This document summarizes philosophical and economic trends in Europe from 1850 to the early 1900s. Positivism was a dominant philosophy that applied scientific approaches to all areas of society. However, scientific dogmatism was also questioned as irrationalist views gained traction. Economically, there was a rise of the upper middle class from 1848 to 1873, but then a crisis in industrial society from 1873 to 1895. Among intellectuals, there were differing attitudes towards the growing labor class. Some had faith in their leadership and focused on ordinary people through realistic novels and political movements. Others rejected change and defended discrimination. Writers explored deeper individual relationships and looked to nature, beauty, and irrational creative intuition. Symbolism emerged as a new expressive form

1. PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT
1850/end 1800s 1890/beginning ’900
DOMINANT
POSITIVIST
ATTITUDE:
Prevalent scientific
approach to all
sectors of society-
DICKENS’ “FACTS”..’
ANTI (POSITIVIST)
ANTI-RATIONALIST:
SCIENTIFIC
DOGMATISM
IS QUESTIONED –
IRRATIONALIST VIEWS

2. ECONOMY
1848/1873 1873/1895
Great increase of the
upper middle class
– power/influence
and the professionals
MORAL AND
SOCIAL DEPRESSION
CRISIS IN THE TEXTURE
OF INDUSTRIAL
SOCIETY

3. Attitude towards the increasing
masses of labouring poor
Faith – in leadership of the masses
- Intellectuals describe and sustain
- focus on the stories of "ordinary people“
- excellent example-role/success of the novel,
- meets considerable success thanks to the spread of literacy;
- underpinned by the “GREAT ORATORIES” of writers  the
political and social movements
(the case of Zola and Dreyfus affair);
- writers spread and support movement for women's emancipation
(rights)

4. Attitude towards the increasing
masses of labouring poor
• rejection of change and defense of
aristocratic discriminatory positions;
• poet denounces the alienating quality of
contemporary society,
• looking for a deeper relationship between the
individual and nature (symbolism  Baudelaire)

5. Attitude towards the increasing
masses of labouring poor
THUS
• the intellectual stands out from the crowd
• becomes a "celebrant of beauty" - the esthete or the dandy
(Wilde);
• intellectuals  role of "inspired leadership of the masses"
• the figure of the poet-prophet (in Italy D'Annunzio);
• The intellectual rejects the MIDDLE CLASS
CONVENTIONS,
• search of transgressive experiences: i.e.  Byron 
the “Poètes Maudites" a/moral ([Dorian] Verlaine and Rimbaud)

6. THOUGHT AND THE WORD
DOMINANT
TENDENCIES
Second half 1800’s
Prevalently narrative form –
emotive/descriptive recounting
of reality  from observation to the
focus on behavior –
Character - behaviour patterns determined
by social, historical, environmental
and “affective” setting
George Eliot, George Gissing,
Elisabeth Gaskell,
Poetic focus express symbolic
meanings from reality
As manifestation of the universal and
infinite.
sensitivity of the poet and irrational
“creative – inspired” intuition
Intellectuals are the “chosen” –
Universal Interpreters of “THE TRUTH”
Anti – positivist attitude
France : Baudelaire –
ENGLAND: Thomas Hardy, Mathew Arnold,
W.H. Auden
NATURALISM –
{Italian VERISMO-Realismo}
SYMBOLISM

7. Symbolism
• express individual emotional experience
through subtle and suggestive use of highly
symbolized language  suggested a
“newness” expressed in various styles
• bridge between Romanticism and
Modernism/Surrealism/Imagism
Inspired NEW forms of expression :
Art for Art’s Sake  the Dandy 
Decadent Poets
• Transcendentalism

8. Symbolism
• Not primarily interested in ideas of the mind,
• Sought the expression of the whole
personality –
a.in mingling the perceptions of one sense
(sight, touch or smell) with those of another
b.a theory of the perception/understanding of
reality through all the senses and its
communication in an art “medium” which
should mingle the perceptions of sight,
sound, taste, perfume and dream.

9. The Albatross
(allegory of the poet’s condition)
The Albatross,
Charles Baudelaire
Often, to amuse themselves the men of the crew
Capture an albatross, immense bird of the seas-
Who follow, sluggish companions of their voyage,
The ship gliding on the bitter gulfs.
Hardly have they placed him on the planks,
Than these kings of the azure, totter clumsily and graceless,
pitifully, the great wings in white,
Like oars, drag at the sides.
This winged traveler, how awkward, how weak he is!
He, lately so regal, how clumsy he seems and uncomely!
Someone vexes his beak with a short pipe,
Another imitates, limping, the ill thing that flew!
So too the poet resembles the prince of the clouds
Who is friendly to the tempest and laughs at the bowman;
Banished to ground in the midst of hooting,
His wings, those of a giant, hinder him as he staggers on the boards.

10. THOUGHT
before the fact
Coleridge – (Poe) Byron - Keats
DOMINANT
ESCAPIST
ATTITUDE
ANTI DOGMATISM
SOCIETYSOCIETY – ABSOLUTESABSOLUTES
ARE QUESTIONED –
IRRATIONALIST VIEWS

11. THOUGHT
before the fact
BYRON
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/romantics/poems2.shtml
KEATS
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/romantics/poems3.shtml