The main feature of romanticism. Signs of Romanticism in Literature

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

A person inexperienced in literature, talking about this era, reduces its meaning to such familiar romance, which, it should be noted, is fundamentally wrong. The assumption that the aesthetics of this time period is reduced to the cult of love will be similar. In fact, any work of literature, painting or cinema basically has this wonderful light feeling in the variety of its manifestations, but this is far from the only fundamental feature.

This article will attempt to determine what are the main features of the aesthetics of romanticism. To do this, let's turn to the historical and cultural memory of mankind, its heritage in the field of art.

Time Frame

Before defining the main features of romanticism, one should understand when it was the main trend in art. The aesthetics characteristic of this period arose as a reaction to the strictly normed classicism. If we talk about the time frame, the style of romanticism emerged and established itself in the second half of the 18th century. Likethe other directions we are considering began to take shape in Europe, namely in Germany, from where it spread to England, France, Italy and eventually America. After the aesthetics of romanticism was finally formed, the direction spread almost all over the world.

Protest reaction against normativity

As mentioned earlier, representatives of romanticism wrote their works to disagree with the aesthetics of classicism, which art was subject to at that time.

The thing is that the entire previous era (from a cultural point of view) in the world there was a clear trend towards normalization, reduction to the model. With regard to the genre system, extremely strict canons acted, and the content of the works was determined solely by the problem of choosing between heart and duty. This kind of framework significantly limited both creativity and problematics. In addition, the society of this period made a significant leap forward, which required global changes in the aesthetic system and formed the distinctive features of romanticism.

Humanity suddenly realized its fragility, defenselessness before the universe and instantly reacted to this discovery with a completely new, revolutionary creativity. The main feature of romanticism consists in this very protest against the way of life, normativity and the complete suppression of the personality of a writer, poet, artist or composer.

Relation to authorship

If in the Renaissance the author was put on a pedestal and elevated to the status of a creator, then classicism is notrecognized. The lyrics were mercilessly relegated to the background and gave way to epic and dramatic works. The main feature of romanticism is that this era can be safely called individually authorial. Lyrics are returning to literature, feeling and expression are returning to music, and dynamics, emotion, a certain nerve are returning to painting.

In addition, the theme of works of art has also changed dramatically, but this should be said a little later.

Philosophical basis

Like any phenomenon in world culture, romanticism relied on certain views in philosophy. In Germany, from where the trend spread throughout the globe, the works of Gottlieb Fichte and Immanuel Kant served as such a foundation. At the head of the main teachings of this period was the problem of the creative possibilities of the mind. Despite the fact that the above works formed the basis of aesthetics, they were constantly polemic, thanks to which romantic art opened up more and more opportunities for itself.

The concepts of Benedict Spinoza, John Locke and Rene Descartes, who previously held leading positions, almost immediately faded into the background and were subjected to harsh criticism. All-consuming rationalism and the deification of man as a rational being became unacceptable for the developing trend and gave way to the chanting of a feeling man.

Coleridge noticed such a successful German trend, thanks to which the style of romanticism penetrated into England and further to France.

Manifestations of characteristichell in art

Of course, changes in the philosophical concept could not but lead to changes directly in creativity. Works of art began to acquire a completely new character: new genres entered the scene in literature, new stylistic figures began to be preferred.

The main feature of romanticism in painting began to manifest itself in the form of a change in the subject of works. Artists began to be attracted by the theme of the mysterious, the unknown, of what lies beyond the horizon. Night landscapes began to appear more and more often on the canvases. An invariable attribute of romantic painting was the motive of the road, travel. As a rule, much less attention is paid to the first plan of the paintings of this era than to the second, which leads to infinity.

The music of romanticism regained expression, emotional strain. Moreover, the composition of the works has become more blurred, and the genre boundaries have become ghostly.

Practically in all types of arts, the strict division into high, medium and low genres, which received the most attention in the era of classicism, was abandoned.

Literature of Romanticism

Speaking of this direction in art, the greatest attention should be paid, perhaps, to literature, since it was in it that the traditional aesthetics of romanticism manifested itself most fully and diversified.

It has been repeatedly said that this direction is characterized by a certain desire for the unknown, finding oneself in a completely different incarnation,search for freedom from conventions and everyday life. If you look at the most famous, one might say canonical, literary works, this feature can be easily detected.

Striving for the unknown

Signs of romanticism in literature appear in several aspects. First of all, it should be emphasized the constant opposition of true creators, free, ex alted natures and the so-called philistines.

The art of this period ex alts creativity, puts it above any other realities of life. This is what determines the classical hero of the works of the era of romanticism. It is always a person who is in conflict with the rest of the world, alien to it, striving to escape from the clutches of everyday gray and limited life.

Confrontation between two worlds

The main feature of romanticism in literature is also determined by the presence of an obligatory mystical, mysterious element, the second plane of reality. If expressed in philological terminology, this component of aesthetics can be called a dual world. The romantic hero is always characterized by some escapism. The magical and the mundane coexist on the pages of literary works at the same time, being in permanent conflict with each other.

Recognizable place and time

The characteristic features of romanticism in literature are also manifested in the so-called local flavor. The authors of this period very actively turned to folklore, the study of history, culture, which was reflected in literary work. Cities, streets, eraalways evident, tangible in the literature of this period.

It is noteworthy that the authors often resorted to describing the events of past eras, rather than to the present. Almost always in the works there is a certain time distance between the writing of the work and the events described in it. Even completely fictional storylines most often echo reality, immerse themselves in it.

How this was reflected in Russian literature

Of course, romantic aesthetics could not bypass the receptive Russian literature. Writers and poets willingly picked up the European phenomenon and adapted it to their own reality. If you take a closer look at Russian literature that existed in these time frames, you can see that the main features of Russian romanticism were reflected, first of all, in its desire for the magical, mystical, and sometimes even demonic. If in the works of European authors this moment was only present as one of the components, in Russian literature it has become an absolute dominant.

Unlike English or German literature, Russian literature, although it absorbed the characteristic features of romanticism, paid more attention to lyrical works: ballads, poems, poems, rather than novels and works of short form. Poetry became the defining form of creativity for this period.

Features of Russian romanticism in many respects have something in common with European, however, they differ significantly from it, which is due to the historical situationgiven time period.

Representatives in Literature

Of course, we should start with the German romantics, since it was they who gave the world this literary trend. Of course, first of all, these are the brothers Schlegel and Novalis, who were the first to declare themselves representatives of the new art. The main feature of romanticism - the desire to escape from reality - manifested itself in their works early and quite powerfully. One of the main representatives of this trend are, of course, Heinrich Heine and Johann Wolfgang Goethe.

In England, the main representatives of romanticism are George Gordon Byron, William Blake and Robert Burns. Among the French authors of this trend, one cannot fail to name Victor Hugo, Chateaubriand, Adelbert Musset.

Russian representatives of romanticism are, first of all, Zhukovsky, Batyushkov, Odoevtsev. Some of Pushkin's works (Ruslan and Lyudmila is considered by many researchers to be an exclusively romantic work) fit perfectly into the framework of this aesthetics.

One of the canonical examples of romantic poetry is Lermontov's poem "Sail".