The Romantic Movement
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Transcript of The Romantic Movement
The Romantic Era
The EnlightenmentLate 17th – Late 18th Century
Western civilization’s attempt to seek through reason a means to understand human problems without involving conflicting traditions
The search for universal meaning and understanding.
Science & the relief of suffering
A Reaction to Rational Moralism1
A defence in the face of a changing world
2
A response to German Idealism3
‘Chaos is the law of nature; order the dream of man’ – John Adams
The creative mind brings coherence and meaning
George Eliot - ‘Middlemarch’
The role of the Artist
‘I must create my own system or become enslaved to another man’s vision’ – William
Blake
The tyranny of the system
Reason vs. Imagination
Communion with Nature
Prometheus – the Romantic hero
Originality vs. Craft
The Struggle of the Artist
Lord Byron
‘We murder to dissect’The Tables Turned - Wordsworth
An adolescent movement?
What happens when a Romantic meets the ‘real world’?
Why did the Civil Rights movement ‘succeed’ while the Hippy movement was ultimately ineffectual?
What happens when a Romantic runs out of steam?
The salvation of memory?
What happens when a Romantic hero gets too old?
The hero revisions the world
OR…
The world destroys the hero
The ‘tamed’ hero
The Romantic hero tends to be:
A sensitive man of feelingA rebellious outsiderA traveller / a QuesterA visionarySeeks union with the infinite
The Romantic aesthetic embraced:
MadnessCriminalityAbnormal behaviourPornographyExcessThe irrationality of experience
Anything which was considered off limits by the rational moralists of the Enlightenment.
Our Post-Romantic Inheritance
A divided life
Social justiceEqualityMoralityReform
Self definitionIndividualism
The Political Impotence of the Artist
Complicated Enrichment!