Romanticism: Hater Gonna Hate The expression Romantic gained currency during its own time, roughly 1780-1850. Romantic

ideas arose both as implicit and explicit criticisms of 18th century Enlightenment thought. The philosophes were too objective -- they chose to see human nature as something uniform. The philosophes had also attacked the Church because it blocked human reason. The Romantics attacked the Enlightenment because it blocked the free play of the emotions and creativity. The philosophe had turned man into a soulless, thinking machine -- a robot. In a comment typical of the Romantic thrust, William Hazlitt (1778-1830) asked, "For the better part of my life all I did was think." And William Godwin (1756-1836), a contemporary of Hazlitt’s asked, "what shall I do when I have read all the books?" Christianity had formed a matrix into which medieval man situated himself. The Enlightenment replaced the Christian matrix with the mechanical matrix of Newtonian natural philosophy. For the Romantic, the result was nothing less than the demotion of the individual. Imagination, sensitivity, feelings, spontaneity and freedom were stifled -- choked to death. Man must liberate himself from these intellectual chains. So instead of the motto, "Sapere aude," "Dare to know!" the Romantics took up the battle cry, "Dare to be!" The Romantics defined the Enlightenment as something to which they were clearly opposed -- defining an enemy, making clear what they oppose, thus making life into a battle. But for some Romantics, revolutionary armies inspired by enlightenment thinkers and desiring natural rights were not real enemies. There were new enemies on the horizon, especially after the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815). The Romantics concentrated their attack on the heartlessness of bourgeois liberalism as well as the nature of urban industrial society. Industrial society brought new problems: soulless individualism, economic egoism, utilitarianism, materialism and the cash nexus. Higher virtues and social concerns were subsumed by the cash nexus and crass materialism of an industrial capitalist society.

The Romantics returned God to Nature -- the age revived the unseen world, the supernatural, the mysterious, the world of medieval man. It is no accident that the first gothic novel appears early in the Romantic Age. Nature came to be viewed historically. The world was developing, it was a world of continuous process, it was a world in the process of becoming. In a word, the Romantics embraced relativism. They did not seek universal abstract laws as Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) had. Instead, they saw history as a process of unfolding, a becoming.

The Romantics sought Nature’s glorious diversity of detail -- especially its moral and emotional relation to mankind. On this score, the Romantics criticized the 18th century. The philosophe was cold, mechanical, logical and unfeeling. There was no warmth in the heart. For the Romantics, warmth of heart was found and indeed enhanced by a communion with Nature. The heart has reasons that Reason is not equipped to understand. The heart was a source of knowledge -- the location of ideas "felt" as sensations rather than thoughts. Intuition was equated with that which men feel strongly. The Romantics distrusted calculation and stressed the limitations of scientific knowledge. The rationality of science fails to apprehend the variety and fullness of reality. Rational analysis destroys the naïve experience of the stream of sensations and in this violation, leads men into error.

The Romantics opted for a life of the heart and emotion. Their relativism made them appreciative of diversity in man and in nature. There are no universal laws. There are certainly no laws which would explain man.

---Steven Kreis, The History Guide

1. Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, 1818 What is the plot? Who created Frankenstein? What is the moral of the story? What does Mary Shelley hate? What line from book is most powerful? (See Excerpt Below)

PLOT SUMMARY:Victor begins by telling of his childhood. Born into a wealthy Geneva family, Victor and his brothers, Ernest and William, are encouraged to seek a greater understanding of the world through science. At university, he excels at chemistry and other sciences, soon developing a secret technique to impart life to non-living matter, which eventually leads to his creation of the Monster. Because of the difficulty in replicating the minute parts of the human body, Victor is forced to make the Creature roughly eight feet tall. As a result, the beautiful creation of his dreams is instead hideous, with yellow eyes and skin that barely conceals the muscle tissue and blood vessels underneath. Repulsed by his work, Victor flees. Saddened by the rejection, the Creature disappears. Ravaged by grief and guilt, Victor retreats into the mountains. The Monster locates him, pleading for Victor to hear his tale. Now intelligent and articulate, the Creature tells how encounters with people led to his fear of them and drives him into the woods. While living near a cottage, he grew fond of the family living there. The Creature learned to speak by listening to them and he taught himself to read after discovering a lost satchel of books. When he saw his reflection in a pool, he realised his physical appearance was hideous. Despite this, he approached the family in hopes of becoming their friend, but they were frightened and fled their home. The Creature then burned the cottage in a fit of rage.

The Monster then demands that Victor create a female companion like himself. He argues that as a living being, he has a right to happiness. The Creature promises he and his mate will vanish into the South American wilderness, never to reappear, if Victor grants his request but then destroys the female creature. The Monster then kills Clerval, leaving the corpse to be found where Victor lands in Ireland. Victor is imprisoned for Clerval's murder and suffers another mental breakdown in prison. After being acquitted, he returns home with his father. In Geneva, Victor marries Elizabeth and prepares to fight the Monster. Wrongly believing the Creature threatened his life, Victor asks Elizabeth to stay in her room while he looks for "the fiend". While Victor searches the house and grounds, the Creature murders Elizabeth. From the window, Victor sees the Monster, who taunts Victor with Elizabeth's corpse. Grief-stricken by the deaths of William, Justine, Clerval, and Elizabeth, Victor's father dies. Seeking revenge, Victor pursues the Monster to the North Pole; however, he does not kill his creation.Excerpt from Chapter 5

It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.

How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.

… I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.

Excerpt from Chapter 10…I suddenly beheld the figure of a man, at some distance, advancing towards me with superhuman speed. He bounded

over the crevices in the ice, among which I had walked with caution; his stature, also, as he approached, seemed to exceed that of man. I was troubled; a mist came over my eyes, and I felt a faintness seize me, but I was quickly restored by the cold gale of the mountains. I perceived, as the shape came nearer (sight tremendous and abhorred!) that it was the wretch whom I had created…

"Devil," I exclaimed, "do you dare approach me? And do not you fear the fierce vengeance of my arm wreaked on your miserable head? Begone, vile insect! Or rather, stay, that I may trample you to dust! And, oh! That I could, with the extinction of your miserable existence, restore those victims whom you have so diabolically murdered!"

"I expected this reception," said the daemon. "All men hate the wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us. You purpose to kill me. How dare you sport thus with life? Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind. If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave them and you at peace; but if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends."

…My rage was without bounds; I sprang on him, impelled by all the feelings which can arm one being against the existence of another. He easily eluded me and said, "Be calm! I entreat you to hear me before you give vent to your hatred on my devoted head. Have I not suffered enough, that you seek to increase my misery? Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it. Remember, thou hast made me more powerful than thyself…

Romanticism: Hater Gonna Hate The expression Romantic gained currency during its own time, roughly 1780-1850. Romantic

ideas arose both as implicit and explicit criticisms of 18th century Enlightenment thought. The philosophes were too objective -- they chose to see human nature as something uniform. The philosophes had also attacked the Church because it blocked human reason. The Romantics attacked the Enlightenment because it blocked the free play of the emotions and creativity. The philosophe had turned man into a soulless, thinking machine -- a robot. In a comment typical of the Romantic thrust, William Hazlitt (1778-1830) asked, "For the better part of my life all I did was think." And William Godwin (1756-1836), a contemporary of Hazlitt’s asked, "what shall I do when I have read all the books?" Christianity had formed a matrix into which medieval man situated himself. The Enlightenment replaced the Christian matrix with the mechanical matrix of Newtonian natural philosophy. For the Romantic, the result was nothing less than the demotion of the individual. Imagination, sensitivity, feelings, spontaneity and freedom were stifled -- choked to death. Man must liberate himself from these intellectual chains. So instead of the motto, "Sapere aude," "Dare to know!" the Romantics took up the battle cry, "Dare to be!" The Romantics defined the Enlightenment as something to which they were clearly opposed -- defining an enemy, making clear what they oppose, thus making life into a battle. But for some Romantics, revolutionary armies inspired by enlightenment thinkers and desiring natural rights were not real enemies. There were new enemies on the horizon, especially after the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815). The Romantics concentrated their attack on the heartlessness of bourgeois liberalism as well as the nature of urban industrial society. Industrial society brought new problems: soulless individualism, economic egoism, utilitarianism, materialism and the cash nexus. Higher virtues and social concerns were subsumed by the cash nexus and crass materialism of an industrial capitalist society.

The Romantics returned God to Nature -- the age revived the unseen world, the supernatural, the mysterious, the world of medieval man. It is no accident that the first gothic novel appears early in the Romantic Age. Nature came to be viewed historically. The world was developing, it was a world of continuous process, it was a world in the process of becoming. In a word, the Romantics embraced relativism. They did not seek universal abstract laws as Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) had. Instead, they saw history as a process of unfolding, a becoming.

The Romantics sought Nature’s glorious diversity of detail -- especially its moral and emotional relation to mankind. On this score, the Romantics criticized the 18th century. The philosophe was cold, mechanical, logical and unfeeling. There was no warmth in the heart. For the Romantics, warmth of heart was found and indeed enhanced by a communion with Nature. The heart has reasons that Reason is not equipped to understand. The heart was a source of knowledge -- the location of ideas "felt" as sensations rather than thoughts. Intuition was equated with that which men feel strongly. The Romantics distrusted calculation and stressed the limitations of scientific knowledge. The rationality of science fails to apprehend the variety and fullness of reality. Rational analysis destroys the naïve experience of the stream of sensations and in this violation, leads men into error.

The Romantics opted for a life of the heart and emotion. Their relativism made them appreciative of diversity in man and in nature. There are no universal laws. There are certainly no laws which would explain man.

---Steven Kreis, The History Guide

2. Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) Based on his biography, what did Friedrich value? What did he detest? How does each painting exemplify romanticism? Be specific.

ABOUT THE PAINTER:Caspar David Friedrich (September 5, 1774 - May 7, 1840) was a landscape painter of the nineteenth-century German Romantic movement, of which he is now considered the most important painter. Friedrich was born in Greifswald in northern Germany in 1774. He studied in Copenhagen until 1798 before settling in Dresden. He came of age during a period when, across Europe, a growing disillusionment with an over-materialistic society led to a new appreciation for spiritualism. This was often expressed through a reevaluation of the natural world, as artists such as Friedrich, J. M. W. Turner and John Constable sought to depict nature as a "divine creation, to be set against the artifice of human civilization". A painter and draughtsman, Friedrich is best known for his later allegorical landscapes, which feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning mists, barren trees, and Gothic ruins. His primary interest as an artist was the contemplation of nature, and his often symbolic and anti-classical work seeks to convey the spiritual experiences of life. Friedrich was a prolific artist who produced more than 500 attributed works. Sadly, some of his works were lost in a fire in Munch in 19131 and the Bombing of Dresden in 1945.

“The Wander Above the Sea Fog” , 1818 Describe the man’s attire. Describe his posture. What is he gazing out to? What is the message?

“Monastery in Snow” , 1819 Describe the foreground. Describe the background. What can you identify in the picture? What is the message?

Romanticism: Hater Gonna Hate The expression Romantic gained currency during its own time, roughly 1780-1850. Romantic

ideas arose both as implicit and explicit criticisms of 18th century Enlightenment thought. The philosophes were too objective -- they chose to see human nature as something uniform. The philosophes had also attacked the Church because it blocked human reason. The Romantics attacked the Enlightenment because it blocked the free play of the emotions and creativity. The philosophe had turned man into a soulless, thinking machine -- a robot. In a comment typical of the Romantic thrust, William Hazlitt (1778-1830) asked, "For the better part of my life all I did was think." And William Godwin (1756-1836), a contemporary of Hazlitt’s asked, "what shall I do when I have read all the books?" Christianity had formed a matrix into which medieval man situated himself. The Enlightenment replaced the Christian matrix with the mechanical matrix of Newtonian natural philosophy. For the Romantic, the result was nothing less than the demotion of the individual. Imagination, sensitivity, feelings, spontaneity and freedom were stifled -- choked to death. Man must liberate himself from these intellectual chains. So instead of the motto, "Sapere aude," "Dare to know!" the Romantics took up the battle cry, "Dare to be!" The Romantics defined the Enlightenment as something to which they were clearly opposed -- defining an enemy, making clear what they oppose, thus making life into a battle. But for some Romantics, revolutionary armies inspired by enlightenment thinkers and desiring natural rights were not real enemies. There were new enemies on the horizon, especially after the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815). The Romantics concentrated their attack on the heartlessness of bourgeois liberalism as well as the nature of urban industrial society. Industrial society brought new problems: soulless individualism, economic egoism, utilitarianism, materialism and the cash nexus. Higher virtues and social concerns were subsumed by the cash nexus and crass materialism of an industrial capitalist society.

The Romantics returned God to Nature -- the age revived the unseen world, the supernatural, the mysterious, the world of medieval man. It is no accident that the first gothic novel appears early in the Romantic Age. Nature came to be viewed historically. The world was developing, it was a world of continuous process, it was a world in the process of becoming. In a word, the Romantics embraced relativism. They did not seek universal abstract laws as Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) had. Instead, they saw history as a process of unfolding, a becoming.

The Romantics sought Nature’s glorious diversity of detail -- especially its moral and emotional relation to mankind. On this score, the Romantics criticized the 18th century. The philosophe was cold, mechanical, logical and unfeeling. There was no warmth in the heart. For the Romantics, warmth of heart was found and indeed enhanced by a communion with Nature. The heart has reasons that Reason is not equipped to understand. The heart was a source of knowledge -- the location of ideas "felt" as sensations rather than thoughts. Intuition was equated with that which men feel strongly. The Romantics distrusted calculation and stressed the limitations of scientific knowledge. The rationality of science fails to apprehend the variety and fullness of reality. Rational analysis destroys the naïve experience of the stream of sensations and in this violation, leads men into error.

The Romantics opted for a life of the heart and emotion. Their relativism made them appreciative of diversity in man and in nature. There are no universal laws. There are certainly no laws which would explain man.

---Steven Kreis, The History Guide

3. John Constable (1776-1837) Based on his biography, what did Constable value? What did he detest? How does each painting exemplify romanticism? Be specific.

ABOUT THE PAINTER:John Constable (11 June 1776 - 31 March 1837) was an English Romantic painter. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home - now known as "Constable Country"- which he invested with an intensity of affection. "I should paint my own places best", he wrote to his friend John Fisher in 1821, "painting is but another word for feeling". His most famous paintings include Dedham Vale of 1802 and The Hay Wain of 1821. He told his wife, "When I sit down to make a sketch from nature, the first thing I try to do is to forget that I have ever seen a picture". Although his paintings are now among the most popular and valuable in British art, he was never financially successful and did not become a member of the establishment until he was elected to the Royal Academy at the age of 52. He sold more paintings in France than in his native England.

“The Hay Wain” 1821

This painting was rewarded the gold medal by Charles X.

Describe the scene. What can you identify

in the picture? What is his message?

Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishops Grounds,

1825

Note: Salisbury Cathedral is one of England’s most famous Gothic churches. Describe the foreground.

Describe the background.

What can you identify in the picture?

What is the message?

Romanticism: Hater Gonna Hate The expression Romantic gained currency during its own time, roughly 1780-1850. Romantic

ideas arose both as implicit and explicit criticisms of 18th century Enlightenment thought. The philosophes were too objective -- they chose to see human nature as something uniform. The philosophes had also attacked the Church because it blocked human reason. The Romantics attacked the Enlightenment because it blocked the free play of the emotions and creativity. The philosophe had turned man into a soulless, thinking machine -- a robot. In a comment typical of the Romantic thrust, William Hazlitt (1778-1830) asked, "For the better part of my life all I did was think." And William Godwin (1756-1836), a contemporary of Hazlitt’s asked, "what shall I do when I have read all the books?" Christianity had formed a matrix into which medieval man situated himself. The Enlightenment replaced the Christian matrix with the mechanical matrix of Newtonian natural philosophy. For the Romantic, the result was nothing less than the demotion of the individual. Imagination, sensitivity, feelings, spontaneity and freedom were stifled -- choked to death. Man must liberate himself from these intellectual chains. So instead of the motto, "Sapere aude," "Dare to know!" the Romantics took up the battle cry, "Dare to be!" The Romantics defined the Enlightenment as something to which they were clearly opposed -- defining an enemy, making clear what they oppose, thus making life into a battle. But for some Romantics, revolutionary armies inspired by enlightenment thinkers and desiring natural rights were not real enemies. There were new enemies on the horizon, especially after the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815). The Romantics concentrated their attack on the heartlessness of bourgeois liberalism as well as the nature of urban industrial society. Industrial society brought new problems: soulless individualism, economic egoism, utilitarianism, materialism and the cash nexus. Higher virtues and social concerns were subsumed by the cash nexus and crass materialism of an industrial capitalist society.

The Romantics returned God to Nature -- the age revived the unseen world, the supernatural, the mysterious, the world of medieval man. It is no accident that the first gothic novel appears early in the Romantic Age. Nature came to be viewed historically. The world was developing, it was a world of continuous process, it was a world in the process of becoming. In a word, the Romantics embraced relativism. They did not seek universal abstract laws as Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) had. Instead, they saw history as a process of unfolding, a becoming.

The Romantics sought Nature’s glorious diversity of detail -- especially its moral and emotional relation to mankind. On this score, the Romantics criticized the 18th century. The philosophe was cold, mechanical, logical and unfeeling. There was no warmth in the heart. For the Romantics, warmth of heart was found and indeed enhanced by a communion with Nature. The heart has reasons that Reason is not equipped to understand. The heart was a source of knowledge -- the location of ideas "felt" as sensations rather than thoughts. Intuition was equated with that which men feel strongly. The Romantics distrusted calculation and stressed the limitations of scientific knowledge. The rationality of science fails to apprehend the variety and fullness of reality. Rational analysis destroys the naïve experience of the stream of sensations and in this violation, leads men into error.

The Romantics opted for a life of the heart and emotion. Their relativism made them appreciative of diversity in man and in nature. There are no universal laws. There are certainly no laws which would explain man.

---Steven Kreis, The History Guide

4. Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863) Based on his biography, what did he value? What did he detest? How does each painting exemplify romanticism? Be specific.

ABOUT THE PAINTERFerdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix (April 26, 1798 – August 13, 1863) was the most important of the French Romantic painters. In contrast to the Neoclassical perfectionism of his chief rival Ingres, Delacroix took for his inspiration the art of Rubens, with an attendant emphasis on color and movement rather than clarity of outline and carefully modeled form. Dramatic and romantic content characterized the central themes of his maturity, and led him not to the classical models of Greek and Roman art, but to travel in North Africa, in search of the exotic. Delacroix was also inspired by Byron, with whom he shared a strong identification with the "forces of the sublime", of nature in often violent action. His Romanticism was that of an individualist. In the words of Baudelaire, "Delacroix was passionately in love with passion, but coldly determined to express passion as clearly as possible."

ABOUT THE PAINTING:Delacroix's most influential work came in 1830 with the painting Liberty Leading the People, which for choice of subject and technique highlights the differences between the romantic approach and the neoclassical style. It is an unforgettable image of Parisians, having taken up arms, marching forward under the banner of the tricolour representing liberty, equality, and fraternity; Delacroix was inspired by contemporary events to invoke the romantic image of the spirit of liberty. The soldiers lying dead in the foreground offer poignant counterpoint to the symbolic female figure, who is illuminated triumphantly, as if in a spotlight. He seems to have been trying to represent the spirit and the character of the people, rather than glorify the actual event, a revolution against King Charles X which did little other than bring in a different king, Louis-Philippe, to power. The French government bought the painting, but officials deemed its glorification of liberty too inflammatory and removed it from public view. Following the Revolution of 1848 that saw the end of the reign of King Louis Philippe, Delacroix' painting, Liberty Leading the People, was finally put on display by the newly elected President, Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III). Traditionally, it has been visible in the Louvre museum in Paris. SPECALUTATION: The boy holding a gun up on the right is sometimes thought to be an inspiration of the Gavroche character in Victor Hugo's 1862 novel, Les Misérables

Liberty Leading the People , 1830

What liberty holding in both of her hands?

Describe the foreground.

Describe the background.

What can you identify in the picture?

What is his message?

Note: This painting is often misinterpreted as representing the French Revolution of 1789.

Romanticism: Hater Gonna Hate The expression Romantic gained currency during its own time, roughly 1780-1850. Romantic

ideas arose both as implicit and explicit criticisms of 18th century Enlightenment thought. The philosophes were too objective -- they chose to see human nature as something uniform. The philosophes had also attacked the Church because it blocked human reason. The Romantics attacked the Enlightenment because it blocked the free play of the emotions and creativity. The philosophe had turned man into a soulless, thinking machine -- a robot. In a comment typical of the Romantic thrust, William Hazlitt (1778-1830) asked, "For the better part of my life all I did was think." And William Godwin (1756-1836), a contemporary of Hazlitt’s asked, "what shall I do when I have read all the books?" Christianity had formed a matrix into which medieval man situated himself. The Enlightenment replaced the Christian matrix with the mechanical matrix of Newtonian natural philosophy. For the Romantic, the result was nothing less than the demotion of the individual. Imagination, sensitivity, feelings, spontaneity and freedom were stifled -- choked to death. Man must liberate himself from these intellectual chains. So instead of the motto, "Sapere aude," "Dare to know!" the Romantics took up the battle cry, "Dare to be!" The Romantics defined the Enlightenment as something to which they were clearly opposed -- defining an enemy, making clear what they oppose, thus making life into a battle. But for some Romantics, revolutionary armies inspired by enlightenment thinkers and desiring natural rights were not real enemies. There were new enemies on the horizon, especially after the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815). The Romantics concentrated their attack on the heartlessness of bourgeois liberalism as well as the nature of urban industrial society. Industrial society brought new problems: soulless individualism, economic egoism, utilitarianism, materialism and the cash nexus. Higher virtues and social concerns were subsumed by the cash nexus and crass materialism of an industrial capitalist society.

The Romantics returned God to Nature -- the age revived the unseen world, the supernatural, the mysterious, the world of medieval man. It is no accident that the first gothic novel appears early in the Romantic Age. Nature came to be viewed historically. The world was developing, it was a world of continuous process, it was a world in the process of becoming. In a word, the Romantics embraced relativism. They did not seek universal abstract laws as Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) had. Instead, they saw history as a process of unfolding, a becoming.

The Romantics sought Nature’s glorious diversity of detail -- especially its moral and emotional relation to mankind. On this score, the Romantics criticized the 18th century. The philosophe was cold, mechanical, logical and unfeeling. There was no warmth in the heart. For the Romantics, warmth of heart was found and indeed enhanced by a communion with Nature. The heart has reasons that Reason is not equipped to understand. The heart was a source of knowledge -- the location of ideas "felt" as sensations rather than thoughts. Intuition was equated with that which men feel strongly. The Romantics distrusted calculation and stressed the limitations of scientific knowledge. The rationality of science fails to apprehend the variety and fullness of reality. Rational analysis destroys the naïve experience of the stream of sensations and in this violation, leads men into error.

The Romantics opted for a life of the heart and emotion. Their relativism made them appreciative of diversity in man and in nature. There are no universal laws. There are certainly no laws which would explain man.

---Steven Kreis, The History Guide

5. Charles Baudelaire, "What is Romanticism?", 1848 What is the author’s background? When was the text written? Why is that significant? What is the message of the primary source? What line from book is most powerful in defining Romanticism?

About the Author:Charles Pierre Baudelaire (April 9, 1821 – August 31, 1867) was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil), expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the 19th century. Baudelaire's highly original style of prose-poetry influenced a whole generation of late nineteenth century poets . He respected the work of Romantic artists like Delacroix. He is credited with coining the term "modernity" (modernité) to designate the fleeting experience of life in an urban metropolis, and the responsibility art has to capture that experience.

In 1848, he published “What is Romanticism?”. Much like Kant’s “What is the Enlightenment”, Baudelaire attempts to define the Romantic movement. It is important to note that most historians stressed Romanticism ends by 1850.

[1] Few people today will want to give a real and positive meaning to this word; and yet will they dare assert that a whole generation would agree to join a battle lasting several years for the sake of a flag which was not also a symbol?

[2] If you think back to the disturbances of those recent times you will see that if but few romantics have survived, it is because few of them discovered romanticism, though all of them sought it sincerely and honestly.

[4] Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subjects nor in exact truth, but in a mode of feeling.

[5] They looked for it outside themselves, but it was only to be found within.

[6] For me, Romanticism is the most recent, the latest expression of the beautiful.

[7] There are as many kinds of beauty as there are habitual ways of seeking happiness.

[8] This is clearly explained by the philosophy of progress; thus, as there have been as many ideals as there have been ways in which the peoples of the earth have understood ethics, love, religion, etc., so romanticism will not consist in a perfect execution, but in a conception analogous to the ethical disposition of the age.

[9] It is because some have located it in a perfection of technique that we have had the rococo of romanticism, without question the most intolerable of all forms.

[10] Thus it is necessary, first and foremost, to get to know those aspects of nature and those human situations which the artists of the past have disdained or have not known.

[11] To say the word Romanticism is to say modern art--that is, intimacy, spirituality, colour, aspiration towards the infinite, expressed by every means available to the arts.

Romanticism: Hater Gonna Hate

The expression Romantic gained currency during its own time, roughly 1780-1850. Romantic ideas arose both as implicit and explicit criticisms of 18th century Enlightenment thought. The philosophes were too objective -- they chose to see human nature as something uniform. The philosophes had also attacked the Church because it blocked human reason. The Romantics attacked the Enlightenment because it blocked the free play of the emotions and creativity. The philosophe had turned man into a soulless, thinking machine -- a robot. In a comment typical of the Romantic thrust, William Hazlitt (1778-1830) asked, "For the better part of my life all I did was think." And William Godwin (1756-1836), a contemporary of Hazlitt’s asked, "what shall I do when I have read all the books?" Christianity had formed a matrix into which medieval man situated himself. The Enlightenment replaced the Christian matrix with the mechanical matrix of Newtonian natural philosophy. For the Romantic, the result was nothing less than the demotion of the individual. Imagination, sensitivity, feelings, spontaneity and freedom were stifled -- choked to death. Man must liberate himself from these intellectual chains. So instead of the motto, "Sapere aude," "Dare to know!" the Romantics took up the battle cry, "Dare to be!" The Romantics defined the Enlightenment as something to which they were clearly opposed -- defining an enemy, making clear what they oppose, thus making life into a battle. But for some Romantics, revolutionary armies inspired by enlightenment thinkers and desiring natural rights were not real enemies. There were new enemies on the horizon, especially after the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815). The Romantics concentrated their attack on the heartlessness of bourgeois liberalism as well as the nature of urban industrial society. Industrial society brought new problems: soulless individualism, economic egoism, utilitarianism, materialism and the cash nexus. Higher virtues and social concerns were subsumed by the cash nexus and crass materialism of an industrial capitalist society.

The Romantics returned God to Nature -- the age revived the unseen world, the supernatural, the mysterious, the world of medieval man. It is no accident that the first gothic novel appears early in the Romantic Age. Nature came to be viewed historically. The world was developing, it was a world of continuous process, it was a world in the process of becoming. In a word, the Romantics embraced relativism. They did not seek universal abstract laws as Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) had. Instead, they saw history as a process of unfolding, a becoming.

The Romantics sought Nature’s glorious diversity of detail -- especially its moral and emotional relation to mankind. On this score, the Romantics criticized the 18th century. The philosophe was cold, mechanical, logical and unfeeling. There was no warmth in the heart. For the Romantics, warmth of heart was found and indeed enhanced by a communion with Nature. The heart has reasons that Reason is not equipped to understand. The heart was a source of knowledge -- the location of ideas "felt" as sensations rather than thoughts. Intuition was equated with that which men feel strongly. The Romantics distrusted calculation and stressed the limitations of scientific knowledge. The rationality of science fails to apprehend the variety and fullness of reality. Rational analysis destroys the naïve experience of the stream of sensations and in this violation, leads men into error.

The Romantics opted for a life of the heart and emotion. Their relativism made them appreciative of diversity in man and in nature. There are no universal laws. There are certainly no laws which would explain man.

---Steven Kreis, The History Guide

6. Lord Bryon, "She Walks in Beauty", 1823 What is the author’s background? What is the message of the poem? What does the author value? In Stanza 1, 2, and 3, how is the women related to nature?

About the Author:George Gordon Byron (1788-1824), who is usually referred to as Lord Byron, was a prominent British writer, most famous for the influence of his poetry on the romantic movement that originated in the eighteenth century. Byron was also the 6th Baron of the Byron family, hence his being known as Lord Byron. Lord Byron’s best known works are not only the short poems She walks in beauty ; When We Two Parted ; and, So, we’ll go no more a roving, but also his two narrative poems Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, and, of course the more than famous Don Juan. In 1824, Byron dies while helping the Greeks fight for independence in Ottoman Empire.

First StanzaIn the first stanza of the poem, we're introduced to the woman the speaker is writing about, and are given a description of the ways she's beautiful. The poem itself is an extended description of that beauty (a common Romantic practice), but it is in this first stanza that we're given the terms of her beauty. Just what is it about this woman that has moved the speaker to write about her? First, let's look at the imagery the speaker associates her with. In the first two lines, we learn that she walks in beauty, like the night / Of cloudless climes and starry skies?' That she's associated with a night sky is significant. For Romantics, the measure of a thing's beauty is its nearness to nature. She certainly is near it - she even, as the speaker tells us, has its same way of walking. As the stanza continues, we see it goes further than that, though. Not only is the woman near nature, but 'all that's best of [night's] dark and bright / meet in her aspect and her eyes?' In other words, nature is part of her. She is the place where nature's beautiful features meet and are fused. Furthermore, the stanza closes with the declaration that the mixture of beauty in her eyes in fact attains a level of beauty higher than that which nature bestows on 'gaudy day.' For a Romantic, this is high praise indeed. The speaker has told us that this woman's beauty exceeds that of nature.

She walks in beauty, like the nightOf cloudless climes and starry skies;And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes;Thus mellowed to that tender lightWhich heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,Or softly lightens o’er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express,How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,A heart whose love is innocent!

Romanticism: Hater Gonna Hate The expression Romantic gained currency during its own time, roughly 1780-1850. Romantic

ideas arose both as implicit and explicit criticisms of 18th century Enlightenment thought. The philosophes were too objective -- they chose to see human nature as something uniform. The philosophes had also attacked the Church because it blocked human reason. The Romantics attacked the Enlightenment because it blocked the free play of the emotions and creativity. The philosophe had turned man into a soulless, thinking machine -- a robot. In a comment typical of the Romantic thrust, William Hazlitt (1778-1830) asked, "For the better part of my life all I did was think." And William Godwin (1756-1836), a contemporary of Hazlitt’s asked, "what shall I do when I have read all the books?" Christianity had formed a matrix into which medieval man situated himself. The Enlightenment replaced the Christian matrix with the mechanical matrix of Newtonian natural philosophy. For the Romantic, the result was nothing less than the demotion of the individual. Imagination, sensitivity, feelings, spontaneity and freedom were stifled -- choked to death. Man must liberate himself from these intellectual chains. So instead of the motto, "Sapere aude," "Dare to know!" the Romantics took up the battle cry, "Dare to be!" The Romantics defined the Enlightenment as something to which they were clearly opposed -- defining an enemy, making clear what they oppose, thus making life into a battle. But for some Romantics, revolutionary armies inspired by enlightenment thinkers and desiring natural rights were not real enemies. There were new enemies on the horizon, especially after the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815). The Romantics concentrated their attack on the heartlessness of bourgeois liberalism as well as the nature of urban industrial society. Industrial society brought new problems: soulless individualism, economic egoism, utilitarianism, materialism and the cash nexus. Higher virtues and social concerns were subsumed by the cash nexus and crass materialism of an industrial capitalist society.

The Romantics returned God to Nature -- the age revived the unseen world, the supernatural, the mysterious, the world of medieval man. It is no accident that the first gothic novel appears early in the Romantic Age. Nature came to be viewed historically. The world was developing, it was a world of continuous process, it was a world in the process of becoming. In a word, the Romantics embraced relativism. They did not seek universal abstract laws as Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) had. Instead, they saw history as a process of unfolding, a becoming.

The Romantics sought Nature’s glorious diversity of detail -- especially its moral and emotional relation to mankind. On this score, the Romantics criticized the 18th century. The philosophe was cold, mechanical, logical and unfeeling. There was no warmth in the heart. For the Romantics, warmth of heart was found and indeed enhanced by a communion with Nature. The heart has reasons that Reason is not equipped to understand. The heart was a source of knowledge -- the location of ideas "felt" as sensations rather than thoughts. Intuition was equated with that which men feel strongly. The Romantics distrusted calculation and stressed the limitations of scientific knowledge. The rationality of science fails to apprehend the variety and fullness of reality. Rational analysis destroys the naïve experience of the stream of sensations and in this violation, leads men into error.

The Romantics opted for a life of the heart and emotion. Their relativism made them appreciative of diversity in man and in nature. There are no universal laws. There are certainly no laws which would explain man.

---Steven Kreis, The History Guide

7. Walter Scott, Ivanhoe, 1819 What is the plot? What is the moral of the story? What does Walter Scott hate? What line from book is most powerful? (See Excerpt Below)

About the Author:Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet, (1771 –1832) was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet. His famous titles include Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, The Lady of the Lake, and Waverley.

Plot Summary:It is a dark time for England. Four generations after the Norman conquest of the island, the tensions between Saxons and Normans are at a peak; the two peoples even refuse to speak one another's languages. King Richard is in an Austrian prison after having been captured on his way home from the Crusades; his avaricious brother, Prince John, sits on the throne, and under his reign the Norman nobles have begun routinely abusing their power. Saxon lands are capriciously repossessed, and many Saxon landowners are made into serfs. These practices have enraged the Saxon nobility, particularly the fiery Cedric of Rotherwood. Cedric is so loyal to the Saxon cause that he has disinherited his son Ivanhoe for following King Richard to war. Additionally, Ivanhoe fell in love with Cedric's high-born ward Rowena, whom Cedric intends to marry to Athelstane, a descendent of a long-dead Saxon king. Cedric hopes that the union will reawaken the Saxon royal line.

Unbeknownst to his father, Ivanhoe has recently returned to England disguised as a religious pilgrim. Assuming a new disguise as the Disinherited Knight, he fights in the great tournament at Ashby-de-la-Zouche. Here, with the help of a mysterious Black Knight, he wins the tournament. He names Rowena the Queen of Love and Beauty, and reveals his identity to the crowd. But he is badly wounded and collapses on the field. In the meantime, the wicked Prince John has heard a rumor that Richard is free from his Austrian prison. He and his advisors begin plotting how to stop Richard from returning to power in England.

John has a scheme to marry Rowena to de Bracy; unable to wait, de Bracy kidnaps Cedric's party on its way home from the tournament, imprisoning the Saxons. With the party are Cedric and Rowena. The Black Knight fights to free Ivanhoe with the legendary outlaws of the forest, Robin Hood and his merry men. The villains are defeated and the prisoners are freed. The Black Knight announced himself as King Richard, returned to England at last. Ivanhoe and Rowena are married.

The Human Seasons:Keats speaks of the different emotions of man. He run through season each by stating how we react. For spring, we have lust. For summer, we take in the beauty of spring and become youthful, we dream of our futures. For fall, we are content with ourselves and how things are. For winter, we show our mortality and have misfortunes.

"What remains?" cried Ivanhoe; "Glory, maiden, glory! which gilds our sepulchre and embalms our name." (Chapter XXIX)

"Chivalry!-why, maiden, she is the nurse of pure and high affection-the stay of the oppressed, the redresser of grievances, the curb of the power of the tyrant-Nobility were but an empty name without her, and liberty finds the best protection in her lance and her sword." (Chapter XXIX)

"For he that does good, having the unlimited power to do evil, deserves praise not only for the good which he performs, but for the evil which he forbears." (Chapter XXXIII)

It is grievous to think that those valiant barons, to whose stand against the crown the liberties of England were indebted for their existence, should themselves have been such dreadful oppressors, and capable of excesses contrary not only to the laws of England, but to those of nature and humanity. But, alas ...fiction itself can hardly reach the dark reality of the horrors of the period. (Chapter 24.33)

Romanticism: Hater Gonna Hate The expression Romantic gained currency during its own time, roughly 1780-1850. Romantic

ideas arose both as implicit and explicit criticisms of 18th century Enlightenment thought. The philosophes were too objective -- they chose to see human nature as something uniform. The philosophes had also attacked the Church because it blocked human reason. The Romantics attacked the Enlightenment because it blocked the free play of the emotions and creativity. The philosophe had turned man into a soulless, thinking machine -- a robot. In a comment typical of the Romantic thrust, William Hazlitt (1778-1830) asked, "For the better part of my life all I did was think." And William Godwin (1756-1836), a contemporary of Hazlitt’s asked, "what shall I do when I have read all the books?" Christianity had formed a matrix into which medieval man situated himself. The Enlightenment replaced the Christian matrix with the mechanical matrix of Newtonian natural philosophy. For the Romantic, the result was nothing less than the demotion of the individual. Imagination, sensitivity, feelings, spontaneity and freedom were stifled -- choked to death. Man must liberate himself from these intellectual chains. So instead of the motto, "Sapere aude," "Dare to know!" the Romantics took up the battle cry, "Dare to be!" The Romantics defined the Enlightenment as something to which they were clearly opposed -- defining an enemy, making clear what they oppose, thus making life into a battle. But for some Romantics, revolutionary armies inspired by enlightenment thinkers and desiring natural rights were not real enemies. There were new enemies on the horizon, especially after the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815). The Romantics concentrated their attack on the heartlessness of bourgeois liberalism as well as the nature of urban industrial society. Industrial society brought new problems: soulless individualism, economic egoism, utilitarianism, materialism and the cash nexus. Higher virtues and social concerns were subsumed by the cash nexus and crass materialism of an industrial capitalist society.

The Romantics returned God to Nature -- the age revived the unseen world, the supernatural, the mysterious, the world of medieval man. It is no accident that the first gothic novel appears early in the Romantic Age. Nature came to be viewed historically. The world was developing, it was a world of continuous process, it was a world in the process of becoming. In a word, the Romantics embraced relativism. They did not seek universal abstract laws as Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) had. Instead, they saw history as a process of unfolding, a becoming.

The Romantics sought Nature’s glorious diversity of detail -- especially its moral and emotional relation to mankind. On this score, the Romantics criticized the 18th century. The philosophe was cold, mechanical, logical and unfeeling. There was no warmth in the heart. For the Romantics, warmth of heart was found and indeed enhanced by a communion with Nature. The heart has reasons that Reason is not equipped to understand. The heart was a source of knowledge -- the location of ideas "felt" as sensations rather than thoughts. Intuition was equated with that which men feel strongly. The Romantics distrusted calculation and stressed the limitations of scientific knowledge. The rationality of science fails to apprehend the variety and fullness of reality. Rational analysis destroys the naïve experience of the stream of sensations and in this violation, leads men into error.

The Romantics opted for a life of the heart and emotion. Their relativism made them appreciative of diversity in man and in nature. There are no universal laws. There are certainly no laws which would explain man.

---Steven Kreis, The History Guide

EXTRA: John Keats, Selected Words, 1818-1819 What is the author’s background? How is This Living Hand a poem about love? What is its message? What line best demonstrates it? What does The Human Seasons value? What is its message? What line best demonstrates it? What does the author value?

About the AuthorJohn Keats (1795-1820), who died at the age of twenty-five, had perhaps the most remarkable career of any English poet. He published only fifty-four poems, in three slim volumes and a few magazines. He died of consumption at the age of 25.

This Living HandThis short poem by John Keats—just seven and a half lines of blank verse—was most likely written sometime very near the end of 1819, a remarkable year in the life of the 24-year-old poet. He was in love and in April, he'd become secretly engaged to the "beautiful and elegant, graceful, silly, fashionable and strange" Fanny Brawne. Meanwhile, the tuberculosis that would eventually kill the poet had already begun to press the life out of him. "This living hand" was written at the peak moment of Keats's life, when he was filled with "ripeness to the core," as he wrote in "To Autumn," and just before he was to begin his awful decline. Keats has managed, in this short poem, to make that extended hand a figure for both warm life and cold death, but above all for the understanding that the two are inextricable. To reach out and take that hand is not to embrace life or death, but to acknowledge both.

The Human SeasonsKeats speaks of the different emotions of man. He run through season each by stating how we react. For spring, we have lust. For summer, we take in the beauty of spring and become youthful, we dream of our futures. For fall, we are content with ourselves and how things are. For winter, we show our mortality and have misfortunes.This Living Hand, 1818This living hand, now warm and capableOf earnest grasping, would, if it were coldAnd in the icy silence of the tomb,So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nightsThat thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of bloodSo in my veins red life might stream again,And thou be conscience-calmed--see here it is--I hold it towards you.

The Human Seasons, 1819Four seasons fill the measure of the year; There are four seasons in the mind of Man: He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear Takes in all beauty with an easy span: He has his Summer, when luxuriously Spring's honeyed cud of youthful thought he loves To ruminate, and by such dreaming high Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings He furleth close; contented so to look On mists in idleness -to let fair things Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook: - He has his Winter too of pale misfeature, Or else he would forgo his mortal nature.

Romanticism: Hater Gonna Hate Part I: Read Steven Kreis’ article and identify six things Romantics hate and love.

 Enlightenment Romanticism

Romantics Hate… Romantics Love…

Part II: Examine your source. Based on this source, what do Romantics hate? Why?

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, 1818Hating On:

Evidence:

Caspar Friedrich, The Wander, 1818-1819

Hating On:

Evidence:

John Constable, The Hay Wain, 1821-1825

Hating On:

Evidence:

Eugene Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People 1830

Hating On:

Evidence:

Charles Baudelaire, "What is Romanticism?", 1848

Lord Bryon, "She Walks in Beauty", 1823

Hating On:

Evidence:

Hating On:

Evidence:

John Keats, Selected Words, 1818-1819

Hating On:

Evidence:

Walter Scott, Ivanhoe, 1819Hating On:

Evidence: