Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Romanticism - Coggle Diagram
Romanticism
Where had it its origins?
In
France
Rousseau's theories of the noble savage and incorrupted childhood brought to a new sensibility linked to emotions rather than reason. Chateaubriand, La Martine and Madame de Stael were among the most representative exponents of French Romanticism
In
Germany
this taste developed deeply and turned into the awareness of human limits and the desire to reach infinity, greatly embodied by the
Strurm und Drang
movement.
In
England
the destructive effects of the Industrial Revolution on everyday life and natural landscapes moved the poets to a research of the lost humble and rustic life and aroused a sense of guilt and loss, also due to Catholic moral. It was therefore much of a cultural movement for élites
In
Italy
it developed later and with much effort, but it never really approached the taste and imagery of European Romanticism. Indeed, it was mainly linked to patriotism and national issues and empowered the necessity for Unification
The Sublime
It was theorised by the philosopher
Edward Burke
in
A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
It is "whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger [...] or operates in a manner analogous to terror"
Which were its main features?
Poets of the
First Generation
William Wordsworth
Nature is a living being which gives happiness (
Pantheism
)
The poet is a teacher and moral guide for men, a man among men
Poetry "takes its origins from emotion recollected in tranquillity"
Samuel Taylor Colerdige
Nature is the expression of God's will, identified with
Fate
The poet has the ability to idealise and unify in order to recreate
Poetry is "the best word in the best order", made through
Secondary Imagination
William Blake
The World is divided into
Complementary Opposites
, originated by Christianism
Poetry is a vision, an allegory of real life
The poet is a prophet with a creative power, who has to denunce the evils of society
Use of an
everyday language
Faith
in the Revolution
Contact with
nature
as a source of
inspiration
Taste for
mystery
and
supernatural
Interest for
rustic, humble
life and scenery
Intense imagery
and use of the allegory
Poets of the
Second Generation
Percy Bhysse Shelley
Nature is the keeper of the eternal truth, a shelter to man
"Poets are unacknowledged legislators of the world"
Poetry is something divine, the expression of imagination
John Keats
Nature is a source of beauty and life, but it is not divine. Its beauty can be turned into poetry by imagination
The poet has a negative capability, but he has to be impersonal
Poetry is the only reason for life, absolute and eternal.
George Gordon Byron
Nature is a companion to his feelings but bears no message
The poet is not a moral guide but has to struggle for freedom
"Poetry is the expression of excited passion"
Strong
disillusionment
for past revolutions
Escapism
in an ideal world of love or in the myth
Esotic settings
both in time or place, where
nature
conveys a
message
Rebellious spirit
in constant fight with the external world
More
complex, elevated language
Died young
, away from home
Rise of new genres of
Novels
The
Gothic Novel
Taste for
gloomy
and
dark scenery
Lonely
hero
and
heroine
persecuted by a
villain
Linked to the concept iìof the
sublime
Supernatural creatures
like ghosts and witches
Mary Shelley
's
Frankestein
is the most representative work
The
Novel of Manners
Reflected the tastes of a
new moble society
Represented the
rich gentry
from the
new middle classes
Deals with
weddings
and
marriage market
Is fully committed to the new
social code
Its undisputed master is
Jane Austen
The
Historical Novel
Conveys a
new concept of history
Deals with the great historical events from
common people's perspective
Has an
original language
, anciently local or newly national
In Italy it is perfectioned by
Alessandro Manzoni
Starts with
Sir Walter Scott
and has an
immediate success
When did it start?
Scholars debate between
Lyrical Ballads
, 1798
Written by Wiliam Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Considered the "Manifesto" of English Romanticism
Songs of Innocence
, 1789
Written by William Blake
Mostly considered a Preromantic work, with a new intense imagery
What was it influenced by?
The
Industrial
and
Agricultural Revolution
New Industrial labourers
Inhuman conditions of life and work
Loss of contact with nature
The
American
and
French Revolution
Disillusionment
Desire for a new age and society