Unit 2: Optimism for A New Day:

Romanticism and Trancendentalism

Romanticism: DefinitionRomanticism refers to a movement in art,

literature, and music during the 19th century.

Romanticism is characterized by the 5 “I”sImaginationIntuitionIdealismInspirationIndividuality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC6F-QfmxHw

ImaginationImagination was emphasized over

“reason.”This was a backlash against the

rationalism characterized by the Neoclassical period or “Age of Reason.”

Imagination was considered necessary for creating all art.

British writer Samuel Taylor Coleridge called it “intellectual intuition.”

IntuitionRomantics placed value on

“intuition,” or feeling and instincts, over reason.

Emotions were important in Romantic art.

British Romantic William Wordsworth described poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”

IdealismIdealism is the concept that we can

make the world a better place.

Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher, held that the mind forces the world we perceive to take the shape of space-and-time.

InspirationThe Romantic artist, musician, or

writer, is an “inspired creator” rather than a “technical master.”

What this means is “going with the moment” or being spontaneous, rather than “getting it precise.”

IndividualityRomantics celebrated the individual.During this time period, Women’s

Rights and Abolitionism were taking root as major movements.

Walt Whitman, a later Romantic writer, would write a poem entitled “Song of Myself”: it begins, “I celebrate myself…”

Time Period and Origins

• Late 1700’s to mid 1800’s

• Caused by new independence and immigration

• Westward expansion• Lewis and Clark’s explorations• Transcontinental railroads• Gold Rush (GA/ CA)

Continued origins

• Presidential Elections

• Mexican- American War

• Trail of Tears

• Peak of American Slave Trade/ culture

• Women’s Rights

The ArtsRomanticism was a movement across all

the arts: visual art, music, and literature.All of the arts embraced themes

prevalent in the Middle Ages: chivalry, courtly love. Literature and art from this time depicted these themes. Music (ballets and operas) illustrated these themes.

Shakespeare came back into vogue.

Visual ArtsNeoclassical art

was rigid, severe, and unemotional; it hearkened back to ancient Greece and Rome

Romantic art was emotional, deeply-felt, individualistic, and exotic. It has been described as a reaction to Neoclassicism, or “anti-Classicism.”

Visual Arts: Examples

Neoclassical Art

Romantic Arthttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JCMnWfnzAk

Music: Components 1730-1820. Classical music

emphasized internal order and balance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlAYXYJ0sEo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgOFiJIJ1r4&feature=related

1800-1910.Romantic music

emphasized expression of feelings.

LiteratureIn America, Romanticism most

strongly impacted literature.Writers explored supernatural and

gothic themes. Writers wrote about nature –

Transcendentalists believed God was in nature, unlike “Age of Reason” writers like Franklin and Jefferson, who saw God as a “divine watchmaker,” who created the universe and left it to run itself.

American Transcendentalism

• Emerson: left church in 1830 to find a different path

• Truth transcends (or goes beyond) what people observe with their senses in the physical world.

Emerson’s Words

• We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds...A nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men

• Ultimately Transcendentalists believed in the unity of all creation and that human nature contained something that t r a n s c e n d e d, or went beyond, ordinary experience.

• Transcendentalism Romanticism is all about transforming yourself!

• THROUGH– Nature, emotion, the natural world and your

own true divine soul– http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=IAEH0Nan_UM

Ultimately Romanticism Is…

• Celebration of the individual

• Emotions and the human spirit

• Imagination of life as a journey

• YOU WANT TO WRITE THESE DOWN

Ultimately Transcendentalism Is…

• God should not be feared but found in nature

• Non- conformity

• Self exploration

• YOU WANT TO WRITE THIS DOWN!

Write these down!

• *(Rom.) Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

• *(Rom.) Novelist James Fenimore Cooper

• *(Rom.) Poet Walt Whitman

• *(Trans.) Essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson

• *(Trans.) Essayist and Activist Henry David Thoreau