Romanticism c 1800 1850 Romanticism An intellectual movement

Romanticism c 1800 -1850

Romanticism • An intellectual movement emphasizing: • Emotion and individualism • The glorification of nature • A preference for the medieval rather than the classical • They viewed the medieval period as a time when faith and religion reigned, rather than reason • Arose as a reaction to: • The Industrial Revolution • The aristocratic and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment • The scientific rationalization of nature • Nature is beautiful and sublime, not rational & orderly

The Age of Enlightenment • Reason is the guiding source of authority • Constitutional government & opposition to the authority of absolute monarchy (since monarchs were ostensibly divinely ordained) • Separation of church and state • Individual liberty • Religious tolerance & increased questioning of religious orthodoxy • Emphasis on scientific method and reductionism (the idea that entire systems can be explained by the relationship of their individual components) • HOGWASH! say the Romantics • “The artist’s feeling is the law. ” – Caspar David Friedrich, German painter • Samuel Taylor Coleridge and others believed there were natural laws that the imagination would instinctively follow if the artist or writer were simply left alone. • Romantic visual art often featured a lone wanderer; this need for isolation is the reason Thoreau went out in the woods by himself

Nature v. Industry • The Romantics believed nature to be sublimely beautiful and a spiritual source of renewal • In the transition to an industrial society, production of goods, and consequently, employment, became centralized in the city. • The factory system of mass production was centered on processes that used and controlled natural forces, such as water and wind, and combined with the profit motive, degraded and despoiled the natural world in the Romantics’ eyes. • Cities grew quickly into centers of pollution, deprivation, and poverty. • The search for economically efficient means of production (mechanization, division of labor) led to spiritual alienation from the land

Individualism • The transition to an industrial society turned people into nothing more than units of production; cogs in an impersonal machine • As a result, the Romantics had a passionate belief in spiritual freedom and individual creativity - invention was valued and imitation was a terrible sin • Setting aside this individual expression in favor of some external set of demands - from the church, state, family, friends, etc. - was a betrayal of their very existence • These systems (religion, gov’t) lead to the corruption of the inherent “goodness” of man • Heroic Individualism - the individual is separate from the masses • The Byronic Hero - a solitary, melancholy individual (like Hamlet!) • Libertarianism - seeks to maximize political freedom and autonomy, emphasizing freedom of choice, voluntary association, individual judgment, and is inherently skeptical of authority and state power

Rousseau, Locke, & the Social Contract • Jean-Jacques Rousseau • Man’s natural state is one of “uncorrupted morals” • Believed that the development of agriculture, metallurgy, private property, and the division of labour and resulting dependency on one another; however, this led to economic inequality and conflict. • The original, deeply flawed Social Contract was made at the suggestion of the rich and powerful, who tricked the general population into surrendering their liberties to them and instituted inequality as a fundamental feature of human society. • The desire to have value in the eyes of others comes to undermine personal integrity and authenticity • Joining together into civil society through the social contract and abandoning their claims of natural right, individuals can both preserve themselves and remain free. This is because submission to the authority of the general will of the people as a whole guarantees individuals against being subordinated to the wills of others and also ensures that they obey themselves because they are, collectively, the authors of the law. • Essentially, the citizens of a given nation should carry out whatever actions they deem necessary in their own sovereign assembly.

Rousseau, Locke, & the Social Contract • John Locke • Social Contract: People gain civil rights in return for accepting the obligation to respect and defend the rights of others, giving up some freedoms to do so. Law and political order are not natural, but are instead human creations. • People's rights existed before government • The purpose of government is to protect personal and property rights • The people may dissolve governments that do not do so • Representative government is the best form to protect rights • Contrast this with Thomas Hobbes, who also believed that citizens cede some freedoms • for the sake of protection, but that the sovereign, to whom the people cede their rights to, cannot be resisted, since his authority derives from this submission of freedoms, and without a strong central figure, society would fall into discord. Our minds are blank slates when we are born (tabula rasa) Both philosophers believed we have a duty to our fellow man, and so have a responsibility to use our knowledge and power for good.

The Supernatural • Many Romantics believed that creativity and invention meant transforming reality into something beyond reason, but not beyond the imaginable: The Supernatural. • This functions as an attack on the pre-established limits of reason and by extension, the limitations of the Enlightenment. • It also allowed the possibility of creating fantastic characters, situations, places and objects to give the human mind relief from the saturation of moral and social patterns and taboos. • Remember their belief in the power of creativity and imagination, which encouraged the Romantics to dream of situations that surpassed reality • The Dark Romantics, and their successors, the Gothic authors, used their imaginations to to think about the dark side of humanity and the idea that life is dangerous, and people have darkness and evil within; an example is the Byronic Hero - a man so isolated by his individuality that he becomes alienated from society