The Romantic Period

The Zeitgeist
 Zeitgeist: a pervasive
intellectual climate. The Spirit of
the Age

In the Romantic Period we see an

explosive release of artistic energy, an
experimental boldness, and creative
power that marks an artistic
renaissance
• Keats had the sense that “great spirts now
on Earth are sojourning.”

• In Shelley’s Defense of Poetry he claimed

that the literature of his age “has arisen as it
were from a new birth,” and that “an
electric life burns” within the words of the
best writers, which is “less their spirit than
the spirit of the age.”
William Hazlitt, in The Spirit of
the Age (1825)

Described how the French Revolution

seemed “the dawn of a new era, a
new impulse had been given to men’s
minds.” And he said that the school
of Wordsworth “had its origin in the
French Revolution.”
 Characteristics of the
Romantic Period
• (1) Imagination, Emotions, and Intuition.
Exaltation of intense feelings.
• Descartes: I think, therefore I am.
vs
• Rousseau: I felt before I thought.

• (2) Subjectivity of approach; the cult of the

individual; the absolute uniqueness of every
individual.
 Characteristics of Romanticism

(3) Freedom of thought and expression.

• A revolt against authority and tyranny, against the
ancien regime, whether social, political, religious, or
artistic.

• Thomas Paine: “The Rights of Man.”

• Mary Wolstonecraft: “A Vindication of the Rights of
Woman” (1792)

• Alienation and rebellion: Cult of Youth, Energy, and

Idealism
 Characteristics of Romanticism

(4) Idealization of Nature

• Embracing the uncivilized, the wild, the pre-
civilized.
• Rousseau: “Man is born free and everywhere he is
in chains.” In other words, civilization is in part the
cause of our corruption.
• The “noble savage,” and James Fennimore Cooper’s
Leatherstocking novels, I.e. The Last of the
Mohicans.
 But there were 2 views of Nature

• The first viewed nature as peaceful, calm,

nurturing, a source for spiritual renewal. It
often showed an innocent life of rural
dwellers, a world of peace and harmondy
which nurtures and comforts the human
spirit. This is very much how Wordsworth
viewed nature.
John Constable: The Hay Wain
 But nature could also be
frightening in its power, and
cause a dizzying sense of awe
and wonder.
J.M.W. Turner: Avalanche
Edmund Burke defined these two
views of nature as:

•The beautiful
and
•The sublime
 A BRIEF SERIES OF
PAINTINGS FROM THE
ROMANTIC PERIOD

Starting with Sir Joshua Reynolds,

who was President of the Royal
Academy in England
Blake quit the Royal Academy
partly because of Sir Joshua
Reynolds

So, on to some of Blake works

Two Works by Henry Fuseli, a
Swiss artist living in England
who was friends with Blake
One of the most interesting
artists of the period is
J.M.W. Turner

Starting with an early, fairly

conventional painting
And then to end on John
Constable

Who said, “I try to paint as if I had

never seen a painting before.”
And then: Eugene
Delacroix
And . . . Caspar David Friedrich