Romanticism is a trend of art characterized by effusion ,exaggeration and lack of restraint and balance.It is opposed to classicism which is a trend in art marked by restraint ,precission and and balance.A movement called Romantic Movement or the movement of Romantic Revival (1778-1832)came to a head at the close of the 18th century in England as a strong reaction and protest against the rules and regulations ,dogma and formalism of the neoclassical writers of the 18th century.
Romanticism applies to any trend that exalts nature over artifice ; sensibility over intellect ;imagination over wit or reason ;foreign above the familiar;energy and effusion over restraint ;the search for the absolute above concern with the ordinary ,the here and now. Victor Hugo defined romanticism as `liberalism in literature`and liberalism consists in freedom from restraint.Romanticism is thus the expression of the individual genius rather than of the established rules and conventions.It`s the liberation of the ego,the sovereignty of imagination.
In its wider sense it spans /covers not merely literature but also politics;philosophy and the arts generally.Consequently,there has been little agreement on its meaning and scope among the scholars.Originally,it signified the characteristics of the romances or fanciful stories.Later on FRANCE and ENGLAND it came to mean a school of literature opposed to classic.
Now the salient features of romanticism are:
1.Stress or emphasis on emotion and imagination rather than wit and intellect.
2.Love for the medieval or pagan past;
3.A REVOLT against the bondage of the artificial poetic diction;set rules and regulations of the 18th century neoclassical poets;
4.And a return to the old;the natural way of writing of the Elizabethans and the ballad poets;
5.Love for nature;subjectivity supernaturalism and lyricism;
6.An addition of strangeness to beauty;
7.Subtle sense of mystery;
8.And an instant for the elemental simplicities of life/glorification of simple rural life;
No comments:
Post a Comment