Reason or Romanticism

 

As a literary and artistic term, Romanticism is used to describe the profound shift in Western attitudes to human thought and creativity that dominated much of European culture during the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries—and which has somehow shaped or influenced all subsequent developments in literature and art ever since.  As a movement, romanticism revolted against the Enlightenment’s heavy reliance on reason and focused attention on the more mysterious emotional and psychological experiences of human existence.  Similarly, in rebelling against the Enlightenment’s preference for social (and generally formal) activity, romanticism emphasized the freedom of individual expression, and thus spontaneity, sincerity, and originality became new standards in literary and artistic productions (replacing decorum, convention, and the imitation of classical models favored by Enlightenment writers).  Believing that the Enlightenment concept of creation was mechanical, impersonal, and artificial, romantic writers and artists conceived of a universe more mysterious and less knowable.  They celebrated the significance of the individual and the boundlessness of the human imagination, and in so doing they placed their trust in intuition and emotion.  The restrained balance valued in 18^th century culture was abandoned in favor of emotional intensity, often taken to extremes of rapture, nostalgia (for childhood or the historical past), horror, melancholy, or sentimentality.  Some romantic writers and artists cultivated the appeal of the exotic, the bizarre, or the macabre; almost all showed an interest in the non-rational realms of dream and delirium, folk superstition, myth, and legend.  Rather than by following rules and external structures and forms (social orientation), they created art by following their imaginative inspiration (individual orientation) and preferred to develop more organic principles of form, thus embracing innovation rather than tradition.

              One of the most characteristic aspects of romanticism is the trust in nature and natural goodness (including the natural goodness of the individual).  Individuals are born into a “state of nature” and are slowly corrupted by civilization, especially by urban life.  To cleanse themselves, individuals must return to nature or a more natural state.  As a result, romantic writers and artists hold great admiration for primitive states (“the noble savage”) and all forms of innocence, especially that of children. 

 

Reason                                                                        Emotion

Decorum, Rules, and Convention                               Originality, Spontaneity

External Forms and Structures                                   Organic Structure

Imitation                                                                      Inspiration

Tradition (traditional meters)                                       Innovation (free verse)

Society and Social Activity                                          The Self and Individual Activity

The Formal Garden                                                     The Forest or Wilderness

The Experts                                                                 Intuition and Self-Reliance

Interest in the Here-and-Now                                      Interest in the Distant and the Exotic

The Civilized                                                                The Primitive

The Artist as Student                                                  The Artist as Outcast

 

 

Becoming Enlightened

 

The Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, was a vast intellectual movement that took place during the 17^th and 18^th centuries and that profoundly influenced how people (particularly intellectuals) perceived both the world and humanity.  As a way of perceiving, the Enlightenment was manifested in art, politics, religion, education, science, and economics.  The movement advocated rationality—the use of reason—as a means to discover knowledge, ethics, and aesthetics.  Believing that the world had for too long suffered in ignorance, superstition, and tyranny, Enlightenment thinkers urged to use of reason to move humanity out of fear and irrationality. 

 

Throughout the 1500s and 1600s, Europe had been ravaged by religious wars.  After so much suffering caused by religious sectarianism, there was an upheaval which overturned the notions of mysticism and faith in individual revelation as the primary source of knowledge and wisdom.  By using reason, human beings could discover knowledge for themselves.  Creation was not perceived as being mysterious and unknowable.  Thus the Enlightenment was an age of optimism, believing that progress was inevitable.

 

Sir Isaac Newton became the great hero of the Enlightenment.  Using scientific observation and experimentation, Newton popularized the notion that there were “natural laws” that governed the universe—and that by using reason individuals could discover these laws.  The Enlightenment stressed that the world was comprehensible and orderly.  As a religious philosophy, deism stressed that the Creator could best be perceived by studying creation—not through centuries-old revelations.  God was perceived as the divine and benevolent clockmaker.

 

In his 1784 essay, “What is Enlightenment?” Immanuel Kant stated:

 

            Enlightenment is man’s leaving his self-caused immaturity.  Immaturity is the

incapacity to use one’s own understanding without guidance of another.  Such

immaturity is self-caused if its cause is not lack of intelligence, but by lack of

determination and courage to use one’s intelligence without being guided by

another.

 

In his Age of Reason (1794), Paine stated:

 

            I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.

I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.

But, lest it should be supposed that I believe in many other things in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them.

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reformation, 1517-1648

 

Print Revolution, 1450-1550

 

Thirty Years’ War, 1618-1648

Longest and most destructive war in European history, an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians dies as a result of battle, famine, and disease, some parts of Germany had population declines of over 50%

 

The Eighty Years War,1568-1648

Dutch revolt against Spain

 

War of Mantuan Succession, 1628-1631

Proxy war between France and Spain

 

Franco-Spanish War, 1635-1659

 

The Torstenson War, 1643-1645

War between Sweden and Denmark/Norway

 

The Dutch-Portuguese War, 1598-1663

Naval war for overseas empire and trade

 

The Portuguese Restoration War, 1640-1668

War between Spain and Portugal

 

The English Civil War, 1642-1651

Parliamentarians vs Royalists

Part of the wider Wars of Three Kingdoms, 1639-1653

The Anglo-Scottish War, 1650-1652

 

The worst decades of witch hunting were the 1590s, the 1630s, and the 1660s.  Some of the most intense witch panics occurred in southern Germany.  The peak periods of witch hunting correspond with war, outbreaks of disease, and crop failure/famine.