At the end of the eighteenth century, romanticism emerged as a reaction to the ideas of the Enlightenment.
The Industrial Revolution created a new interest in science and helped produce the realist movement.
*Understand what themes shaped romantic art, literature, and music.
*Explain how realists responded to the industrialized, urban world.
Romanticism
Albert Bierstadt, Hetch Hetchy Canyon, 1875
Witness History
Sunset: Audio
In the 1800s, many writers turned away from the harsh realities of industrial life to celebrate nature. The English poet William Wordsworth described the peace and beauty of sunset:
“It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity.”
—William Wordsworth, Complete Poetical Works
Audio
Romanticism does not refer to romance in the sense of an affectionate relationship, but rather to an artistic style emphasizing imagination, freedom, and emotion. Romanticism was a reaction to the neoclassical writers of the Enlightenment, who had turned to classical Greek and Roman literature and ideals that stressed order, harmony, reason, and emotional restraint. In contrast to Enlightenment literature, the works of romantic writers included simple, direct language, intense feelings, and a glorification of nature. Artists, composers, and architects were also followers of the movement.
The Romantic Hero
Romantic writers created a new kind of hero—a mysterious, melancholy figure who felt out of step with society. “My joys, my grief, my passions, and my powers, / Made me a stranger,” wrote Britain’s George Gordon, Lord Byron. He himself was a larger-than-life figure equal to those he created. After a rebellious, wandering life, he joined Greek forces battling for freedom. When he died of a fever there, his legend bloomed. In fact, public interest in his poetry and adventures was so great that moody, isolated romantic heroes came to be described as “Byronic.”
The romantic hero often hid a guilty secret and faced a grim destiny. German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (gur tuh) wrote the dramatic poem Faust. The aging scholar Faust makes a pact with the devil, exchanging his soul for youth. After much agony, Faust wins salvation by accepting his duty to help others. In Jane Eyre, British novelist Charlotte Brontë weaves a tale about a quiet governess and her brooding, Byronic employer, whose large mansion conceals a terrifying secret.
Inspired by the Past
Romantic writers combined history, legend, and folklore. Sir Walter Scott’s novels and ballads evoked the turbulent history of Scottish clans or medieval knights. Alexandre Dumas (doo mah) and Victor Hugo re-created France’s past in novels like The Three Musketeers and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Architects, too, were inspired by old styles and forms. Churches and other buildings, including the British Parliament, were modeled on medieval Gothic styles. To people living in the 1800s, medieval towers and lacy stonework conjured up images of a glorious past.
Music Stirs Emotions
Romantic composers also tried to stir deep emotions. Audiences were moved to laughter or tears at Hungarian Franz Liszt’s piano playing. The passionate music of German composer Ludwig van Beethoven combined classical forms with a stirring range of sound. He was the first composer to take full advantage of the broad range of instruments in the modern orchestra. In all, Beethoven produced nine symphonies, five piano concertos, a violin concerto, an opera, two masses, and dozens of shorter pieces. To many, he is considered the greatest composer of his day.
Biography: Audio
Ludwig van Beethoven
An accomplished musician by age 12, composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) agonized over every note of every composition. The result was stunning music that expresses intense emotion. The famous opening of his Fifth Symphony conveys the sense of fate knocking at the door. His Sixth Symphony captures a joyful day in the countryside, interrupted by a violent thunderstorm.
Beethoven’s career was haunted by perhaps the greatest tragedy a musician can face. In 1798, he began to lose his hearing. Still, he continued to compose music he could hear only in his mind. How did Beethoven’s music reflect romanticism?
Other romantic composers wove traditional folk melodies into their works to glorify their nations’ pasts. In his piano works, Frederic Chopin (shoh pan) used Polish peasant dances to convey the sorrows and joys of people living under foreign occupation.
Romanticism in Art
Painters, too, broke free from the discipline and strict rules of the Enlightenment. Landscape painters like J.M.W. Turner sought to capture the beauty and power of nature. Using bold brush strokes and colors, Turner often showed tiny human figures struggling against sea and storm.
Romantics painted many subjects, from simple peasant life to medieval knights to current events. Bright colors conveyed violent energy and emotion. The French painter Eugène Delacroix (deh luh krwah) filled his canvases with dramatic action. In Liberty Leading the People, the Goddess of Liberty carries the revolutionary tricolor as French citizens rally to the cause.
Checkpoint
How did romantic writers, musicians, and artists respond to the Enlightenment?
Learn
Focus Question
What artistic movements emerged in reaction to the Industrial Revolution?
Audio
William Wordsworth, along with William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Percy Bysshe Shelley among others, was part of a cultural movement called romanticism. From about 1750 to 1850, romanticism shaped Western literature and arts.
Reading Check
Examining
How did the popularity of
Ivanhoe reflect the interests of the nineteenth century?
A New Age of Science
Reading Check
Describing
How did Darwin's theory of natural selection influence the way in which people viewed the world?
Realism
The Call to Realism: Audio
By the mid-1800s, a new artistic movement, realism, took hold in the West. Realism was an attempt to represent the world as it was, without the sentiment associated with romanticism. Realists often focused their work on the harsh side of life in cities or villages. Many writers and artists were committed to improving the lot of the unfortunates whose lives they depicted.
Novels Depict Grim Reality
The English novelist Charles Dickens vividly portrayed the lives of slum dwellers and factory workers, including children. In Oliver Twist, Dickens tells the story of a nine-year-old orphan raised in a grim poorhouse. In response to a request for more food, Oliver is smacked on the head and sent away to work. Later, he runs away to London. There he is taken in by Fagin, a villain who trains homeless children to become pickpockets. The book shocked many middle-class readers with its picture of poverty, mistreatment of children, and urban crime. Yet Dickens’s humor and colorful characters made him one of the most popular novelists in the world.
French novelists also portrayed the ills of their time. Victor Hugo, who moved from romantic to realistic novels, revealed how hunger drove a good man to crime and how the law hounded him ever after in Les Misérables (lay miz ehr ahb). The novels of Émile Zola painted an even grimmer picture. In Germinal, Zola exposed class warfare in the French mining industry. To Zola’s characters, neither the Enlightenment’s faith in reason nor the romantic movement’s feelings mattered at all.
Realism in Drama
Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen brought realism to the stage. His plays attacked the hypocrisy he observed around him. A Doll’s House show a woman caught in a straitjacket of social rules. In An Enemy of the People, a doctor discovers that the water in a local spa is polluted. Because the town’s economy depends on its spa, the citizens denounce the doctor and suppress the truth. Ibsen’s realistic dramas had a wide influence in Europe and the United States.
Arts Reject Romantic Ideas
Painters also represented the realities of their time. Rejecting the romantic emphasis on imagination, they focused on ordinary subjects, especially working-class men and women. “I cannot paint an angel,” said the French realist Gustave Courbet (koor bay) “because I have never seen one.” Instead, he painted works such as The Stone Breakers, which shows two rough laborers on a country road. Later in the century, The Gross Clinic, by American painter Thomas Eakins, shocked viewers with its realistic depiction of an autopsy conducted in a medical classroom.
Vocabulary Builder
emphasis—(em fuh sis) n. special attention given to something to make it stand out
Checkpoint
How did the realism movement differ from the romantic movement?
Reading Check
Evaluating
What factors helped to produce the movement known as realism?
