Difference bw Romanticism and Classicism

1. Classicism
and
Romanticism

2. Classicism
•“of highest rank”
•Refers to the literature of antiquity.
•A set of attitudes or standards set by ancients
in art, history, philosophy, politics etc.
(simplicity, harmony and restraint).

3. Features
• Simplicity: A well crafted work. Clarity of form and
content.
• Perfection: Craftsmanship
• Proportion: Nothing less or more.
• Restraint: Nothing personal.
• Sobriety: Refined content. Nothing obscene.

4. Forms
•Epic
•Tragedy
•comedy not considered an esteemed form.

5. Thematic Concerns
•Building on achievements of others.
•Refinement of character.

6. Dante’s Of Beauty and Duty
• TWO ladies to the summit of my mind
Have clomb, to hold an argument of love.
The one has wisdom with her from above,
For every noblest virtue well designed:
The other, beauty's tempting power refined
And the high charm of perfect grace approve:
And I, as my sweet Master's will doth move,
At feet of both their favors am reclined.
Beauty and Duty in my soul keep strife,
At question if the heart such course can take
And 'twixt the two ladies hold its love complete.
The fount of gentle speech yields answer meet,
That Beauty may be loved for gladness sake,
And Duty in the lofty ends of life

7. Milton’s Paradise Lost Book-1
OF Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,…
What in me is dark
Illumin, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justifie the wayes of God to men.

8. •‘The adjective romantic is commonly applied to
various artistic styles and works, some
philosophical writing, occasionally also
manners and dress, which made their
appearance in Europe between 1770 and 1830”
Thorlby
•Friedrich Schlegel introduced the word into
literary context for the first time.
•‘The particular spirit of modern art, in contrast
to ancient or classical art’ August Wilhelm

9. From Guide Through the Romantic
Movement by E. Berhbaum
•‘Romanticism is a disease, Classicism is health’
Goethe
•‘A movement to honour whatever Classicism
rejected. Classicism is the regularity of good
sense, perfection in moderation; Romanticism
is disorder in the imagination-the range of
incorrectness. A blind wave of literary
egostism.’ Brunetiere

10. •‘The return to nature.’ Rousseau
•‘In general a thing is romantic when, as Aristotle would
say, it is wonderful rather than probable; in other words,
when it violates the normal sequence of cause and effect
in favour of adventure…’ Babbitt
•‘Liberalism in literature. Mingling the grotesque with the
tragic or sublime (forbidden by classicism)…’ Victor Hugo
•‘An effort to escape from reality.’ Waterhouse
•‘Sentimental Melancholy’ Phelps
•‘Subjectivity, the love of the picturesque, and a
reactionary spirit…’ Phelps

11. •‘Emotion rather than reason; the heart
opposed to the head.’ George Sand
•‘…an intoxicating dreaming. Classicism is
controlled by conscious mind.’ Lucas
•‘The addition of strangeness to beauty.’
Pater
•‘The spirit count for more than the form.’
Grierson

12. In England
•At first it was connected with old romances,
tales of chivalry, characterised by high-flown
sentiments, improbability, exaggeration,
unreality—in short elements diametrically
opposed to a sober, rational view of life. So
romantic was used in such phrases as ‘wild
romantic tales’ to suggest false, fictitious,
imaginary, bombastic, ridiculous and childish.

13. Colderidge’s Kubla Khan
Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

14. A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,

15. John Keats
•“Ode on a Grecian Urn”
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
•“A thing of beauty is joy forever” Endymion

16. Wordsworth
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

17. For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.