The
Romanticism in Europe
Derived from the term 'romance-like,' in which sense it was used
during the 17th and 18th centuries. romanticism in its specific historical
application refers to a movement in European art from about 1800 to 1850. It
had its roots in the preromantic concepts of the second part of the 18th
century, as expressed in Jean Jacques Rousseau's writings and in the cult of
the 'genius,' the '`original.' and the '`characteristic,'
Neo-Gothicism. Sturm und Drang ('`storm and stress') in German
literature, and sentimentalism prepared the ground for the romanticism of the
19th century.
Romanticism did not produce a unified style but expressed itself in central and
northern Europe in terms of the somewhat earlier linear neoclassicism. Only in
French painting did romanticism develop a new. spontaneous. subjective, and
painterly language in contrast to the deliberate. objective, linear style of
the neoclassical masters. Paralleling the philosophical and literary cult of
nature and the natural, it reintroduced landscape painting and reflected the
newly awakened sense for history, in historical paintings, and for
religious-metaphysical speculations. in its revival of Christian art. Christian
symbolism was related to the cosmic infinite; historical religion, to the
seasons and the hours of the day..
In France the heroic age of the Revolution and of Napoleon's empire gave the
romantic spirit a tendency toward the contemporary. The actual, the
sensational, the unusual. and the exalted prevailed.
Between the year 1744 (when the
Pope died) and the year 1798 (when the Lyrical Ballads first appeared) a great
change had taken place, men thought and felt the change by many factors,
historical, religious economic and political. Many revolutions won by people
seemed to prove to the whole world that the individual could win against the
"System", that liberty for all men wasn't a hopeless dream.
The literary expression in
England of the period may be said to have opened in 1798, year of the
publication of the Lyrical Ballads, result of the collaboration of two young
poets Wordsworth and Coleridge. In the first edition of the Ballads
passed almost unnoticed, but the second in 1800, attracted the attention of
critics for the <<Preface>> to the new edition explained the ideas
behind the new type of poetry.
Poetry, thought Wordsworth and
Coleridge, should deal with simple subjects and humble people, and moreover, be
written in the simple language of everyday life.
[ Picolo appunti ]
