Romanticism: A Deep Dive into the Literary Movement
Romanticism
Cultural Movement
Romanticism was a cultural movement of a liberal and revolutionary character that emphasized the role of human beings and their emotions over reason.
Features
- Subject: Reflects the artist’s inner world.
- Desire for Freedom: The romantic rebelled against social norms and mores of the time.
- Anguish: The world is unfair to the romantic, far removed from their ideals. This confrontation causes them constant dissatisfaction.
- Nationalism: The Romantic appreciates their own culture and sees it as something authentic and genuine.
| Neoclassicism | Romanticism |
|---|---|
| Power of reason as the only form of knowledge | Power of feeling and subjectivity over reason |
| Collective human, social | Individual human being |
| Vital optimism | Existential angst and pessimism |
| Harmony in art inspired by classic forms | Art in search of new forms of original expression |
| Art and literature with teaching functions | Subversive intent: to create a liberal society |
The Romantic Lyric
Romantic poetry was the best way to express their feelings. It is characterized by the break with neoclassical forms and the search for creative freedom beyond the rational.
Topics
- Love: Main topic of Romantics. It has a twofold nature:
- Idealized love: Feeling that causes the poet maximum happiness.
- Tragic love: Passionate force that drags the poet to melancholy and doom.
- Existence: Life is a continual source of agony. The Romantic is in conflict with a world that does not satisfy them, and this leads to sadness, loneliness, and suicide. Sometimes the cause is disappointment or escape from reality. The poet identifies their state of mind with nature.
- Freedom: The strong desire for freedom is characteristic of the Romantic, so they fight against rules and oppression. A variant is patriotism, understanding the country as the land of freedom.
Style and Metric
To reflect their feelings, Romantics used suggestive vocabulary and romantic sounds with lots of color and expressiveness. The language is musical and emphatic, using rhetorical questions, exclamations, and an abundance of hyperbatons to create a melodic effect and express emotions.
The Romantic claims freedom in metric forms. They avoid the refinement and stiffness of Neoclassicism. So they use verses of varying length. To enhance the musical effect, they tend to rhyme. Sharp rhymes are very typical for their forceful sound.
Romantic Drama
Drama was the most cultivated theatrical subgenre of Romanticism.
Features
- Romantic drama does not follow the rules of time and unit.
- There are many dimensions, absent in neoclassical theater.
- The language of the drama is exaggerated and declamatory.
- It prefers gloomy scenarios and themes of legendary adventures.
- It creates new characters like the lone hero marked by tragedy and the spiritual heroine whose ideal is the passion of love.
- The purpose of Romantic drama is to move, provoke emotion, anger, crying, etc.
Journalism and Customs
The prose genre’s heyday was journalism. This began in the seventeenth century, but it was during the Romantic period that it gained popularity, thanks to the articles of manners in which the writer Mariano José de Larra excelled.
The articles of journalistic habits are thought-provoking texts on social mores, intended to criticize bad habits.
The articles of Larra are characterized by:
- Topics: Related aspects of daily life.
- Characters: They reflect all social strata and classes because the intention is to approach reality.
- Style: They are written with simple vocabulary.
- Structure: The articles are divided into 3 parts: introduction, development, and conclusion.
Newspapers were the medium used to disseminate Romantic ideas, and therefore absolutist governments censored them.
José de Espronceda
He was the Spanish poet who best embodied the Romantic period. His lyrical poems were collected in a book called “Poetry” that he gave to the public authorities himself before dying. He wrote two narrative poems: “The Student of Salamanca” and “The Devil World”. Its themes are related to adventure and love.
Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer
His works are characterized by a delicate tone and simple language, and they have a careful and elegant style. Bécquer employs numerous literary figures. Thus, Bécquer paved the way for other movements such as Symbolism. His best work is “Rhymes and Legends”, but he also wrote essays and journalistic articles. His rhymes can be grouped into 4 themes: the meaning of poetry, joyful love, love and anguish, and finally despair and death.
Rosalía de Castro
She was the great poet of Spanish and Galician Romanticism. She stands out for her simple and intimate style and a serious and profound sense of existence. She also excels for her contribution to Galician literature, highlighting two books written in that language:
- In “Cantares gallegos” and “Follas novas”, she expresses the longing for her homeland.
- In “En las orillas del Sar”, written in Castilian, the writer conveys great sensitivity on issues like love, loneliness, disappointment, religion, death, etc.