ROMANTICISM: 1800-1865 THE HEART OVER THE HEAD
ROMANTIC BELIEFS: INTUITION Reason, logic, and rationality have shortcomings They have their place, but they are limited Imagination, intuition, and emotion can discover deeper, abstract, more significant spiritual truths than reason can discover Intuition: gut feeling; instinct i.e.: Heaven; God; Beauty Idealism: Allegory of the Cave: Plato https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69F7GhASOdM
ROMANTIC VIEW OF GOD Not anthropomorphic: didn’t see God as a person God is a spirit, a presence, a being that pervades all As such, God can be discovered by anyone at any time through intuitive insight, usually in Nature away from the noise and distractions of society Greatest good is to become one with God; to lose the self and merge with the Divine. Very Eastern Idea: Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism Didn’t care much for organized religion; no need for the Bible, for a minister, for a Church to discover and worship God God is good, loving, merciful and created the universe and us as good
ROMANTIC BELIEFS: NATURE Nature is good, pure, and innocent Civilization is bad and the source of evil Civilization takes man out of his natural, good state and corrupts him The more sophisticated and complex our world is, the more disconnected from our natural, good state we become God is found in Nature and can be discovered there intuitively
ROMANTIC BELIEFS: TRUTH Beauty is truth It is recognized intuitively, from the heart, not rationally through the brain Truth is located in a “transcendent” reality that is beyond the physical world that can only be discovered through emotion, imagination, intuition Truth often comes in spontaneous moments of insight: epiphanies Truth is often found through insights gained in Nature
ROMANTIC BELIEFS: THE INDIVIDUAL Human nature is good and we are born good and pure; society and its forces corrupt Individual is more important than society Society usually is in conflict with the individual, restricting his/her independence, uniqueness, and power Trust your self; YOU are the source of truth since the Divine is found within you No need to give authority of your life to anyone else: you know best what to do
ROMANTIC VALUES Imagination before logic Intuition before carefully reasoned thought Spontaneity before careful prudence Emotion before detached, dry analysis The Individual’s power before mindless allegiance to the rules of society Exploration of Nature, of the mind, of the far away and distant, of the exotic and extreme Deeper spiritual truths before logical ones
ROMANTIC VALUES Youthful exuberance and energy over conservative, prudent, thoughtful experience A nostalgia for the past The raw, the natural, the unsophisticated over the polished, the refined, the carefully planned
THE THREE BRANCHES OF ROMANTICISM
OVERALL SIGNIFICANCE America’s literary, intellectual, cultural “Declaration of Independence” Now producing unique, authoritative, timeless ideas and literature for the first time The final escape from British influences other than the political: no more imitating British forms and ideas We have matured and gained confidence to do our own thing as proven by the great American Romantics
DARK ROMANTICS: POE, MELVILLE, AND HAWTHORNE How they differ from the other branches: Not optimistic about life, human nature, or nature The truths they discover beyond the rational are horrific, frightening, and painful The emotions they tend to emphasize are fear, dread, disgust, etc How they are similar to the other branches: They do believe in deeper, irrational truths Emphasis on imagination and emotion
GOTHIC ELEMENTS The bizarre: live burial; whales that carry a grudge; insanity The exotic: castles, faraway places, the dreary and the dark The supernatural: vampires; creating monsters Classic Examples: Dracula Frankenstein Anything by Poe
ROMANTIC LITERATURE Poetry: imitative of British: Bryant, Longfellow, Holmes Essays: new unique ideas: Thoreau, Emerson Short Stories: become a legitimate gnere: Poe, Hawthorne Adventure Novels: idealizes Nature and frontier life: Cooper