2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25
This trend is one of the main artistic phenomena in the culture of the XIX century in Russia, Europe and America. Romanticism as a literary trend originated at the end of the 18th century, but reached its greatest prosperity in the 1830s. From the early 1850s, the period begins to decline, but its threads stretch through the entire 19th century, giving rise to such trends as symbolism, decadence and neo-romanticism.
Rise of Romanticism
Europe, in particular England and France, is considered the birthplace of the direction, from where the name of this artistic direction came from - “romantisme”. This is explained by the fact that the romanticism of the 19th century arose as a result of the French Revolution.
The revolution destroyed the entire hierarchy that existed before, mixed society and social strata. The man began to feel lonely and began to seek solace in gambling and other entertainment. Against this background, the idea arose that all life is a game in which there are winners and losers. The protagonist of every romanticworks becomes a man playing with fate, with fate.
What is romanticism
Romanticism is everything that exists only in books: incomprehensible, incredible and fantastic phenomena, at the same time associated with the affirmation of the individual through her spiritual and creative life. For the most part, events unfold against the backdrop of expressed passions, all the characters have clearly manifested characters, and are often endowed with a rebellious spirit.
Writers of the era of romanticism emphasize that the main value in life is the personality of a person. Each person is a separate world full of amazing beauty. It is from there that all inspiration and lofty feelings are drawn, as well as a tendency to idealization.
According to novelists, the ideal is an ephemeral concept, but nevertheless having the right to exist. The ideal is beyond the ordinary, so the main character and his ideas are directly opposed to worldly relationships and material things.
Distinguishing Features
Features of romanticism as a literary movement lie in the main ideas and conflicts.
The main idea of almost every work is the constant movement of the hero in physical space. This fact, as it were, reflects the confusion of the soul, his continuously ongoing thoughts and, at the same time, changes in the world around him.
Like many art movements, Romanticism has its own conflicts. Here the whole concept is based oncomplex relationships between the protagonist and the world around him. He is very egocentric and at the same time rebels against base, vulgar, material objects of reality, which one way or another manifests itself in the actions, thoughts and ideas of the character. The following literary examples of romanticism are most pronounced in this regard: Childe Harold is the main character from Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Pechorin from Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time.
Summarizing all of the above, it turns out that the basis of any such work is the gap between reality and the idealized world, which has very sharp edges.
Romanticism in European Literature
European romanticism of the 19th century is remarkable in that most of its works have a fantastic basis. These are numerous fairy-tale legends, short stories and stories.
The main countries in which romanticism as a literary movement manifested itself most expressively are France, England and Germany.
This artistic phenomenon has several stages:
- 1801-1815. The beginning of the formation of romantic aesthetics.
- 1815-1830. The formation and flourishing of the current, the definition of the main postulates of this direction.
- 1830-1848. Romanticism takes on more social forms.
Each of the above countries has made its own, special contribution to the development of this cultural phenomenon. In France, romantic literary works had a more political tinge, the writers werehostile to the new bourgeoisie. This society, according to French leaders, ruined the integrity of the individual, her beauty and freedom of spirit.
In English legends, romanticism has existed for a long time, but until the end of the 18th century it did not stand out as a separate literary trend. English works, unlike French ones, are filled with Gothic, religion, national folklore, the culture of peasant and working societies (including spiritual ones). In addition, English prose and lyrics are filled with travel to distant lands and exploration of foreign lands.
In Germany, romanticism as a literary trend was formed under the influence of idealistic philosophy. The basis was the individuality and freedom of man, oppressed by feudalism, as well as the perception of the universe as a single living system. Almost every German work is permeated with reflections on the existence of man and the life of his spirit.
Europe: sample pieces
The most notable European works in the spirit of romanticism are the following literary works:
- treatise "The Genius of Christianity", the stories "Atala" and "Rene" Chateaubriand;
- novels "Delphine", "Corinne, or Italy" by Germaine de Stael;
- novel "Adolf" by Benjamin Constant;
- novel "Confessions of the Son of the Century" by Musset;
- Saint-Mar by Vigny;
- manifesto "Preface" to the work "Cromwell", the novel "Notre Dame Cathedral" by Hugo;
- drama "Henry III and his court",Musketeer novel series, The Count of Monte Cristo and Queen Margo by Dumas;
- novels "Indiana", "The Wandering Apprentice", "Horas", "Consuelo" by George Sand;
- Manifesto "Racine and Shakespeare" by Stendhal;
- poems "The Old Sailor" and "Christabel" by Coleridge;
- Oriental Poems and Byron's Manfred;
- collected works of Balzac;
- novel "Ivanhoe" by W alter Scott;
- the fairy tale "Hyacinth and the Rose", the novel "Heinrich von Ofterdingen" by Novalis;
- collections of short stories, fairy tales and novels by Hoffmann.
Romanticism in Russian literature
Russian romanticism of the 19th century was born under the direct influence of Western European literature. However, despite this, he had his own characteristics, which were tracked even in previous periods.
This artistic phenomenon in Russia fully reflected all the hostility of the foremost workers and revolutionaries to the ruling bourgeoisie, in particular, to its way of life - unbridled, immoral and cruel. Russian romanticism of the 19th century was a direct result of rebellious moods and anticipation of turning points in the history of the country.
In the literature of that time, two directions stand out: psychological and civil. The first was based on the description and analysis of feelings and experiences, while the second was based on the propaganda of the fight against modern society. The general and main idea of all novelists was that the poet or writer had to behave according to the ideals that he described in his works.
Russia: sample pieces
The most striking examples of romanticism in Russian literature of the 19th century are:
- stories "Ondine", "Prisoner of Chillon", ballads "Forest King", "Fisherman", "Lenora" by Zhukovsky;
- compositions "Eugene Onegin", "Queen of Spades" by Pushkin;
- "The Night Before Christmas" by Gogol;
- Lermontov's Hero of Our Time.
Romanticism in American Literature
In America, the direction has received a little later development: its initial stage dates back to 1820-1830, the next - 1840-1860 years of the XIX century. Both stages were exceptionally influenced by civil unrest, both in France (which was the impetus for the creation of the United States), and directly in America itself (the war for independence from England and the war between North and South).
Artistic trends in American romanticism are represented by two types: abolitionist, which advocated emancipation from slavery, and eastern, which idealized the plantation.
American literature of this period is based on a rethinking of knowledge and genres captured from Europe and mixed with a peculiar way of life and pace of life on a still new and little known mainland. American works are richly flavored with national intonations, a sense of independence and the struggle for freedom.
American romanticism. Examples of works
- The Alhambra cycle, the stories The Ghost Groom, Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving;
- Fenimore's The Last of the MohicansCooper;
- poem "The Raven", stories "Ligeia", "Gold Bug", "The Fall of the House of Usher" and others by E. Alan Poe;
- novels "The Scarlet Letter" and "The House of Seven Gables" by Gorton;
- novels "Typei" and "Moby Dick" by Melville;
- novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe;
- Poetically arranged legends of "Evangeline", "Song of Hiawatha", "Wooing of Miles Standish" by Longfellow;
- Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" collection;
- essay "Woman in the Nineteenth Century" by Margaret Fuller.
Romanticism as a literary trend had a strong enough influence on musical, theatrical art and painting - just remember the numerous productions and paintings of those times. This happened mainly due to such qualities of the direction as high aesthetics and emotionality, heroism and pathos, chivalry, idealization and humanism. Despite the fact that the age of romanticism was rather short-lived, this did not in the least affect the popularity of books written in the 19th century in the following decades - works of literary art from that period are loved and revered by the public to this day.
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