THEMES IN ROMANTICISM

The term "Romantic" can also be applied to describe a style or sensibility. It is a rebellion against classical rules of composition and classical aestheticism. Romanticism consists in the opposition of sentiment to reason. Melancholy- At the root of European Romanticism there is a great dissatisfaction with the present and with everyday life. This manifests itself in an awareness of the gap between reality and will. This awareness creates a melancholic tone in Romantic art and a melancholic aspect in Romantic characters or heroes. To overcome this melancholia, the Romantic artist seeks to escape. This escape has two aspects: a) In time-The poet retreats into the past which becomes attractive because it is irrevocable and offers a heroism modern life lacks. b) In space-The artist tries to create other worlds where he can realize his own true self. Freedom and Death-The Romantic sensibility depicts the hatred of everyday life and the desire to live out of the ordinary . The Romantic hero is depicted in a struggle for personal freedom against destiny and society. Sometimes he is ready to risk death or to kill himself, seeing in death the ultimate escape from reality. Nature and Love-Nature has its own life and speaks to whoever can understand its language. Nature has a mystical effect on man. To the Romantic, the thing perceived is not important, but rather the thing imagined. Similarly in love, woman becomes an object, not a human creature, but a celestial being, to be adored and worshipped. To die for love becomes heroic as it is synonymous with dying for an ideal. Images of women in Romantic literature are seldom convincing psychological portraits, but rather symbolic personifications of Romantic beauty. In the Gothic-Romantic tradition, women have a catalytic role, forcing men to act, and sometimes taking part in the struggle. The concept of the Fatal Woman develops, a sorceress who tempts man to love and then kills him through her negative loving. Sentiment and Beauty-With Romanticism, the idea of Beauty changes: whereas before it was seen as harmony and perfection, Romanticism sees beauty as that which has character. The natural world is a beautiful world and beauty becomes truth, truth becomes beauty. Sentiment is the highest form of understanding. Opposed to Rationality, the Romantic seeks answers through his own sentiment. The period of the Enlightenment and Rationality is disregarded and replaced by Subjectivism and the importance of individuality. Individuals become individual through the depth of their sentiment. Whereas the Enlightenment had reduced men to a type or class, Romanticism sought to resurrect the cult of the individual. Religion-An important element of Romanticism is Natural Religion, Pantheism. In this religious creed, man has something divine in him. When not limited by Reason his imagination in moments of transport can make him God-like. The mechanical God that existed "outside" human experience, the God of traditional Christianity, was no longer seen as a sufficient explanation of the universe. The universe was inside man and man could become God-like. The Romantic embraced oriental concepts of the divine, which were linked to the vast and the vague, to the internal and the subjective.