19th-Century Romanticism: Features, Poetry, and Poets
19th-Century Romanticism
Romanticism was the triumphant artistic movement in Europe during the 19th century. It began with the return of exiles after the death of Fernando VII and the debut of *A Conspiracy of Venice* by Martinez de la Rosa.
Key Features of Romanticism
Romanticism emerged from a profound societal crisis. Romantics protested against the values imposed by the bourgeois world, rebelling against a society that crushed their ideals of liberty. Romanticism defended the creative power of the spirit.
- Rejection of Reality and Escape: Romantics scorned a reality that opposed their ideals, leading to attitudes of rebellion and escape through imagination.
- Analysis of Inner Life: The expression of feelings was an obsessive concern.
- Importance of Landscape: The description of nature, such as dark forests and abandoned gardens, served as an externalization of the artist’s inner landscape.
- Emphasis on Popular and National Elements: Romanticism explored traditions, advocated for the use of indigenous languages, and retrieved literary creations that conveyed the spirit of peoples and nations.
Technique and Structure
Creative freedom is manifested in the mix of genres. The literary characters are often stereotypes, without psychological complexities. The rhetorical style often tries to achieve a sound and brilliance, at times excessive.
Romantic Poetry: Characteristics and Poets
The renewing contribution of Romanticism is evident across all aspects of poetry.
Characteristics
- Lexicon: The vocabulary reflects the spirit of the period, including words like “delusions” (positive) and “sadness” (negative), and “passion”. Images are filled with exotic, mysterious landscapes, treated with careful sensuousness. Words are chosen for their sound.
- Metrics: Romantic poets used all sorts of verses and poems, even mixing them within the same poem. The *romance* became a preferred composition.
- Themes: Love is the principal theme, often portrayed as passionate and impossible to achieve. Figures of speech are used to express emotions, including rhetorical questions, exclamations, hyperbole, and apostrophe.
- Narrative Poetry: Legends, historical issues, and fictitious inventions serve as inspiration. For example, José Zorrilla wrote legends in verse of historical, religious, or exotic fantasy.
Main Poets
José de Espronceda: His earliest poetic works show neoclassical influence. However, during his London exile, he encountered English Romanticism and began his most personal and independent work. Two poems stand out: *The Student of Salamanca* and *The Devil World*. The love theme is his main inspiration, but his claim of certain fringe characters is also important, in which the poet saw a symbol of rebellion and social oppression (*The Pirate’s Song*).
Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer: His romanticism evolved into a new sensibility and a poetic vocabulary away from the rhetoric of his predecessors. *Rhymes* features are its brevity and condensation. The simplicity contrasts with the theatricality of the previous romantic lyric. The strophic form of the poems is free, with a predominance of eleven-syllable and seven-syllable verses and assonance rhyme.
Rosalía de Castro: She was a bilingual writer, writing in both Castilian and Galician. Her Galician work played a significant role in the revival of the Galician language and culture.