The Romantic era, an intellectual, artistic, and literature movement that started officially in the 18th century, more specifically in 1798 through 1870. This movement mostly took place in Europe, mostly used in England and America. In 1800, the Romantic Era starting getting more popular and reaching its peak until about 1850. Lots of important poets that everyone knows today happened in this period, historical events, and art works for example like Edgar Allen Poe was known for the ‘Dark Romanticism’ writing style. So, the main topics of research will show the lifestyle of the people back then.
During the Romantic era, in 1807, the Slave Trade Act was passed, so it got rid the slave trade but not it did not get rid of slavery. It made it illegal to carry enslaved people on the Britain ships. The French Revolution started on July 14, 1789 when revolutionaries stormed a prison called the Bastille. This event lasted for 10 years from 1789 to 1799. This event was a period in France when the people overthrew the monarchy and took control of the government.
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Art in the Romantic era used violent and terrifying images of nature, this was their ‘aesthetic’. In the late 1800s, artists painted the dark, terrifying images to represent man’s struggle against the awesome power of nature manifest this sensibility. For example, the artwork ‘Raft of the Medusa’ was a painting in which a romantic style of painting appeared, gloomy frightening themes. Something that was important to writers was emotion like ‘Wanderer Above the Sea’ represented how the artist felt what goes on in the headspace even though it is just a picture. His artwork that turned out to be one of the most representative artworks of the Romanticism era. So, the artist always painted based off emotion and feelings.
The clothing style in this period was big and poofy for women. On the top, they wore tight corsets to show off their figure with frilly shoulders. On the bottom, it would puff out on the bottom with laces and frills. Their hair would be tight curls with a big hat. For men, everything was easier. They wore dress pants and shoes with a long coat, and they usually wore all black or something that would match the women. What about their children, the girls would be able to wear fitted clothing and long skirts, that would have the same pattern/theme as the mother. For boys, they wore tunics with a belt at the waist and under the tunic, they would wear above ankle length pants matched with a white collar or bow tie to complete the outfit (Jarrett).
Music in this era was ‘powerful drama of human emotion’ with anger but also lots of passion in the music. Also, the music was quiet and pleasurable. Classical music was super popular in Germany. Music emphasized a person’s emotions and originality. Ludwig van Beethoven created a ‘classical bridge in the Romantic period’, which was used after his death in the 1900s. Musicians were inspired by folk tales, legends, and poetic texts to form ‘overture’ and ‘incidental’ music.
Literature in the Romantic era was a big and important movement. Every writer or anyone that could read in this era would read or write for fun or just to pass time. The way people would write their poems was by using different themes like emotion for example. Depending on the person’s personality, it would reflect on the way they write or what point of view. A popular way was 1st person or narrator style. This would have the reader be more into it and feel a part of the story. In some peoples, readers say that what's happening in the story feels like it’s happening with theme because the strong uses of theme and point of view.
The people used multiple ‘themes’ in their stories that was known as the romantic way of writing. The poetry was not too fancy but it was still beautiful and lyrical but not too overdone and not too elegant. One really important thing about the Romantic era is when authors used emotion. Emotion was used to drive the story, being overly obsessed with feelings meaning it is basically what the whole story is about. Fun fact, even though the term ‘romantic era’ sounds like romance, not a lot of stories was about love and romance. It was about society and religion. Another big thing was nature, they would use emotion and nature together to complement each other in the stories to describe something.
Poets in the time period use the same things but different from other works. For example, Edgar Allan Poe was known for the ‘Dark Romanticism’ writing. Poe’s writing had a dark twist with love and nature with lots of emotion. ‘Cask of the Amontillado’ was about this guy who wanted to revenge on his co-worker and Poe used emotion in this short story with his dark twist. His dark twist usually included death or demonic subjects. Another important writer was William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. They both were important because they released a poem called ‘Lyrical Ballads’ in 1798 which started the whole idea of literature in this time period. Wordsworth was given the title ‘the father of Romantic era’ because of ‘Lyrical Ballads’. William Blake released songs of innocence and of experience, which was a collection of poems with similar themes and titles and he wrote based on his imagination. Blake claims that he has seen Greek gods from his window which is one of the things he wrote about. Lastly, a good example of emotion and nature was ‘She Walks in Beauty’, written by Lord Byron. Byron's story explained beautiful women he has seen in his lifetime and compare them to nature.
Connections to today in the Romanticism was the art styles and the literature. There's a lot of artists that still uses emotions for their own stories or poems and use nature to compliment it. Literature is a big impact on today's time that some people still read and get inspired by like Edgar Allan Poe that many people still read today. Also, the artwork is still famous today like ‘Wanderer Above The Sea’. Some artist paint hugely based off emotion and how they feel. So even thought it was a long time ago, a lot of it is used today.
Works Cited
- Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker. “A beginners guide to Romanticism.” Khan Academy https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/becoming-modern/romanticism/romanticism-intro/a/a-beginners-guide-to-romanticism
- Kathryn Calley Galitz. “Metropolitan Museum of Art” Oct. 2004 https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/roma/hd_roma.htm
- Susan Jarrett. “History of Fashion”. Jan. 2013 https://www.maggiemayfashions.com/romantic.html
- Editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica. “Romanticism” https://www.britannica.com/art/Romanticism
- Duncan Wu. “Romanticism: An Anthology” http://www.romanticismanthology.com/timeline/
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