The Romantic Movement, or as others know it to be romanticism, was an intellectual orientation that characterized many pieces of literature during its time.
What was the romantic movement: The romantic movement first originated in Europe, approximately towards the end of the 18th century. The movement itself peaked about 1800-1850. The movement itself was partly a revolt against classicism and the Enlightenment. The romantics were fanatic on the medieval emphasis of rationality and order and rejected the classical emphasis. There were forerunners as part of this romantic movement and they appeared from approximately 1750 and so forth.
Characteristics of the romantic movement: The romantic movement was characterized by a belief in emotional exuberance, spontaneity and imagination. The emotion and individualism it emphasized on had great glorification for nature, the past, and primarily preferred medieval over classical. During this time, everyone became enlightened by nature and exploration. Through its time of age, the movements intense emotion was portrayed as a primary source for aesthetic experience. Lots of emotion focused primarily on horror, terror, awe, and apprehension. The romantic movement had great admiration on making sure the irrational, imaginative, visionary, personal and spontaneous stood out. Romantics severely stressed individualism, rejected materialism and led bohemian lives. They primarily used nature as their source of inspiration and were big on making the study of history emphasized. To the romantics, history was seen as the key to an organic and dynamic universe and that the way to understand national destiny was to read and write history. Romantics also had certain beliefs during the romantic movement. They believed that all men should behave well, men should do no harm to society and shall only better it. Lastly, they believed the keys to being truthful were sincerity, spontaneity and their faith in emotion.
Romantic Movement and European culture: One of the most impulsive moves the romantic movement was known for was its rejection of classicism. Through its reign, classicism first remained strong in France under the reign of Napoleon until 1813, when Germaine de Stael urged the French to distance themselves from classicism to romanticism. Romanticism admired freedom and emotions which the classical era lacked. Romanticism in central Europe, however, reinforced nationalism. The romantic movement also had a big influence in art on the European culture. Romantic artists often broke from their restrictions imposed by classicism and pertained their attention to their feelings. Three of the greatest romantic painters were: Delacroix, Turner, and Constable. Delacroix was known for his masterpiece, “Liberty Leading the People.” This painting celebrated the nobility of popular revolution over-all and particularly, the revolution in France. Romantic movement artists used their imagination and emotion in the artwork to focus on culture and nature aspects. Artists would use verbal concepts to tell stories within their work and incorporate objects with a sentimental meaning for readers.
Romantic Movement and Literature: The romantic period of literature ranged approximately from 1820-1865 and was known as, “A break from the age of reason.” The idea of literature during this movement was to revolt against the stiffness of age and bring up a time of fantasy and fiction. Romantic literature was first developed in Britain and was exemplified by the following poets: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, Shelley, Keats and Byron. A major influence that the romantic movement impacted on literature was rousseau. Rousseau was the passionate advocate of feeling, freedom, natural goodness and the most influential. It was Wordsworth who was highly influenced by the idea of Rousseau and early French revolution. Wordsworth and Coleridge both rejected the classical rules that were implied on poetry, however, Wordsworth’s work itself emphasized the power of nature and its elevation. Wordsworth’s, “Daffodils” is one of the best pieces of poetry to imply his idea of romantic credo. One other poet was Scottish novelist, Walter Scott who relied heavily on his series of historical novels to express romanticized history. The literature itself was sometimes described as free and imaginative, however, also held some characteristics of Victorian style writings. The romantic literature was often characterized by having a common-man-hero, nature was foreseen as a place of refuge, the writings involved escapism and were highly imaginative.