Romanticism - Conventions, Values, Paradigms. A study list :) (1 Viewer)

[anardi]

Thought I'd work up some community... stuff.

Helps me study too, recalling this nonsense.

Anyway...

~ Romanticism ~
~ Conventions, Values, Paradigms & Whatever ~
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What does this even mean? Pretty much, you know a text is considered Romantic when it has any or all of the following characteristics...

• Subjectivity, High Emotion: One need only look to Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Pretty much every character (particularly the two Catherines, Heathcliff, Hindley...) show immense emotion in their dialogue, through techniques like hyperbole, high-modal language, etc. It's a pretty basic concept to remember, and it clearly defines a Romantic text. Keep in mind that it's not just high emotion through characters, but landscapes as well. For example, the moors in Wuthering Heights are often associated with Catherine and Heathcliff's wild love.
• Individualism: This concept fascinated the Romantics. The father of Romanticism, Jean Jacques Rousseau, often commented on the concept, classifying it as an "antinomy". Pretty much, a philosphy developed within the Romantic's circle that humans are on a constant search for personal identity. Keats' poems say a lot about this concept... take a look at Bright Star! and To Lord Byron. It's a very humanist idea, and something that requires a lot of study to fully understand what the Romantics were on about.
• Nature: Not at all tricky. Nature and the environment are used by all Romantic authors and poets in one way or another. Keep in mind that they all use it in different ways, though. For example, Keats found nature was the medium for the imagination to thrive and provide inspiration, and "illuminate" aspects of the self, whereas Coleridge found nature was apart of creation, and something to be respected and even worshipped.
• "Carpe Diem!": i.e. "seize the day!" You've all seen Dead Poet Society, right? Then you should know that Romanticism and "seizing the day" go hand in hand. Romantics valued the spur of the moment, and taking every day for what it's worth. Beautiful literary movement, wasn't it? Plenty of examples of this in Coleridge's poems, Wuthering Heights and (criticisms of the paradigm in) Northanger Abbey. Especially in Coleridge's case, it's clear to see that the Romantics weren't afraid to "indulge their senses", if you know what I mean.
• The Supernatural, The Ancient, The Exotic: Fancy cultures. Unexplainable monsters. Alien-like landscapes. The Romantics love that shit. Pretty much anything that's alien to their everyday lives, they'll take it and write about it. Coleridge was great for this, especially in Xanadu, shame that's not a set text. Don't look past Ancient Mariner and Kubla Kahn though, they're excellent. And if you're REALLY good enough, you can squeeze some supernaturality out of Wuthering Heights... that Heathcliff's one crazy mofo.
• Idealism: The Romantics valued a perfect society. Particularly Blake. It's safe to say people like Bronte may have been less involved in this idea, rather representing the real guts of society and then proceeding to get all melancholy because they can't change it... in fact, a lot of the Romantics set for study weren't at all concerned really with the politics of their context. Best not to worry too much about this one, then?
• Anti-Establishmentarianism: You've finally found a use for this long, ridiculous word! The Romantics often opposed the institutions that were revolutionising the world... keep in mind when the Romantic Movement was occuring... late 1700s, early to late 1800s. Steam-trains and all that primitive stuff had come into fashion, the Industrial Revolution was well underway. The Romantics couldn't help but whinge all over this. Most of them found that with the changing world, the only way to remain "human" was to keep in touch with nature, and as such they rebelled against the Church, Queen Victoria, the government and what have you... at least, in their writing. Most of the time it was just that - whinging. On that note, you can find plenty examples of these factors with Keats in To Autumn and On The Sea, and Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Keep in mind Austen's criticism of the Romantic's attitude. Within Northanger, part of her whole argument against silliness in young ladies means she clearly values the town/city environment over the whole imaginative nature scene, and that's evident in characters like Isabella, Henry Tilney at times, and the whole satirical thing Austen does with her characters. Fantastic woman, Austen. Gotta love her.

Got something to add? Make a post and I'll make a modification !
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[alex.leon]

Possibly relating to your Anti-Establishmentarianism (biggest bitch to type out, that one), is the Romantics disassociation with religion? It's too late to elaborate, but I'll dot point it upppppp

• Romantic poets (Coleridge, Blake in particular) all experimented with 'Christianity' more as a philosophical notion than a code or conduct or way of living. They tried to incorporate non-religious ideas into their own Christianity. Although at the end of their lives, they all became a little too afraid of death to take the risk and reverted back to staunch Christianity..but eh. The second wave poets (Byron and Shelley mainly)were a bit more defiant than their predecessors and rallied atheism.
• Religion was a part of the status quo/the mainstream, and the Romantics sought to defy that (relating to your anti-establishmentarianism)
• Often religion is represented in the Romantic period as being oppressive, undesirable or outdated. An example from a prescribed text could be Joseph in Wuthering Heights. Bronte purposely uses language that the reader finds inaccessible (Yorkshire vernacular) and creates a block between Joseph and the reader. Also, Joseph is portrayed as rude and stretches the social restrictions placed upon him.

And lets not forget the role of the Gothic (supernatural), the Enlightenment (pursuit of reason) and Augustan literature (good ol' Austen) on Romanticism!

 

[M.T.T.]

The problem here, in this thread, is trying to define what makes a Romantic composition. It is impossible.

Just keep it simple, kids.

 

[Swanny93]

I don't really understand the place of nature in Romanticism.
From what I can gather it is part of the aesthetic paradigm in that it relates to the sublime, but does it have a place in the philosophical paradigm, too?

 

[qfa380]

Rousseau said 'everything is good when it leaves the creator; everything degenerates in the hands of men'. He was one of the typical philosophers of the era and there nature as seen as perfection and derived straight from God.

Nature was seen as thing to glean experience from and the change in thinking was towards experience being the root of all truth. Therefore it was determined that nature shaped our perception of truth, this need to expereience it though I guess lead to people going into nature and interacting with it so that they could learn something. That there was some knowledge from intuition that we just have but our true grasp of things stems from experience.

Nature was seen too as kind of perfect, one of the 3 'i's' being Idealism. The Enlightenment era had kind of tried to solve the world's problems through reason. These hadn't really worked so naturally a revolt was in order. You can see to elements of the individuality coming through nature too, being imperfect through the variations made each piece of nature unique which is how they wanted to be.

Critique of Pure Reason - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
That is really good, summing up one of the most prominent philosophicla works of the era.


One thing to consider too which is like 4th hand from somewhere 'the natural landscape (particularly in the Gothic texts) mirrors the emotional landscape. Wuthering Heights has is quite literally wild through its name, like Heathcliff and Cathy (or Catherine I always forget) through their passions and love. Thurshcross Grange is more ordered and normal better looking like the Linton's generally.

Nature practically fits in with most of the paradigms of the Romantics, I know such generalisations are never quite true but you can find it somewhere.

To add to some of your things. There's always the more economic paradigms, Economics as a science (or Art as I see it ) had only just come of age with the Enlightened Adam Smith so in itself wasn't too heavily criticised as few had really heard of it. Slavery was still around to a large degree but was being revolted against and criticised in literature, subsequently outlawed with Slave Trade Act 1807 and Abolition of Slavery Act 1833.

There is the rise of women; Vindication of the Right of Woman along with Jane Austen's criticism of the paradigm.

Political paradigms with the American and French Revolutions that changed a great deal of things. Its interesting to compare these two things and the level of Romantic paradigms prevalent in them.

Just some thoughts, more me trying to avoid writing a creative writing my Half-yearly tomorrow. She cheated and gave us the stimulus which is the painting Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon if anyone feels like helping me out.