Romanticism
Dr. Gerald R. Lucas

Revolt of the Spirit
The Age of Revolutions
The Age of Imagination
The Power of Nature
Rediscovered Symbolism & Myth
The Man of Feeling (The Hero-Artist)

Eugène Delacroix
“Liberty Leading the People” (1830)

The Age of Revolt
American Revolution (1776)
French Revolution (1789)
Upheavals in political, economic, and
social traditions
Reform how we see the world in the arts
Rejects (generally) absolute systems

Eugène Delacroix
“The Death of Sardanapalus” (1828)

Imagination
Elevated to a primary position
Displaced the supremacy of reason
Is the primary facility for creating art
Links humans with nature and divinity
Creates the world around us
Allows us to reconcile differences and
opposites
Emphasizes intuition, instincts, and
feelings

Peder Balke
“Nordkap” (18340)

Nature
Is a work of art
Is constructed by a divine imagination
Is a healing power
Is a source of subject and image
Is a refuge from the artificial constructs of civilization
Is an organically unified whole
Is the opposite of the scientific mechanical
Allows for meditation and contemplation

Symbolism & Myth
Simultaneously suggest many
things
Express the inexpressible
Links the present to the past
Aligned with the Middle Ages
and the Baroque
Looked to the exotic
Re-envisioned the everyday

William Wordsworth
Preface to Lyrical Ballads
“The real language of
men in a state of vivid
sensation”
“All good poetry is the
spontaneous overflow of
powerful feelings”
“Emotion recollected in
tranquility” & “a complex
feeling of delight”

Poetry
Became free of Neoclassicism’s mechanical rules
Became bold, rather than restrained
Became suggestive, rather than precisely clear
Became experimental, rather than consigned to
rules of composition and genre
Emphasized the feelings of the individual artist as
creator (1st-person lyric)

Individual Expression
Illuminated what was within the
individual, not the external world
Direct thoughts of the poet
Development of the poet's mind
the artist becomes hero

The Individual
Is emphasized — the
unique, the eccentric
Opposed the typology of
Neoclassicism
Becomes the “hero-artist”
Heaven-stormers &
Outcasts
Must create his/her own
way to live