Young werther painting11/14/2023 ![]() ![]() Nature mirrors the state of your soul romantic poets reflected their feelings into nature, but they also did the opposite, the nature acted on the poets’ sensibility and his inner experiencing. William Wordsworth considered poetry as “ the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” which he then “ recollect in tranquility.” Nature was, however, Wordsworth’s biggest inspiration and he admired it deeply, not only for its aesthetic values he felt in it the closeness with the sources of life and inexhaustible wellspring of simple and eternal cognition of life. These two poets, along with Robert Southey, belonged to a group called ‘Lake poets’ for they lived in the Lake district a picturesque mountainous area in north-west England. Romanticism in English literature begins with the publication of Wordsworth and Coleridge’s collection of poems Lyrical ballads (1798). Theme of love and intimacy is the most evident in Goethe’s work The Sorrows of Young Werther, historical themes were the most interesting to Victor Hugo thought he came to the scene a little bit later, and the dark romantic, Edgar Allan Poe is the king of mystical and occult, combing the themes of beauty and death. Surrounded by the tranquil solitude they found comfort in four major themes and preoccupations intimacy and love, nature (especially exotic landscapes), history and folklore, and mystic and occult. However, the world-pain gained its fullest form in works of Byron and Chateaubriand.Īrtists of the time felt helpless, sad and disappointed. This world pain that caused depression, escapism and resignation as the individual felt powerless against all the injustice in the world, occurred as early as in Rousseau’s ( New Heloise) and Goethe’s work ( The sorrows of young Werther). Weltschmerz resulted in the ‘cult of pain’ a pessimistic sense of how there is no cure for evil in the world. Physical reality can never satisfy the demands of the mind. ‘World-pain’ or Weltschmerz is an expression for the sense of sadness and despondency induced by discrepancy of reality and ideals. Those are the sources of the pessimistic worldview, that is the Weltschmerz. In literature this disappointment, unexplainable sadness and melancholy manifested themselves by escaping into solitude and one’s own vision of the world. I find one of Novalis’ quotes very appropriate “ Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.” How could rationalism answer the existentialistic questions one might ask oneself? What solution could rationalism have to cure the disappointment of the people with the false social values? Young people misunderstood poets, artists, musicians and all the other sensitive individuals couldn’t find fulfillment and refuge in rationalistic ideas that were so popular only a century before so they had to find their own way to survive. ‘ Cult of reason‘ couldn’t and can’t explain the inequality of the world that hurt the young people so much. Melancholy pervaded the air and the atmosphere of oppressive disappointment after the ideals of equality and justice of the French Revolution were never fulfilled, and the Napoleon’s demise made the society to perceive him as a fallen hero, fallen self-proclaimed hero, which again brought the disappointment. In the Romantic era young individuals felt powerless against that rigid regime. Artist had more freedom in expressing himself in the Romantic era than in the rigid worldview of Classicism. Romanticism praised the aesthetic function of literature while Classicism valued the educational purpose of it. Art itself is originality whereas the principle of Classicism was imitating the Antic models. In Romanticism an artist is a genious, a gifted person who stands lonely and misunderstood against the meaningless masses. Romanticism came as an answer to Classicism and deemed its ‘cult of reason’, coldness, formality and restraint characteristic for the art and literature of the time. Romantic era is very appealing to me all those sad young people that died way too soon, unrequited loves, themes and love towards nature, focus on individuality and imagination,beautiful portraits where ladies’ faces are framed with curls and delicate roses, escapism, melancholy as a state of mind, feeling of alienation.Įvery movement in art, music and literature comes as an answer to the previous one and acts as its opposite. “ To romanticize the world is to make us aware of the magic, mystery and wonder of the world it is to educate the senses to see the ordinary as extraordinary, the familiar as strange, the mundane as sacred, the finite as infinite.”(Novalis) I dedicate this post to Frederic Chopin who died on 17th October 1849 and all the other Romantics who ‘ruined’ my life in the most positive way! _Įxploration of the inner self lead the Romantics to discover a prodigious world of mysticism, imagination and dreams. ![]()
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