Characteristics of Romanticism: We explain what the characteristics of Romanticism were, its themes, values and disciplines in which it manifested itself.
Romanticism
Romanticism (1789-1880) was simultaneously an artistic, philosophical, aesthetic, musical and literary movement. It emerged in northern Europe (in Germany and England) at the end of the 18th century, and took a position contrary to the Enlightenment and Neoclassicism that were dominant at the time.
In addition, it was a new way of thinking that soon spread throughout Europe and the entire world. Thus, it forever changed the way we in the West relate to nature, love, art and work.
Heir to important European works and artistic trends such as the German Sturm und Drang (“storm and impetus”) or the novels of Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), among others, Romanticism is a crucial movement for understanding the modern history of the West and the world. Get this Concept of Encyclopedia information too!
So much so that, to some extent, we are all romantics today, as many of the central values of this movement remain alive, despite the fact that almost two centuries have passed since its peak in the mid-nineteenth century.
The name of the movement is a matter of debate, as it has important links with the French term romantique, used in the sixteenth century to refer to chivalric novels. These were published at that time in the Romance language (while scientific and philosophical treatises were published in Latin or Greek, classical and “serious” languages).
As a result, the term would initially be associated with the picturesque, the sentimental, the characteristic of this type of literature. Perhaps for this reason, throughout the nineteenth century, different ways of referring to the movement were used in the different European languages: romantisch or romantiker in German, romancesco and romantic in Spanish.
The important thing today is to understand that romance does not necessarily have to do with erotic romance and love stories, but with an attitude towards life that exalts feelings above the logical and rational world proposed by modernity.
Below we will see the main characteristics of Romanticism and detail some of its most outstanding authors, thinkers and artistic and literary works. Keep getting this Communication information too!
Characteristics of Romanticism
Feelings before reason
Romanticism was, above all, a reaction against the cold, rational and millimetric world that the French Enlightenment engendered and that was put into practice with industrialization. Rural time, with its contemplative nature, was left behind: the modern world was fast and troubled, with time measured and reason as the supreme value of humanity.
Therefore, Romanticism aspired to recover what was considered a lost or forgotten aspect of the human being: the sentimental. For this reason, romantic artists exalted the uniqueness of their inner world, understanding their work as that of a demiurge or creator god of their own universe, and thinking of themselves as different, unique, original individuals.
For them, instinct and the creative self had much more value than the universalist considerations of rationalism, which thought of the human being in more scientific and sociological terms.
This is why romantic works often depict solitary and suffering heroes, trapped in the passion of their inner storm, like Goethe’s young Werther, whose impossible love for Carlota leads him to suicide.
Childhood as a lost paradise
For the romantics, civilization makes human beings sick, since with it we imposed on ourselves a strict and rational order that distanced us from nature and our origins. Therefore, it was necessary to reconnect with that lost nature, represented in its fullness in the figure of the child: the rebel par excellence, naive, pure, not yet corrupted by the banal ambitions of commerce and industry.
Many romantic artists fled industrial civilization towards exotic and natural lands, either on long journeys or in a continuous search for a natural refuge, to reconnect with “true” nature. In this sense, they expressed a certain nostalgia for the rural, for life before the cities.
Others, on the other hand, embraced political and revolutionary ideas that defended the inherent goodness of the human being against the corrupting influence of the bourgeois world.
In the romantic imagination, the rebel and the tragic hero occupy an important place: those who rise up against the whole society and are misunderstood, branded as crazy or sacrificed by the masses, except for those select few who manage to understand the depth and honesty of their struggle. In this, the romantic heroes are heirs to the Christian myth.
The exaltation of nationalism
Unlike what was proposed by the Enlightenment, which was much more cosmopolitan and universalist, Romanticism was a profoundly nationalist movement. Its works took from the folklore and legends and rural traditions of each country, and defended the unique and original of each culture, its own spirit or Volkgeist.
This led to the exaltation of the golden ages, that is, the past moments of glory and plenitude. European nationalism were largely a romantic invention.
In this way, the medieval imaginary was recovered, so denigrated by Humanism and the Enlightenment because they associated it with religious obscurantism and superstition, the opposite of human reason.
The romantics, on the other hand, saw in the Middle Ages a state of greater purity, and rescued numerous tales from yesteryear, such as Arthurian mythology or the Scandinavian sagas, as well as poetic traditions in local languages such as Welsh, Scottish, Galician, etc. In this way, they avoided the Greco-Roman European legacy, which the neoclassicals focused on.
Examples of this are novels such as Goethe’s Faust, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, as well as paintings such as Lady Godiva by John Collier and The Witches’ Sabbath and Flight of the Witches by Francisco de Goya, among many others. Also of interest are the musical compositions of the Italian Giacomo Puccini and the German Max Bruch, in which they took up the popular legacy.
Aesthetic rebellion
By valuing originality so highly, the Romantics were necessarily rebels against traditional norms and the prevailing styles in art.
On the one hand, this meant ceasing to copy traditional classical motifs, and on the other, breaking with the idea of the finished and complete work, appreciating instead the unfinished, open works, which allowed one to appreciate the unique and personal nature of each artist. Canons and schools did not interest them as much as the power of subjective expression.
Creative freedom, in this sense, was the most important thing. The Romantic poets broke with the rigor of metrics and allowed themselves freer verses; they mixed prose and verse at will; they broke with the three Aristotelian unities of the theatrical work; they rescued medieval genres such as the ballad and the romance; and in music they embraced improvisation.
Return to Christianity and the Experience of God
The imagery of Romanticism had strong Christian roots, unlike the Enlightenment. Many of its paintings deal with biblical or New Testament scenes, and in its lyrical works and novels the theme of the sacrifice of the Messiah is continually present.
Poets such as the German Novalis (1772-1801) wrote to his dead beloved (another of the great motifs of the poets of Romanticism), comparing his love for her with the love of Jesus, or describing her in terms similar to those of the Virgin Mary.
On the other hand, the Romantics were great admirers of landscapes, and their experience of the natural world was sublime, almost mystical, similar to that proposed in previous times before the miracle or divine revelation. In a certain way, they worshipped God outside the churches, in natural beauty, since at the same time it was a secular movement, not at all related to religious morality and the Catholic Church.
Romantic landscapes were abundant in painting, and they sought to exalt emotions rather than copy a real, topographical perspective. The picturesque and the sublime were what interested them most.
Later, this gave way to the idea of the flaneur or the pedestrian, the individual who wanders through modern cities without hurry, simply observing, and in doing so distancing himself from the troubled life of the bourgeoisie. The French poet Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) wrote many verses about this.
The appreciation of fantasy and the grotesque
Finally, Romanticism was not a precious and perfectionist movement, with symmetrical and balanced works, but rather valued passion and impetus above all else. Nor were they interested in a realistic perspective, which addressed social issues. For this reason, fantasy, the grotesque, the horrendous and the supernatural have a place in their imagination, and the sublime can also be appreciated in them.
Romantic novels are full of monsters and ghosts, the sinister and the demonic, and from there the so-called gothic literature was born in the 19th century. Novels and stories such as those of Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, Lord Byron and John William Polidori are examples of this, as is the poetry of Charles Baudelaire, in which vampires, prostitutes and even syphilis abound, or that of the British John Keats and William Blake.
