ''The Great Chain of Being'' (1936), on the topic o ...
attempted to demonstrate the difficulty of defining Romanticism in his seminal article "On The Discrimination of Romanticisms" in his ''Essays in the
History of Ideas
Intellectual history (also the history of ideas) is the study of the history of human thought and of intellectuals, people who conceptualize, discuss, write about, and concern themselves with ideas. The investigative premise of intellectual his ...
'' (1948); some scholars see Romanticism as essentially continuous with the present, some like
Robert Hughes see in it the inaugural moment of
modernity
Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular socio-cultural norm (social), norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the Renaissancein the " ...
, and some like
Chateaubriand,
Novalis
Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg (2 May 1772 – 25 March 1801), pen name Novalis (), was a German polymath who was a writer, philosopher, poet, aristocrat and mystic. He is regarded as an idiosyncratic and influential figure of ...
and Samuel Taylor Coleridge see it as the beginning of a tradition of resistance to
Enlightenment rationalism—a "Counter-Enlightenment"— to be associated most closely with
German Romanticism. An earlier definition comes from
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poetry, French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticis ...
: "Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor exact truth, but in the way of feeling."
The end of the Romantic era is marked in some areas by a new style of
Realism
Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to:
In the arts
*Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts
Arts movements related to realism include:
*Classical Realism
*Literary realism, a move ...
, which affected literature, especially the novel and drama, painting, and even music, through
Verismo
In opera, ''verismo'' (, from , meaning "true") was a post-Romantic operatic tradition associated with Italian composers such as Pietro Mascagni, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Umberto Giordano, Francesco Cilea and Giacomo Puccini.
''Verismo'' as an ...
opera. This movement was led by France, with
Balzac and
Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert ( , , ; 12 December 1821 – 8 May 1880) was a French novelist. Highly influential, he has been considered the leading exponent of literary realism in his country. According to the literary theorist Kornelije Kvas, "in Flauber ...
in literature and
Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...
in painting;
Stendhal
Marie-Henri Beyle (; 23 January 1783 – 23 March 1842), better known by his pen name Stendhal (, ; ), was a 19th-century French writer. Best known for the novels ''Le Rouge et le Noir'' (''The Red and the Black'', 1830) and ''La Chartreuse de P ...
and
Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and ...
were important precursors of Realism in their respective media. However, Romantic styles, now often representing the established and safe style against which Realists rebelled, continued to flourish in many fields for the rest of the century and beyond. In music such works from after about 1850 are referred to by some writers as "Late Romantic" and by others as "Neoromantic" or "Postromantic", but other fields do not usually use these terms; in English literature and painting the convenient term "Victorian" avoids having to characterise the period further.
In northern Europe, the Early Romantic visionary optimism and belief that the world was in the process of great change and improvement had largely vanished, and some art became more conventionally political and polemical as its creators engaged polemically with the world as it was. Elsewhere, including in very different ways the United States and Russia, feelings that great change was underway or just about to come were still possible. Displays of intense emotion in art remained prominent, as did the exotic and historical settings pioneered by the Romantics, but experimentation with form and technique was generally reduced, often replaced with meticulous technique, as in the poems of Tennyson or many paintings. If not realist, late 19th-century art was often extremely detailed, and pride was taken in adding authentic details in a way that earlier Romantics did not trouble with. Many Romantic ideas about the nature and purpose of art, above all the pre-eminent importance of originality, remained important for later generations, and often underlie modern views, despite opposition from theorists.
Literature
![Chatterton](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Chatterton.jpg)
In literature, Romanticism found recurrent themes in the evocation or criticism of the past, the cult of "
sensibility
Sensibility refers to an acute perception of or responsiveness toward something, such as the emotions of another. This concept emerged in eighteenth-century Britain, and was closely associated with studies of sense perception as the means thro ...
" with its emphasis on women and children, the isolation of the artist or narrator, and respect for nature. Furthermore, several romantic authors, such as
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...
and
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion.
He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, from a family long associated with that t ...
, based their writings on the
supernatural
Supernatural refers to phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin (above, beyond, or outside of) + (nature) Though the corollary term "nature", has had multiple meanings si ...
/
occult
The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism a ...
and human
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
. Romanticism tended to regard
satire
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming ...
as something unworthy of serious attention, a prejudice still influential today. The Romantic movement in literature was preceded by the
Enlightenment and succeeded by
Realism
Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to:
In the arts
*Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts
Arts movements related to realism include:
*Classical Realism
*Literary realism, a move ...
.
Some authors cite 16th-century poet
Isabella di Morra
Isabella di Morra (c. 1520 – 1545/1546) was an Italian poet of the Renaissance. An unknown figure in her lifetime, she was forced by her brothers to live in isolation, which estranged her from courts and literary salons. While living in so ...
as an early precursor of Romantic literature. Her lyrics covering themes of isolation and loneliness, which reflected the tragic events of her life, are considered "an impressive prefigurement of Romanticism", differing from the
Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists.
Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited w ...
ist fashion of the time based on the
philosophy of love.
The precursors of Romanticism in English poetry go back to the middle of the 18th century, including figures such as
Joseph Warton
Joseph Warton (April 1722 – 23 February 1800) was an English academic and literary critic.
He was born in Dunsfold, Surrey, England, but his family soon moved to Hampshire, where his father, the Reverend Thomas Warton, became vicar of B ...
(headmaster at
Winchester College
Winchester College is a public school (fee-charging independent day and boarding school) in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It was founded by William of Wykeham in 1382 and has existed in its present location ever since. It is the oldest of the ...
) and his brother
Thomas Warton
Thomas Warton (9 January 172821 May 1790) was an English literary historian, critic, and poet. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1785, following the death of William Whitehead.
He is sometimes called ''Thomas Warton the younger'' to disti ...
,
Professor of Poetry
The Professor of Poetry is an academic appointment at the University of Oxford. The chair was created in 1708 by an endowment from the estate of Henry Birkhead. The professorship carries an obligation to lecture, but is in effect a part-time po ...
at
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
.
[John Keats. By Sidney Colvin, p. 106. Elibron Classics] Joseph maintained that invention and imagination were the chief qualities of a poet. The Scottish poet
James Macpherson
James Macpherson (Gaelic: ''Seumas MacMhuirich'' or ''Seumas Mac a' Phearsain''; 27 October 1736 – 17 February 1796) was a Scottish writer, poet, literary collector and politician, known as the "translator" of the Ossian cycle of epic poem ...
influenced the early development of Romanticism with the international success of his
Ossian cycle of poems published in 1762, inspiring both
Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treat ...
and the young
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'', ''Rob Roy (n ...
.
Thomas Chatterton
Thomas Chatterton (20 November 1752 – 24 August 1770) was an English poet whose precocious talents ended in suicide at age 17. He was an influence on Romantic artists of the period such as Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth and Coleridge.
Altho ...
is generally considered the first Romantic poet in English.
[Thomas Chatterton, Grevel Lindop, 1972, Fyffield Books, p. 11] Both Chatterton and Macpherson's work involved elements of fraud, as what they claimed was earlier literature that they had discovered or compiled was, in fact, entirely their own work. The
Gothic novel, beginning with
Horace Walpole
Horatio Walpole (), 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whigs (British political party), Whig politician.
He had Strawb ...
's ''
The Castle of Otranto
''The Castle of Otranto'' is a novel by Horace Walpole. First published in 1764, it is generally regarded as the first gothic novel. In the second edition, Walpole applied the word 'Gothic' to the novel in the subtitle – ''A Gothic Story''. Se ...
'' (1764), was an important precursor of one strain of Romanticism, with a delight in horror and threat, and exotic picturesque settings, matched in Walpole's case by his role in the early
revival of Gothic architecture. ''
Tristram Shandy Tristram may refer to:
Literature
* the title character of ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'', a novel by Laurence Sterne
* the title character of ''Tristram of Lyonesse'', an epic poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
*"Tristra ...
'', a novel by
Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne (24 November 1713 – 18 March 1768), was an Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric who wrote the novels ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'' and ''A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy'', published ...
(1759–67), introduced a whimsical version of the anti-rational
sentimental novel
The sentimental novel or the novel of sensibility is an 18th-century literary genre which celebrates the emotional and intellectual concepts of sentiment, sentimentalism, and sensibility. Sentimentalism, which is to be distinguished from sens ...
to the English literary public.
Germany
![Des Knaben Wunderhorn III (1808)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Des_Knaben_Wunderhorn_III_%281808%29.jpg)
An early German influence came from
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as trea ...
, whose 1774 novel ''
The Sorrows of Young Werther
''The Sorrows of Young Werther'' (; german: Die Leiden des jungen Werthers) is a 1774 epistolary novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, which appeared as a revised edition in 1787. It was one of the main novels in the ''Sturm ...
'' had young men throughout Europe emulating its protagonist, a young artist with a very sensitive and passionate temperament. At that time Germany was a multitude of small separate states, and Goethe's works would have a seminal influence in developing a unifying sense of
nationalism
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...
. Another philosophic influence came from the German idealism of
Johann Gottlieb Fichte and
Friedrich Schelling
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (; 27 January 1775 – 20 August 1854), later (after 1812) von Schelling, was a German philosopher. Standard histories of philosophy make him the midpoint in the development of German idealism, situating him be ...
, making
Jena
Jena () is a German city and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 inhabitants, while the city itself has a popu ...
(where Fichte lived, as well as Schelling,
Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends a ...
,
Schiller and the
brothers
A brother is a man or boy who shares one or more parents with another; a male sibling. The female counterpart is a sister. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to refer to non-familia ...
Schlegel
Schlegel is a German occupational surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Anthony Schlegel (born 1981), former American football linebacker
* August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767–1845), German poet, older brother of Friedrich
* Brad Schlege ...
) a centre for early
German Romanticism (see
Jena Romanticism
Jena Romanticism (german: Jenaer Romantik; also the Jena Romantics or Early Romanticism (''Frühromantik'')) is the first phase of Romanticism in German literature represented by the work of a group centred in Jena from about 1798 to 1804. The move ...
). Important writers were
Ludwig Tieck
Johann Ludwig Tieck (; ; 31 May 177328 April 1853) was a German poet, fiction writer, translator, and critic. He was one of the founding fathers of the Romantic movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Early life
Tieck was born in B ...
,
Novalis
Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg (2 May 1772 – 25 March 1801), pen name Novalis (), was a German polymath who was a writer, philosopher, poet, aristocrat and mystic. He is regarded as an idiosyncratic and influential figure of ...
,
Heinrich von Kleist
Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist (18 October 177721 November 1811) was a German poet, dramatist, novelist, short story writer and journalist. His best known works are the theatre plays '' Das Käthchen von Heilbronn'', ''The Broken Jug'', ''Amph ...
and
Friedrich Hölderlin
Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (, ; ; 20 March 1770 – 7 June 1843) was a German poet and philosopher. Described by Norbert von Hellingrath as "the most German of Germans", Hölderlin was a key figure of German Romanticism. Part ...
.
Heidelberg
Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...
later became a centre of German Romanticism, where writers and poets such as
Clemens Brentano
Clemens Wenzeslaus Brentano (also Klemens; pseudonym: Clemens Maria Brentano ; ; 9 September 1778 – 28 July 1842) was a German poet and novelist, and a major figure of German Romanticism. He was the uncle, via his brother Christian, of Franz ...
,
Achim von Arnim
Carl Joachim Friedrich Ludwig von Arnim (26 January 1781 – 21 January 1831), better known as Achim von Arnim, was a German poet, novelist, and together with Clemens Brentano and Joseph von Eichendorff, a leading figure of German Romanticism.
...
, and
Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff
Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (10 March 178826 November 1857) was a German poet, novelist, playwright, literary critic, translator, and anthologist. Eichendorff was one of the major writers and critics of Romanticism.Cf. J. A. Cuddon: ' ...
(''
Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts
''Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing'' (german: Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts, ) is a novella by Joseph von Eichendorff. Completed in 1823, it was first printed in 1826. The work is regarded as a pinnacle of musical prose. Eichendorff created an open ...
'') met regularly in literary circles.
Important motifs in German Romanticism are travelling, nature, for example the
German Forest
The German Forest (german: Deutscher Wald) was a phrase used both as a metaphor as well as to describe in exaggerated terms an idyllic landscape in German poems, fairy tales and legends of the early 19th-century Romantic period. Historical and ...
, and
Germanic myths. The later German Romanticism of, for example
E. T. A. Hoffmann's ''
Der Sandmann
"The Sandman" ( German: ''Der Sandmann'') is a short story by . It was the first in an 1817 book of stories titled ''Die Nachtstücke'' (''The Night Pieces'').
Plot summary
The story is told by a narrator who claims to have known Lothar. It beg ...
'' (''The Sandman''), 1817, and
Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff
Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (10 March 178826 November 1857) was a German poet, novelist, playwright, literary critic, translator, and anthologist. Eichendorff was one of the major writers and critics of Romanticism.Cf. J. A. Cuddon: ' ...
's ''
Das Marmorbild'' (''The Marble Statue''), 1819, was darker in its motifs and has
gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
elements. The significance to Romanticism of childhood innocence, the importance of imagination, and racial theories all combined to give an unprecedented importance to
folk literature
Oral literature, orature or folk literature is a genre of literature that is spoken or sung as opposed to that which is written, though much oral literature has been transcribed. There is no standard definition, as anthropologists have used vary ...
, non-classical
mythology
Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...
and
children's literature
Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader.
Children's ...
, above all in Germany. Brentano and von Arnim were significant literary figures who together published ''
Des Knaben Wunderhorn
''Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Alte deutsche Lieder'' (German language, German; "The boy's magic horn: old German songs") is a collection of German folk poems and songs edited by Ludwig Achim von Arnim, Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano, and publi ...
'' ("The Boy's Magic Horn" or
cornucopia
In classical antiquity, the cornucopia (), from Latin ''cornu'' (horn) and ''copia'' (abundance), also called the horn of plenty, was a symbol of abundance and nourishment, commonly a large horn-shaped container overflowing with produce, flowers ...
), a collection of versified folk tales, in 1806–08. The first collection of ''
Grimms' Fairy Tales
''Grimms' Fairy Tales'', originally known as the ''Children's and Household Tales'' (german: Kinder- und Hausmärchen, lead=yes, ), is a German collection of fairy tales by the Grimm brothers or "Brothers Grimm", Jacob and Wilhelm, first publi ...
'' by the
Brothers Grimm
The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859), were a brother duo of German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers, and authors who together collected and published folklore. They are among the ...
was published in 1812. Unlike the much later work of
Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen ( , ; 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales.
Andersen's fairy tales, consisti ...
, who was publishing his invented tales in Danish from 1835, these German works were at least mainly based on collected
folk tales, and the Grimms remained true to the style of the telling in their early editions, though later rewriting some parts. One of the brothers,
Jacob
Jacob (; ; ar, يَعْقُوب, Yaʿqūb; gr, Ἰακώβ, Iakṓb), later given the name Israel, is regarded as a patriarch of the Israelites and is an important figure in Abrahamic religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. J ...
, published in 1835 ''
Deutsche Mythologie
''Deutsche Mythologie'' (, ''Teutonic Mythology'') is a treatise on Germanic mythology by Jacob Grimm. First published in Germany in 1835, the work is an exhaustive treatment of the subject, tracing the mythology and beliefs of the ancient Germani ...
'', a long academic work on Germanic mythology. Another strain is exemplified by Schiller's highly emotional language and the depiction of physical violence in his play ''
The Robbers
''The Robbers'' (', ) is the first drama by German playwright Friedrich Schiller. The play was published in 1781 and premiered on 13 January 1782 in Mannheim, Germany, and was inspired by Leisewitz' earlier play ''Julius of Taranto''. It wa ...
'' of 1781.
Great Britain
![Wordsworth on Helvellyn by Benjamin Robert Haydon](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Wordsworth_on_Helvellyn_by_Benjamin_Robert_Haydon.jpg)
In
English literature
English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines E ...
, the key figures of the Romantic movement are considered to be the group of poets including
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798).
Wordsworth's ' ...
,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake ...
,
John Keats,
Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...
,
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 17928 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achie ...
and the much older
William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...
, followed later by the isolated figure of
John Clare
John Clare (13 July 1793 – 20 May 1864) was an English poet. The son of a farm labourer, he became known for his celebrations of the English countryside and sorrows at its disruption. His work underwent major re-evaluation in the late 20th ce ...
; also such novelists as
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'', ''Rob Roy (n ...
from Scotland and
Mary Shelley
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (; ; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic fiction, Gothic novel ''Frankenstein, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' (1818), which is considered an History of scie ...
, and the essayists
William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt (10 April 177818 September 1830) was an English essayist, drama and literary critic, painter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history of the English lan ...
and
Charles Lamb
Charles Lamb (10 February 1775 – 27 December 1834) was an English essayist, poet, and antiquarian, best known for his '' Essays of Elia'' and for the children's book '' Tales from Shakespeare'', co-authored with his sister, Mary Lamb (1764 ...
. The publication in 1798 of ''
Lyrical Ballads
''Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems'' is a collection of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, first published in 1798 and generally considered to have marked the beginning of the English Romantic movement in literatu ...
'', with many of the finest poems by Wordsworth and Coleridge, is often held to mark the start of the movement. The majority of the poems were by Wordsworth, and many dealt with the lives of the poor in his native
Lake District
The Lake District, also known as the Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous for its lakes, forests, and mountains (or ''fells''), and its associations with William Wordswor ...
, or his feelings about nature—which he more fully developed in his long poem ''
The Prelude
''The Prelude or, Growth of a Poet's Mind; An Autobiographical Poem '' is an autobiographical poem in blank verse by the English poet William Wordsworth. Intended as the introduction to the more philosophical poem ''The Recluse,'' which Wordsw ...
'', never published in his lifetime. The longest poem in the volume was Coleridge's ''
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' (originally ''The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere'') is the longest major poem by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written in 1797–1798 and published in 1798 in the first edition of ''Lyrical Ballad ...
'', which showed the Gothic side of English Romanticism, and the exotic settings that many works featured. In the period when they were writing, the
Lake Poets
The Lake Poets were a group of English poets who all lived in the Lake District of England, United Kingdom, in the first half of the nineteenth century. As a group, they followed no single "school" of thought or literary practice then known. They ...
were widely regarded as a marginal group of radicals, though they were supported by the critic and writer
William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt (10 April 177818 September 1830) was an English essayist, drama and literary critic, painter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history of the English lan ...
and others.
![Byron 1813 by Phillips](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Byron_1813_by_Phillips.jpg)
In contrast,
Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...
and
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'', ''Rob Roy (n ...
achieved enormous fame and influence throughout Europe with works exploiting the violence and drama of their exotic and historical settings; Goethe called Byron "undoubtedly the greatest genius of our century". Scott achieved immediate success with his long narrative poem ''
The Lay of the Last Minstrel
''The Lay of the Last Minstrel'' (1805) is a narrative poem in six cantos with copious antiquarian notes by Walter Scott. Set in the Scottish Borders in the mid-16th century, it is represented within the work as being sung by a minstrel late i ...
'' in 1805, followed by the full
epic poem
An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants.
...
''
Marmion'' in 1808. Both were set in the distant Scottish past, already evoked in ''Ossian'';
Romanticism and Scotland were to have a long and fruitful partnership. Byron had equal success with the first part of ''
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
''Childe Harold's Pilgrimage'' is a long narrative poem in four parts written by Lord Byron. The poem was published between 1812 and 1818. Dedicated to " Ianthe", it describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man, who is dis ...
'' in 1812, followed by four "Turkish tales", all in the form of long poems, starting with ''
The Giaour
''The Giaour'' is a poem by Lord Byron first published in 1813 by John Murray and printed by Thomas Davison. It was the first in the series of Byron's Oriental romances. ''The Giaour'' proved to be a great success when published, consolidati ...
'' in 1813, drawing from his
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was the principally 17th- to early 19th-century custom of a traditional trip through Europe, with Italy as a key destination, undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient means and rank (typically accompanied by a tuto ...
, which had reached Ottoman Europe, and
orientalizing the themes of the Gothic novel in verse. These featured different variations of the "
Byronic hero
The Byronic hero is a variant of the Romantic hero as a type of character, named after the English Romantic poet Lord Byron. Both Byron's own persona as well as characters from his writings are considered to provide defining features to the char ...
", and his own life contributed a further version. Scott meanwhile was effectively inventing the
historical novel
Historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting related to the past events, but is fictional. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literature, it can also be applied to other ty ...
, beginning in 1814 with ''
Waverley Waverley may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Waverley'' (novel), by Sir Walter Scott
** ''Waverley'' Overture, a work by Hector Berlioz inspired by Scott's novel
* Waverley Harrison, a character in the New Zealand soap opera ''Shortland Stree ...
'', set in the
1745 Jacobite rising, which was a highly profitable success, followed by over 20 further
Waverley Novels
The Waverley Novels are a long series of novels by Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832). For nearly a century, they were among the most popular and widely read novels in Europe.
Because Scott did not publicly acknowledge authorship until 1827, the se ...
over the next 17 years, with settings going back to the
Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...
that he had researched to a degree that was new in literature.
In contrast to Germany, Romanticism in English literature had little connection with nationalism, and the Romantics were often regarded with suspicion for the sympathy many felt for the ideals of the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
, whose collapse and replacement with the dictatorship of Napoleon was, as elsewhere in Europe, a shock to the movement. Though his novels celebrated Scottish identity and history, Scott was politically a firm Unionist, but admitted to Jacobite sympathies. Several Romantics spent much time abroad, and a famous stay on
Lake Geneva
, image = Lake Geneva by Sentinel-2.jpg
, caption = Satellite image
, image_bathymetry =
, caption_bathymetry =
, location = Switzerland, France
, coords =
, lake_type = Glacial lak ...
with Byron and Shelley in 1816 produced the hugely influential novel ''
Frankenstein
''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific ex ...
'' by Shelley's wife-to-be
Mary Shelley
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (; ; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic fiction, Gothic novel ''Frankenstein, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' (1818), which is considered an History of scie ...
and the
novella
A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian ''novella'' meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts ...
''
The Vampyre
"The Vampyre" is a short work of prose fiction written in 1819 by John William Polidori taken from the story Lord Byron told as part of a contest among Polidori, Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, and Percy Shelley. The same contest produced the novel '' ...
'' by Byron's doctor
John William Polidori. The lyrics of
Robert Burns
Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who hav ...
in Scotland, and
Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore (28 May 1779 – 25 February 1852) was an Irish writer, poet, and lyricist celebrated for his ''Irish Melodies''. Their setting of English-language verse to old Irish tunes marked the transition in popular Irish culture from Irish ...
from Ireland, reflected in different ways their countries and the Romantic interest in folk literature, but neither had a fully Romantic approach to life or their work.
Though they have modern critical champions such as
György Lukács
György Lukács (born György Bernát Löwinger; hu, szegedi Lukács György Bernát; german: Georg Bernard Baron Lukács von Szegedin; 13 April 1885 – 4 June 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, literary historian, critic, and ae ...
, Scott's novels are today more likely to be experienced in the form of the many operas that composers continued to base on them over the following decades, such as
Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848) was an Italian composer, best known for his almost 70 operas. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the '' bel canto'' opera style dur ...
's ''
Lucia di Lammermoor
''Lucia di Lammermoor'' () is a (tragic opera) in three acts by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian-language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's 1819 historical novel ''The Bride of Lammermoor''.
...
'' and
Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini (; 3 November 1801 – 23 September 1835) was a Sicilian opera composer, who was known for his long-flowing melodic lines for which he was named "the Swan of Catania".
Many years later, in 1898, Giu ...
's ''
I puritani
' (''The Puritans'') is an 1835 opera by Vincenzo Bellini. It was originally written in two acts and later changed to three acts on the advice of Gioachino Rossini, with whom the young composer had become friends. The music was set to a libretto ...
'' (both 1835). Byron is now most highly regarded for his short lyrics and his generally unromantic prose writings, especially his letters, and his unfinished
satire
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming ...
''
Don Juan
Don Juan (), also known as Don Giovanni (Italian), is a legendary, fictional Spanish libertine who devotes his life to seducing women. Famous versions of the story include a 17th-century play, '' El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra'' ...
''. Unlike many Romantics, Byron's widely publicised personal life appeared to match his work, and his death at 36 in 1824 from disease when helping the
Greek War of Independence
The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution or the Greek Revolution of 1821, was a successful war of independence by Greek revolutionaries against the Ottoman Empire between 1821 and 1829. The Greeks were later assisted by ...
appeared from a distance to be a suitably Romantic end, entrenching his legend. Keats in 1821 and Shelley in 1822 both died in Italy, Blake (at almost 70) in 1827, and Coleridge largely ceased to write in the 1820s. Wordsworth was by 1820 respectable and highly regarded, holding a government
sinecure
A sinecure ( or ; from the Latin , 'without', and , 'care') is an office, carrying a salary or otherwise generating income, that requires or involves little or no responsibility, labour, or active service. The term originated in the medieval chu ...
, but wrote relatively little. In the discussion of English literature, the Romantic period is often regarded as finishing around the 1820s, or sometimes even earlier, although many authors of the succeeding decades were no less committed to Romantic values.
The most significant novelist in English during the peak Romantic period, other than Walter Scott, was
Jane Austen
Jane Austen (; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots of ...
, whose essentially conservative world-view had little in common with her Romantic contemporaries, retaining a strong belief in decorum and social rules, though critics such as
Claudia L. Johnson have detected tremors under the surface of many works, such as ''
Northanger Abbey
''Northanger Abbey'' () is a coming-of-age
Coming of age is a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult. The specific age at which this transition takes place varies between societies, as does the nature of the ...
'' (1817), ''
Mansfield Park
''Mansfield Park'' is the third published novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1814 by Thomas Egerton. A second edition was published in 1816 by John Murray, still within Austen's lifetime. The novel did not receive any public reviews unt ...
'' (1814) and ''
Persuasion
Persuasion or persuasion arts is an umbrella term for Social influence, influence. Persuasion can influence a person's Belief, beliefs, Attitude (psychology), attitudes, Intention, intentions, Motivation, motivations, or Behavior, behaviours.
...
'' (1817). But around the mid-century the undoubtedly Romantic novels of the
Yorkshire
Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...
-based
Brontë family
The Brontës () were a nineteenth-century literary family, born in the village of Thornton and later associated with the village of Haworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. The sisters, Charlotte (1816–1855), Emily (1818–184 ...
appeared. Most notably
Charlotte
Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...
's ''
Jane Eyre
''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first ...
'' and
Emily's ''
Wuthering Heights
''Wuthering Heights'' is an 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, initially published under her pen name Ellis Bell. It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moorland, moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their tur ...
'', both published in 1847, which also introduced more Gothic themes. While these two novels were written and published after the Romantic period is said to have ended, their novels were heavily influenced by Romantic literature they had read as children.
Byron, Keats and Shelley all wrote for the stage, but with little success in England, with Shelley's ''
The Cenci
''The Cenci, A Tragedy, in Five Acts'' (1819) is a verse drama in five acts by Percy Bysshe Shelley written in the summer of 1819, and inspired by a real Italian family, the House of Cenci (in particular, Beatrice Cenci, pronounced CHEN-chee). ...
'' perhaps the best work produced, though that was not played in a public theatre in England until a century after his death. Byron's plays, along with dramatizations of his poems and Scott's novels, were much more popular on the Continent, and especially in France, and through these versions several were turned into operas, many still performed today. If contemporary poets had little success on the stage, the period was a legendary one for performances of
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
, and went some way to restoring his original texts and removing the Augustan "improvements" to them. The greatest actor of the period,
Edmund Kean
Edmund Kean (4 November 178715 May 1833) was a celebrated British Shakespearean stage actor born in England, who performed, among other places, in London, Belfast, New York, Quebec, and Paris. He was known for his short stature, tumultuo ...
, restored the tragic ending to ''
King Lear
''King Lear'' is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare.
It is based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his power and land between two of his daughters. He becomes destitute and insane an ...
''; Coleridge said that, "Seeing him act was like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning."
Scotland
![PG 1063Burns Naysmith](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/PG_1063Burns_Naysmith.jpg)
Although after
union with England in 1707 Scotland increasingly adopted English language and wider cultural norms, its literature developed a distinct national identity and began to enjoy an international reputation.
Allan Ramsay (1686–1758) laid the foundations of a reawakening of interest in older Scottish literature, as well as leading the trend for pastoral poetry, helping to develop the
Habbie stanza The Burns stanza is a verse form named after the Scottish poet Robert Burns, who used it in some fifty poems. It was not, however, invented by Burns, and prior to his use of it was known as the standard Habbie, after the piper Habbie Simpson (1550 ...
as a
poetic form
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in a ...
.
James Macpherson
James Macpherson (Gaelic: ''Seumas MacMhuirich'' or ''Seumas Mac a' Phearsain''; 27 October 1736 – 17 February 1796) was a Scottish writer, poet, literary collector and politician, known as the "translator" of the Ossian cycle of epic poem ...
(1736–96) was the first Scottish poet to gain an international reputation. Claiming to have found poetry written by the ancient bard
Ossian, he published translations that acquired international popularity, being proclaimed as a Celtic equivalent of the
Classical epics
The Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS) is a set of software tools and applications used to develop and implement distributed control systems to operate devices such as particle accelerators, telescopes and other large sci ...
. ''Fingal'', written in 1762, was speedily translated into many European languages, and its appreciation of natural beauty and treatment of the ancient legend has been credited more than any single work with bringing about the Romantic movement in European, and especially in German literature, through its influence on
Johann Gottfried von Herder
Johann Gottfried von Herder ( , ; 25 August 174418 December 1803) was a German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic. He is associated with the Enlightenment, '' Sturm und Drang'', and Weimar Classicism.
Biography
Born in Mohrun ...
and
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as trea ...
. It was also popularised in France by figures that included
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
. Eventually it became clear that the poems were not direct translations from
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as ...
, but flowery adaptations made to suit the aesthetic expectations of his audience.
Robert Burns
Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who hav ...
(1759–96) and
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'', ''Rob Roy (n ...
(1771–1832) were highly influenced by the Ossian cycle. Burns, an Ayrshire poet and lyricist, is widely regarded as the
national poet
A national poet or national bard is a poet held by tradition and popular acclaim to represent the identity, beliefs and principles of a particular national culture. The national poet as culture hero is a long-standing symbo ...
of Scotland and a major influence on the Romantic movement. His poem (and song) "
Auld Lang Syne" is often sung at
Hogmanay (the last day of the year), and "
Scots Wha Hae
"Scots Wha Hae" (English: ''Scots Who Have''; gd, Brosnachadh Bhruis) is a patriotic song of Scotland written using both words of the Scots language and English, which served for centuries as an unofficial national anthem of the country, but h ...
" served for a long time as an unofficial
national anthem
A national anthem is a patriotic musical composition symbolizing and evoking eulogies of the history and traditions of a country or nation. The majority of national anthems are marches or hymns in style. American, Central Asian, and European n ...
of the country. Scott began as a poet and also collected and published Scottish ballads. His first prose work, ''
Waverley Waverley may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Waverley'' (novel), by Sir Walter Scott
** ''Waverley'' Overture, a work by Hector Berlioz inspired by Scott's novel
* Waverley Harrison, a character in the New Zealand soap opera ''Shortland Stree ...
'' in 1814, is often called the first historical novel. It launched a highly successful career, with other historical novels such as ''
Rob Roy'' (1817), ''
The Heart of Midlothian
''The Heart of Mid-Lothian'' is the seventh of Sir Walter Scott's Waverley Novels. It was originally published in four volumes on 25 July 1818, under the title of '' Tales of My Landlord, 2nd series'', and the author was given as "Jedediah Cle ...
'' (1818) and ''
Ivanhoe
''Ivanhoe: A Romance'' () by Walter Scott is a historical novel published in three volumes, in 1819, as one of the Waverley novels. Set in England in the Middle Ages, this novel marked a shift away from Scott’s prior practice of setting st ...
'' (1820). Scott probably did more than any other figure to define and popularise Scottish cultural identity in the nineteenth century. Other major literary figures connected with Romanticism include the poets and novelists
James Hogg
James Hogg (1770 – 21 November 1835) was a Scottish poet, novelist and essayist who wrote in both Scots and English. As a young man he worked as a shepherd and farmhand, and was largely self-educated through reading. He was a friend of many ...
(1770–1835),
Allan Cunningham (1784–1842) and
John Galt
John Galt () is a character in Ayn Rand's novel ''Atlas Shrugged'' (1957). Although he is not identified by name until the last third of the novel, he is the object of its often-repeated question "Who is John Galt?" and of the quest to discover ...
(1779–1839).
![Sir Henry Raeburn - Portrait of Sir Walter Scott](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Sir_Henry_Raeburn_-_Portrait_of_Sir_Walter_Scott.jpg)
Scotland was also the location of two of the most important literary magazines of the era, ''
The Edinburgh Review
The ''Edinburgh Review'' is the title of four distinct intellectual and cultural magazines. The best known, longest-lasting, and most influential of the four was the third, which was published regularly from 1802 to 1929.
''Edinburgh Review'' ...
'' (founded in 1802) and ''
Blackwood's Magazine
''Blackwood's Magazine'' was a British magazine and miscellany printed between 1817 and 1980. It was founded by the publisher William Blackwood and was originally called the ''Edinburgh Monthly Magazine''. The first number appeared in April 1817 ...
'' (founded in 1817), which had a major impact on the development of British literature and drama in the era of Romanticism. Ian Duncan and Alex Benchimol suggest that publications like the novels of Scott and these magazines were part of a highly dynamic Scottish Romanticism that by the early nineteenth century, caused Edinburgh to emerge as the cultural capital of Britain and become central to a wider formation of a "British Isles nationalism".
Scottish "national drama" emerged in the early 1800s, as plays with specifically Scottish themes began to dominate the Scottish stage. Theatres had been discouraged by the
Church of Scotland
The Church of Scotland ( sco, The Kirk o Scotland; gd, Eaglais na h-Alba) is the national church in Scotland.
The Church of Scotland was principally shaped by John Knox, in the Scottish Reformation, Reformation of 1560, when it split from t ...
and fears of Jacobite assemblies. In the later eighteenth century, many plays were written for and performed by small amateur companies and were not published and so most have been lost. Towards the end of the century there were "
closet drama
A closet drama is a play that is not intended to be performed onstage, but read by a solitary reader or sometimes out loud in a large group. The contrast between closet drama and classic "stage" dramas dates back to the late eighteenth century. Al ...
s", primarily designed to be read, rather than performed, including work by Scott, Hogg, Galt and
Joanna Baillie
Joanna Baillie (11 September 1762 – 23 February 1851) was a Scottish poet and dramatist, known for such works as ''Plays on the Passions'' (three volumes, 1798–1812) and ''Fugitive Verses'' (1840). Her work shows an interest in moral philoso ...
(1762–1851), often influenced by the ballad tradition and
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
Romanticism.
[I. Brown, ''The Edinburgh History of Scottish Literature: Enlightenment, Britain and Empire (1707–1918)'' (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), , pp. 229–30.]
France
Romanticism was relatively late in developing
in French literature, more so than in the visual arts. The 18th-century precursor to Romanticism, the cult of sensibility, had become associated with the ''
Ancien Régime
''Ancien'' may refer to
* the French word for "ancient, old"
** Société des anciens textes français
* the French for "former, senior"
** Virelai ancien
** Ancien Régime
** Ancien Régime in France
{{disambig ...
'', and the French Revolution had been more of an inspiration to foreign writers than those experiencing it at first-hand. The first major figure was
François-René de Chateaubriand
François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand (4 September 1768 – 4 July 1848) was a French writer, politician, diplomat and historian who had a notable influence on French literature of the nineteenth century. Descended from an old aristocrati ...
, an aristocrat who had remained a royalist throughout the Revolution, and returned to France from exile in England and America under Napoleon, with whose regime he had an uneasy relationship. His writings, all in prose, included some fiction, such as his influential
novella
A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian ''novella'' meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts ...
of exile ''
René
René ('' born again'' or ''reborn'' in French) is a common first name in French-speaking, Spanish-speaking, and German-speaking countries. It derives from the Latin name Renatus.
René is the masculine form of the name ( Renée being the femin ...
'' (1802), which anticipated Byron in its alienated hero, but mostly contemporary history and politics, his travels, a defence of religion and the medieval spirit (''
Génie du christianisme
''The Genius of Christianity, or Beauties of the Christian Religion'' (french: Le Génie du christianisme, ou Beautés de la religion chrétienne, link=no) is a work by the French author François-René de Chateaubriand, written during his exile ...
'', 1802), and finally in the 1830s and 1840s his enormous
autobiography
An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life.
It is a form of biography.
Definition
The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...
''
Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe
''Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe'' () is the memoir of François-René de Chateaubriand (1768–1848), collected and published posthumously in two volumes in 1849 and 1850, respectively. Chateaubriand, a writer, politician, diplomat and historian, rema ...
'' ("Memoirs from beyond the grave").
![Jean-Jacques Grandville - Frenzied Romans at the First Performance of Hernani - WGA10359](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Jean-Jacques_Grandville_-_Frenzied_Romans_at_the_First_Performance_of_Hernani_-_WGA10359.jpg)
After the
Bourbon Restoration, French Romanticism developed in the lively world of
Parisian theatre, with productions of
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
, Schiller (in France a key Romantic author), and adaptations of Scott and Byron alongside French authors, several of whom began to write in the late 1820s. Cliques of pro- and anti-Romantics developed, and productions were often accompanied by raucous vocalizing by the two sides, including the shouted assertion by one theatregoer in 1822 that "Shakespeare, c'est l'aide-de-camp de Wellington" ("Shakespeare is
Wellington
Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...
's
aide-de-camp").
Alexandre Dumas
Alexandre Dumas (, ; ; born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (), 24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870), also known as Alexandre Dumas père (where '' '' is French for 'father', to distinguish him from his son Alexandre Dumas fils), was a French writer ...
began as a dramatist, with a series of successes beginning with ''
Henri III et sa cour'' (1829) before turning to novels that were mostly historical adventures somewhat in the manner of Scott, most famously ''
The Three Musketeers
''The Three Musketeers'' (french: Les Trois Mousquetaires, links=no, ) is a French historical adventure novel written in 1844 by French author Alexandre Dumas. It is in the swashbuckler genre, which has heroic, chivalrous swordsmen who fight ...
'' and ''
The Count of Monte Cristo
''The Count of Monte Cristo'' (french: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo) is an adventure novel written by French author Alexandre Dumas (''père'') completed in 1844. It is one of the author's more popular works, along with ''The Three Musketeers''. Li ...
'', both of 1844.
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...
published as a poet in the 1820s before achieving success on the stage with ''
Hernani''—a historical drama in a quasi-Shakespearian style that had famously riotous performances on its first run in 1830. Like Dumas, Hugo is best known for his novels, and was already writing ''
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
''The Hunchback of Notre-Dame'' (french: Notre-Dame de Paris, translation=''Our Lady of Paris'', originally titled ''Notre-Dame de Paris. 1482'') is a French Gothic novel by Victor Hugo, published in 1831. It focuses on the unfortunate story of ...
'' (1831), one of the best known works, which became a paradigm of the French Romantic movement. The preface to his unperformed play ''Cromwell'' gives an important manifesto of French Romanticism, stating that "there are no rules, or models". The career of
Prosper Mérimée
Prosper Mérimée (; 28 September 1803 – 23 September 1870) was a French writer in the movement of Romanticism, and one of the pioneers of the novella, a short novel or long short story. He was also a noted archaeologist and historian, and a ...
followed a similar pattern; he is now best known as the originator of the story of ''
Carmen
''Carmen'' () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the Carmen (novella), novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first perfo ...
'', with his novella published 1845. Alfred de Vigny remains best known as a dramatist, with his play on the life of the English poet ''Chatterton'' (1835) perhaps his best work.
George Sand
Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil (; 1 July 1804 – 8 June 1876), best known by her pen name George Sand (), was a French novelist, memoirist and journalist. One of the most popular writers in Europe in her lifetime, bein ...
was a central figure of the Parisian literary scene, famous both for her novels and criticism and her affairs with
Chopin and several others; she too was inspired by the theatre, and wrote works to be staged at her
private estate.
French Romantic poets of the 1830s to 1850s include
Alfred de Musset,
Gérard de Nerval
Gérard de Nerval (; 22 May 1808 – 26 January 1855) was the pen name of the French writer, poet, and translator Gérard Labrunie, a major figure of French romanticism, best known for his novellas and poems, especially the collection '' Les ...
,
Alphonse de Lamartine
Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine (; 21 October 179028 February 1869), was a French author, poet, and statesman who was instrumental in the foundation of the Second Republic and the continuation of the Tricolore as the flag of France. ...
and the flamboyant
Théophile Gautier
Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier ( , ; 30 August 1811 – 23 October 1872) was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and art and literary critic.
While an ardent defender of Romanticism, Gautier's work is difficult to classify and rem ...
, whose prolific output in various forms continued until his death in 1872.
Stendhal
Marie-Henri Beyle (; 23 January 1783 – 23 March 1842), better known by his pen name Stendhal (, ; ), was a 19th-century French writer. Best known for the novels ''Le Rouge et le Noir'' (''The Red and the Black'', 1830) and ''La Chartreuse de P ...
is today probably the most highly regarded French novelist of the period, but he stands in a complex relation with Romanticism, and is notable for his penetrating psychological insight into his characters and his realism, qualities rarely prominent in Romantic fiction. As a survivor of the French
retreat from Moscow
The French invasion of Russia, also known as the Russian campaign, the Second Polish War, the Army of Twenty nations, and the Patriotic War of 1812 was launched by Napoleon Bonaparte to force the Russian Empire back into the continental block ...
in 1812, fantasies of heroism and adventure had little appeal for him, and like Goya he is often seen as a forerunner of Realism. His most important works are ''Le Rouge et le Noir'' (''
The Red and the Black
''Le Rouge et le Noir'' (; meaning ''The Red and the Black'') is a historical psychological novel in two volumes by Stendhal, published in 1830. It chronicles the attempts of a provincial young man to rise socially beyond his modest upbringing t ...
'', 1830) and ''La Chartreuse de Parme'' (''
The Charterhouse of Parma
''The Charterhouse of Parma'' (french: La Chartreuse de Parme, links=no) is a novel by Stendhal published in 1839. Telling the story of an Italian nobleman in the Napoleonic era and later, it was admired by Balzac, Tolstoy, André Gide, di Lam ...
'', 1839).
Poland
Romanticism in Poland is often taken to begin with the publication of
Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (; 24 December 179826 November 1855) was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator and political activist. He is regarded as national poet in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. A principal figure in Polish Ro ...
's first poems in 1822, and end with the crushing of the
January Uprising
The January Uprising ( pl, powstanie styczniowe; lt, 1863 metų sukilimas; ua, Січневе повстання; russian: Польское восстание; ) was an insurrection principally in Russia's Kingdom of Poland that was aimed at ...
of 1863 against the Russians. It was strongly marked by interest in Polish history. Polish Romanticism revived the old "Sarmatism" traditions of the ''
szlachta
The ''szlachta'' (Polish: endonym, Lithuanian: šlėkta) were the noble estate of the realm in the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth who, as a class, had the dominating position in the ...
'' or Polish nobility. Old traditions and customs were revived and portrayed in a positive light in the Polish messianic movement and in works of great Polish poets such as Adam Mickiewicz (''
Pan Tadeusz
''Pan Tadeusz'' (full title: ''Mister Thaddeus, or the Last Foray in Lithuania: A Nobility's Tale of the Years 1811–1812, in Twelve Books of Verse'') is an epic poem by the Polish poet, writer, translator and philosopher Adam Mickiewicz. The b ...
''),
Juliusz Słowacki
Juliusz Słowacki (; french: Jules Slowacki; 4 September 1809 – 3 April 1849) was a Polish Romantic poet. He is considered one of the " Three Bards" of Polish literature — a major figure in the Polish Romantic period, and the father of m ...
and
Zygmunt Krasiński
Napoleon Stanisław Adam Feliks Zygmunt Krasiński (; 19 February 1812 – 23 February 1859) was a Polish poet traditionally ranked after Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Słowacki as one of Poland's Three Bards – the Romantic poets who influence ...
. This close connection between Polish Romanticism and Polish history became one of the defining qualities of the literature of
Polish Romanticism
Romanticism in Poland, a literary, artistic and intellectual period in the evolution of Polish culture, began around 1820, coinciding with the publication of Adam Mickiewicz's first poems in 1822. It ended with the suppression of the January 186 ...
period, differentiating it from that of other countries. They had not suffered the loss of national statehood as was the case with Poland. Influenced by the general spirit and main ideas of European Romanticism, the literature of Polish Romanticism is unique, as many scholars have pointed out, in having developed largely outside of Poland and in its emphatic focus upon the issue of Polish
nationalism
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...
. The Polish intelligentsia, along with leading members of its government, left Poland in the early 1830s, during what is referred to as the "
Great Emigration
The Great Emigration ( pl, Wielka Emigracja) was the emigration of thousands of Poles and Lithuanians, particularly from the political and cultural élites, from 1831 to 1870, after the failure of the November Uprising of 1830–1831 and of ot ...
", resettling in France, Germany, Great Britain, Turkey, and the United States.
![Juliusz Słowacki 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Juliusz_S%C5%82owacki_1.PNG)
Their art featured
emotionalism and
irrationality
Irrationality is cognition, thinking, talking, or acting without inclusion of rationality. It is more specifically described as an action or opinion given through inadequate use of reason, or through emotional distress or cognitive deficiency. ...
, fantasy and imagination, personality cults,
folklore
Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
and country life, and the propagation of ideals of freedom. In the second period, many of the
Polish Romantics worked abroad, often banished from Poland by the occupying powers due to their politically subversive ideas. Their work became increasingly dominated by the ideals of political struggle for freedom and their country's
sovereignty
Sovereignty is the defining authority within individual consciousness, social construct, or territory. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the perso ...
. Elements of mysticism became more prominent. There developed the idea of the ''
poeta wieszcz'' (the prophet). The ''
wieszcz
The Three Bards (, ) are the national poets of Polish Romantic literature. They lived and worked in exile during the partitions of Poland which ended the existence of the Polish sovereign state. Their tragic poetical plays and epic poetry writ ...
'' (bard) functioned as spiritual leader to the nation fighting for its independence. The most notable poet so recognized was
Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (; 24 December 179826 November 1855) was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator and political activist. He is regarded as national poet in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. A principal figure in Polish Ro ...
.
Zygmunt Krasiński
Napoleon Stanisław Adam Feliks Zygmunt Krasiński (; 19 February 1812 – 23 February 1859) was a Polish poet traditionally ranked after Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Słowacki as one of Poland's Three Bards – the Romantic poets who influence ...
also wrote to inspire political and religious hope in his countrymen. Unlike his predecessors, who called for victory at whatever price in Poland's struggle against Russia, Krasinski emphasized Poland's
spiritual role in its fight for independence, advocating an intellectual rather than a military superiority. His works best exemplify the
Messianic movement in Poland: in two early dramas, ''
Nie-boska komedia
''The Undivine Comedy'' or ''The Un-divine Comedy'' ( pl, Nie Boska komedia or ''Nie-boska komedia''), is a Play (theatre), play written by Poland, Polish Romanticism in Poland#Notable Polish Romantic writers and poets, Romantic poet Zygmunt ...
'' (1835; ''The Undivine Comedy'') and ''
Irydion
''Irydion'' is a drama written by Polish poet Zygmunt Krasiński. He began work on it in 1832 and published it in 1836. It debuted on stage in 1913 at Teatr Polski in Warsaw.
It remains one of Krasiński's best known works.
Plot
The action of ...
'' (1836; ''Iridion''), as well as in the later ''Psalmy przyszłości'' (1845), he asserted that Poland was the
Christ of Europe
Christ of Europe, a messianic doctrine based in the New Testament, first became widespread among Poland and other various European nations through the activities of the Reformed Churches in the 16th to the 18th centuries.Chris Coleborn The Relatio ...
: specifically chosen by God to carry the world's burdens, to suffer, and eventually be resurrected.
Russia
Early Russian Romanticism is associated with the writers
Konstantin Batyushkov (''A Vision on the Shores of the Lethe'', 1809),
Vasily Zhukovsky
Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky (russian: Василий Андреевич Жуковский, Vasiliy Andreyevich Zhukovskiy; – ) was the foremost Russian poet of the 1810s and a leading figure in Russian literature in the first half of the 19 ...
(''The Bard'', 1811; ''Svetlana'', 1813) and
Nikolay Karamzin
Nikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin (russian: Николай Михайлович Карамзин, p=nʲɪkɐˈlaj mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ kərɐmˈzʲin; ) was a Russian Imperial historian, romantic writer, poet and critic. He is best remembered for ...
(''Poor Liza'', 1792; ''Julia'', 1796; ''Martha the Mayoress'', 1802; ''The Sensitive and the Cold'', 1803). However the principal exponent of Romanticism in Russia is
Alexander Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...
(''
The Prisoner of the Caucasus'', 1820–1821; ''The Robber Brothers'', 1822; ''
Ruslan and Ludmila Ruslan may refer to:
* ''Ruslan'' (film), a 2009 film starring Steven Segal
* Ruslan (given name), male name used mainly in Slavic countries, with list of people
* Antonov An-124 ''Ruslan'', large Soviet cargo aircraft, later built in Ukraine and ...
'', 1820; ''
Eugene Onegin
''Eugene Onegin, A Novel in Verse'' (Reforms of Russian orthography, pre-reform Russian: ; post-reform rus, Евгений Оне́гин, ромáн в стихáх, p=jɪvˈɡʲenʲɪj ɐˈnʲeɡʲɪn, r=Yevgeniy Onegin, roman v stikhakh) is ...
'', 1825–1832). Pushkin's work influenced many writers in the 19th century and led to his eventual recognition as Russia's greatest poet. Other Russian Romantic poets include
Mikhail Lermontov
Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov (; russian: Михаи́л Ю́рьевич Ле́рмонтов, p=mʲɪxɐˈil ˈjurʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈlʲɛrməntəf; – ) was a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucas ...
(''
A Hero of Our Time
''A Hero of Our Time'' ( rus, Герой нашего времени, links=1, r=Gerój nášego vrémeni, p=ɡʲɪˈroj ˈnaʂɨvə ˈvrʲemʲɪnʲɪ) is a novel by Mikhail Lermontov, written in 1839, published in 1840, and revised in 1841.
It ...
'', 1839),
Fyodor Tyutchev
Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev ( rus, Фёдор Ива́нович Тю́тчев, r=Fyódor Ivánovič Tyútčev, links=1, p=ˈfʲɵdər ɪˈvanəvʲɪt͡ɕ ˈtʲʉt͡ɕːɪf; Pre-Reform orthography: ; – ) was a Russian poet and diplomat.
...
(''Silentium!'', 1830),
Yevgeny Baratynsky
Yevgeny Abramovich Baratynsky (russian: Евге́ний Абра́мович Бараты́нский, p=jɪvˈɡʲenʲɪj ɐˈbraməvʲɪtɕ bərɐˈtɨnskʲɪj, a=Yevgyeniy Abramovich Baratynskiy.ru.vorb.oga; 11 July 1844) was lauded by Alexan ...
(''Eda'', 1826),
Anton Delvig
Baron Anton Antonovich Delvig (russian: Анто́н Анто́нович Де́львигIn Delvig's day, his name was written Антонъ Антоновичъ Дельвигъ., Antón Antónovich Délʹvig, ɐnˈton ɐnˈtonəvʲɪtɕ ˈdelʲv ...
, and
Wilhelm Küchelbecker
Wilhelm Ludwig von Küchelbecker ( rus, Вильге́льм Ка́рлович Кюхельбе́кер, p=kʲʉxʲɪlʲˈbʲekʲɪr, tr. ; in St. Petersburg – in Tobolsk) was a Russian Romantic poet and Decembrist revolutionary of Ger ...
.
Influenced heavily by Lord Byron, Lermontov sought to explore the Romantic emphasis on metaphysical discontent with society and self, while Tyutchev's poems often described scenes of nature or passions of love. Tyutchev commonly operated with such categories as night and day, north and south, dream and reality, cosmos and chaos, and the still world of winter and spring teeming with life. Baratynsky's style was fairly classical in nature, dwelling on the models of the previous century.
Spain
Romanticism in Spanish literature
Romanticism arrived late and lasted only for a short but intense period, since in the second half of the 19th century it was supplanted by Realism, whose nature was antithetical to that of Romantic literature.
Traditional and revolutionary Ro ...
developed a well-known literature with a huge variety of poets and playwrights. The most important Spanish poet during this movement was
José de Espronceda
José Ignacio Javier Oriol Encarnación de Espronceda y Delgado (25 March 1808 – 23 May 1842) was a Romantic Spanish poet, one of the most representative authors of the 19th century. He was influenced by Eugenio de Ochoa, Federico Madrazo, ...
. After him there were other poets like
Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer
Gustavo Adolfo Claudio Domínguez Bastida (17 February 1836 – 22 December 1870), better known as Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (), was a Spanish Romantic poet and writer (mostly short stories), also a playwright, literary columnist, and talented ...
,
Mariano José de Larra
Mariano José de Larra y Sánchez de Castro (24 March 1809 – 13 February 1837) was a Spanish romantic writer and journalist best known for his numerous essays and his infamous suicide. His works were often satirical and critical of the 19th- ...
and the dramatists
Ángel de Saavedra
Angel is a given name meaning "angel", "messenger". In the English-speaking world Angel is used for both boys and girls.
From the medieval Latin masculine name ''Angelus'', which was derived from the name of the heavenly creature (itself derived ...
and
José Zorrilla
José Zorrilla y Moral () was a Spanish poet and dramatist, who became National Laureate.
Biography
Zorrilla was born in Valladolid to a magistrate in whom Ferdinand VII placed special confidence. He was educated by the Jesuits at the Real Se ...
, author of ''
Don Juan Tenorio
''Don Juan Tenorio: Drama religioso-fantástico en dos partes'' (Don Juan Tenorio: Religious-Fantasy Drama in Two Parts) is a play written in 1844 by José Zorrilla. It is the more romantic of the two principal Spanish-language literary interpr ...
''. Before them may be mentioned the pre-romantics
José Cadalso
José de Cadalso y Vázquez (Cádiz, 1741 – Gibraltar, 1782), Spanish, Colonel of the Royal Spanish Army, author, poet, playwright and essayist, one of the canonical producers of Spanish Enlightenment literature.
Before completing his twentiet ...
and
Manuel José Quintana. The plays of
Antonio García Gutiérrez
Antonio García Gutiérrez (4 October 1813 in Chiclana de la Frontera, Cádiz26 August 1884 in Madrid) was a Spanish Romantic dramatist.
Biography
After having studied medicine in his native town, García Gutiérrez moved to Madrid in 1833 a ...
were adapted to produce Giuseppe Verdi's operas ''
Il trovatore
''Il trovatore'' ('The Troubadour') is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto largely written by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play ''El trovador'' (1836) by Antonio García Gutiérrez. It was García Gutiérrez's mos ...
'' and ''
Simon Boccanegra
''Simon Boccanegra'' () is an opera with a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play ''Simón Bocanegra'' (1843) by Antonio García Gutiérrez, whose play ''El trovador'' had b ...
''. Spanish Romanticism also influenced regional literatures. For example, in
Catalonia
Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy.
Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the north ...
and in
Galicia there was a national boom of writers in the local languages, like the Catalan
Jacint Verdaguer
Jacint Verdaguer i Santaló (; 17 May 1845 – 10 June 1902) was a Catalan / Spanish writer, regarded as one of the greatest poets of Catalan literature and a prominent literary figure of the Renaixença, a cultural revival movement of the ...
and the Galician
Rosalía de Castro
María Rosalía Rita de Castro (; 23 February 1837 – 15 July 1885), was a Galician poet and novelist, considered one of the most important figures of the 19th-century Spanish literature and modern lyricism. Widely regarded as the greatest Galic ...
, the main figures of the
national revivalist movements
Renaixença
The ''Renaixença'' (; also written ''Renaixensa'' before spelling standardisation), or Catalan Renaissance, was a romantic revivalist movement in Catalan language and culture through the mid 19th century, akin to the Galician ''Rexurdimento ...
and
Rexurdimento
The ''Rexurdimento'' ( Galician for Resurgence) was a period in the History of Galicia during the 19th century. Its central feature was the revitalization of the Galician language as a vehicle of social and cultural expression after the so-calle ...
, respectively.
There are scholars who consider Spanish Romanticism to be Proto-Existentialism because it is more anguished than the movement in other European countries. Foster et al., for example, say that the work of Spain's writers such as Espronceda, Larra, and other writers in the 19th century demonstrated a "metaphysical crisis". These observers put more weight on the link between the 19th-century Spanish writers with the existentialist movement that emerged immediately after. According to Richard Caldwell, the writers that we now identify with Spain's romanticism were actually precursors to those who galvanized the literary movement that emerged in the 1920s. This notion is the subject of debate for there are authors who stress that Spain's romanticism is one of the earliest in Europe, while some assert that Spain really had no period of literary romanticism. This controversy underscores a certain uniqueness to Spanish Romanticism in comparison to its European counterparts.
Portugal
![Almeida Garrett - litografia sobre papel](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Almeida_Garrett_-_litografia_sobre_papel.png)
Romanticism began in
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
with the publication of the poem ''Camões'' (1825), by
Almeida Garrett
João Baptista da Silva Leitão de Almeida Garrett, 1st Viscount of Almeida Garrett (; 4 February 1799 – 9 December 1854) was a Portuguese poet, orator, playwright, novelist, journalist, politician, and a peer of the realm. A major promoter of t ...
, who was raised by his uncle D. Alexandre, bishop of
Angra, in the precepts of
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism (also spelled Neo-classicism) was a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassicism was ...
, which can be observed in his early work. The author himself confesses (in ''Camões'' preface) that he voluntarily refused to follow the principles of epic poetry enunciated by
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
in his
''Poetics'', as he did the same to
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...
's
''Ars Poetica''. Almeida Garrett had participated in the
1820 Liberal Revolution, which caused him to exile himself in England in 1823 and then in France, after the
Vila-Francada. While living in Great Britain, he had contacts with the Romantic movement and read authors such as
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
, Scott, Ossian, Byron, Hugo, Lamartine and de Staël, at the same time visiting feudal castles and ruins of
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
churches and abbeys, which would be reflected in his writings. In 1838, he presented ''Um Auto de Gil Vicente'' ("A Play by
Gil Vicente
Gil Vicente (; c. 1465c. 1536), called the Trobadour, was a Portuguese playwright and poet who acted in and directed his own plays. Considered the chief dramatist of Portugal he is sometimes called the "Portuguese Plautus," often refe ...
"), in an attempt to create a new national theatre, free of Greco-Roman and foreign influence. But his masterpiece would be ''Frei Luís de Sousa'' (1843), named by himself as a "Romantic drama" and it was acclaimed as an exceptional work, dealing with themes as national independence, faith, justice and love. He was also deeply interested in Portuguese folkloric verse, which resulted in the publication of ''Romanceiro'' ("Traditional Portuguese Ballads") (1843), that recollect a great number of ancient popular ballads, known as "romances" or "rimances", in ''redondilha maior'' verse form, that contained stories of
chivalry
Chivalry, or the chivalric code, is an informal and varying code of conduct developed in Europe between 1170 and 1220. It was associated with the medieval Christianity, Christian institution of knighthood; knights' and gentlemen's behaviours we ...
, life of
saint
In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of Q-D-Š, holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and Christian denomination, denominat ...
s,
crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...
,
courtly love
Courtly love ( oc, fin'amor ; french: amour courtois ) was a medieval European literary conception of love that emphasized nobility and chivalry. Medieval literature is filled with examples of knights setting out on adventures and performing vari ...
, etc. He wrote the novels ''Viagens na Minha Terra'', ''O Arco de Sant'Ana'' and ''Helena.''
Alexandre Herculano
Alexandre Herculano de Carvalho e Araújo (28 March 181013 September 1877) was a Portuguese novelist and historian.
Early life
Herculano's family had humble origins. One of his grandfathers was a foreman stonemason in the royal employ. Herculan ...
is, alongside Almeida Garrett, one of the founders of Portuguese Romanticism. He too was forced to exile to Great Britain and France because of his
liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
ideals. All of his poetry and prose are (unlike Almeida Garrett's) entirely Romantic, rejecting
Greco-Roman myth and history. He sought inspiration in medieval Portuguese poems and
chronicle
A chronicle ( la, chronica, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and lo ...
s as in the
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
. His output is vast and covers many different genres, such as historical essays, poetry, novels, opuscules and theatre, where he brings back a whole world of Portuguese legends, tradition and history, especially in ''Eurico, o Presbítero'' ("Eurico, the Priest") and ''Lendas e Narrativas'' ("Legends and Narratives"). His work was influenced by Chateaubriand, Schiller,
Klopstock
Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (; 2 July 1724 – 14 March 1803) was a German poet. His best known work is the epic poem ''Der Messias'' ("The Messiah"). One of his major contributions to German literature was to open it up to exploration outsid ...
, Walter Scott and the Old Testament
Psalms
The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived ...
.
António Feliciano de Castilho
António Feliciano de Castilho, 1st Viscount of Castilho (28 January 180018 June 1875) was a Portuguese writer.
Life
Castilho was born in Lisbon.
He lost his sight at the age of six, but the devotion of his brother Augusto, and aided by a retent ...
made the case for
Ultra-Romanticism Ultra-Romanticism ( pt, Ultrarromantismo) was a Portuguese and Brazilian literary movement that took place during the second half of the 19th. Aesthetically similar to (but not exactly the same as) the German- and British-originated Dark Romanticis ...
, publishing the poems ''A Noite no Castelo'' ("Night in the Castle") and ''Os Ciúmes do Bardo'' ("The Jealousy of the Bard"), both in 1836, and the drama ''Camões''. He became an unquestionable master for successive Ultra-Romantic generations, whose influence would not be challenged until the famous Coimbra Question. He also created polemics by translating
Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treat ...
's ''
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust ( 1480–1540).
The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroads ...
'' without knowing German, but using French versions of the play. Other notable figures of Portuguese Romanticism are the famous novelists
Camilo Castelo Branco
Camilo Castelo Branco, 1st Viscount of Correia Botelho (; 16 March 1825 – 1 June 1890), was a prolific Portuguese writer of the 19th century, having produced over 260 books (mainly novels, plays and essays). His writing is considered original i ...
and
Júlio Dinis
Júlio Dinis, pseudonym of Joaquim Guilherme Gomes Coelho (14 November 1839 – 12 September 1871) was a Portuguese doctor and poet, playwright and novelist. He was the first great novelist of modern Portuguese middle-class society. His novels, ...
, and
Soares de Passos, Bulhão Pato and Pinheiro Chagas.
Romantic style would be revived in the beginning of the 20th century, notably through the works of poets linked to the
Portuguese Renaissance
The Portuguese Renaissance refers to the cultural and artistic movement in Portugal during the 15th and 16th centuries. Though the movement coincided with the Spanish and Italian Renaissances, the Portuguese Renaissance was largely separate from o ...
, such as
Teixeira de Pascoais,
Jaime Cortesão, Mário Beirão, among others, who can be considered Neo-Romantics. An early Portuguese expression of Romanticism is found already in poets such as
Manuel Maria Barbosa du Bocage
Manuel Maria Barbosa l'Hedois du Bocage (15 September 1765 – 21 December 1805), most often referred to simply as Bocage, was a Portuguese Neoclassic poet, writing at the beginning of his career under the pen name ''Elmano Sadino''.
Biography
...
(especially in his sonnets dated at the end of the 18th century) and
Leonor de Almeida Portugal, Marquise of Alorna
D. Leonor de Almeida Portugal, 4th Marquise of Alorna, 8th Countess of Assumar (31 October 1750 – 11 October 1839) was a Portuguese noblewoman, painter, and poet. Commonly known by her nickname, ''Alcipe'', the Marquise was a prime figure in t ...
.
Italy
![Isabella di Morra](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Isabella_di_Morra.jpg)
Romanticism in Italian literature was a minor movement although some important works were produced; it began officially in 1816 when
Germaine de Staël
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein (; ; 22 April 176614 July 1817), commonly known as Madame de Staël (), was a French woman of letters and political theorist, the daughter of banker and French finance minister Jacques Necker and Suzan ...
wrote an article in the journal ''Biblioteca italiana'' called "Sulla maniera e l'utilità delle traduzioni", inviting Italian people to reject
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism (also spelled Neo-classicism) was a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassicism was ...
and to study new authors from other countries. Before that date,
Ugo Foscolo
Ugo Foscolo (; 6 February 177810 September 1827), born Niccolò Foscolo, was an Italian writer, revolutionary and a poet.
He is especially remembered for his 1807 long poem ''Dei Sepolcri''.
Early life
Foscolo was born in Zakynthos in the Io ...
had already published poems anticipating Romantic themes. The most important Romantic writers were
Ludovico di Breme Ludovico di Breme (Turin, 1780 – Turin, 15 August 1820), whose complete name was Ludovico Arborio Gattinara dei Marchesi di Breme, was an Italian writer and thinker, as well as a contributor to Milan's principal romantic journal, ''Il Conciliatore ...
, Pietro Borsieri and
Giovanni Berchet. Better known authors such as
Alessandro Manzoni
Alessandro Francesco Tommaso Antonio Manzoni (, , ; 7 March 1785 – 22 May 1873) was an Italian poet, novelist and philosopher. He is famous for the novel '' The Betrothed'' (orig. it, I promessi sposi) (1827), generally ranked among the maste ...
and
Giacomo Leopardi
Count Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi (, ; 29 June 1798 – 14 June 1837) was an Italian philosopher, poet, essayist, and philologist. He is considered the greatest Italian poet of the nineteenth century and one of ...
were influenced by
Enlightenment as well as by Romanticism and Classicism. An Italian romanticist writer who produced works in various genres, including short stories and novels (such as ''Ricciarda o i Nurra e i Cabras''), was the Piedmontese
Giuseppe Botero
Giuseppe Botero ( Novara, Province of Novara, Italy, 1815 – northern Italy, May 30, 1885), was an Italian writer in various literary genres, representative of the romantic literary movement and also an educator.
Biography
Botero lived ...
(1815-1885), devoting much of his career to
Sardinian literature.
South America
![Grecian-Gothic neoclassical-romantic style-contrast 1816-Repton](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Grecian-Gothic_neoclassical-romantic_style-contrast_1816-Repton.jpg)
Spanish-speaking South American Romanticism was influenced heavily by
Esteban Echeverría
José Esteban Antonio Echeverría (2 September 1805 – 19 January 1851) was an Argentine poet, fiction writer, cultural promoter, and liberal activist who played a significant role in the development of Argentine literature, not only throu ...
, who wrote in the 1830s and 1840s. His writings were influenced by his hatred for the Argentine dictator
Juan Manuel de Rosas
Juan Manuel José Domingo Ortiz de Rosas (30 March 1793 – 14 March 1877), nicknamed "Restorer of the Laws", was an Argentine politician and army officer who ruled Buenos Aires Province and briefly the Argentine Confederation. Althoug ...
, and filled with themes of blood and terror, using the metaphor of a slaughterhouse to portray the violence of Rosas' dictatorship.
Brazilian Romanticism is characterized and divided in three different periods. The first one is basically focused on the creation of a sense of national identity, using the ideal of the heroic Indian. Some examples include
José de Alencar, who wrote ''
Iracema'' and ''
O Guarani'', and
Gonçalves Dias
Antônio Gonçalves Dias (; August 10, 1823November 3, 1864) was a Brazilian Romantic poet, playwright, ethnographer, lawyer and linguist. A major exponent of Brazilian Romanticism and of the literary tradition known as " Indianism", he is f ...
, renowned by the poem "
Canção do exílio
"Canção do exílio" (, ''Exile song'') is a poem written by the Brazilian Romantic author Gonçalves Dias in 1843, when he was in Portugal studying Law at the University of Coimbra. The poem is a famous example of the first phase of Brazilian R ...
" (Song of the Exile). The second period, sometimes called
Ultra-Romanticism Ultra-Romanticism ( pt, Ultrarromantismo) was a Portuguese and Brazilian literary movement that took place during the second half of the 19th. Aesthetically similar to (but not exactly the same as) the German- and British-originated Dark Romanticis ...
, is marked by a profound influence of European themes and traditions, involving the melancholy, sadness and despair related to unobtainable love. Goethe and Lord Byron are commonly quoted in these works. Some of the most notable authors of this phase are
Álvares de Azevedo
Manuel Antônio Álvares de Azevedo (September 12, 1831 – April 25, 1852), affectionately called "Maneco" by his close friends, relatives and admirers, was a Brazilian Romantic poet, short story writer, playwright and essayist, considered to b ...
,
Casimiro de Abreu,
Fagundes Varela and
Junqueira Freire
Luís José Junqueira Freire (December 31, 1832 – June 24, 1855) was a Brazilian poet and Benedictine monk, adept of the "Ultra-Romanticism" movement and author of ''Inspirações do Claustro''. He is the patron of the 25th chair of the Brazili ...
. The third cycle is marked by social poetry, especially the abolitionist movement, and it includes
Castro Alves,
Tobias Barreto
Tobias Barreto de Meneses (June 7, 1839 – June 26, 1889) was a Brazilian poet, philosopher, jurist and literary critic. He is famous for creating the " Condorism" and revolutionizing Brazilian Romanticism and poetry. He is patron of the 38th cha ...
and
Pedro Luís Pereira de Sousa
Pedro Luís Pereira de Sousa (December 13, 1839 – July 16, 1884) was a Brazilian poet, politician, orator and lawyer, adept of the " Condorist" movement. He is the patron of the 31st chair of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.
Life
Pedro Luís ...
.
United States
In the United States, at least by 1818 with William Cullen Bryant's "
To a Waterfowl
"To a Waterfowl" is a poem by American poet William Cullen Bryant, first published in 1818.
Summary
The narrator questions where the waterfowl is going and questions his motives for flying. He warns the waterfowl that he could possibly find dan ...
", Romantic poetry was being published. American Romantic
Gothic literature
Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name is a reference to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of ea ...
made an early appearance with
Washington Irving
Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and " The Legen ...
's "
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is a gothic story by American author Washington Irving, contained in his collection of 34 essays and short stories titled ''The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.'' Written while Irving was living abroad in Birm ...
" (1820) and "
Rip Van Winkle
"Rip Van Winkle" is a short story by the American author Washington Irving, first published in 1819. It follows a Dutch-American villager in colonial America named Rip Van Winkle who meets mysterious Dutchmen, imbibes their liquor and falls aslee ...
" (1819), followed from 1823 onwards by the ''
Leatherstocking Tales'' of
James Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851) was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century, whose historical romances depicting colonist and Indigenous characters from the 17th to the 19th centuries brought h ...
, with their emphasis on heroic simplicity and their fervent landscape descriptions of an already-exotic mythicized frontier peopled by "
noble savages", similar to the philosophical theory of
Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...
, exemplified by
Uncas
Uncas () was a ''sachem'' of the Mohegans who made the Mohegans the leading regional Indian tribe in lower Connecticut, through his alliance with the New England colonists against other Indian tribes.
Early life and family
Uncas was born n ...
, from ''
The Last of the Mohicans
''The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757'' is a historical romance written by James Fenimore Cooper in 1826.
It is the second book of the ''Leatherstocking Tales'' pentalogy and the best known to contemporary audiences. '' The Pathfinder ...
''. There are picturesque "local colour" elements in Washington Irving's essays and especially his travel books.
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...
's tales of the macabre and his balladic poetry were more influential in France than at home, but the romantic American novel developed fully with the atmosphere and drama of
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion.
He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, from a family long associated with that t ...
's ''
The Scarlet Letter
''The Scarlet Letter: A Romance'' is a work of historical fiction by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, published in 1850. Set in the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony during the years 1642 to 1649, the novel tells the story of Hester Prynne, ...
'' (1850). Later
Transcendentalist writers such as
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading Transcendentalism, transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon simple living in natural su ...
and
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champ ...
still show elements of its influence and imagination, as does the
romantic realism Romantic realism is art that combines elements of both romanticism and realism. The terms "romanticism" and "realism" have been used in varied ways, and are sometimes seen as opposed to one another.
In literature and art
The term has long standing ...
of
Walt Whitman
Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among t ...
. The poetry of
Emily Dickinson
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry.
Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massach ...
—nearly unread in her own time—and
Herman Melville
Herman Melville (Name change, born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American people, American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance (literature), American Renaissance period. Among his bes ...
's novel ''
Moby-Dick
''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael (Moby-Dick), Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Captain Ahab, Ahab, captain of the whaler, whaling ship ''Pequod (Moby- ...
'' can be taken as epitomes of American Romantic literature. By the 1880s, however, psychological and
social realism
Social realism is the term used for work produced by painters, printmakers, photographers, writers and filmmakers that aims to draw attention to the real socio-political conditions of the working class as a means to critique the power structure ...
were competing with Romanticism in the novel.
Influence of European Romanticism on American writers
The European Romantic movement reached America in the early 19th century. American Romanticism was just as multifaceted and individualistic as it was in Europe. Like the Europeans, the American Romantics demonstrated a high level of moral enthusiasm, commitment to individualism and the unfolding of the self, an emphasis on intuitive perception, and the assumption that the natural world was inherently good, while human society was filled with corruption.
[George L. McMichael and Frederick C. Crews, eds. ''Anthology of American Literature: Colonial through romantic'' (6th ed. 1997) p. 613]
Romanticism became popular in American politics, philosophy and art. The movement appealed to the revolutionary spirit of America as well as to those longing to break free of the strict religious traditions of early settlement. The Romantics rejected rationalism and religious intellect. It appealed to those in opposition of Calvinism, which includes the belief that the destiny of each individual is preordained. The Romantic movement gave rise to
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in New England. "Transcendentalism is an American literary, political, and philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century, centered around Ralph Wald ...
, which portrayed a less restrictive relationship between God and Universe. The new philosophy presented the individual with a more personal relationship with God. Transcendentalism and Romanticism appealed to Americans in a similar fashion, for both privileged feeling over reason, individual freedom of expression over the restraints of tradition and custom. It often involved a rapturous response to nature. It encouraged the rejection of harsh, rigid Calvinism, and promised a new blossoming of American culture.
American Romanticism embraced the individual and rebelled against the confinement of neoclassicism and religious tradition. The Romantic movement in America created a new literary genre that continues to influence American writers. Novels, short stories, and poems replaced the sermons and manifestos of yore. Romantic literature was personal, intense, and portrayed more emotion than ever seen in neoclassical literature. America's preoccupation with freedom became a great source of motivation for Romantic writers as many were delighted in free expression and emotion without so much fear of ridicule and controversy. They also put more effort into the psychological development of their characters, and the main characters typically displayed extremes of sensitivity and excitement.
The works of the Romantic Era also differed from preceding works in that they spoke to a wider audience, partly reflecting the greater distribution of books as costs came down during the period.
Architecture
Romantic architecture appeared in the late 18th century in a reaction against the rigid forms of
neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing style ...
. Romantic architecture reached its peak in the mid-19th century, and continued to appear until the end of the 19th century. It was designed to evoke an emotional reaction, either respect for tradition or nostalgia for a bucolic past. It was frequently inspired by the architecture of the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
, especially
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture (or pointed architecture) is an architectural style that was prevalent in Europe from the late 12th to the 16th century, during the High and Late Middle Ages, surviving into the 17th and 18th centuries in some areas. It e ...
, It was strongly influenced by romanticism in literature, particularly the historical novels of
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...
and
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'', ''Rob Roy (n ...
. It sometimes moved into the domain of
eclecticism
Eclecticism is a conceptual approach that does not hold rigidly to a single paradigm or set of assumptions, but instead draws upon multiple theories, styles, or ideas to gain complementary insights into a subject, or applies different theories i ...
, with features assembled from different historic periods and regions of the world.
Gothic Revival architecture
Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...
was a popular variant of the romantic style, particularly in the construction of churches, Cathedrals, and university buildings. Notable examples include the completion of
Cologne Cathedral
Cologne Cathedral (german: Kölner Dom, officially ', English: Cathedral Church of Saint Peter) is a Catholic cathedral in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne and of the administration of the Archdiocese of ...
in Germany, by
Karl Friedrich Schinkel
Karl Friedrich Schinkel (13 March 1781 – 9 October 1841) was a Prussian architect, city planner and painter who also designed furniture and stage sets. Schinkel was one of the most prominent architects of Germany and designed both neoclassica ...
. The cathedral had been begun in 1248, but work was halted in 1473. The original plans for the façade were discovered in 1840, and it was decided to recommence. Schinkel followed the original design as much as possible, but used modern construction technology, including an iron frame for the roof. The building was finished in 1880.
[Weber, Patrick, ''Histoire de l'Architecture'' (2008), pp. 64]
In Britain, notable examples include the
Royal Pavilion
The Royal Pavilion, and surrounding gardens, also known as the Brighton Pavilion, is a Grade I listed former royal residence located in Brighton, England. Beginning in 1787, it was built in three stages as a seaside retreat for George IV of t ...
in
Brighton
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
, a romantic version of traditional
Indian architecture
Indian architecture is rooted in its history, culture and religion. Among a number of architectural styles and traditions, the best-known include the many varieties of Hindu temple architecture, Indo-Islamic architecture, especially Mughal ...
by
John Nash (1815–1823), and the
Houses of Parliament
The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parliament, the Palace lies on the north ban ...
in London, built in a Gothic revival style by
Charles Barry
Sir Charles Barry (23 May 1795 – 12 May 1860) was a British architect, best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster (also known as the Houses of Parliament) in London during the mid-19th century, but also respons ...
between 1840 and 1876.
[Weber, Patrick, ''Histoire de l'Architecture'' (2008), pp. 64–65]
In France, one of the earliest examples of romantic architecture is the
Hameau de la Reine
The Hameau de la Reine (, ''The Queen's Hamlet'') is a rustic retreat in the park of the Château de Versailles built for Marie Antoinette in 1783 near the Petit Trianon in Yvelines, France. It served as a private meeting place for the Queen and ...
, the small rustic hamlet created at the
Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 19 ...
for Queen
Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne (; ; née Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an archduchess of Austria, and was the penultimate child a ...
between 1783 and 1785 by the royal architect
Richard Mique
Richard Mique () (18 September 1728 – 8 July 1794) was a neoclassical French architect born in Lorraine. He is most remembered for his picturesque hamlet, the ''Hameau de la Reine'' — not particularly characteristic of his working style — f ...
with the help of the romantic painter
Hubert Robert
Hubert Robert (22 May 1733 – 15 April 1808) was a French painter in the school of Romanticism, noted especially for his landscape paintings and capricci, or semi-fictitious picturesque depictions of ruins in Italy and of France.Jean de Cayeux. ...
. It consisted of twelve structures, ten of which still exist, in the style of villages in
Normandy
Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...
. It was designed for the Queen and her friends to amuse themselves by playing at being peasants, and included a farmhouse with a dairy, a mill, a boudoir, a pigeon loft, a tower in the form of a lighthouse from which one could fish in the pond, a belvedere, a cascade and grotto, and a luxuriously furnished cottage with a billiard room for the Queen.
French romantic architecture in the 19th century was strongly influenced by two writers;
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...
, whose novel ''
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
''The Hunchback of Notre-Dame'' (french: Notre-Dame de Paris, translation=''Our Lady of Paris'', originally titled ''Notre-Dame de Paris. 1482'') is a French Gothic novel by Victor Hugo, published in 1831. It focuses on the unfortunate story ...
'' inspired a resurgence in interest in the Middle Ages; and
Prosper Mérimée
Prosper Mérimée (; 28 September 1803 – 23 September 1870) was a French writer in the movement of Romanticism, and one of the pioneers of the novella, a short novel or long short story. He was also a noted archaeologist and historian, and a ...
, who wrote celebrated romantic novels and short stories and was also the first head of the commission of Historic Monuments in France, responsible for publicizing and restoring (and sometimes romanticizing) many French cathedrals and monuments desecrated and ruined after the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
. His projects were carried out by the architect
Eugène Viollet-le-Duc
Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (; 27 January 181417 September 1879) was a French architect and author who restored many prominent medieval landmarks in France, including those which had been damaged or abandoned during the French Revolution. H ...
. These included the restoration (sometimes creative) of the Cathedral of
Notre Dame de Paris
Notre-Dame de Paris (; meaning "Our Lady of Paris"), referred to simply as Notre-Dame, is a medieval Catholic cathedral on the Île de la Cité (an island in the Seine River), in the 4th arrondissement of Paris. The cathedral, dedicated to the ...
, the fortified city of
Carcassonne
Carcassonne (, also , , ; ; la, Carcaso) is a French fortified city in the department of Aude, in the region of Occitanie. It is the prefecture of the department.
Inhabited since the Neolithic, Carcassonne is located in the plain of the ...
, and the unfinished medieval
Château de Pierrefonds.
The romantic style continued in the second half of the 19th century. The
Palais Garnier, the Paris opera house designed by
Charles Garnier was a highly romantic and eclectic combination of artistic styles. Another notable example of late 19th century romanticism is the
Basilica of Sacré-Cœur by
Paul Abadie
Paul Abadie (9 November 1812 – 3 August 1884) was a French architect and building restorer. He is considered a central representative of French historicism. He was the son of architect Paul Abadie Sr.
Abadie worked on the restoration of Not ...
, who drew upon the model of
Byzantine architecture
Byzantine architecture is the architecture of the Byzantine Empire, or Eastern Roman Empire.
The Byzantine era is usually dated from 330 AD, when Constantine the Great moved the Roman capital to Byzantium, which became Constantinople, until th ...
for his elongated domes (1875–1914).
File:Marie Antoinette amusement at Versailles.JPG, Hameau de la Reine
The Hameau de la Reine (, ''The Queen's Hamlet'') is a rustic retreat in the park of the Château de Versailles built for Marie Antoinette in 1783 near the Petit Trianon in Yvelines, France. It served as a private meeting place for the Queen and ...
, Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 19 ...
(1783–1785)
File:Brighton royal pavilion Qmin.jpg, Royal Pavilion
The Royal Pavilion, and surrounding gardens, also known as the Brighton Pavilion, is a Grade I listed former royal residence located in Brighton, England. Beginning in 1787, it was built in three stages as a seaside retreat for George IV of t ...
in Brighton
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
by John Nash (1815–1823)
File:Cologne cathedrale vue sud.jpg, Cologne Cathedral
Cologne Cathedral (german: Kölner Dom, officially ', English: Cathedral Church of Saint Peter) is a Catholic cathedral in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne and of the administration of the Archdiocese of ...
(1840–80)
File:Monumental stairway of the palais Garnier opera in Paris.jpg, Grand Staircase of the Paris Opera
The Paris Opera (, ) is the primary opera and ballet company of France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the , and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and officially renamed the , but continued to be ...
by Charles Garnier (1861–75)
File:Le sacre coeur.jpg, Basilica of Sacré-Cœur by Paul Abadie
Paul Abadie (9 November 1812 – 3 August 1884) was a French architect and building restorer. He is considered a central representative of French historicism. He was the son of architect Paul Abadie Sr.
Abadie worked on the restoration of Not ...
(1875–1914)
Visual arts
![Thomas_Jones_The_Bard_1774](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/Thomas_Jones_The_Bard_1774.jpg)
In the visual arts, Romanticism first showed itself in
landscape painting
Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent compo ...
, where from as early as the 1760s British artists began to turn to wilder landscapes and storms, and
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture (or pointed architecture) is an architectural style that was prevalent in Europe from the late 12th to the 16th century, during the High and Late Middle Ages, surviving into the 17th and 18th centuries in some areas. It e ...
, even if they had to make do with
Wales as a setting.
Caspar David Friedrich and
J. M. W. Turner were born less than a year apart in 1774 and 1775 respectively and were to take German and English landscape painting to their extremes of Romanticism, but both their artistic sensibilities were formed when forms of Romanticism was already strongly present in art.
John Constable
John Constable (; 11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English landscape painter in the Romanticism, Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedha ...
, born in 1776, stayed closer to the English landscape tradition, but in his largest "six-footers" insisted on the heroic status of a patch of the working countryside where he had grown up—challenging the traditional
hierarchy of genres
A hierarchy of genres is any formalization which ranks different genres in an art form in terms of their prestige and cultural value.
In literature, the epic was considered the highest form, for the reason expressed by Samuel Johns ...
, which relegated landscape painting to a low status. Turner also painted very large landscapes, and above all, seascapes. Some of these large paintings had contemporary settings and
staffage
In painting, staffage () are the human and animal figures depicted in a scene, especially a landscape, that are not the primary subject matter of the work. Typically they are small, and there to add an indication of scale and add interest.
Before ...
, but others had small figures that turned the work into
history painting in the manner of
Claude Lorrain
Claude Lorrain (; born Claude Gellée , called ''le Lorrain'' in French; traditionally just Claude in English; c. 1600 – 23 November 1682) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher of the Baroque era. He spent most of his life in It ...
, like
Salvator Rosa, a
late Baroque artist whose landscapes had elements that Romantic painters repeatedly turned to. Friedrich often used single figures, or features like crosses, set alone amidst a huge landscape, "making them images of the transitoriness of human life and the premonition of death".
![Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson 001](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Anne-Louis_Girodet-Trioson_001.jpg)
Other groups of artists expressed feelings that verged on the mystical, many largely abandoning classical drawing and proportions. These included
William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...
and
Samuel Palmer
Samuel Palmer Hon.RE (Hon. Fellow of the Society of Painter-Etchers) (27 January 180524 May 1881) was a British landscape painter, etcher and printmaker. He was also a prolific writer. Palmer was a key figure in Romanticism in Britain and pr ...
and the other members of
the Ancients in England, and in Germany
Philipp Otto Runge
Philipp Otto Runge (; 1777–1810) was a German artist, a draftsman, painter, and color theorist. Runge and Caspar David Friedrich are often regarded as the leading painters of the German Romantic movement.Koerner, Joseph Leo. 1990. ''Caspar Dav ...
. Like Friedrich, none of these artists had significant influence after their deaths for the rest of the 19th century, and were 20th-century rediscoveries from obscurity, though Blake was always known as a poet, and Norway's leading painter
Johan Christian Dahl
Johan Christian Claussen Dahl (24 February 178814 October 1857), often known as or , was a Danish-Norwegian artist who is considered the first great romantic painter in Norway, the founder of the "golden age" of Norwegian painting, and, by some ...
was heavily influenced by Friedrich. The Rome-based
Nazarene movement
The epithet Nazarene was adopted by a group of early 19th-century German Romantic painters who aimed to revive spirituality in art. The name Nazarene came from a term of derision used against them for their affectation of a biblical manner of c ...
of German artists, active from 1810, took a very different path, concentrating on medievalizing history paintings with religious and nationalist themes.
The arrival of Romanticism in French art was delayed by the strong hold of
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism (also spelled Neo-classicism) was a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassicism was ...
on the academies, but from the
Napoleonic
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader wh ...
period it became increasingly popular, initially in the form of history paintings propagandising for the new regime, of which
Girodet's ''
Ossian receiving the Ghosts of the French Heroes'', for Napoleon's
Château de Malmaison
The Château de Malmaison () is a French château situated near the left bank of the Seine, about west of the centre of Paris, in the commune of Rueil-Malmaison.
Formerly the residence of Empress Joséphine de Beauharnais, along with the Tuileri ...
, was one of the earliest. Girodet's old teacher
David
David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...
was puzzled and disappointed by his pupil's direction, saying: "Either Girodet is mad or I no longer know anything of the art of painting". A new generation of the French school, developed personal Romantic styles, though still concentrating on history painting with a political message.
Théodore Géricault
Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault (; 26 September 1791 – 26 January 1824) was a French Painting, painter and Lithography, lithographer, whose best-known painting is ''The Raft of the Medusa''. Although he died young, he was one of the pi ...
(1791–1824) had his first success with ''
The Charging Chasseur
''The Charging Chasseur'', or ''An Officer of the Chasseurs à Cheval de la Garde Impériale, Imperial Horse Guards Charging'' is an oil painting on canvas of about 1812 by the French painter Théodore Géricault, portraying a mounted Napoleoni ...
'', a heroic military figure derived from
Rubens, at the
Paris Salon
The Salon (french: Salon), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art ...
of 1812 in the years of the Empire, but his next major completed work, ''
The Raft of the Medusa
''The Raft of the Medusa'' (french: Le Radeau de la Méduse ) – originally titled ''Scène de Naufrage'' (''Shipwreck Scene'') – is an oil painting of 1818–19 by the French Romantic painter and lithographer Théodore Géricault (1791 ...
'' of 1818-19, remains the greatest achievement of the Romantic history painting, which in its day had a powerful anti-government message.
Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...
(1798–1863) made his first Salon hits with ''
The Barque of Dante
''The Barque of Dante'' (), also ''Dante and Virgil in Hell'' (''Dante et Virgile aux enfers''), is the first major painting by the French artist Eugène Delacroix, and is a work signalling the shift in the character of narrative painting, from ...
'' (1822), ''
The Massacre at Chios'' (1824) and ''
Death of Sardanapalus
''The Death of Sardanapalus'' (''La Mort de Sardanapale'') is an oil painting on canvas by Eugène Delacroix, dated 1827. It currently hangs in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. A smaller replica, painted by Delacroix in 1844, is now in the Philadel ...
'' (1827). The second was a scene from the Greek War of Independence, completed the year Byron died there, and the last was a scene from one of Byron's plays. With Shakespeare, Byron was to provide the subject matter for many other works of Delacroix, who also spent long periods in North Africa, painting colourful scenes of mounted Arab warriors. His ''
Liberty Leading the People
''Liberty Leading the People'' (french: La Liberté guidant le peuple ) is a painting by Eugène Delacroix commemorating the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled King Charles X. A woman of the people with a Phrygian cap personifying the conc ...
'' (1830) remains, with the ''Medusa'', one of the best-known works of French Romantic painting. Both reflected current events, and increasingly "
history painting", literally "story painting", a phrase dating back to the Italian Renaissance meaning the painting of subjects with groups of figures, long considered the highest and most difficult form of art, did indeed become the painting of historical scenes, rather than those from religion or mythology.
Francisco Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and ...
was called "the last great painter in whose art thought and observation were balanced and combined to form a faultless unity". But the extent to which he was a Romantic is a complex question. In Spain, there was still a struggle to introduce the values of the
Enlightenment, in which Goya saw himself as a participant. The demonic and anti-rational monsters thrown up by his imagination are only superficially similar to those of the Gothic fantasies of northern Europe, and in many ways he remained wedded to the classicism and realism of his training, as well as looking forward to the Realism of the later 19th century. But he, more than any other artist of the period, exemplified the Romantic values of the expression of the artist's feelings and his personal imaginative world. He also shared with many of the Romantic painters a more free handling of paint, emphasized in the new prominence of the brushstroke and
impasto
''Impasto'' is a technique used in painting, where paint is laid on an area of the surface thickly, usually thick enough that the brush or painting-knife strokes are visible. Paint can also be mixed right on the canvas. When dry, impasto provide ...
, which tended to be repressed in neoclassicism under a self-effacing finish.
Sculpture
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
remained largely impervious to Romanticism, probably partly for technical reasons, as the most prestigious material of the day, marble, does not lend itself to expansive gestures. The leading sculptors in Europe,
Antonio Canova and
Bertel Thorvaldsen, were both based in Rome and firm Neoclassicists, not at all tempted to allow influence from medieval sculpture, which would have been one possible approach to Romantic sculpture. When it did develop, true Romantic sculpture—with the exception of a few artists such as
Rudolf Maison
Rudolf Maison (July 29, 1854 – February 12, 1904) was a German sculptor born in Regensburg, Germany, where he began his studies. He continued studying in Munich. His work can be found all over Germany and is in the Romantic tradition.
Maison ...
— rather oddly was missing in Germany, and mainly found in France, with
François Rude
François Rude (4 January 1784 – 3 November 1855) was a French sculptor, best known for the ''Departure of the Volunteers'', also known as ''La Marseillaise'' on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. (1835–36). His work often expressed patriotic the ...
, best known from his group of the 1830s from the
Arc de Triomphe
The Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile (, , ; ) is one of the most famous monuments in Paris, France, standing at the western end of the Champs-Élysées at the centre of Place Charles de Gaulle, formerly named Place de l'Étoile—the ''étoile'' ...
in Paris,
David d'Angers
Pierre-Jean David (12 March 1788 – 4 January 1856) was a French sculptor, medalist and active freemason.Initiated in ""Le Père de famille"" Lodge in Angers He adopted the name David d'Angers, following his entry into the studio of the painter ...
, and
Auguste Préault Auguste may refer to:
People Surname
* Arsène Auguste (born 1951), Haitian footballer
* Donna Auguste (born 1958), African-American businesswoman
* Georges Auguste (born 1933), Haitian painter
* Henri Auguste (1759–1816), Parisian gold an ...
. Préault's plaster relief entitled ''Slaughter'', which represented the horrors of wars with exacerbated passion, caused so much scandal at the 1834
Salon
Salon may refer to:
Common meanings
* Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments
* French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home
* Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment
Arts and entertainment
* Salon (P ...
that Préault was banned from this official annual exhibition for nearly twenty years. In Italy, the most important Romantic sculptor was
Lorenzo Bartolini
Lorenzo Bartolini (Prato, 7 January 1777 Florence, 20 January 1850) was an Italian sculptor who infused his neoclassicism with a strain of sentimental piety and naturalistic detail, while he drew inspiration from the sculpture of the Florentine ...
.
File:George Stubbs - A Lion Attacking a Horse - 1955.27.1 - Yale University Art Gallery.jpg, George Stubbs, ''A Lion Attacking a Horse'' (1770), oil on canvas, 38 in. x 49 1/2in., Yale Center for British Art
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the worl ...
File:John Henry Fuseli - The NightmareFXD.jpg, John Henry Fuseli, ''The Nightmare'' (1781), oil on canvas, 101.6 cm × 127 cm., Detroit Institute of Arts
The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the list of largest art museums, largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation a ...
File:El Tres de Mayo, by Francisco de Goya, from Prado thin black margin.jpg, Francisco Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and ...
, ''The Third of May 1808
''The Third of May 1808'' (also known as or , or )The Museo del Prado entitles the work El 3 de mayo de 1808 en Madrid: los fusilamientos en la montaña del Príncipe Pío'' is a painting completed in 1814 by the Spanish painter Francisco Goya, ...
'', 1814
File:JEAN LOUIS THÉODORE GÉRICAULT - La Balsa de la Medusa (Museo del Louvre, 1818-19).jpg, Théodore Géricault
Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault (; 26 September 1791 – 26 January 1824) was a French Painting, painter and Lithography, lithographer, whose best-known painting is ''The Raft of the Medusa''. Although he died young, he was one of the pi ...
, ''The Raft of the Medusa
''The Raft of the Medusa'' (french: Le Radeau de la Méduse ) – originally titled ''Scène de Naufrage'' (''Shipwreck Scene'') – is an oil painting of 1818–19 by the French Romantic painter and lithographer Théodore Géricault (1791 ...
'', 1819
File:Eugène Delacroix - La liberté guidant le peuple.jpg, Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...
, ''Liberty Leading the People
''Liberty Leading the People'' (french: La Liberté guidant le peuple ) is a painting by Eugène Delacroix commemorating the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled King Charles X. A woman of the people with a Phrygian cap personifying the conc ...
'', 1830
File:The Fighting Temeraire, JMW Turner, National Gallery.jpg, J. M. W. Turner, '' The Fighting Téméraire tugged to her last Berth to be broken up'', 1839
In France, historical painting on idealized medieval and Renaissance themes is known as the
''style Troubadour'', a term with no equivalent for other countries, though the same trends occurred there. Delacroix,
Ingres and
Richard Parkes Bonington
Richard Parkes Bonington (25 October 1802 – 23 September 1828) was an English Romantic landscape painter, who moved to France at the age of 14 and can also be considered as a French artist, and an intermediary bringing aspects of English sty ...
all worked in this style, as did lesser specialists such as
Pierre-Henri Révoil (1776–1842) and
Fleury-François Richard (1777–1852). Their pictures are often small, and feature intimate private and anecdotal moments, as well as those of high drama. The lives of great artists such as
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of works by Raphael, His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of ...
were commemorated on equal terms with those of rulers, and fictional characters were also depicted. Fleury-Richard's ''Valentine of Milan weeping for the death of her husband'', shown in the
Paris Salon
The Salon (french: Salon), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art ...
of 1802, marked the arrival of the style, which lasted until the mid-century, before being subsumed into the increasingly academic history painting of artists like
Paul Delaroche
Hippolyte-Paul Delaroche (17 July 1797 – 4 November 1856) was a French painter who achieved his greater successes painting historical scenes. He became famous in Europe for his melodramatic depictions that often portrayed subjects from English ...
.
![Hayez, Fracesco - Crusaders Thirsting near Jerusalem - 1836-50](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Hayez%2C_Fracesco_-_Crusaders_Thirsting_near_Jerusalem_-_1836-50.jpg)
Another trend was for very large apocalyptic history paintings, often combining extreme natural events, or divine wrath, with human disaster, attempting to outdo ''The Raft of the Medusa'', and now often drawing comparisons with effects from Hollywood. The leading English artist in the style was
John Martin, whose tiny figures were dwarfed by enormous earthquakes and storms, and worked his way through the biblical disasters, and those to come in the
final days. Other works such as Delacroix's ''
Death of Sardanapalus
''The Death of Sardanapalus'' (''La Mort de Sardanapale'') is an oil painting on canvas by Eugène Delacroix, dated 1827. It currently hangs in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. A smaller replica, painted by Delacroix in 1844, is now in the Philadel ...
'' included larger figures, and these often drew heavily on earlier artists, especially
Poussin
Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for ...
and
Rubens, with extra emotionalism and special effects.
Elsewhere in Europe, leading artists adopted Romantic styles: in Russia there were the portraitists
Orest Kiprensky
Orest Adamovich Kiprensky (russian: Орест Адамович Кипренский -) was a leading Russian portraitist in the Age of Romanticism. His most familiar work is probably his portrait of Alexander Pushkin (1827), which prompted the ...
and
Vasily Tropinin
Vasily Andreevich Tropinin (russian: Васи́лий Андре́евич Тропи́нин; – ) was a Russian Romantic painter. Much of his life was spent as a serf; he didn't attain his freedom until he was more than forty years old. ...
, with
Ivan Aivazovsky
Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky (russian: link=no, Иван Константинович Айвазовский; 29 July 18172 May 1900) was a Russian Romantic painter who is considered one of the greatest masters of marine art. Baptized a ...
specializing in
marine painting
Marine art or maritime art is a form of figurative art (that is, painting, drawing, printmaking and sculpture) that portrays or draws its main inspiration from the sea. Maritime painting is a genre that depicts ships and the sea—a genre parti ...
, and in Norway
Hans Gude
Hans Fredrik Gude (March 13, 1825August 17, 1903) was a Norwegian romanticist painter and is considered along with Johan Christian Dahl to be one of Norway's foremost landscape painters. He has been called a mainstay of Norwegian National Roma ...
painted scenes of
fjord
In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Denmark, Germany, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Ice ...
s. In Italy
Francesco Hayez
Francesco Hayez (; 10 February 1791 – 12 February 1882) was an Italian painter. He is considered one of the leading artists of Romanticism in mid-19th-century Milan, and is renowned for his grand historical paintings, political allegories, and ...
(1791–1882) was the leading artist of Romanticism in mid-19th-century
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
. His long, prolific and extremely successful career saw him begin as a Neoclassical painter, pass right through the Romantic period, and emerge at the other end as a sentimental painter of young women. His Romantic period included many historical pieces of "Troubadour" tendencies, but on a very large scale, that are heavily influenced by
Gian Battista Tiepolo
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo ( , ; March 5, 1696 – March 27, 1770), also known as Giambattista (or Gianbattista) Tiepolo, was an Italian painter and printmaker from the Republic of Venice who painted in the Rococo style, considered an import ...
and other
late Baroque Italian masters.
Literary Romanticism had its counterpart in the American visual arts, most especially in the exaltation of an untamed American
landscape
A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...
found in the paintings of the
Hudson River School
The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. The paintings typically depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area ...
. Painters like
Thomas Cole
Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist and the founder of the Hudson River School art movement. Cole is widely regarded as the first significant American landscape painter. He was known for his romantic landscape and history painti ...
,
Albert Bierstadt
Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was no ...
and
Frederic Edwin Church
Frederic Edwin Church (May 4, 1826 – April 7, 1900) was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, best known for painting large landscapes, ...
and others often expressed Romantic themes in their paintings. They sometimes depicted ancient ruins of the old world, such as in Fredric Edwin Church's piece ''Sunrise in Syria''. These works reflected the Gothic feelings of death and decay. They also show the Romantic ideal that Nature is powerful and will eventually overcome the transient creations of men. More often, they worked to distinguish themselves from their European counterparts by depicting uniquely American scenes and landscapes. This idea of an American identity in the art world is reflected in
W. C. Bryant's poem ''To Cole, the Painter, Departing for Europe'', where Bryant encourages Cole to remember the powerful scenes that can only be found in America.
Some American paintings (such as Albert Bierstadt's ''
The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak
''The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak'' is an 1863 landscape oil painting by the German-American painter Albert Bierstadt. It is based on sketches made during Bierstadt's travels with Frederick W. Lander's Honey Road Survey Party in 1859. The ...
'') promote the literary idea of the "
noble savage" by portraying idealized Native Americans living in harmony with the natural world. Thomas Cole's paintings tend towards
allegory
As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory th ...
, explicit in ''
The Voyage of Life
''The Voyage of Life'' is a series of four paintings created by the American artist Thomas Cole in 1840 and reproduced with minor alterations in 1842, representing an allegory of the four stages of human life. The paintings, ''Childhood'', ''Yout ...
'' series painted in the early 1840s, showing the stages of life set amidst an awesome and immense nature.
File:Thomas Cole - The Voyage of Life Childhood, 1842 (National Gallery of Art).jpg, Thomas Cole
Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist and the founder of the Hudson River School art movement. Cole is widely regarded as the first significant American landscape painter. He was known for his romantic landscape and history painti ...
, ''Childhood
A child (plural, : children) is a human being between the stages of childbirth, birth and puberty, or between the Development of the human body, developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers ...
'' (1842), one of the four scenes in ''The Voyage of Life
''The Voyage of Life'' is a series of four paintings created by the American artist Thomas Cole in 1840 and reproduced with minor alterations in 1842, representing an allegory of the four stages of human life. The paintings, ''Childhood'', ''Yout ...
''
File:Thomas Cole - The Voyage of Life Old Age, 1842 (National Gallery of Art).jpg, Thomas Cole, ''The Voyage of Life
Old Age
Old age refers to ages nearing or surpassing the life expectancy of human beings, and is thus the end of the human life cycle. Terms and euphemisms for people at this age include old people, the elderly (worldwide usage), OAPs (British usage ...
'' (1842)
File:William Blake - Albion Rose - from A Large Book of Designs 1793-6.jpg, William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...
, ''Albion
Albion is an alternative name for Great Britain. The oldest attestation of the toponym comes from the Greek language. It is sometimes used poetically and generally to refer to the island, but is less common than 'Britain' today. The name for Scot ...
Rose'', 1794–95
File:Le poeme de lAme-14-Louis Janmot-MBA Lyon-IMG 0497.jpg, Louis Janmot
Anne-François-Louis Janmot (21 May 1814 – 1 June 1892) was a French painter and poet.
Early years
Janmot was born in Lyon, France, of Catholic parents who were deeply religious. He was extremely moved by the death of his brother in 1823 and ...
, from his series ''The Poem of the Soul'', before 1854
Music
![Beethoven](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Beethoven.jpg)
Musical Romanticism is predominantly a German phenomenon—so much so that one respected French reference work defines it entirely in terms of "The role of music in the aesthetics of German romanticism". Another French encyclopedia holds that the German temperament generally "can be described as the deep and diverse action of romanticism on German musicians", and that there is only one true representative of Romanticism in French music,
Hector Berlioz, while in Italy, the sole great name of musical Romanticism is
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the h ...
, "a sort of
Hugo">ictorHugo of opera, gifted with a real genius for dramatic effect". Similarly, in his analysis of Romanticism and its pursuit of harmony,
Henri Lefebvre
Henri Lefebvre ( , ; 16 June 1901 – 29 June 1991) was a French Marxist philosopher and sociologist, best known for pioneering the critique of everyday life, for introducing the concepts of the right to the city and the production of s ...
posits that, "But of course, German romanticism was more closely linked to music than French romanticism was, so it is there we should look for the direct expression of harmony as the central romantic idea." Nevertheless, the huge popularity of German Romantic music led, "whether by imitation or by reaction", to an often nationalistically inspired vogue amongst Polish, Hungarian, Russian, Czech, and Scandinavian musicians, successful "perhaps more because of its extra-musical traits than for the actual value of musical works by its masters".
![Eugène Ferdinand Victor Delacroix 043](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Eug%C3%A8ne_Ferdinand_Victor_Delacroix_043.jpg)
Although the term "Romanticism" when applied to music has come to imply the period roughly from 1800 until 1850, or else until around 1900, the contemporary application of "romantic" to music did not coincide with this modern interpretation. Indeed, one of the earliest sustained applications of the term to music occurs in 1789, in the ''Mémoires'' of
André Grétry
André Ernest Modeste Grétry (; baptised 11 February 1741; died 24 September 1813) was a
composer from the Prince-Bishopric of Liège (present-day Belgium), who worked from 1767 onwards in France and took French nationality. He is most famous ...
. This is of particular interest because it is a French source on a subject mainly dominated by Germans, but also because it explicitly acknowledges its debt to
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...
(himself a composer, amongst other things) and, by so doing, establishes a link to one of the major influences on the Romantic movement generally.
[Samson 2001.] In 1810
E. T. A. Hoffmann named
Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn ( , ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions to musical form have led ...
,
Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...
and
Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
as "the three masters of instrumental compositions" who "breathe one and the same romantic spirit". He justified his view on the basis of these composers' depth of evocative expression and their marked individuality. In Haydn's music, according to Hoffmann, "a child-like, serene disposition prevails", while Mozart (in the late
E-flat major Symphony, for example) "leads us into the depths of the spiritual world", with elements of fear, love, and sorrow, "a presentiment of the infinite ... in the eternal dance of the spheres". Beethoven's music, on the other hand, conveys a sense of "the monstrous and immeasurable", with the pain of an endless longing that "will burst our breasts in a fully coherent concord of all the passions". This elevation in the valuation of pure emotion resulted in the promotion of music from the subordinate position it had held in relation to the verbal and plastic arts during the Enlightenment. Because music was considered to be free of the constraints of reason, imagery, or any other precise concept, it came to be regarded, first in the writings of
Wackenroder
Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder (13 July 1773 – 13 February 1798) was a German jurist and writer. With Ludwig Tieck and the Schlegel brothers, he has co-founded the German Romanticism.
Life
Wackenroder was born in Berlin. He was a close friend o ...
and
Tieck Tieck may refer to:
*Christian Friedrich Tieck (1776–1851), German sculptor
* Dorothea Tieck (1799–1841), German translator
*Ludwig Tieck (1773–1853), German poet
** 8056 Tieck, asteroid named after Ludwig Tieck
** Schlegel-Tieck Prize, litera ...
and later by writers such as
Schelling Schelling is a surname. Notable persons with that name include:
* Caroline Schelling (1763–1809), German intellectual
* Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–1854), German philosopher
* Felix Emanuel Schelling (1858–1945), American educato ...
and
Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
, as preeminent among the arts, the one best able to express the secrets of the universe, to evoke the spirit world, infinity, and the absolute.
This chronologic agreement of musical and literary Romanticism continued as far as the middle of the 19th century, when
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
denigrated the music of
Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer (born Jakob Liebmann Beer; 5 September 1791 – 2 May 1864) was a German opera composer, "the most frequently performed opera composer during the nineteenth century, linking Mozart and Wagner". With his 1831 opera ''Robert le d ...
and
Berlioz as "
neoromantic": "The Opera, to which we shall now return, has swallowed down the Neoromanticism of Berlioz, too, as a plump, fine-flavoured oyster, whose digestion has conferred on it anew a brisk and well-to-do appearance."
It was only toward the end of the 19th century that the newly emergent discipline of ''Musikwissenschaft'' (
musicology
Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...
)—itself a product of the historicizing proclivity of the age—attempted a more scientific
periodization
In historiography, periodization is the process or study of categorizing the past into discrete, quantified, and named blocks of time for the purpose of study or analysis.Adam Rabinowitz. It's about time: historical periodization and Linked Ancie ...
of music history, and a distinction between
Viennese Classical
The Classical period was an era of classical music between roughly 1750 and 1820.
The Classical period falls between the Baroque and the Romantic periods. Classical music has a lighter, clearer texture than Baroque music, but a more sophistic ...
and Romantic periods was proposed. The key figure in this trend was
Guido Adler
Guido Adler (1 November 1855, Ivančice (Eibenschütz), Moravia – 15 February 1941, Vienna) was a Bohemian-Austrian musicologist and writer.
Biography
Early life and education
Adler was born at Eibenschütz in Moravia in 1855. He moved ...
, who viewed Beethoven and
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...
as transitional but essentially Classical composers, with Romanticism achieving full maturity only in the post-Beethoven generation of Frédéric Chopin, Felix Mendelssohn,
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career a ...
, Hector Berlioz and
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...
. From Adler's viewpoint, found in books like ''Der Stil in der Musik'' (1911), composers of the
New German School
The New German School (german: link=no, Neudeutsche Schule, ) is a term introduced in 1859 by Franz Brendel, editor of the ''Neue Zeitschrift für Musik'', to describe certain trends in German music. Although the term has frequently been used in ...
and various late-19th-century
nationalist
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Th ...
composers were not Romantics but "moderns" or "realists" (by analogy with the fields of painting and literature), and this schema remained prevalent through the first decades of the 20th century.
By the second quarter of the 20th century, an awareness that radical changes in musical syntax had occurred during the early 1900s caused another shift in historical viewpoint, and the change of century came to be seen as marking a decisive break with the musical past. This in turn led historians such as
Alfred Einstein to extend the musical "
Romantic era
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
" throughout the 19th century and into the first decade of the 20th. It has continued to be referred to as such in some of the standard music references such as ''
The Oxford Companion to Music
''The Oxford Companion to Music'' is a music reference book in the Book series, series of Oxford Companions produced by the Oxford University Press. It was originally conceived and written by Percy Scholes and published in 1938. Since then, it ...
'' and
Grout's ''History of Western Music'' but was not unchallenged. For example, the prominent German musicologist
Friedrich Blume
Friedrich Blume (5 January 1893, in Schlüchtern, Hesse-Nassau – 22 November 1975, in Schlüchtern) was professor of musicology at the University of Kiel from 1938 to 1958. He was a student in Munich, Berlin and Leipzig, and taught in the las ...
, the chief editor of the first edition of ''
Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart
''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart: Allgemeine Enzyklopädie der Musik (MGG)'' is one of the world's most comprehensive encyclopedias of music history and musicology, on account of its scope, content, wealth of research areas, and reference t ...
'' (1949–86), accepted the earlier position that Classicism and Romanticism together constitute a single period beginning in the middle of the 18th century, but at the same time held that it continued into the 20th century, including such pre-World War II developments as
expressionism
Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...
and
neoclassicism
Neoclassicism (also spelled Neo-classicism) was a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassicism was ...
. This is reflected in some notable recent reference works such as the ''
New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theo ...
''
and the new edition of ''
Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart
''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart: Allgemeine Enzyklopädie der Musik (MGG)'' is one of the world's most comprehensive encyclopedias of music history and musicology, on account of its scope, content, wealth of research areas, and reference t ...
''.
File:Mendelssohn Bartholdy.jpg, Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include sy ...
, 1839
File:Robert Schumann 1839.jpg, Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career a ...
, 1839
File:Barabas-liszt.jpg, Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...
, 1847
File:Postcard-1910 Daniel Fransois Auber.jpg, Daniel Auber
Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (; 29 January 178212 May 1871) was a French composer and director of the Paris Conservatoire.
Born into an artistic family, Auber was at first an amateur composer before he took up writing operas professionally when ...
, c. 1868
File:Hector Berlioz.jpg, Hector Berlioz by Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...
, 1850
File:Giuseppe Verdi by Giovanni Boldini.jpg, Giovanni Boldini
Giovanni Boldini (31 December 1842 – 11 January 1931) was an Italian genre and portrait painter who lived and worked in Paris for most of his career. According to a 1933 article in ''Time'' magazine, he was known as the "Master of Swish" becaus ...
, ''Portrait of Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the h ...
'', 1886
File:Richardwagner1.jpg, Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
, c. 1870s
File:Giacomo Meyerbeer nuorempana.jpg, Giacomo Meyerbeer, 1847
File:Gustav Mahler 1896.jpg, Gustav Mahler, 1896
In the contemporary music culture, the romantic musician followed a public career depending on sensitive middle-class audiences rather than on a courtly patron, as had been the case with earlier musicians and composers. Public persona characterized a new generation of virtuosi who made their way as soloists, epitomized in the concert tours of
Paganini and
Liszt
Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...
, and the conductor began to emerge as an important figure, on whose skill the interpretation of the increasingly complex music depended.
Outside the arts
Sciences
The Romantic movement affected most aspects of intellectual life, and
Romanticism and science had a powerful connection, especially in the period 1800–1840. Many scientists were influenced by versions of the ''
Naturphilosophie'' of
Johann Gottlieb Fichte,
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (; 27 January 1775 – 20 August 1854), later (after 1812) von Schelling, was a German philosopher. Standard histories of philosophy make him the midpoint in the development of German idealism, situating him be ...
and
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends ...
and others, and without abandoning
empiricism
In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empir ...
, sought in their work to uncover what they tended to believe was a unified and organic Nature. The English scientist Sir
Humphry Davy
Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet, (17 December 177829 May 1829) was a British chemist and inventor who invented the Davy lamp and a very early form of arc lamp. He is also remembered for isolating, by using electricity, several elements for t ...
, a prominent Romantic thinker, said that understanding nature required "an attitude of admiration, love and worship,
..a personal response". He believed that knowledge was only attainable by those who truly appreciated and respected nature. Self-understanding was an important aspect of Romanticism. It had less to do with proving that man was capable of understanding nature (through his budding intellect) and therefore controlling it, and more to do with the emotional appeal of connecting himself with nature and understanding it through a harmonious co-existence.
Historiography
History writing was very strongly, and many would say harmfully, influenced by Romanticism. In England,
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. A leading writer of the Victorian era, he exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature and philosophy.
Born in Ecclefechan, Dum ...
was a highly influential essayist who turned historian; he both invented and exemplified the phrase "hero-worship", lavishing largely uncritical praise on strong leaders such as
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three Ki ...
,
Frederick the Great
Frederick II (german: Friedrich II.; 24 January 171217 August 1786) was King in Prussia from 1740 until 1772, and King of Prussia from 1772 until his death in 1786. His most significant accomplishments include his military successes in the Sil ...
and
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
. Romantic nationalism had a largely negative effect on the writing of history in the 19th century, as each nation tended to
produce its own version of history, and the critical attitude, even cynicism, of earlier historians was often replaced by a tendency to create romantic stories with clearly distinguished heroes and villains. Nationalist ideology of the period placed great emphasis on racial coherence, and the antiquity of peoples, and tended to vastly overemphasize the continuity between past periods and the present, leading to
national mysticism
National mysticism (German ''Nationalmystik'') or mystical nationalism is a form of nationalism which raises the nation to the status of numen or divinity. Its best known instance is Germanic mysticism, which gave rise to occultism under the Thi ...
. Much historical effort in the 20th century was devoted to combating the romantic historical myths created in the 19th century.
Theology
To insulate theology from
scientism
Scientism is the opinion that science and the scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality.
While the term was defined originally to mean "methods and attitudes typical of or attributed to natural scientis ...
or
reductionism
Reductionism is any of several related philosophical ideas regarding the associations between phenomena which can be described in terms of other simpler or more fundamental phenomena. It is also described as an intellectual and philosophical pos ...
in science, 19th-century post-Enlightenment German theologians developed a modernist or so-called
liberal conception of Christianity, led by
Friedrich Schleiermacher
Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (; 21 November 1768 – 12 February 1834) was a German Reformed theologian, philosopher, and biblical scholar known for his attempt to reconcile the criticisms of the Enlightenment with traditional P ...
and
Albrecht Ritschl
Albrecht Ritschl (25 March 182220 March 1889) was a German Protestant theologian.
Starting in 1852, Ritschl lectured on systematic theology. According to this system, faith was understood to be irreducible to other experiences, beyond the scop ...
. They took the Romantic approach of rooting religion in the inner world of the human spirit, so that it is a person's feeling or sensibility about spiritual matters that comprises religion.
Chess
Romantic chess
Romantic chess is a style of chess popular in the 18th century until the 1880s. This style of chess emphasizes quick, tactical maneuvers rather than long-term strategic planning. Romantic players consider winning to be secondary to winning with sty ...
was the style of
chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...
which emphasized quick, tactical maneuvers characterized by aesthetic beauty rather than long-term strategic planning, which was considered to be of secondary importance.
The Romantic era in chess is generally considered to have begun around the 18th century (although a primarily tactical style of chess was predominant even earlier), and to have reached its peak with Joseph MacDonnell and Pierre LaBourdonnais, the two dominant chess players in the 1830s. The 1840s were dominated by
Howard Staunton
Howard Staunton (April 1810 – 22 June 1874) was an English chess master who is generally regarded as the world's strongest player from 1843 to 1851, largely as a result of his 1843 victory over Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Am ...
, and other leading players of the era included
Adolf Anderssen
Karl Ernst Adolf Anderssen (July 6, 1818 – March 13, 1879)"Anderssen, Adolf" in ''The New Encyclopædia Britannica''. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 15th edn., 1992, Vol. 1, p. 385. was a German chess master. He won the great interna ...
,
Daniel Harrwitz
Daniel Harrwitz (22 February 1821 – 2 January 1884) was a German chess master.
Harrwitz was born in Breslau (Wrocław) in the Prussian Province of Silesia. Harrwitz's correct birth and death dates (22 February 1821 and 2 January 1884 respectiv ...
,
Henry Bird,
Louis Paulsen
Louis Paulsen (15 January 1833 in Gut Nassengrund near Blomberg, Principality of Lippe – 18 August 1891) was a German chess player. In the 1860s and 1870s, he was among the top players in the world. He was a younger brother of Wilfried Pa ...
, and
Paul Morphy
Paul Charles Morphy (June 22, 1837 – July 10, 1884) was an American chess player. He is considered to have been the greatest chess master of his era and is often considered the unofficial World Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, he was c ...
. The "
Immortal Game
The Immortal Game was a chess game played by Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky on 21 June 1851 in London, during a break of the first international tournament. The bold sacrifices Anderssen made have made it one of the most famous chess g ...
", played by Anderssen and
Lionel Kieseritzky
Lionel Adalbert Bagration Felix Kieseritzky (russian: Лионель Адальберт Багратион Феликс Кизерицкий; – ) was a Baltic Germans, Baltic German chess master and Chess theoretician, theoretician, famous for ...
on
21 June 1851 in London—where Anderssen made bold
sacrifices
Sacrifice is the offering of material possessions or the lives of animals or humans to a deity as an act of propitiation or worship. Evidence of ritual animal sacrifice has been seen at least since ancient Hebrews and Greeks, and possibly exis ...
to secure victory, giving up both
rooks
Rook (''Corvus frugilegus'') is a bird of the corvid family. Rook or rooks may also refer to:
Games
*Rook (chess), a piece in chess
*Rook (card game), a trick-taking card game
Military
*Sukhoi Su-25 or Rook, a close air support aircraft
* USS ...
and a bishop, then his
queen
Queen or QUEEN may refer to:
Monarchy
* Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom
** List of queens regnant
* Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king
* Queen dowager, the widow of a king
* Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...
, and then
checkmating his opponent with his three remaining
minor piece
Minor may refer to:
* Minor (law), a person under the age of certain legal activities.
** A person who has not reached the age of majority
* Academic minor, a secondary field of study in undergraduate education
Music theory
* Minor chord
** Ba ...
s—is considered a supreme example of Romantic chess. The end of the Romantic era in chess is considered to be the
1873 Vienna Tournament where
Wilhelm Steinitz
William Steinitz (born Wilhelm Steinitz; May 14, 1836 – August 12, 1900) was an Austrian and, later, American chess player. From 1886 to 1894, he was the first official World Chess Champion. He was also a highly influential writer and che ...
popularized positional play and the closed game.
Romantic nationalism
One of Romanticism's key ideas and most enduring legacies is the assertion of nationalism, which became a central theme of Romantic art and political philosophy. From the earliest parts of the movement, with their focus on development of
national language
A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a nation. There is little consistency in the use of this term. One or more languages spoken as first languages in the te ...
s and
folklore
Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
, and the importance of local customs and traditions, to the movements that would redraw the map of Europe and lead to calls for self-determination of nationalities, nationalism was one of the key vehicles of Romanticism, its role, expression and meaning. One of the most important functions of medieval references in the 19th century was nationalist. Popular and epic poetry were its workhorses. This is visible in Germany and Ireland, where underlying Germanic or Celtic
linguistic substrates dating from before the Romanization-Latinization were sought out.
Early Romantic nationalism was strongly inspired by Rousseau, and by the ideas of
Johann Gottfried von Herder
Johann Gottfried von Herder ( , ; 25 August 174418 December 1803) was a German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic. He is associated with the Enlightenment, '' Sturm und Drang'', and Weimar Classicism.
Biography
Born in Mohrun ...
, who in 1784 argued that the geography formed the natural economy of a people, and shaped their customs and society.
The nature of nationalism changed dramatically, however, after the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
with the rise of
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
, and the reactions in other nations. Napoleonic nationalism and republicanism were, at first, inspirational to movements in other nations: self-determination and a consciousness of national unity were held to be two of the reasons why France was able to defeat other countries in battle. But as the
French Republic
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
became
Napoleon's Empire, Napoleon became not the inspiration for nationalism, but the object of its struggle. In
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
, the development of spiritual renewal as a means to engage in
the struggle against Napoleon was argued by, among others,
Johann Gottlieb Fichte, a disciple of
Kant
Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aest ...
. The word ''
Volkstum
The ''Volkstum'' (lit. ''folkdom'' or ''folklore'', though the meaning is wider than the common usage of folklore) is the entire utterances of a ''Volk'' or ethnic minority over its lifetime, expressing a "''Volkscharakter''" this unit had in comm ...
'', or nationality, was coined in German as part of this resistance to the now conquering emperor. Fichte expressed the unity of language and nation in his address "To the German Nation" in 1806:
Those who speak the same language are joined to each other by a multitude of invisible bonds by nature herself, long before any human art begins; they understand each other and have the power of continuing to make themselves understood more and more clearly; they belong together and are by nature one and an inseparable whole. ...Only when each people, left to itself, develops and forms itself in accordance with its own peculiar quality, and only when in every people each individual develops himself in accordance with that common quality, as well as in accordance with his own peculiar quality—then, and then only, does the manifestation of divinity appear in its true mirror as it ought to be.
This view of nationalism inspired the collection of
folklore
Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
by such people as the
Brothers Grimm
The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859), were a brother duo of German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers, and authors who together collected and published folklore. They are among the ...
, the revival of old epics as national, and the construction of new epics as if they were old, as in the ''
Kalevala
The ''Kalevala'' ( fi, Kalevala, ) is a 19th-century work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology, telling an epic story about the Creation of the Earth, describing the controversies and r ...
'', compiled from Finnish tales and folklore, or ''
Ossian'', where the claimed ancient roots were invented. The view that fairy tales, unless contaminated from outside literary sources, were preserved in the same form over thousands of years, was not exclusive to Romantic Nationalists, but fit in well with their views that such tales expressed the primordial nature of a people. For instance, the Brothers Grimm rejected many tales they collected because of their similarity to tales by
Charles Perrault
Charles Perrault ( , also , ; 12 January 1628 – 16 May 1703) was an iconic French author and member of the Académie Française. He laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from earlier folk tales ...
, which they thought proved they were not truly German tales; ''
Sleeping Beauty
''Sleeping Beauty'' (french: La belle au bois dormant, or ''The Beauty in the Sleeping Forest''; german: Dornröschen, or ''Little Briar Rose''), also titled in English as ''The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods'', is a fairy tale about a princess cu ...
'' survived in their collection because the tale of
Brynhildr
Brunhild, also known as Brunhilda or Brynhild ( non, Brynhildr , gmh, Brünhilt, german: Brünhild , label=New High German, Modern German or ), is a female character from Germanic heroic legend. She may have her origins in the Visigoths, Vis ...
convinced them that the figure of the sleeping princess was authentically German.
Vuk Karadžić
Vuk Stefanović Karadžić ( sr-Cyrl, Вук Стефановић Караџић, ; 6 November 1787 (26 October OS)7 February 1864) was a Serbian philologist, anthropologist and linguist. He was one of the most important reformers of the moder ...
contributed to
Serbian folk literature, using peasant culture as the foundation. He regarded the oral literature of the peasants as an integral part of Serbian culture, compiling it to use in his collections of folk songs, tales and proverbs, as well as the first dictionary of vernacular Serbian. Similar projects were undertaken by the Russian
Alexander Afanasyev
Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev (Afanasief, Afanasiev or Afanas'ev, russian: link=no, Александр Николаевич Афанасьев) ( — ) was a Russian Slavist and ethnographer who published nearly 600 Russian fairy and folk ta ...
, the Norwegians
Peter Christen Asbjørnsen
Peter Christen Asbjørnsen (15 January 18125 January 1885) was a Norwegian writer and scholar. He and Jørgen Engebretsen Moe were collectors of Norwegian folklore. They were so closely united in their lives' work that their folk tale collections ...
and
Jørgen Moe
Jørgen Engebretsen Moe (22 April 1813–27 March 1882) was a Norwegian folklorist, bishop, poet, and author. He is best known for the '' Norske Folkeeventyr'', a collection of Norwegian folk tales which he edited in collaboration with Pe ...
, and the Englishman
Joseph Jacobs
Joseph Jacobs (29 August 1854 – 30 January 1916) was an Australian folklorist, translator, literary critic, social scientist, historian and writer of English literature who became a notable collector and publisher of English folklore.
Jacobs ...
.
[Jack Zipes, ''The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm'', p. 846, ]
Polish nationalism and messianism
![Night november](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Night_november.jpg)
Romanticism played an essential role in the national awakening of many Central European peoples lacking their own national states, not least in Poland, which had recently failed to restore its independence when
Russia's army crushed the
Polish Uprising
This is a chronological list of military conflicts in which Polish armed forces fought or took place on Polish territory from the reign of Mieszko I (960–992) to the ongoing military operations.
This list does not include peacekeeping operation ...
under
Nicholas I. Revival and reinterpretation of ancient myths, customs and traditions by Romantic poets and painters helped to distinguish their indigenous cultures from those of the dominant nations and crystallise the mythography of
Romantic nationalism
Romantic nationalism (also national romanticism, organic nationalism, identity nationalism) is the form of nationalism in which the state claims its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs. This includes ...
. Patriotism, nationalism, revolution and armed struggle for independence also became popular themes in the arts of this period. Arguably, the most distinguished Romantic poet of this part of Europe was
Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (; 24 December 179826 November 1855) was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator and political activist. He is regarded as national poet in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. A principal figure in Polish Ro ...
, who developed an idea that
Poland was the Messiah of Nations, predestined to suffer just as
Jesus
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
had suffered to save all the people. The Polish self-image as a "
Christ among nations" or the martyr of Europe can be traced back to its history of
Christendom
Christendom historically refers to the Christian states, Christian-majority countries and the countries in which Christianity dominates, prevails,SeMerriam-Webster.com : dictionary, "Christendom"/ref> or is culturally or historically intertwine ...
and suffering under invasions. During the periods of foreign occupation, the Catholic Church served as bastion of Poland's national identity and language, and the major promoter of
Polish culture
The culture of Poland ( pl, Kultura Polski ) is the product of its geography and distinct historical evolution, which is closely connected to an intricate thousand-year history. Polish culture forms an important part of western civilization and ...
. The
partitions
Partition may refer to:
Computing Hardware
* Disk partitioning, the division of a hard disk drive
* Memory partition, a subdivision of a computer's memory, usually for use by a single job
Software
* Partition (database), the division of a ...
came to be seen in Poland as a Polish sacrifice for the security for
Western civilization
Leonardo da Vinci's ''Vitruvian Man''. Based on the correlations of ideal Body proportions">human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise ''De architectura''.
image:Plato Pio-Cle ...
. Adam Mickiewicz wrote the patriotic drama ''
Dziady
Dziady ( Belarusian: , Russian: , Ukrainian: , pl, Dziady; lit. "grandfathers, eldfathers", sometimes translated as Forefathers' Eve) is a term in Slavic folklore for the spirits of the ancestors and a collection of pre-Christian rites, ritual ...
'' (directed against the Russians), where he depicts Poland as the Christ of Nations. He also wrote "Verily I say unto you, it is not for you to learn civilization from foreigners, but it is you who are to teach them civilization ... You are among the foreigners like the Apostles among the idolaters". In ''Books of the Polish Nation and Polish Pilgrimage'' Mickiewicz detailed his vision of Poland as a Messias and a Christ of Nations, that would save mankind. Dziady is known for various interpretation. The most known ones are the moral aspect of part II,
individualist
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and to value independence and self-relianc ...
and romantic message of part IV, as well as deeply patriotic, messianistic and Christian vision in part III of the poem. Zdzisław Kępiński, however, focuses his interpretation on
Slavic pagan and
occult
The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism a ...
elements found in the drama. In his book ''Mickiewicz hermetyczny'' he writes about
hermetic
Hermetic or related forms may refer to:
* of or related to the ancient Greek Olympian god Hermes
* of or related to Hermes Trismegistus, a legendary Hellenistic figure based on the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth
** , the ancient and m ...
,
theosophic and
alchemical
Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world, ...
philosophy on the book as well as
Masonic
Freemasonry or Masonry refers to Fraternity, fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of Stonemasonry, stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their inte ...
symbols.
Gallery
;Emerging Romanticism in the 18th century
File:Shipwrec-vernet.jpg, Joseph Vernet
Claude-Joseph Vernet (14 August 17143 December 1789) was a French painter. His son, Antoine Charles Horace Vernet, was also a painter.
Life and work
Vernet was born in Avignon. When only fourteen years of age he aided his father, Antoine Vern ...
, 1759, ''Shipwreck''; the 18th-century "sublime"
File:Joseph Wright 004.jpg, Joseph Wright Joseph Wright may refer to:
*Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–1797), English painter
*Joseph Wright (American painter) (1756–1793), American portraitist
*Joseph Wright (fl. 1837/1845), whose company, Messrs. Joseph Wright and Sons, became the Metro ...
, 1774, ''Cave at evening'', Smith College Museum of Art
The Smith College Museum of Art (abbreviated SCMA), is an art museum in Northampton, Massachusetts connected with Smith College. The museum is known for its compilation of American and European art of the 19th and 20th centuries, including works by ...
, Northampton, Massachusetts
The city of Northampton is the county seat of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of Northampton (including its outer villages, Florence and Leeds) was 29,571.
Northampton is known as an acade ...
File:John Henry Fuseli - The NightmareFXD.jpg, Henry Fuseli
Henry Fuseli ( ; German: Johann Heinrich Füssli ; 7 February 1741 – 17 April 1825) was a Swiss painter, draughtsman and writer on art who spent much of his life in Britain. Many of his works, such as '' The Nightmare'', deal with supernatu ...
, 1781, ''The Nightmare
''The Nightmare'' is a 1781 oil painting by Swiss artist Henry Fuseli. It shows a woman in deep sleep with her arms thrown below her, and with a demonic and apelike incubus crouched on her chest.
The painting's dreamlike and haunting erotic ...
'', a classical artist whose themes often anticipate the Romantic
File:Philipp Jakob Loutherbourg d. J. 002.jpg, Philip James de Loutherbourg
Philip James de Loutherbourg RA (31 October 174011 March 1812), whose name is sometimes given in the French form of Philippe-Jacques, the German form of Philipp Jakob, or with the English-language epithet of the Younger, was a French-born Brit ...
, ''Coalbrookdale by Night
''Coalbrookdale by Night'' is an 1801 oil painting by Philip James de Loutherbourg.
The painting depicts the Madeley Wood (or Bedlam) Furnaces, which belonged to the Coalbrookdale Company from 1776 to 1796. The picture has come to symbolize th ...
'', 1801, a key location of the English Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
;French Romantic painting
File:GericaultHorseman.jpg, Théodore Géricault
Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault (; 26 September 1791 – 26 January 1824) was a French Painting, painter and Lithography, lithographer, whose best-known painting is ''The Raft of the Medusa''. Although he died young, he was one of the pi ...
, ''The Charging Chasseur
''The Charging Chasseur'', or ''An Officer of the Chasseurs à Cheval de la Garde Impériale, Imperial Horse Guards Charging'' is an oil painting on canvas of about 1812 by the French painter Théodore Géricault, portraying a mounted Napoleoni ...
'', c. 1812
File:IngresDeathOfDaVinci.jpg, Ingres, ''The Death of Leonardo da Vinci
''The Death of Leonardo da Vinci'' or ''Francis I Receives the Last Breaths of Leonardo da Vinci'' is an 1818 painting by the French artist Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, showing the painter Leonardo da Vinci dying, with Francis I of France holdin ...
'', 1818, one of his Troubadour style works
File:Eugène Delacroix - Collision of Moorish Horsemen - Walters 376.jpg, Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...
, ''Collision of Moorish Horsemen'', 1843–44
File:Eugène Delacroix - The Bride of Abydos - WGA06224.jpg, Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...
, ''The Bride of Abydos'', 1857, after the poem by Byron
;Other
File:Waterfalls at Subiaco Joseph Anton Koch.jpeg, Joseph Anton Koch
Joseph Anton Koch (27 July 1768 – 12 January 1839) was an Austrian painter of Neoclassicism and later the German Romantic movement; he is perhaps the most significant neoclassical landscape painter.
Biography
The Tyrolese painter was born i ...
, ''Waterfalls at Subiaco'', 1812–1813, a "classical" landscape to art historians
File:James Ward - Gordale Scar (A View of Gordale, in the Manor of East Malham in Craven, Yorkshire, the Property of Lord Ribblesdale) - Google Art Project.jpg, James Ward James Ward may refer to:
Military
*James Ward (Medal of Honor, 1864) (1833–?), American Civil War sailor
* James Ward (Medal of Honor, 1890) (1854–1901), American Indian Wars soldier
*James Allen Ward (1919–1941), New Zealand pilot and Vi ...
, 1814–1815, ''Gordale Scar''
File:John Constable The Hay Wain.jpg, John Constable
John Constable (; 11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English landscape painter in the Romanticism, Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedha ...
, 1821, ''The Hay Wain
''The Hay Wain'' – originally titled ''Landscape: Noon'' – is a painting by John Constable, completed in 1821, which depicts a rural scene on the River Stour between the English counties of Suffolk and Essex. It hangs in the National Galler ...
'', one of Constable's large "six footers"
File:J.C. Dahl - Eruption of the Volcano Vesuvius - Google Art Project.jpg, J. C. Dahl, 1826, ''Eruption of Vesuvius
Mount Vesuvius ( ; it, Vesuvio ; nap, 'O Vesuvio , also or ; la, Vesuvius , also , or ) is a somma- stratovolcano located on the Gulf of Naples in Campania, Italy, about east of Naples and a short distance from the shore. It is one of ...
'', by Friedrich's closest follower
File:The Wood of the Self-Murderers.jpg, William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...
, c. 1824–27, '' The Wood of the Self-Murderers: The Harpies and the Suicides'', Tate
Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...
File:Karl Brullov - The Last Day of Pompeii - Google Art Project.jpg, Karl Bryullov
Karl Pavlovich Bryullov (russian: Карл Па́влович Брюлло́в; 12 December 1799 – 11 June 1852), original name Charles Bruleau, also transliterated Briullov and Briuloff, and referred to by his friends as "Karl the Great", was a ...
, '' The Last Day of Pompeii'', 1833, The State Russian Museum
The State Russian Museum (russian: Государственный Русский музей), formerly the Russian Museum of His Imperial Majesty Alexander III (russian: Русский Музей Императора Александра III), on ...
, St. Petersburg, Russia
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
File:Isaak Ilitsch Lewitan 003.jpg, Isaac Levitan
Isaac Ilyich Levitan (russian: Исаа́к Ильи́ч Левита́н; – ) was a classical Russian landscape painter who advanced the genre of the "mood landscape".
Life and work
Youth
Isaac Levitan was born in a shtetl of Kibarty ...
, ''Pacific'', 1898, State Russian Museum
The State Russian Museum (russian: Государственный Русский музей), formerly the Russian Museum of His Imperial Majesty Alexander III (russian: Русский Музей Императора Александра III), on ...
, St.Petersburg
File:Turner-The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons.jpg, J. M. W. Turner, '' The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons'' (1835), Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...
File:Hans Gude--Vinterettermiddag--1847.jpg, Hans Gude
Hans Fredrik Gude (March 13, 1825August 17, 1903) was a Norwegian romanticist painter and is considered along with Johan Christian Dahl to be one of Norway's foremost landscape painters. He has been called a mainstay of Norwegian National Roma ...
, ''Winter Afternoon'', 1847, National Gallery of Norway
The National Gallery ( no, Nasjonalgalleriet) is a gallery in Oslo, Norway. Since 2003 it is administratively a part of the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design.
, the admission cost is 100 Norwegian kroner.
History
It was establish ...
, Oslo
Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...
File:Hovhannes Aivazovsky - The Ninth Wave - Google Art Project.jpg, Ivan Aivazovsky
Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky (russian: link=no, Иван Константинович Айвазовский; 29 July 18172 May 1900) was a Russian Romantic painter who is considered one of the greatest masters of marine art. Baptized a ...
, 1850, ''The Ninth Wave
''The Ninth Wave'' (russian: Девятый вал, ''Dyevyatiy val'') is an 1850 painting by Russian-Armenian marine painter Ivan Aivazovsky
Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky (russian: link=no, Иван Константинович Ай ...
'', Russian Museum
The State Russian Museum (russian: Государственный Русский музей), formerly the Russian Museum of His Imperial Majesty Alexander III (russian: Русский Музей Императора Александра III), on ...
, St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
File:John Martin - Sodom and Gomorrah.jpg, John Martin, 1852, ''The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah
Sodom and Gomorrah () were two legendary biblical cities destroyed by God for their wickedness. Their story parallels the Genesis flood narrative in its theme of God's anger provoked by man's sin (see Genesis 19:1–28). They are mentioned frequ ...
'', Laing Art Gallery
The Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, is located on New Bridge Street West. The gallery was designed in the Baroque style with Art Nouveau elements by architects Cackett & Burns Dick and is now a Grade II listed building. It ...
File:Twilight in the Wilderness by Frederic Edwin Church (3).jpg, Frederic Edwin Church
Frederic Edwin Church (May 4, 1826 – April 7, 1900) was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, best known for painting large landscapes, ...
, 1860, ''Twilight in the Wilderness
''Twilight in the Wilderness'' is an 1860 oil painting by American painter Frederic Edwin Church. The woodlands of the northeastern United States are shown against a setting sun that intensely colors the dramatic altocumulus clouds. Church schola ...
'', Cleveland Museum of Art
The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian ...
File:Albert Bierstadt - The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak.jpg, Albert Bierstadt
Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was no ...
, 1863, ''The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak
''The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak'' is an 1863 landscape oil painting by the German-American painter Albert Bierstadt. It is based on sketches made during Bierstadt's travels with Frederick W. Lander's Honey Road Survey Party in 1859. The ...
''
Romantic authors
Scholars of Romanticism
See also
Related terms
*
Clandestine literature Clandestine literature, also called "underground literature", refers to a type of editorial and publishing process that involves self-publishing works, often in contradiction with the legal standards of a location. Clandestine literature is often an ...
*
Goethean science
Goethean science concerns the natural philosophy (German ''Naturphilosophie'' "philosophy of nature") of German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Although primarily known as a literary figure, Goethe did research in morphology, anatomy, and optic ...
*
Humboldtian science
Humboldtian science refers to a movement in science in the 19th century closely connected to the work and writings of German scientist, naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt. It maintained a certain ethics of precision and observation, ...
*
Sentimentalism (literature)
Sentimentalism is a practice of being sentimental, and thus tending toward basing actions and reactions upon emotions and feelings, in preference to reason."sentimentalism, n.", ''Oxford English Dictionary''
As a literary mode, sentimentalism ...
Opposing terms
*
The Academy
*
Positivism
Positivism is an empiricist philosophical theory that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positive—meaning ''a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. G ...
*
Utilitarianism
In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals.
Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different charact ...
Related subjects
*
Coleridge's theory of life
Coleridge's theory of life is an attempt by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to understand not just inert or still nature, but also vital nature. He examines this topic most comprehensibly in his work ''Hints towards the Formation of a more Comprehensive T ...
*
Dark Romanticism
*
List of romantics
List of romantics
Brazilian Romanticism
* Joaquim Manuel de Macedo (novelist)
* José de Alencar (novelist)
* Castro Alves (poet)
*Gonçalves Dias (poet)
* Fagundes Varela (poet)
* Casimiro de Abreu (poet)
*Álvares de Azevedo (poet, short-stor ...
* ''
Mal du siècle''
*
Middle Ages in history
*
Neo-romanticism
**
Post-romanticism
Post-romanticism or Postromanticism refers to a range of cultural endeavors and attitudes emerging in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, after the period of Romanticism.
Post-romanticism in literature
The period of post-romantici ...
*
Opium and Romanticism
* ''
Plagiarism and Literary Property in the Romantic Period
''Plagiarism and Literary Property in the Romantic Period'' is a non-fiction book written by Tilar J. Mazzeo. In the book, Mazzeo shows that Romantic-period ideas surrounding plagiarism are at variance with twentieth-century perceptions. Also, M ...
''
*
Romantic ballet
The Romantic ballet is defined primarily by an era in ballet in which the ideas of Romanticism in art and literature influenced the creation of ballets. The era occurred during the early to mid 19th century primarily at the Théâtre de l'Académ ...
*
Romantic epistemology
Romantic epistemology emerged from the Romantic challenge to both the static, materialist views of the Enlightenment (Hobbes) and the contrary idealist stream (Hume) when it came to studying life. Romanticism needed to develop a new theory of knowl ...
*
Romantic hero
The Romantic hero is a literary archetype referring to a character that rejects established norms and conventions, has been rejected by society, and has themselves at the center of their own existence. The Romantic hero is often the protagonist in ...
*
Romantic medicine
Romantic medicine is part of the broader movement known as Romanticism, most predominant in the period 1800–1840, and involved both the cultural (humanities) and natural sciences, not to mention efforts to better understand man within a spiritual ...
*
Romantic poetry
Romantic poetry is the poetry of the Romantic era, an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. It involved a reaction against prevailing Enlightenment ideas of the 18t ...
**
List of Romantic poets This article lists the most notable Romantic poets.
England
The six best-known English male authors are, in order of birth and with an example of their work:
* William Blake – '' The Marriage of Heaven and Hell''
* William Wordsworth – '' ...
Related movements
*
Arts and Crafts movement
*
Decadent movement
The Decadent movement (Fr. ''décadence'', “decay”) was a late-19th-century artistic and literary movement, centered in Western Europe, that followed an aesthetic ideology of excess and artificiality.
The Decadent movement first flourished ...
*
Düsseldorf School
Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...
*
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James ...
*
Vegetarianism and Romanticism
Vegetarianism in the Romantic Era refers to the rise of vegetarianism associated with the Romanticism movement in Western Europe from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century. Many of the late Romantics argued in favor of a more natural diet whic ...
*
Marxist-Leninist views on Romanticism
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels considered the Romanticism, Romantic-aristocratic critiques of capitalism as belonging to the current they called feudal socialism: "half lamentation, half lampoon; half an echo of the past, half menace of the future; ...
*
Underground culture
Underground culture, or simply underground, is a term to describe various alternative cultures which either consider themselves different from the mainstream of society and culture, or are considered so by others. The word "underground" is used ...
References
Citations
Sources
*
Adler, Guido. 1911. ''Der Stil in der Musik''. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel.
* Adler, Guido. 1919. ''Methode der Musikgeschichte''. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel.
* Adler, Guido. 1930. ''Handbuch der Musikgeschichte'', second, thoroughly revised and greatly expanded edition. 2 vols. Berlin-Wilmersdorf: H. Keller. Reprinted, Tutzing: Schneider, 1961.
*
Barzun, Jacques
Jacques Martin Barzun (; November 30, 1907 – October 25, 2012) was a French-American historian known for his studies of the history of ideas and cultural history. He wrote about a wide range of subjects, including baseball, mystery novels, and ...
. 2000. ''
From Dawn to Decadence
''From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life'' is a book written by Jacques Barzun. Published in 2000, it is a large-scale survey history of trends in history, politics, culture, and ideas in Western civilization, and argues that, ...
: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present''. .
*
Berlin, Isaiah. 1990. ''The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas'', ed. Henry Hardy. London: John Murray. .
*
Bloom, Harold (ed.). 1986. ''George Gordon, Lord Byron''. New York: Chelsea House Publishers.
*
Blume, Friedrich. 1970. ''Classic and Romantic Music'', translated by M. D. Herter Norton from two essays first published in ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart''. New York: W.W. Norton.
* Black, Joseph, Leonard Conolly, Kate Flint, Isobel Grundy, Don LePan, Roy Liuzza, Jerome J. McGann, Anne Lake Prescott, Barry V. Qualls, and Claire Waters. 2010
The Broadview Anthology of British Literature Volume 4: The Age of Romanticism Second Edition Peterborough: Broadview Press. .
* Bowra, C. Maurice. 1949. ''The Romantic Imagination'' (in series, "Galaxy Book
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* Boyer, Jean-Paul. 1961. "Romantisme". ''Encyclopédie de la musique'', edited by François Michel, with
François Lesure
François Lesure (23 May 1923 in Paris – 21 June 2001) was a French librarian and musicologist.
Biography
François Lesure studied at the Sorbonne, the École nationale des chartes (graduated in 1950), the École pratique des hautes étude ...
and Vladimir Fédorov, 3:585–87. Paris: Fasquelle.
*
Christiansen, Rupert. 1988. ''Romantic Affinities: Portraits From an Age, 1780–1830''. London: Bodley Head. . Paperback reprint, London: Cardinal, 1989 . Paperback reprint, London: Vintage, 1994. . Paperback reprint, London: Pimlico, 2004. .
* Cunningham, Andrew, and Nicholas Jardine (eds.) (1990). ''Romanticism and the Sciences''. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. (cloth); (pbk.)
another excerpt-and-text-search source.
* Day, Aidan. ''Romanticism'', 1996, Routledge, .
*
Eco, Umberto. 1994. "Interpreting Serials", in his
The Limits of Interpretation'', pp. 83–100. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
excerpt
*
Einstein, Alfred. 1947. ''Music in the Romantic Era''. New York: W.W. Norton.
* Ferber, Michael. 2010. ''Romanticism: A Very Short Introduction''. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. .
*
Friedlaender, Walter, ''David to Delacroix'', (Originally published in German; reprinted 1980) 1952.
* Greenblatt, Stephen, M. H. Abrams, Alfred David, James Simpson, George Logan, Lawrence Lipking, James Noggle, Jon Stallworthy, Jahan Ramazani,
Jack Stillinger
Jack may refer to:
Places
* Jack, Alabama, US, an unincorporated community
* Jack, Missouri, US, an unincorporated community
* Jack County, Texas, a county in Texas, USA
People and fictional characters
* Jack (given name), a male given name, ...
, and Deidre Shauna Lynch. 2006. ''
Norton Anthology of English Literature
''The Norton Anthology of English Literature'' is an anthology of English literature published by W. W. Norton & Company, one of several such compendiums. First published in 1962, it has gone through ten editions; as of 2006 there are over eigh ...
'', eighth edition, ''The Romantic Period – Volume D''. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. .
*
Grétry, André-Ernest-Modeste. 1789. ''Mémoires, ou Essai sur la musique''. 3 vols. Paris: Chez l'auteur, de L'Imprimerie de la république, 1789. Second, enlarged edition, Paris: Imprimerie de la république, pluviôse, 1797. Republished, 3 vols., Paris: Verdiere, 1812; Brussels: Whalen, 1829. Facsimile of the 1797 edition, Da Capo Press Music Reprint Series. New York: Da Capo Press, 1971. Facsimile reprint in 1 volume of the 1829 Brussels edition, Bibliotheca musica Bononiensis, Sezione III no. 43. Bologna: Forni Editore, 1978.
* Grout, Donald Jay. 1960. ''A History of Western Music''. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
*
Hoffmann, Ernst Theodor Amadeus. 1810. "Recension: Sinfonie pour 2 Violons, 2 Violes, Violoncelle e Contre-Violon, 2 Flûtes, petite Flûte, 2 Hautbois, 2 Clarinettes, 2 Bassons, Contrabasson, 2 Cors, 2 Trompettes, Timbales et 3 Trompes, composée et dediée etc. par Louis van Beethoven. à Leipsic, chez Breitkopf et Härtel, Oeuvre 67. No. 5. des Sinfonies. (Pr. 4 Rthlr. 12 Gr.)". ''Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung'' 12, no. 40 (4 July), cols. 630–42
er Beschluss folgt. 12, no. 41 (11 July), cols. 652–59.
*
Honour, Hugh, ''Neo-classicism'', 1968, Pelican.
*
Hughes, Robert. ''Goya''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004. .
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''American Art in the 20th Century: Painting and Sculpture 1913–1993''.
* Macfarlane, Robert. 2007.
'Romantic' Originality'', i
''Original Copy: Plagiarism and Originality in Nineteenth-Century Literature'', March 2007, pp. 18–50(33)
* Noon, Patrick (ed), ''Crossing the Channel, British and French Painting in the Age of Romanticism'', 2003, Tate Publishing/Metropolitan Museum of Art.
*
Novotny, Fritz, ''Painting and Sculpture in Europe, 1780–1880'' (Pelican History of Art), Yale University Press, 2nd edn. 1971 .
* Ruthven, Kenneth Knowles. 2001. ''Faking Literature''. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. .
*
* Samson, Jim. 2001. "Romanticism". ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by
Stanley Sadie
Stanley John Sadie (; 30 October 1930 – 21 March 2005) was an influential and prolific British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1980), which was publ ...
and
John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
*
*
Smith, Logan Pearsall (1924) ''Four Words: Romantic, Originality, Creative, Genius''. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*
Spearing, A. C. 1987. ''Introduction'' section to Chaucer's ''
The Franklin's Prologue and Tale''
*
Steiner, George. 1998. "Topologies of Culture", chapter 6 of ''
After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation'', third revised edition. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. .
* Wagner, Richard. ''Opera and Drama'', translated by William Ashton Ellis. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995. Originally published as volume 2 of ''Richard Wagner's Prose Works'' (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1900), a translation from ''Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen'' (Leipzig, 1871–73, 1883).
* Warrack, John. 2002. "Romanticism". ''The Oxford Companion to Music'', edited by Alison Latham. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. .
* Waterhouse, Francis A. 1926.
Romantic 'Originality''' in ''
The Sewanee Review
''The Sewanee Review'' is an American literary magazine established in 1892. It is the oldest continuously published quarterly in the United States. It publishes original fiction and poetry, essays, reviews, and literary criticism.
History
''T ...
'', Vol. 34, No. 1 (January 1926), pp. 40–49.
* Weber, Patrick, ''Histoire de l'Architecture de l'Antiquité à Nos Jours'', Librio, Paris, (2008) .
* Wehnert, Martin. 1998. "Romantik und romantisch". ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart: allgemeine Enzyklopädie der Musik, begründet von Friedrich Blume'', second revised edition. Sachteil 8: Quer–Swi, cols. 464–507. Basel, Kassel, London, Munich, and Prague: Bärenreiter; Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler.
Further reading
* Abrams, Meyer H. 1971. ''The Mirror and the Lamp''. London: Oxford University Press. .
* Abrams, Meyer H. 1973. ''Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature''. New York: W.W. Norton.
*
Barzun, Jacques
Jacques Martin Barzun (; November 30, 1907 – October 25, 2012) was a French-American historian known for his studies of the history of ideas and cultural history. He wrote about a wide range of subjects, including baseball, mystery novels, and ...
. 1943. ''Romanticism and the Modern Ego''. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.
* Barzun, Jacques. 1961. ''Classic, Romantic, and Modern''. University of Chicago Press. .
* Berlin, Isaiah. 1999. ''The Roots of Romanticism''. London: Chatto and Windus. .
*Blanning, Tim. ''The Romantic Revolution: A History'' (2011) 272pp
* Breckman, Warren, ''European Romanticism: A Brief History with Documents''. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007.
* Cavalletti, Carlo. 2000. ''Chopin and Romantic Music'', translated by Anna Maria Salmeri Pherson. Hauppauge, New York: Barron's Educational Series. (Hardcover) .
* Chaudon, Francis. 1980. ''The Concise Encyclopedia of Romanticism''. Secaucus, N.J.: Chartwell Books. .
* Ciofalo, John J. 2001. "The Ascent of Genius in the Court and Academy." ''The Self-Portraits of Francisco Goya.'' Cambridge University Press.
* Clewis, Robert R., ed. ''The Sublime Reader''. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019.
* Cox, Jeffrey N. 2004. ''Poetry and Politics in the Cockney School: Keats, Shelley, Hunt and Their Circle''. Cambridge University Press. .
* Dahlhaus, Carl. 1979. "Neo-Romanticism". ''19th-Century Music'' 3, no. 2 (November): 97–105.
*
Dahlhaus, Carl. 1980. ''Between Romanticism and Modernism: Four Studies in the Music of the Later Nineteenth Century'', translated by Mary Whittall in collaboration with Arnold Whittall; also with Friedrich Nietzsche, "On Music and Words", translated by Walter Arnold Kaufmann. California Studies in 19th Century Music 1. Berkeley: University of California Press. . Original German edition, as ''Zwischen Romantik und Moderne: vier Studien zur Musikgeschichte des späteren 19. Jahrhunderts''. Munich: Musikverlag Katzber, 1974.
* Dahlhaus, Carl. 1985. ''Realism in Nineteenth-Century Music'', translated by Mary Whittall. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. . Original German edition, as ''Musikalischer Realismus: zur Musikgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts''. Munich: R. Piper, 1982. .
* Fabre, Côme, and Felix Krämer (eds.). 2013. ''L'ange du bizarre: Le romantisme noire de Goya a Max Ernst'', à l'occasion de l'Exposition, Stadel Museum, Francfort, 26 septembre 2012 – 20 janvier 2013, Musée d'Orsay, Paris, 5 mars – 9 juin 2013. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz. .
* Fay, Elizabeth. 2002. ''Romantic Medievalism. History and the Romantic Literary Ideal.'' Houndsmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave.
* Gaull, Marilyn. 1988. ''English Romanticism: The Human Context.'' New York and London: W.W. Norton. .
*Garofalo, Piero. 2005. "Italian Romanticisms." ''Companion to European Romanticism'', ed. Michael Ferber. London: Blackwell Press, 238–255.
* Geck, Martin. 1998. "Realismus". ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart: Allgemeine Enzyklopädie der Musik begründe von Friedrich Blume'', second, revised edition, edited by
Ludwig Finscher
Ludwig Finscher (14 March 193030 June 2020) was a German musicologist. He was a professor of music history at the University of Heidelberg from 1981 to 1995 and editor of the encyclopedia ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart''. He is respecte ...
. Sachteil 8: Quer–Swi, cols. 91–99. Kassel, Basel, London, New York, Prague: Bärenreiter; Suttgart and Weimar: Metzler. (
Bärenreiter); (Metzler).
* Grewe, Cordula. 2009. ''Painting the Sacred in the Age of German Romanticism''. Burlington: Ashgate.
* Hamilton, Paul, ed. ''The Oxford Handbook of European Romanticism'' (2016).
* Hesmyr, Atle. 2018. ''From Enlightenment to Romanticism in 18th Century Europe''
* Holmes, Richard. 2009. ''The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science''. London: HarperPress. . New York: Pantheon Books. . Paperback reprint, New York: Vintage Books.
* Honour, Hugh. 1979. ''Romanticism''. New York: Harper and Row. .
* Kravitt, Edward F. 1992. "Romanticism Today". ''The Musical Quarterly'' 76, no. 1 (Spring): 93–109.
* Lang, Paul Henry. 1941. ''Music in Western Civilization''. New York: W.W. Norton
* McCalman, Iain (ed.). 2009. ''An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age''. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Online a
Oxford Reference Online
* Mason, Daniel Gregory. 1936. ''The Romantic Composers''. New York: Macmillan.
* Masson, Scott. 2007. "Romanticism", Chapt. 7 in ''The Oxford Handbook of English Literature and Theology'', (Oxford University Press).
* Murray, Christopher, ed. ''Encyclopedia of the romantic era, 1760–1850'' (2 vol 2004); 850 articles by experts; 1600pp
*
Mazzeo, Tilar J.
Tilar J. Mazzeo is an American-Canadian cultural historian, wine writer, and author of several bestselling works of narrative nonfiction. She was the Clara C. Piper Associate Professor of English at Colby College in Maine from 2004-2019. she is P ...
2006. ''
Plagiarism and Literary Property in the Romantic Period
''Plagiarism and Literary Property in the Romantic Period'' is a non-fiction book written by Tilar J. Mazzeo. In the book, Mazzeo shows that Romantic-period ideas surrounding plagiarism are at variance with twentieth-century perceptions. Also, M ...
''. University of Pennsylvania Press.
*
*
Plantinga, Leon. 1984. ''Romantic Music: A History of Musical Style in Nineteenth-Century Europe''. A Norton Introduction to Music History. New York: W.W. Norton.
* Reynolds, Nicole. 2010. ''Building Romanticism: Literature and Architecture in Nineteenth-century Britain''. University of Michigan Press. .
*
Riasanovsky, Nicholas V. 1992. ''The Emergence of Romanticism''. New York: Oxford University Press.
*
Rosen, Charles. 1995. ''The Romantic Generation''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. .
* Rosenblum, Robert, ''Modern Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition: Friedrich to Rothko'', (Harper & Row) 1975.
* Rummenhöller, Peter. 1989. ''Romantik in der Musik: Analysen, Portraits, Reflexionen''. Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag; Kassel and New York: Bärenreiter.
* Ruston, Sharon. 2013. ''Creating Romanticism: Case Studies in the Literature, Science and Medicine of the 1790s''. Palgrave Macmillan. .
* Schenk, H. G. 1966. ''The Mind of the European Romantics: An Essay in Cultural History''. : Constable.
* Spencer, Stewart. 2008. "The 'Romantic Operas' and the Turn to Myth". In ''
The Cambridge Companion to Wagner'', edited by Thomas S. Grey, 67–73. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. .
* Tekiner, Deniz. 2000. ''Modern Art and the Romantic Vision''. Lanham, Maryland. University Press of America. .
* Tong, Q. S. 1997. ''Reconstructing Romanticism: Organic Theory Revisited''. Poetry Salzburg.
* Workman, Leslie J. 1994. "Medievalism and Romanticism". ''Poetica'' 39–40: 1–34.
Black Letter Press 2019. "Oh, Death!" Anthology of English Romantic Poetry, selected by Claudio Rocchetti
External links
Romantics & Victoriansexplored on the British Library Discovering Literature website
The Romantic Poets"Romanticism" ''Dictionary of the History of Ideas''
"Romanticism in Political Thought" ''Dictionary of the History of Ideas''
''Romantic Circles''Electronic editions, histories, and scholarly articles related to the Romantic era
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18th century in art
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Romanticism
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
European art
European literature
European music
German idealism
Literary genres
Romanticism
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
Theories of aesthetics