Context

SECTION 2

SYMBOLICAL IMAGE

French Revolution
1789

“Men and women form a mound around a post in the streets of a city on the right of this painting. A tattered tricolour flag (of black, yellow, and red) is at the top, and beside this flag, a man stands with a paper in his hand. A man on his horse (on the left of the painting) is among the crowd at the base of the mound, and a dog campers just in front of his steed. The crowd bears swords, pikes, and guns affixed with bayonets. One of the women at the base of the mound cradles a baby, while two women and an old man grieve over a dead youth in their arms. The blue sky is overcast with grey smoke.”
This painting symbolizes something really important in Romantic period which is the idea of nationalism, which became a central theme of Romantic art and political philosophy. Its nature changed dramatically with the rise of Napoleon. This is because before his rise to power changed the view of what nationalism actually was. Before his rise to power, nationalism was inspirational to movements in other nations, but as the French Republic became Napoleon’s Empire he became not the inspiration for nationalism but the object of its struggle.
Beginning and end of the period in literature: last years of the 18thcentury and the first decades of the 19th .

HISTORICAL EVENT ON THE ROMANTIC ERA

Storming of the Bastille and arrest of the Governor
M. de Launay, July 14, 1789

French Revolution: Before the revolution, poems and literature were generally written about aristocrats and clergy, and rarely about the working man. However, when roles in society started to shift as a result to the French Revolution, this changed. Poets such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron and Shelley started to write works for an about the working man, therefore pieces that common man could relate to: such as individualism and nationalism. Based on what Chirstensen used to believe, the Romantic Movement influenced by the revolution can be seen as a revolt of a group of contemporary poets who wrote as they individually pleased, without following any principles except those of individualism and revolt. 


KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMANTICISM

• Imagination and emotion are more important than reason and formal rules
• Reliance on “natural” feelings are valued over controlled, rationality.
• Love of nature, respect for primitivism, and a valuing of the common man
• Nature = divine revelation = creative process
• There was an interest in Medieval past and the exotic
• There was an allure of rebellion and revolution (individualism and freedom from oppression)
• Introspection and melancholy were significant ideas

LIVING RECREATION OF ROMANTICISM PAINTING

Painting from Romanticism vs. Contemporary imitation
"Anna Razumovskaya".

LORD BYRON

Lord Byron and John Keats had a bad relationship as they both disliked each others work, this had to do significantly with the fact that they belonged to different social classes and had different interests and ideals. Byron disliked Keats poetry on an aesthetic level and Keats felt the same way about Byron’s work as he considered it overrated, slavish and unoriginal. Apart from this, Keats felt envious about Byron’s success as he was always struggling with money and Byron was well accommodated as he belonged to the high classes of France.