A General Overview of Romanticism
Like I said, this is a general overview... there are many gaps that need to be filled in, so if you have anything to add, PLEASE DO!
Romanticism
- Reaction against the old order (Neoclassicism) -- the French Revolution was the death knell for Neoclassicism
- Emphasis on the common man and nature
- Emotion ruled over logic and reason
- DRUNKENNESS OF THE SPIRIT: man is ruled by instinct rather than by neoclassical logic
- 3 CATEGORIES
1. Early Romantics: focus on American culture (nationalism!) and nature - Irving and Bryant
2. Gothics: focus on human nature and psychology (anything creepy and "thriller-esque") - Hawthorne, Melville, Poe
Transcendentalists: a whole bunch of hippies - Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman
- Strongly influenced by British Romanticism (which took off right before the Revolutionary War), e.g. Bronte Sisters, Sir Walter Scott, et. al.
- Americans at this time held a belief that fiction would inflame the emotions and passions
* Women kept from reading fiction
* Romanticism not really accepted until after the Civil War
- Poetry was of the highest moral value
* Americans tried to write a national poem -- FAILURE (well, it was Romanticism wasn't it?)
- Sir Walter Scott: made the novel acceptable; redirected poets from the epic poem to poems of internal reflection, etc. (greatly influenced Hawthorne, Melville, and Thoreau)
- Irving: first to prove that American writers could gain acclaim and popularity in Europe
- At this time in history, writing did not guarantee a living except for best-sellers like Harriet Beecher Stowe (Uncle Tom's Cabin); as a result, many authors became newspaper editors so they could publish thier own work
- Some works, like Thoreau's Walden were attacks against the materialism and conformism of Americans (basically all the transcendentalists)
- Transcendentals rejected Christianity and formed their own secular religion, believing in the "Oversoul"
- Slavery inspired the Romantic writers, though most of them died before the Civil War -- many Romantics championed the cause, especially Thoreau who made a speech against slavery and burned a copy of the Constitution in protest
I feel like my notes on Romanticism in general are lacking, so like I said, if you have anything to add, please do so.
Transcendentalism
- Protestantism was dominant in New England (where most writers/intellectuals were from) throughout the 18th and 19th centuries
- Romantics disliked the rigidity and authority of Protestantism -- combining this with their hatred of industrialization and commercialism, the stage was set for transcendentalist st speak out
- Materialism in America begins with the advent of the machine because more goods could be produced and sold for lower prices -- transcendentalists wanted to get away from the overbearing materialism that most Americans sought
- Many factors, especially Eastern philosophy, showed the transcendentalists that people could live thier lives differently than the way that mass society does
- Transcendentalism: a secular religion; wanted to come into contact with the "Oversoul" by understanding oneself and coming into unity with nature/the universe
* Does not require an outward show of faith -- no rituals, only internal reflection
* No church, no Sabbath -- every day is a holy day and every place is a holy place
* Everyone become reunified with God by going back to the earth after death
- Celebrated the commonplace -- seek God through the common, everyday occurences
- No one cared and no one listened during that period -- most saw the transcendentalists as a big joke
- Every new counterculture looks back to these ideals and tries to make the principles work, but then we realize they don't -- war is usually the death knell for transcendental movements
TRANSCENDENTALISM DOES NOT WORK; IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO ACHIEVE UTOPIA!
- On a side note, I just remembered something: Throughout history there have been numerous Romantic/Transcendental movements
These movements last for a few years, but then society becomes disillusioned (usually by war) and the movement collapses; society enters a phase of realism and logic; something sparks the Romantic ideals into action again -- ROMANTICISM IS CYCLICAL IN NATURE
- Elizabeth
Romanticism
- Reaction against the old order (Neoclassicism) -- the French Revolution was the death knell for Neoclassicism
- Emphasis on the common man and nature
- Emotion ruled over logic and reason
- DRUNKENNESS OF THE SPIRIT: man is ruled by instinct rather than by neoclassical logic
- 3 CATEGORIES
1. Early Romantics: focus on American culture (nationalism!) and nature - Irving and Bryant
2. Gothics: focus on human nature and psychology (anything creepy and "thriller-esque") - Hawthorne, Melville, Poe
Transcendentalists: a whole bunch of hippies - Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman
- Strongly influenced by British Romanticism (which took off right before the Revolutionary War), e.g. Bronte Sisters, Sir Walter Scott, et. al.
- Americans at this time held a belief that fiction would inflame the emotions and passions
* Women kept from reading fiction
* Romanticism not really accepted until after the Civil War
- Poetry was of the highest moral value
* Americans tried to write a national poem -- FAILURE (well, it was Romanticism wasn't it?)
- Sir Walter Scott: made the novel acceptable; redirected poets from the epic poem to poems of internal reflection, etc. (greatly influenced Hawthorne, Melville, and Thoreau)
- Irving: first to prove that American writers could gain acclaim and popularity in Europe
- At this time in history, writing did not guarantee a living except for best-sellers like Harriet Beecher Stowe (Uncle Tom's Cabin); as a result, many authors became newspaper editors so they could publish thier own work
- Some works, like Thoreau's Walden were attacks against the materialism and conformism of Americans (basically all the transcendentalists)
- Transcendentals rejected Christianity and formed their own secular religion, believing in the "Oversoul"
- Slavery inspired the Romantic writers, though most of them died before the Civil War -- many Romantics championed the cause, especially Thoreau who made a speech against slavery and burned a copy of the Constitution in protest
I feel like my notes on Romanticism in general are lacking, so like I said, if you have anything to add, please do so.
Transcendentalism
- Protestantism was dominant in New England (where most writers/intellectuals were from) throughout the 18th and 19th centuries
- Romantics disliked the rigidity and authority of Protestantism -- combining this with their hatred of industrialization and commercialism, the stage was set for transcendentalist st speak out
- Materialism in America begins with the advent of the machine because more goods could be produced and sold for lower prices -- transcendentalists wanted to get away from the overbearing materialism that most Americans sought
- Many factors, especially Eastern philosophy, showed the transcendentalists that people could live thier lives differently than the way that mass society does
- Transcendentalism: a secular religion; wanted to come into contact with the "Oversoul" by understanding oneself and coming into unity with nature/the universe
* Does not require an outward show of faith -- no rituals, only internal reflection
* No church, no Sabbath -- every day is a holy day and every place is a holy place
* Everyone become reunified with God by going back to the earth after death
- Celebrated the commonplace -- seek God through the common, everyday occurences
- No one cared and no one listened during that period -- most saw the transcendentalists as a big joke
- Every new counterculture looks back to these ideals and tries to make the principles work, but then we realize they don't -- war is usually the death knell for transcendental movements
TRANSCENDENTALISM DOES NOT WORK; IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO ACHIEVE UTOPIA!
- On a side note, I just remembered something: Throughout history there have been numerous Romantic/Transcendental movements
These movements last for a few years, but then society becomes disillusioned (usually by war) and the movement collapses; society enters a phase of realism and logic; something sparks the Romantic ideals into action again -- ROMANTICISM IS CYCLICAL IN NATURE
- Elizabeth
posted by L Lazarow | 10:38 PM
3 Comments:
God bless insomnia. So my assigned poems are "Splendid Silent Sun", and "Ashes of Soldiers"
Sx3's basic premise is how Walter struggles to reconcile two competing loves with each other. Love of nature versus love of human space. He chooses the latter. He still wants to wallow in nature, just not as much as he wants to wallow in humanity. It is possible that he urge that he choses changes per struggle, he may chose nature at some unspecified future point. Notable characteristics that may help you identify a quote from this poem are the phrases, GIVE ME + thing, KEEP + thing, or a list of things either natural or man made. How this relates to the rest of the transcendentals, it doesn't. They chose to make human nature subordinate to some grander notion of nature. Of the transcendentals we studied only Walter seems to acutely values human nature. the others may also do this just in other works that we weren't assigned. A perspective for a potential essay response, what is mans relationship to his environment. man is not suited to survive in any specific environment, to do so he must modify it in some way. yet this allows man to survive in any environment. Thats what i would do an essay on.
Ashes is a eulogy. it is Walter trying to reconcile the deaths of these people with himself. The majority of the poem is eulogistic, but there is at one point an invocation by Whitman asking to carry these dead around with him(the fountain of love part). The way to recognize a quote from this poem is that is either a distinct Walterism (me,me,me; he focuses on himself unless hes addressing the reader, and says fun things like fountain of love), or it talks about soldiers and battle in a humanist sense. A Potential essay response could be on the enormity of the task Walter sets for himself. How can you carry the dead around with you without some distance and remain sane? The other transcendentals simply opposed the war, Walter gave it the time of day.
General tips on identifying Whitman . He is the potato of poetry, he is completely palatable and inoffensive. seems useless, but it works.
As you can see i really don't know what i am supposed to be giving you all. i hope you get something useful out of it. Either way these poems were recent so they should still have some freshness.
-sleeplessly, adiel
Longfellow's The Goblet of Life
"Longfellow wrote on obvious themes which appealed to all kinds of people. There is joyousness in them, a spirit of optimism and faith in the goodness of life which evokes immediate response in the emotions of his readers."
This is the jist of the notes I took on this poem:
Basic rhyme scheme: AAAAB
Main ideas:
-make the best of life and drink it down
-part of the joy in life is the struggle
-strive against adversity, search for enlightenment and truth
-humans will suffer
-death is the release from the pain in life, death has no negative connotation
Important stanzas:
"And he who has not learned to know
How false its sparkling bubbles show,
How bitter are the drops of woe,
With which its brim may overflow,
He has not learned to live. "
Longfellow is telling the reader that if you have not acknowledged that life is full of bitterness and that there is no escaping the suffering of the world, you have not lived. Throughout the poem, Longfellow uses the word bitter to describe the goblet's contents, its wreath and the suffering of humanity in general.
"Let our unceasing, earnest prayer
Be, too, for light,--for strength to bear
Our portion of the weight of care,
That crushes into dumb despair
One half the human race."
In this stanza Longfellow asks the reader to pray for the strength to deal with the suffering. He wants us to realize that we all must carry our own weight of suffering. It is not fair to dismiss the sufferings of another. We must realize that suffering is a common experience that we all share.
***I know we talked about it but I cannot remember the significance of "one half the human race."
"O suffering, sad humanity!
O ye afflicted one; who lie
Steeped to the lips in misery,
Longing, and yet afraid to die,
Patient, though sorely tried !
I pledge you in this cup of grief,
Where floats the fennel's bitter leaf !
The Battle of our Life is brief
The alarm,--the struggle,--the relief,
Then sleep we side by side."
In the last two stanzas, Longfellow tells us that he recognizes that most people are afraid to die. He addresses these people in the second to last stanza and then gives them a bit of reassurance by saying that death will come as a relief.
hope this is helpful! sorry it’s a little late...good luck!
I don't know if someone posted on SOng of the Open Road but I thought I'd post some of my notes on it...
main ideas:
be confident in yourself and the path of life that you choose-"henceforth I ask not good fortune, I myself am good fortune"
-you don't need to worry about and get caught up in changing the world around you-"The earth—that is sufficient;
I do not want the constellations any nearer;
I know they are very well where they are;
I know they suffice for those who belong to them"
perservere-every success is met with another challenge-we're never completely satisfied
-aims at universality: lists the people he will meet along the road; shows no elitism-"felon, the diseas’d, the illiterate person, are not denied..."
-the world is accepting, they may not agree with you but there is room for you on the open road
-stresses importance of experiencing things rather than just learning in school-" Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen’d!
Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn’d!
Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!
also "Here is the test of wisdom;
Wisdom is not finally tested in schools;
Wisdom cannot be pass’d from one having it, to another not having it;
Wisdom is of the Soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof..."
-"Allons"=let's go!- whitman invites you to walk this one with him, hand in hand-not necessarily "you follow me"
-he's preaching individualism but this is not the same as telling the reader to live in the exact way that he does
open road: you can go whereever you want to go. you'll meet people along the way. They may have the same experience as you but everyone is affected diferently...
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