Romanticism

Carol stumpo

luca cosenza

martina tassone

martina curcio

Carla di pierro

V H

Romanticism

"Nature never did betray The heart that loved her." -William Wordsworth

Start

Index

the romantic movement

Augustan Romantic

Term

First generation

Introduction

Second generation

Romantic Age

Video

Literary Background

Closure

Chief Features

Romanticism

The meaning of the term

The term "Romantic" derives from the old French ‘Romans’ and is denoted as a vernacular language derived from the Latin word that provides us with the expression "the Romance languages", but it came to mean more than a language.

It not only meant an imaginative story and a courtly romance, but it also implies the quality and preoccupations of literature written in "the Romance languages", especially romances and stories. However, day by day, it came to mean so many other things also.

Romanticism

introduction

English Romanticism is an artistic and intellectual movement that developed in England during the 18th and 19th centuries. It was characterized by a strong emphasis on individualism, emotional expression, and creative freedom.

Romanticism was also characterized by a strong sense of rebellion and defiance against social and cultural conventions. Romantic poets often exalted the individual and their ability to resist the restrictions imposed by society.

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The Romantic Age

historical background The age of revolutions

American revolution:

1775-1776

American War of Independence and Declaration of Independence from British rule

French revolution:

1789

New ideas of freedom and social justice spread all over Europe.

Industrial revolution:

1760

It brought about many social changes.

Ideological and artistic revolution:

1775-1848

Revolt against classical rules, against authority. In favour of free expression of personal feelings.

The Literary Background

Origins and use of the word “Romantic”

In England: it appeared in the middle of the 17° century. And meant “typical of the old romances”. Wordsworth wrote the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads in 1800, considered the Manifesto of English Romantic poetry. In France: introduced in the 18° century by Rousseau, it denoted a feeling (related to landscapes). Madame De Stael introduced Romantic ideas and ideals. In Germany: at the end of the 18° century it acquired a totally positive meaning and denoted a spiritual and aesthetic value. It was anticipated by the “Sturm und Drang” movement. In Italy: Berchet’s Lettera Semiseria (1816): the Manifesto of Italian Romanticism.

Chief features of Romantic Poetry

• Glorification of the Ordinary.
• Celebration of the unusual, the supernatural and the macabre.

• Change in the concept of poetry and poet.
• Depiction of Nature.

Nature played a central role in English Romantic poetry. The poets embraced the beauty and grandeur of nature, finding inspiration and spiritual solace in it. Nature was seen as a refuge from the modern world and its materialistic concerns.

Augustan/Romantic

characteristics table

The first generation of Romantic Poets

right at the beginning that wr iters did not think of themselves as “Romantic”.

Coleridge

William Blake

Wordsworth

Considered also a “pre-romantic”, he created his own symbolic system, based on his theory of complementary opposites. He was ahead of his time; sensitive to the social changes brought about by the Industrial revolution. He wrote Songs of innocence and Songs of Experience.

His poetry started from the direct observation of nature, of simple life. He wanted to show the high moral values present in the life of simple people. Use of common language.

His poetry started inside his mind. He created fantastic, dream-like worlds and described them as if they were real. He mixed the supernatural with the real.

Common features: they wrote some “theory” about poetry, they all at first supported the French Revolution. However they were later disappointed by it.

John Keats

Keats poetry was very original: the poet's ego disappeared and the poetic personal pronoun "/" was linked to a universal human being. He used a personal figurative language, characterized by the use of synesthesia (a common language which is a mixture of different sensations, for example smell and touch). The central theme of his poetry was the searching for beauty. For him beauty was the ideal of all type of art and it can be physical or spiritual. While physical beauty is temporary and derives from the sensitive world, spiritual beauty is eternal, derives from spirit and it is linked to the idea of love, of friendship, of art, of poetry. They are not in opposition but they are interconnected: physical beauty is the phenomenal expression of spiritual beauty. Keats wrote about negative capability which is the acceptation we can't explain everything with reason or with poetry. In Keats’ words, this occurs ‘when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason’. Art mustn't solve problems, but explore them.

of Romantic Poets

The second generation

Video: Coleridge and Wordsworth

An exchange of ideas

Wordsworth and Coleridge composed together the collection of poetry named Lyrical Ballads which is considered the manifest of the Romantic Movement in English Literature.

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Carla di pierro carol stumpo luca cosenza martina tassone martina curcio VH

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4°:

Celebration of the unusual, the supernatural and the macabre

Credit should be given to the Romantic writers for opening up to the readers the dark depths of psyche.

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3°:

Glorification of the Ordinary

Romantic poetry is essentially democratic. Rural, rustic life is glorified in the poems of Wordsworth.

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1°:

Change in the concept of poetry and poet.

Romantic theory described poetry as an expression of the inner urges of the soul of the poet. Most Romantic poets concurred by referring primarily to the mind, emotions, and imagination of the poet, instead of to the outer world as perceived by the senses, for the origin, content and defining attributes of a poem. In accordance with this view, the lyric poem written in the first person became a major Romantic form.

2°:

Depiction of Nature.

In the Romantic Age, natural scene became a primary poetic subject and all the major Romantic poets described natural phenomena with accuracy. Romantic “nature poems” are meditative poems where the natural scene serves to raise an emotional problem or personal crisis in the poet.