Introduction to Romanticism

Romanticism has very little to do with things popularly thought of as "romantic," although love may occasionally be the subject of Romantic art. Rather, it is an international artistic and philosophical movement that redefined the fundamental ways in which people in Western cultures thought about themselves and about their world.

Historical Considerations
It is one of the curiosities of literary history that the strongholds of the Romantic Movement were England and Germany, not the countries of the romance languages themselves. Thus it is from the historians of English and German literature that we inherit the convenient set of terminal dates for the Romantic period, beginning in 1798, the year of the first edition of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge and of the composition of Hymns to the Night by Novalis, and ending in 1832, the year which marked the deaths of both Sir Walter Scott and Goethe. However, as an international movement affecting all the arts, Romanticism begins at least in the 1770's and continues into the second half of the nineteenth century, later for American literature than for European, and later in some of the arts, like music and painting, than in literature. This extended chronological spectrum (1770-1870) also permits recognition as Romantic the poetry of Robert Burns and William Blake in England, the early writings of Goethe and Schiller in Germany, and the great period of influence for Rousseau's writings throughout Europe. The early Romantic period thus coincides with what is often called the "age of revolutions"--including, of course, the American (1776) and the French (1789) revolutions--an age of upheavals in political, economic, and social traditions, the age which witnessed the initial transformations of the Industrial Revolution. A revolutionary energy was also at the core of Romanticism, which quite consciously set out to transform not only the theory and practice of poetry (and all art), but the very way we perceive the world. Some of its major precepts have survived into the twentieth century and still affect our contemporary period.

Imagination
The imagination was elevated to a position as the supreme faculty of the mind. This contrasted distinctly with the traditional arguments for the supremacy of reason. The Romantics tended to define and to present the imagination as our ultimate "shaping" or creative power, the approximate human equivalent of the creative powers of nature or even deity. It is dynamic, an active, rather than passive power, with many functions. Imagination is the primary faculty for creating all art. On a broader scale, it is also the faculty that helps humans to constitute reality, for (as Wordsworth suggested), we not only perceive the world

around us, but also in part create it. Uniting both reason and feeling (Coleridge described it with the paradoxical phrase, "intellectual intuition"), imagination is extolled as the ultimate synthesizing faculty, enabling humans to reconcile differences and opposites in the world of appearance. The reconciliation of opposites is a central ideal for the Romantics. Finally, imagination is inextricably bound up with the other two major concepts, for it is presumed to be the faculty which enables us to "read" nature as a system of symbols.

Nature
"Nature" meant many things to the Romantics. As suggested above, it was often presented as itself a work of art, constructed by a divine imagination, in emblematic language. For example, throughout "Song of Myself," Whitman makes a practice of presenting commonplace items in nature--"ants," "heap'd stones," and "poke-weed"--as containing divine elements, and he refers to the "grass" as a natural "hieroglyphic," "the handkerchief of the Lord." While particular perspectives with regard to nature varied considerably--nature as a healing power, nature as a source of subject and image, nature as a refuge from the artificial constructs of civilization, including artificial language--the prevailing views accorded nature the status of an organically unified whole. It was viewed as "organic," rather than, as in the scientific or rationalist view, as a system of "mechanical" laws, for Romanticism displaced the rationalist view of the universe as a machine (e.g., the deistic image of a clock) with the analogue of an "organic" image, a living tree or mankind itself. At the same time, Romantics gave greater attention both to describing natural phenomena accurately and to capturing "sensuous nuance"--and this is as true of Romantic landscape painting as of Romantic nature poetry. Accuracy of observation, however, was not sought for its own sake. Romantic nature poetry is essentially a poetry of meditation.

Symbolism and Myth

Symbolism and myth were given great prominence in the Romantic conception of art. In the Romantic view, symbols were the human aesthetic correlatives of nature's emblematic language. They were valued too because they could simultaneously suggest many things, and were thus thought superior to the one-to-one communications of allegory. Partly, it may have been the desire to express the "inexpressible"--the infinite--through the available resources of language that led to symbol at one level and myth (as symbolic narrative) at another.

Other Concepts: Emotion, Lyric Poetry, and the Self

Other aspects of Romanticism were intertwined with the above three concepts. Emphasis on the activity of the imagination was accompanied by greater emphasis on the importance of intuition, instincts, and feelings, and Romantics generally called for greater attention to the emotions as a necessary supplement to purely logical reason. When this emphasis was applied to the creation of poetry, a very important shift of focus occurred. Wordsworth's definition of all good poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" marks a turning point in literary history. By locating the ultimate source of poetry in the individual artist, the tradition, stretching back to the ancients, of valuing art primarily for its ability to imitate human life (that is, for its mimetic qualities) was reversed. In Romantic theory, art was valuable not so much as a mirror of the external world, but as a source of illumination of the world within. Among other things, this led to a prominence for first-person lyric poetry never accorded it in any previous period. The "poetic speaker" became less a persona and more the direct person of the poet. Wordsworth's Prelude and Whitman's "Song of Myself" are both paradigms of successful experiments to take the growth of the poet's mind (the development of self) as subject for an "epic" enterprise made up of lyric components. Confessional prose narratives such as Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) and Chateaubriand's Rene (1801), as well as disguised autobiographical verse narratives such as Byron's Childe Harold (1818), are related phenomena. The interior journey and the development of the self recurred everywhere as subject material for the Romantic artist. The artist-as-hero is a specifically Romantic type.

Contrasts With Neoclassicism

Consequently, the Romantics sought to define their goals through systematic contrast with the norms of "Versailles neoclassicism." In their critical manifestoes--the 1800 "Preface" to Lyrical Ballads, the critical studies of the Schlegel brothers in Germany, the later statements of Victor Hugo in France, and of Hawthorne, Poe, and Whitman in the United States--they self-consciously asserted their differences from the previous age (the literary "ancien regime"), and declared their freedom from the mechanical "rules." Certain special features of Romanticism may still be highlighted by this contrast. We have already noted two major differences: the replacement of reason by the imagination for primary place among the human faculties and the shift from a mimetic to an expressive orientation for poetry, and indeed all literature. In addition, neoclassicism had prescribed for art the idea that the general or universal characteristics of human behavior were more suitable subject matter than the peculiarly individual manifestations of human activity. From at least the opening statement of Rousseau's Confessions, first published in 1781--"I am not made like anyone I have seen; I dare believe that I am not made like anyone in existence. If I am not superior, at least I am different."--this view was challenged.

Individualism: The Romantic Hero

The Romantics asserted the importance of the individual, the unique, even the eccentric. Consequently they opposed the character typology of neoclassical drama. In another way, of course, Romanticism created its own literary types. The hero-artist has already been mentioned; there were also heaven-storming types from Prometheus to Captain Ahab, outcasts from Cain to the Ancient Mariner and even Hester Prynne, and there was Faust, who wins salvation in Goethe's great drama for the very reasons--his characteristic striving for the unattainable beyond the morally permitted and his insatiable thirst for activity--that earlier had been viewed as the components of his tragic sin. (It was in fact Shelley's opinion that Satan, in his noble defiance, was the real hero of Milton's Paradise Lost.) In style, the Romantics preferred boldness over the preceding age's desire for restraint, maximum suggestiveness over the neoclassical ideal of clarity, free experimentation over the "rules" of composition, genre, and decorum, and they promoted the conception of the artist as "inspired" creator over that of the artist as "maker" or technical master. Although in both Germany and England there was continued interest in the ancient classics, for the most part the Romantics allied themselves with the very periods of literature that the neoclassicists had dismissed, the Middle Ages and the Baroque, and they embraced the writer whom Voltaire had called a barbarian, Shakespeare. Although interest in religion and in the powers of faith were prominent during the Romantic period, the Romantics generally rejected absolute systems, whether of philosophy or religion, in favor of the idea that each person (and humankind collectively) must create the system by which to live.

The Everyday and the Exotic

The attitude of many of the Romantics to the everyday, social world around them was complex. It is true that they advanced certain realistic techniques, such as the use of "local color" (through down-to-earth characters, like Wordsworth's rustics, or through everyday language, as in Emily Bronte's northern dialects or Whitman's colloquialisms, or through popular literary forms, such as folk narratives). Yet social realism was usually subordinate to imaginative suggestion, and what was most important were the ideals suggested by the above examples, simplicity perhaps, or innocence. Earlier, the 18th-century cult of the noble savage had promoted similar ideals, but now artists often turned for their symbols to domestic rather than exotic sources--to folk legends and older, "unsophisticated" art forms, such as the ballad, to contemporary country folk who used "the language of commen men," not an artificial "poetic diction," and to children (for the first time presented as individuals, and often idealized as sources of greater

wisdom than adults). Simultaneously, as opposed to everyday subjects, various forms of the exotic in time and/or place also gained favor, for the Romantics were also fascinated with realms of existence that were, by definition, prior to or opposed to the ordered conceptions of "objective" reason. Often, both the everyday and the exotic appeared together in paradoxical combinations. In the Lyrical Ballads, for example, Wordsworth and Coleridge agreed to divide their labors according to two subject areas, the natural and the supernatural: Wordsworth would try to exhibit the novelty in what was all too familiar, while Coleridge would try to show in the supernatural what was psychologically real, both aiming to dislodge vision from the "lethargy of custom." The concept of the beautiful soul in an ugly body, as characterized in Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, is another variant of the paradoxical combination.

The Romantic Artist in Society

In another way too, the Romantics were ambivalent toward the "real" social world around them. They were often politically and socially involved, but at the same time they began to distance themselves from the public. As noted earlier, high Romantic artists interpreted things through their own emotions, and these emotions included social and political consciousness--as one would expect in a period of revolution, one that reacted so strongly to oppression and injustice in the world. So artists sometimes took public stands, or wrote works with socially or politically oriented subject matter. Yet at the same time, another trend began to emerge, as they withdrew more and more from what they saw as the confining boundaries of bourgeois life. In their private lives, they often asserted their individuality and differences in ways that were to the middle class a subject of intense interest, but also sometimes of horror. ("Nothing succeeds like excess," wrote Oscar Wilde, who, as a partial inheritor of Romantic tendencies, seemed to enjoy shocking the bourgeois, both in his literary and life styles.) Thus the gulf between "odd" artists and their sometimes shocked, often uncomprehending audience began to widen. Some artists may have experienced ambivalence about this situation--it was earlier pointed out how Emily Dickinson seemed to regret that her "letters" to the world would go unanswered. Yet a significant Romantic theme became the contrast between artist and middle-class "Philistine." Unfortunately, in many ways, this distance between artist and public remains with us today.

Spread of the Romantic Spirit

Finally, it should be noted that the revolutionary energy underlying the Romantic Movement affected not just literature, but all of the arts-from music (consider the rise of Romantic opera) to painting, from sculpture to architecture. Its reach was also geographically significant, spreading as it did eastward to Russia, and westward to America. For example, in America, the great landscape painters, particularly those of the "Hudson River School," and the Utopian social colonies that thrived in the 19th century, are manifestations of the Romantic spirit on this side of the Atlantic.

Recent Developments
Some critics have believed that the two identifiable movements that followed Romanticism--Symbolism and Realism--were separate developments of the opposites which Romanticism itself had managed, at its best, to unify and to reconcile. Whether or not this is so, it is clear that Romanticism transformed Western culture in many ways that survive into our own times. It is only very recently that any really significant turning away from Romantic paradigms has begun to take place, and even that turning away has taken place in a dramatic, typically Romantic way. Today a number of literary theorists have called into question two major Romantic perceptions: that the literary text is a separate, individuated, living "organism"; and that the artist is a fiercely independent genius who creates original works of art. In current theory, the separate, "living" work has been dissolved into a sea of "intertextuality," derived from and part of a network or "archive" of other texts--the many different kinds of discourse that are part of any culture. In this view, too, the independently sovereign artist has been demoted from a heroic, consciously creative agent, to a collective "voice," more controlled than controlling, the intersection of other voices, other texts, ultimately dependent upon possibilities dictated by language systems, conventions, and institutionalized power structures. It is an irony of history, however, that the explosive appearance on the scene of these subversive ideas, delivered in what seemed to the establishment to be radical manifestoes, and written by linguistically powerful individuals, has recapitulated the revolutionary spirit and events of Romanticism itself.

The categories which it has become customary to use in distinguishing and classifying 'movements' in literature or philosophy and in describing the nature of the significant transitions which have taken place in taste and in opinion, are far too rough, crude, undiscriminating -- and none of them so hopelessly as the category 'Romantic'."

 Arthur O. Lovejoy "On the Discriminations of Romanticisms" (1924) Many scholars say that the Romantic period began with the publication of "Lyrical Ballads" by William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge in 1798. The volume contained some of the best-known works from these two poets including Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and Wordsworth's "Lines Written a Few Miles from Tintern Abbey." Of course, other Literary scholars place the start for the Romantic period much earlier (around 1785), since Robert Burns's Poems (1786), William Blake's "Songs of Innocence" (1789), Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women, and other works already demonstrate that a change has taken place--in political thought and literary expression. Other "first generation" Romantic writers include: Charles Lamb, Jane Austen, and Sir Walter Scott. Second Generation A discussion of the period is also somewhat more complicated, since there was a "second generation" of Romantics (made up of poets Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and John Keats). Of course, the main members of this second generation--though geniuses--died young and were outlived by the first generation of Romantics. Of course, Mary Shelley--still famous for <>Frankenstein" (1818)--was also a member of this "second generation" of Romantics. While there is some disagreement about when the period began, the general consensus is... the Romantic period ended with the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1837, and the beginning of the Victorian Period. So, here we are in the Romantic era. We stumble upon Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats on the heels of the Neoclassical era. We saw amazing wit and satire (with Pope and Swift) as a part of the last age, but the Romantic Period dawned with a different poetic in the air. In the backdrop of those new Romantic writers, penning their way into literary history, we are on the cusp the Industrial Revolution and writers were affected by the French Revolution. William Hazlit, who published a book called "The Spirit of the Age," says that the Wordsworth school of poetry "had its origin in the French Revolution... It was a time of promise, a renewal of the world and of letters." Instead of embracing politics as writers of some other eras might have (and indeed some writers of the Romantic era did) the Romantics turned to Nature for selffulfillment. They were turning away from the values and ideas of the previous era, embracing new ways of expressing their imagination and feelings. Instead of a concentration on "head," the intellectual focus of reason, they preferred to rely on

the self, in the radical idea of individual freedom. Instead of striving for perfection, the Romantics preferred "the glory of the imperfect."

Romantic Period Composers: 1820-1910

The Romantic Period composers brought great changes to classical music. The Romantic period in the arts started in literature in the late 18th century as a reaction against the strict and formal approach of the Classical period. Romanticism brought a greater emphasis on the emotions and instincts of the artist as opposed to the intellect. Composers were looking for greater freedom of form and expression. The era of Romanticism is generally divided into three shorter periods. The Early Romantic Period, 1820 to 1850, was foreshadowed by Beethoven's later works. Composers of this period include Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Chopin. The Middle Romantic Period, from 1850 to 1890, includes the works of Liszt, Wagner, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak and Grieg. The Late Romantic Period, from 1890 to 1910, includes the works of R.Strauss, Sibelius, and the late works of Grieg and Dvorak which are part of a "Nationalism" movement.

The Early Romantic Period

Felix Mendelssohn, 1809-1847. This German is considered a major Romantic Period composer. He was a child prodigy, and composed his first major work at age 17. At age 20 he conducted a performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion, that sparked a renewed interest in J.S. Bach. Mendelssohn's works are characterized by restraint, refinement and sensitivity. He wrote symphonies, concertos, oratorios and piano pieces.

Robert Schumann, 1810-1856. This German is considered a leader of the Romantic Period composers. He wrote primarily piano music until 1840, when he began composing orchestral works and songs. His works had great emotional intensity, which foreshadowed his later nervous breakdown. He was an influence on Chopin and Brahms.

Frederic Chopin, 1810-1849. Born in Poland, Chopin settled in Paris. His piano music is known for its unprecedented heights of expressiveness. Chopin established the piano as a solo instrument, or as a dominating force in his piano concertos. He had an enduring relationship with female author George Sand. Chopin had a long illness that developed into tuberculosis. He wrote concertos, preludes, etudes, and sonatas.

The Middle Romantic Period

Franz Liszt, 1811-1886. This Hungarian composer is regarded as the greatest pianist of his time. He was a "superstar" who thrilled audiences with his dramatic technique. Liszt was also a teacher, guiding many of the great pianists of the following generation. He changed the concept of the sonata, and influenced other Romantic Period composers, includingWagner and Strauss.

Richard Wagner, 1813-1883. This German composer's operas are regarded as the finest musical expression of German Romanticism, and were a great influence on following composers. He employed the use of continuous flow of melody, and called his operas "music-dramas." He wrote his own librettos, which are taken from German mythology.

Johannes Brahms, 1833-1897. This German composer is considered one of the masters of the Romantic Period. His conservative style was at odds with some of the more dramatic composers of his day. His four symphonies are regarded as among the greatest in music. He composed in almost every genre but opera, and he devoted special attention to his chamber music and songs.

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, 1840-1893. This Russian composer is one the most popular and influential of the Romantic Period composers. An annuity from a wealthy patroness allowed him to devote years to his music. His compositions are melodious, richly orchestrated, often melancholy and emotional. He is known for his symphonies, ballets, operas and concertos.

Antonin Dvorak, 1841-1904. A Czech composer, of which much of his music is nationalistic. He is best known for his New World Symphony, which he composed while in the U.S. He wrote symphonies, chamber works, concertos, and overtures.

Edvard Grieg, 1843-1907. This Norwegian composer is known for his nationalistic style. He founded the Norwegian Academy of Music in 1867. Grieg composed piano concertos, cantatas, suites and works based on Norwegian folk songs. He is perhaps best known for the "In The Hall of The Mountain King," from the Peer Gynt Suite, the music for a play by Henrik Ibsen.

The Late Romantic Period: 1890-1910

Richard Strauss, 1864-1949. This German composer is known for his romantic symphonic poems and operas. His music is dramatic and richly orchestrated. He was also a conductor. Thus Spake Zarathustra, used as the theme in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey may be his best known work.

Jean Sibelius, 1865-1957. This Finnish composer wrote romantic and personal pieces of a nationalistic nature. He composed seven symphonies, a violin concerto, and other orchestral works. His best known work may be his symphonic poem Finlandia.

John Constable

John Constable is considered to be one of the greatest British landscape artists along with Turner. In his early years John Constable showed a great talent for art but only developed his originality later in life. In 1799 John Constable became an artist full time, and after the death of his father in 1816 he married Maria Bicknell despite strong opposition from her family. By 1820 John Constable's reputation was growing and he won a gold medal in the Paris Salon of 1824 for his painting The Hay Wain. One of the major influences on John Constable's works was Gainsborough's style, but he later attempted to render landscapes more realisitically. John Constable moved away from conventional traditions of painting landscapes and painted based on his own experience and love for nature. This explains the fact that some of John Constable's finest paintings are of places he loved best such as his hometown Suffolk. John Constable had no successor to match his abilities in England but he greatly influenced other Romantic artists such as Delacroix, and ultimately contributed to the development of Impressionism.
Romanticism began in the late 18th century and ended in the mid 19th century. The Romantic movement can be described as a reaction against Neoclassicim in which the style is full of emotion and beauty with many individualistic and exotic elements. Romantic art portrays emotions painted in a bold and dramatic manner, and there is often an emphasis on the past. Romantic artists often use melancholic themes and dramatic tragedy. Paintings by famous Romantic artists such as Gericault and Delacroix are filled with energetic brushstrokes, rich colors, and emotive subject matters. The German landscape painter Caspar David Friedrich created images of solitary loneliness whereas in Spain, Francisco Goya conveyed the horrors of war in his works. This demonstrates the variety in subject matter, but the emphasis on drama and emotion. The Pre-Raphaelite movement succeeded Romanticism, and Impressionism is firmly rooted in the Romantic tradition. Other famous Romantic artists include George Stubbs, William Blake, John Margin, John Constable, JMW Turner, and Sir Thomas Lawrence.

William Hazlitt

(1778-1830)
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William Hazlitt's Works

Characters of Shakespear's Plays

A Bio-bibliographical note about William Hazlitt

William Hazlitt (1778-1830) is one of the great masters of English prose style. He is a major literary critic and radical polemicist whose intellect is both analytical and sensuously particular. Keats worshipped him, and his poems and letters are shaped by Hazlitt's influence - his sentences are like a 'whale's back in the sea of prose,' Keats commented. He was born in Maidstone, Kent, the son of an Irish Unitarian minister. His mother, Grace Loftus, was from an English dissenting family who were friendly with Godwin's family, so Hazlitt's writings draw strongly on the culture of radical dissent in Britain and Ireland. His family were devoted supporters of the Volunteer Movement in Ireland, where they lived for some years. They also supported the American Revolution and spent some years in the new republic before returning to England. Hazlitt never wavered in his commitment to the values of the French Revolution and remained always an impoverished member of the radical intelligentsia. Hazlitt moved in advanced circles in London - he met Mary Wollstonecraft, was friendly with Godwin, revered Wordsworth and Coleridge, whose work he continued to praise even after they broke with him over his unwavering support for Napoleon. He attacked Southey vehemently, as he attacked Wordsworth and Coleridge for their reactionary politics, but he remained always disinterested in his critical outlook - he was capable of praising writers with whose views he disagreed and had a lifelong attachment to Burke's prose (he regarded Reflections on the Revolution in France as a masterpiece of polemic). His own prose communicates the deep joy of the critical act as a form of inspired creativity. He hates monarchy, despises aristocracy, and makes his prose sing of liberty, but he is never narrowly partisan. His prose rings with courageous expressions of principle and glistens with brilliant passages of critical commentary and analysis. A supremely gifted drama critic who made the reputation of Edmund Kean, an extraordinarily intelligent journalist who invented the newspaper profile, Hazlitt turned criticism into art form. Many of his essays are like conversation poems - witty, profound and eagerly alive to the surfaces of the work of art he is appreciating. No study of the Romantic movement can be complete without a reading of his essays. For too long he has been regarded as a marginal figure, instead of being seen as the supreme genius of Romantic prose. A radical republican, like Milton, he possessed an epic imagination which he chose to embody in an eloquent stream of reviews and critical essays. Source: Penguin Web Site (http://www.penguin.co.uk/wop%5Fauthor%5Fnew/1220.htm). Accessed May 4th 1998.

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What romance means: the Romantic Period

The word romance is both powerful and personal, and inspires unique memories, reactions and emotions in every individual who hears it. It defines a quality of life, a type of story, a class of languages, a kind of art and music, and exciting and mysterious qualities that are difficult to define. Since Romance Trackers mission is to deliver fresh romantic ideas to our readers, were going to dedicate a series of posts to the all-important question: what exactly is romance, and what does the word romantic mean? Today were going to explore the Romantic Period, a period of history that produced some of the worlds greatest works of art, literature and music. Romance as a Time Period In the history of culture, the Romantic Period was a span of about a hundred years that started near the opening of the 19th century and ended near the opening of the 20th century. While art, literature and music created during the preceding Classical Period was based on order and strict rules, Romanticism inspired productions of raw emotion and unbridled imagination. Authors, artists and musicians of the Romantic Period were surrounded by political unrest, revolution and fresh new ways of interpreting the world, and it shows in their work. While artists of the Classical Period produced works inspired by reason and their employers wishes, Romantic artists created works of art based on a new concept: their own feelings. Some historians say that the Romantic Movement was inspired by revolt against the aristocracy, order, politics and scientific reason that defined the preceding age. This desire to concentrate on individual experience and emotion is said to have been intensified by the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. Artists of the Romantic Period

Some of the more famous Romantic composers include Ludwig van Beethoven, Frederic Chopin and Felix Mendelssohn. Their contemporaries in literature and art included Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Blake, Francisco Goya and John William Waterhouse. The groundbreaking literary, musical and artistic methods developed during the Romantic Period remain with us to this very day, and even our contemporary culture is saturated with concepts and melodies inspired by Romanticism. So the next time you hear the word romantic, remember that it has many definitions . . . not all of which are rooted in passion or love. The romantic artist is one who creates masterpieces inspired by raw individual emotion, but that emotion doesnt necessarily have to be love.
No related posts. There is a difference between the Romantic period in literature and in music.

The Romantic period in literature is usually dated earlier than that of literature. The dating of periods is frequently a contentious issue, as periods are typically labelled retroactively. Concerning music, the latter period you stated (1820-1910) is the better answer, as many Romantic composers were active during that time (e.g. Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov) Note: There are comments associated with this question. See the discussion page to add to the conversation. Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_long_did_the_Romantic_period_last_Some_say_17981832_and_some_say_1820-1910#ixzz1fr54XJGa

The Romantic Period

At the turn of the century, fired by ideas of personal and political liberty and of the energy and sublimity of the natural world, artists and intellectuals sought to break the bonds of 18th-century convention. Although the works of Jean Jacques Rousseau and William Godwin had great influence, the French Revolution and its aftermath had the strongest impact of all. In England initial support for the Revolution was primarily utopian and idealist, and when the French failed to live up to expectations, most English intellectuals renounced the Revolution. However, the romantic vision had taken forms other than political, and these developed apace. In Lyrical Ballads (1798 and 1800), a watershed in literary history, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge presented and illustrated a liberating aesthetic: poetry should express, in genuine language, experience as filtered through personal emotion and imagination; the truest experience was to be found in nature. The concept of the Sublime strengthened this turn to nature, because in wild countrysides the power of the sublime could be felt most immediately. Wordsworth's romanticism is probably most fully realized in his great autobiographical poem, The Prelude (180550). In search of sublime moments, romantic poets wrote about the marvelous and supernatural, the exotic, and the medieval. But they also found beauty in the lives of simple rural people and aspects of the everyday world. The second generation of romantic poets included John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and George Gordon, Lord Byron. In Keats's great odes, intellectual and emotional sensibility merge in language of great power and beauty. Shelley, who combined soaring lyricism with an apocalyptic political vision, sought more extreme effects and occasionally achieved them, as in

his great drama Prometheus Unbound (1820). His wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, wrote the greatest of the Gothic romances, Frankenstein (1818). Lord Byron was the prototypical romantic hero, the envy and scandal of the age. He has been continually identified with his own characters, particularly the rebellious, irreverent, erotically inclined Don Juan. Byron invested the romantic lyric with a rationalist irony. Minor romantic poets include Robert Southeybest-remembered today for his story Goldilocks and the Three BearsLeigh Hunt, Thomas Moore, and Walter Savage Landor. The romantic era was also rich in literary criticism and other nonfictional prose. Coleridge proposed an influential theory of literature in his Biographia Literaria (1817). William Godwin and his wife, Mary Wollstonecraft, wrote groundbreaking books on human, and women's, rights. William Hazlitt, who never forsook political radicalism, wrote brilliant and astute literary criticism. The master of the personal essay was Charles Lamb, whereas Thomas De Quincey was master of the personal confession. The periodicals Edinburgh Review and Blackwood's Magazine, in which leading writers were published throughout the century, were major forums of controversy, political as well as literary. Although the great novelist Jane Austen wrote during the romantic era, her work defies classification. With insight, grace, and irony she delineated human relationships within the context of English country life. Sir Walter Scott, Scottish nationalist and romantic, made the genre of the historical novel widely popular. Other novelists of the period were Maria Edgeworth, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and Thomas Love Peacock, the latter noted for his eccentric novels satirizing the romantics. Read more: English literature: The Romantic Period Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/ent/A0858004.html#ixzz1fr5gzd3Y Answers.com > Wiki Answers > Categories > History, Politics & Society > What type of music was played in the Romantic period? Answer: Improve Romantic period music has many characteristics: First, emotions are portrayed in notes. Ex. Sad. Sad can be serious, but in the Romantic Era, this was taken to a new level. It could sound so depressing or so much in anguish, you could imagine the composer thinking of someone being heartbroken by some big tragedy, of even dying for that matter. :D Anger went along with sadness too sometimes. Beethoven has been titled the first romantic composer for this very reason. Second, what they wrote about changed. Composers started writing Tone Poems, or things that were made to entertain the listeners. Tone poems focused on some story, thing, place, or other subject matter to portray with music. Concertos and Symphonies went on, but that Romanticism movement that going on in the 1800s with connecting with nature and beauty affected it all. Third, there was a great Nationalism movement in Europe. Composers had pride in their country, and would write music about it and its culture and dedicate it to it. Some would even go to other countries simply to find inspiration and write some song about that foreign, unknown

country (this was also an element of Romanticism, exploring the unknown). Thus, different styles were made between the countries that made each original and special. This was going on in fact since the Baroque period, but it increased all the more during this era. You could be able to say, "That sounds so French," or "That sounds so Russian," because of certain characteristics they had. There was also a considerable amount of imitating back then too. Composers would model some other past or present composer they admired, whether from their country or not, and imitated their styles. This was how they shared their special styles to the world and improved upon their own. Some Composers around this time had problems, like alcoholism and depression, or even being gay, and their feelings probably affected what kind of music they wrote. Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_type_of_music_was_played_in_the_Romantic_period#ixzz1fr5 vQGe3

Alexander Pope
For other uses, see Alexander Pope (disambiguation).

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope (c.1727), an English poet best known for his Essay on Criticism, The Rape of the Lock and The Dunciad 21 May 1688(1688-05-21) Born London 30 May 1744(1744-05-30) (aged 56) Died Twickenham (today part of London) Occupation Poet

Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 30 May 1744) was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson.[1] Pope is famous for his use of the heroic couplet.

Contents
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1 Life 2 Early career 3 Essay on Criticism 4 Translations of the Iliad 5 Twickenham and the Grotto 6 Translation of the Odyssey 7 Edition of Shakespeare's works 8 Later career: An Essay on Man and satires 9 Essay on Man 10 Criticisms of Pope's work 11 Pope through a modern lens 12 Works

12.1 Major works 12.2 Other works 12.3 Editions

13 Footnotes 14 References 15 External links

[edit] Life
Pope was born to Alexander Pope Senior (16461717), a linen merchant of Plough Court, Lombard Street, London, and his wife Edith (ne Turner) (16431733), who were both Catholics.[2] Edith's sister Christiana was the wife of the famous miniature painter Samuel Cooper. Pope's education was affected by the recently enacted Test Acts, which upheld the status of the established Church of England and banned Catholics from teaching, attending a university, voting, or holding public office on pain of perpetual imprisonment. Pope was taught to read by his aunt, and went to Twyford School in about 1698/99.[2] He then went to two Catholic schools in London.[2] Such schools, while illegal, were tolerated in some areas.[3] In 1700, his family moved to a small estate at Popeswood in Binfield, Berkshire, close to the royal Windsor Forest.[2] This was due to strong anti-Catholic sentiment and a statute preventing Catholics from living within 10 miles (16 km) of either London or Westminster.[4] Pope would later describe the countryside around the house in his poem Windsor Forest. Pope's formal education ended at this time, and from then on he mostly educated himself by reading the works

of classical writers such as the satirists Horace and Juvenal, the epic poets Homer and Virgil, as well as English authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare and John Dryden.[2] He also studied many languages and read works by English, French, Italian, Latin, and Greek poets. After five years of study, Pope came into contact with figures from the London literary society such as William Wycherley, William Congreve, Samuel Garth, William Trumbull, and William Walsh.[2][3] At Binfield, he also began to make many important friends. One of them, John Caryll (the future dedicatee of The Rape of the Lock), was twenty years older than the poet and had made many acquaintances in the London literary world. He introduced the young Pope to the ageing playwright William Wycherley and to William Walsh, a minor poet, who helped Pope revise his first major work, The Pastorals. He also met the Blount sisters, Teresa and (his alleged future lover) Martha, both of whom would remain lifelong friends.[3] From the age of 12, he suffered numerous health problems, such as Pott's disease (a form of tuberculosis that affects the bone), which deformed his body and stunted his growth, leaving him with a severe hunchback. His tuberculosis infection caused other health problems including respiratory difficulties, high fevers, inflamed eyes, and abdominal pain.[2] He grew to a height of only 1.37 m (4 ft 6 in) tall. Pope was already removed from society because he was Catholic; his poor health only alienated him further. Although he never married, he had many female friends to whom he wrote witty letters. Allegedly, his lifelong friend, Martha Blount, was his lover.[3][5][6]
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[edit] Early career

In May, 1709, Pope's Pastorals was published in the sixth part of Tonson's Poetical Miscellanies. This brought Pope instant fame, and was followed by An Essay on Criticism, published in May 1711, which was equally well received. Around 1711, Pope made friends with Tory writers John Gay, Jonathan Swift, Thomas Parnell and John Arbuthnot, who together formed the satirical Scriblerus Club. The aim of the club was to satirise ignorance and pedantry in the form of the fictional scholar Martinus Scriblerus. He also made friends with Whig writers Joseph Addison and Richard Steele. In March 1713, Windsor Forest was published to great acclaim.[3] Pope's next well-known poem was The Rape of the Lock, first published in 1712, with a revised version published in 1714. This is sometimes considered Pope's most popular poem because it was a mock-heroic epic, written to make fun of a high-society quarrel between Arabella Fermor (the "Belinda" of the poem) and Lord Petre, who had snipped a lock of hair from her head without her permission. In his poem he treats his characters in an epic style; when the Baron steals her hair and she tries to get it back, it flies into the air and turns into a star. During Pope's friendship with Joseph Addison, he contributed to Addison's play Cato, as well as writing for The Guardian and The Spectator. Around this time he began the work of translating the Iliad, which was a painstaking process publication began in 1715 and did not end until 1720.[3] In 1714, the political situation worsened with the death of Queen Anne and the disputed succession between the Hanoverians and the Jacobites, leading to the attempted Jacobite Rebellion of 1715. Though Pope as a Catholic might have been expected to have supported the Jacobites because of his religious and political affiliations, according to Maynard Mack, "where Pope himself stood on these matters can probably never be confidently known". These events led

to an immediate downturn in the fortunes of the Tories, and Pope's friend, Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke fled to France.

[edit] Essay on Criticism

An Essay on Criticism was first published anonymously on 15 May 1711. Pope began writing the poem early in his career and took about three years to finish it. At the time the poem was published, the heroic couplet style in which it was written was a moderately new genre of poetry, and Pope's most ambitious work. An Essay on Criticism was an attempt to identify and refine his own positions as a poet and critic. The poem was said to be a response to an ongoing debate on the question of whether poetry should be natural, or written according to predetermined artificial rules inherited from the classical past.[8] The poem begins with a discussion of the standard rules that govern poetry by which a critic passes judgment. Pope comments on the classical authors who dealt with such standards, and the authority that he believed should be accredited to them. He discusses the laws to which a critic should adhere while critiquing poetry, and points out that critics serve an important function in aiding poets with their works, as opposed to the practice of attacking them.[9] The final section of An Essay on Criticism discusses the moral qualities and virtues inherent in the ideal critic, who, Pope claims, is also the ideal man.

[edit] Translations of the Iliad

Pope's house at Twickenham, showing the grotto. From a watercolour produced soon after his death. Pope had been fascinated by Homer since childhood. In 1713, he announced his plans to publish a translation of the Iliad. The work would be available by subscription, with one volume appearing every year over the course of six years. Pope secured a revolutionary deal with the publisher Bernard Lintot, which brought him two hundred guineas a volume, a vast sum at the time. His translation of the Iliad appeared between 1715 and 1720. It was acclaimed by Samuel Johnson as "a performance which no age or nation could hope to equal" (although the classical scholar Richard Bentley wrote: "It is a pretty poem, Mr. Pope, but you must not call it Homer.").

[edit] Twickenham and the Grotto

A likeness of Pope derived from a portrait by William Hoare[10] The money made from the Homer translation allowed Pope to move to a villa at Twickenham in 1719, where he created his now famous grotto and gardens. Pope decorated the grotto with alabaster, marbles, and ores such as mundic and crystals. He also used Cornish diamonds, stalactites, spars, snakestones and spongestone. Here and there in the grotto he placed mirrors, expensive embellishments for the time. A camera obscura was installed to delight his visitors, of whom there were many. The serendipitous discovery of a spring during its excavations enabled the subterranean retreat to be filled with the relaxing sound of trickling water, which would quietly echo around the chambers. Pope was said to have remarked that: "Were it to have nymphs as well it would be complete in everything." Although the house and gardens have long since been demolished, much of this grotto still survives. The grotto now lies beneath Radnor House Independent Co-ed School, and is occasionally opened to the public.[5][11]

[edit] Translation of the Odyssey

Encouraged by the success of the Iliad, Pope translated the Odyssey. The translation appeared in 1726, but this time, confronted with the arduousness of the task, he enlisted the help of William Broome and Elijah Fenton. Pope attempted to conceal the extent of the collaboration (he himself translated only twelve books, Broome eight and Fenton four), but the secret leaked out. It did some damage to Pope's reputation for a time, but not to his profits.

Frontispiece and titlepage of a 1752 edition of Alexander Pope's extensively annotated translation of Homer's The Odyssey.

[edit] Edition of Shakespeare's works

In this period, Pope was also employed by the publisher Jacob Tonson to produce an opulent new edition of Shakespeare. When it finally appeared, in 1725, this edition silently "regularised" Shakespeare's metre and rewrote his verse in a number of places.[6] Pope also demoted about 1560 lines of Shakespearean material to footnotes, arguing that they were so "excessively bad" that Shakespeare could never have written them.[7] (Other lines were excluded from the edition altogether.[8]) In 1726, the lawyer, poet, and pantomime deviser Lewis Theobald published a scathing pamphlet called Shakespeare Restored, which catalogued the errors in Pope's work and suggested a number of revisions to the text. Pope and Theobald were probably well acquainted, and Pope no doubt interpreted this as a violation of the rules of friendship.[9] A second edition of Pope's Shakespeare appeared in 1728, but aside from making some minor revisions to the Preface, it seems that Pope had little to do with it. Most later 18th-century editors of Shakespeare dismissed Pope's creatively motivated approach to textual criticism. Pope's Preface, however, continued to be highly rated. It was suggested that Shakespeare's texts were thoroughly contaminated by actors' interpolations and they would influence editors for most of the 18th century.[10]

[edit] Later career: An Essay on Man and satires

Alexander Pope, painting attributed to English painter Jonathan Richardson, c. 1736 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Though the Dunciad was first published anonymously in Dublin, its authorship was not in doubt. As well as Theobald, it pilloried a host of other "hacks", "scribblers" and "dunces". Mack called its publication "in many ways the greatest act of folly in Pope's life". Though a masterpiece, "it bore bitter fruit. It brought the poet in his own time the hostility of its victims and their sympathizers, who pursued him implacably from then on with a few damaging truths and a host of slanders and lies...". The threats were physical too. According to his sister, Pope would never go for a walk without the company of his Great Dane, Bounce, and a pair of loaded pistols in his pocket.

In 1731, Pope published his "Epistle to Burlington", on the subject of architecture, the first of four poems which would later be grouped under the title Moral Essays (173135). In the epistle, Pope ridiculed the bad taste of the aristocrat "Timon". Pope's enemies claimed he was attacking the Duke of Chandos and his estate, Cannons. Though the charge was untrue, it did Pope a great deal of damage. Around this time, Pope began to grow discontented with the ministry of Robert Walpole and drew closer to the opposition led by Bolingbroke, who had returned to England in 1725. Inspired by Bolingbroke's philosophical ideas, Pope wrote An Essay on Man (17334). He published the first part anonymously, in a cunning and successful ploy to win praise from his fiercest critics and enemies. Despite the Essay being written in heroic couplets, many translations into European languages rapidly followed, especially in Germany, where the Essay was regarded as a serious contribution to philosophy. The Imitations of Horace followed (173338). These were written in the popular Augustan form of the "imitation" of a classical poet, not so much a translation of his works as an updating with contemporary references. Pope used the model of Horace to satirise life under George II, especially what he regarded as the widespread corruption tainting the country under Walpole's influence and the poor quality of the court's artistic taste. Pope also added a wholly original poem, An Epistle to Doctor Arbuthnot, as an introduction to the "Imitations". It reviews his own literary career and includes the famous portraits of Lord Hervey ("Sporus") and Addison ("Atticus"). In 1738 he wrote the Universal Prayer.[12] After 1738, Pope wrote little. He toyed with the idea of composing a patriotic epic in blank verse called Brutus, but only the opening lines survive. His major work in these years was revising and expanding his masterpiece The Dunciad. Book Four appeared in 1742, and a complete revision of the whole poem in the following year. In this version, Pope replaced the "hero", Lewis Theobald, with the poet laureate Colley Cibber as "king of dunces". By now Pope's health, which had never been good, was failing, and he died in his villa surrounded by friends on 30 May 1744. On the previous day, 29 May 1744, Pope called for a priest and received the Last Rites of the Catholic Church. He lies buried in the nave of the Church of St Mary the Virgin in Twickenham.

[edit] Essay on Man

Main article: An Essay on Man The Essay on Man is a philosophical poem, written in heroic couplets and published between 1732 and 1734. Pope intended this poem to be the centrepiece of a proposed system of ethics that was to be put forth in poetic form. It was a piece of work that Pope intended to make into a larger work; however, he did not live to complete it.[13] The poem is an attempt to "vindicate the ways of God to Man," a variation on Milton's attempt in Paradise Lost to "justify the ways of God to Man" (1.26). It challenges as prideful an anthropocentric world-view. The poem is not solely Christian; however, it makes an assumption that man has fallen and must seek his own salvation.[13] It consists of four epistles that are addressed to Lord Bolingbroke. Pope presents an idea or his view on the Universe; he says that no matter how imperfect, complex, inscrutable and disturbing the Universe appears to be, it functions in a rational fashion according to the natural laws. The natural laws consider the Universe as a whole a perfect work of God. To humans it appears to be evil and imperfect in many ways; however, Pope points out that this is due to our limited mindset

and limited intellectual capacity. Pope gets the message across that humans must accept their position in the "Great Chain of Being" which is at a middle stage between the angels and the beasts of the world. If we are able to accomplish this then we potentially could lead happy and virtuous lives.[13] The poem an affirmative poem of faith: life seems to be chaotic and confusing to man when he is in the center of it, but according to Pope it is really divinely ordered. In Pope's world God exists and is what he centres the Universe around in order to have an ordered structure. The limited intelligence of man can only take in tiny portions of this order and can experience only partial truths, hence man must rely on hope which then leads into faith. Man must be aware of his existence in the Universe and what he brings to it, in terms of riches, power and fame. It is man's duty to strive to be good regardless of other situations: this is the message Pope is trying to get across to the reader.[14]

[edit] Criticisms of Pope's work

The death of Alexander Pope from Museus, a threnody by William Mason. Diana holds the dying Pope, and John Milton, Edmund Spenser, and Geoffrey Chaucer prepare to welcome him to heaven. However, by the mid-18th century new fashions in poetry started to emerge. A decade after Pope's death, Joseph Warton claimed that Pope's style of poetry was not the most excellent form of the art. The Romantic movement that rose to prominence in early 19th-century England was more ambivalent towards his work. Though Lord Byron identified Pope as one of his chief influences (believing his scathing satire of contemporary English literature English Bards and Scotch Reviewers to be a continuance of Pope's tradition), William Wordsworth found Pope's style fundamentally too decadent to represent the human condition truly.[3] In the 20th century an effort to revive Pope's reputation began and was successful. Pope's work was now found to be full of references to the people and places of his time and these aided individuals' understanding of the past. The postwar period stressed the power of Pope's poetry and recognised that Pope's immersion in Christian and Biblical culture gave great depth to his poetry. Maynard Mack thought very highly of Pope's poetry. He argued that Pope's humane moral vision demanded as much respect as his technical excellence. In the years 19531967 the production of the definitive Twickenham edition of Pope's poems was published in ten volumes.
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[edit] Pope through a modern lens

Modern criticism of Pope focuses on the man, his circumstances and motivations, prompted by theoretical perspectives such as Marxism, feminism and other forms of post-structuralism. Brean

Hammond focuses on Pope's singular achievement in making an independent living solely from his writing. Laura Brown (1985) adopts a Marxist approach and accuses Pope of being an apologist for the oppressive upper classes. Hammond (1986) has studied Pope's work from the perspectives of cultural materialism and new historicism. Along Hammond's lines, Raymond Williams explains art as a set of practices influenced by broad cultural factors rather than simply the vague ideas of genius alone.[3] In 'Politics and Poetics of Transgression' (1985) Peter Stallybrass and Allon White charge that Pope drew upon the low culture which he despised in order to produce his own 'high art'. They assert Pope was implicated in the very material he was attempting to exclude, not dissimilar to observations made in Pope's time.[3] Feminists have also criticised Pope's works. Ellen Pollak's 'The Poetics of Sexual Myth' (1985) argues that Pope followed an anti-feminist tradition, that regarded women as inferior to men both intellectually and physically. Carolyn Williams contends that a crisis in the male role during the 18th century in Britain impacted Pope and his writing.[3]

[edit] Works
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement in the history of ideas that originated in late 18th century Western Europe. Romanticism emphasized intuition, imagination, and feeling. Romantic literature refers to the late 18th century and the 19th century literary works. The Romantic Period in literature originated in Germany and spread to England and the United States. Literature in romantic period was characterized by the criticism of the past emphasis on women and children respect for nature supernaturalism human psychology