• A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime
and Beautiful (1757)
Pre-romantic sensibility was characterised by:
• a predilection for night, darkness and death;
• the cult of ruins;
• terror and fantasies;
• an interest in mediaeval and northern literature and folklore.
The majority of these trends and interests were known as Gothic.
In the Second Half of the 18th century…
• The French Revolution and the impact it had on British culture and
society.
The revolutionary spirit took on various forms:
• a political and social revolution;
• a revolt against all forms of authority conflicting with human dignity;
• the free expression of personal feelings.
The Romantic Revolution
Romanticism was a truly European movement:
•Germany: Goethe, Schiller, Herder (Sturm und Drang);
•France: Madame de Staël, Hugo;
•Italy: Berchet, Manzoni, Foscolo.
European Romanticism
• Feeling vs Rationality instinct, feeling, intuition.
Feelings and emotions were essential steps towards true knowledge.
• Imagination the central point of the process of creation.
It connected the mind of the individual with the physical world.
Romantic Themes and Conventions
• A love of nature works contained many descriptions of nature.
Romantic writers endowed natural scenes with life, passion and feeling.
• Commonplace and supernatural ordinary life, dreams, nightmare
and visions were cultivated by the Romantics.
The universe was a living entity, which could reveal itself to man on two
levels: the visible (nature) and the invisible (the supernatural).
Romantic Themes and Conventions
• Individualism introspection, individualism.
The Romantics’ individualism was also reflected in isolation from
society.
• The ‘dark’ Romantic hero a glorious failure, haunted by remorse
for his faults and wasted opportunities.
The Romantics show a marked interest in the strange, the uncommon
and the forbidden.
Romantic Themes and Conventions