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Chapter 28: The Romantic Hero

Humanities 103

Beth Camp, Instructor

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Navigating the slide show

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David

Napoleon at St.

Bernard (1800)

Is this portrait of

Napoleon more

realistic -- or

idealistic?

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The Romantic Hero 1800-1850

Celebrates nature and natural landscape

Glorifies heroism, suffering and death

Supports nationalism and political independence

Emphasizes nature’s wild, mysterious, exotic, melancholic, melodramatic aspects

Stereotypes gender roles

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The Enlightenment

Scientific advances (Kepler, Bacon, Copernicus, Galileo) led many to believe that we could understand the universe through reason

Deism = mechanistic view of universe (God as perfect clockmaker; the clock, being perfect, keeps running without God's intervention).

Believed in change and progress as good things

Promoted idea that all men are equal

For most Romantics, the failure of the FrenchRevolution was the failure of the Enlightenment

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The Romantic Era

Rejected the emphasis on science, calling it a “mechanical and souless”

Valued human emotions and PASSION

Valued religious belief in a caring God

The Romantic Hero = the Romantic Individual, self made and self-directed, a “Superman”

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Romantic Stereotypes

“If I give myself up to love, I want it to wound me deeply, to electrify me, to break my heart or to exhalt me. . . What I want is to suffer, to go crazy.”

--a character from Sand’s novel

(quoted in Fiero 46)

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Mary Shelley

Daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin

Eloped with Shelley at 16

Poetry, philosophy, artistic circles

Lake Geneva, 1816 ghost-telling competition

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Shelley

9Source: http://www.thebakken.org/Frankenstein/exhibit.htm

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749-1832

studied law at Leipzig University Lawyer, influential advisor to German court At 45, literature became his career. Spent 60 years writing Faust.Interested in science, studied anatomy, botany and optics

Believed in the unity of nature, not in deism

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What is a Faustian bargain?

How does the play open? Who is Mephistocles? Why is he angry?

What is God’s personality?

What is your first impression of Faust? What does he want and why?

How do you know the Devil has come to call?

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What is alchemy?

Alchemy is the study of ways to transform “base metals” into gold and to create potions that promise immortality.

Source: http://www.levity.com/alchemy/cab_min1.html

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Does this portrait of Goethe suggest a “romantic hero”? Why?

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What characterizes Romanticism?

Who are early examples of Romantic artists, composers or thinkers? What did they contribute?

Who are later examples of Romantic artists or or thinkers? What did they contribute?

Based on what you know now, how would you define “romanticism”?

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What was the Romantic ideal?

Poet-Visionary(Blake)

The BohemianRomantic Historian

Virtuoso(Beethoven)

Bryronic Hero

Source: Morse Peckham, Romanticism: The Culture of the 19th Century

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Blake: Visionary Romantic

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.

--William Blake, Augeries of Innocence

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William Blake, The Ancient of Days, 1794

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Resources

Mark Hardin’s Artchives at http://www.artchives.com

WebMuseum, Paris at http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/blake/

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein online: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/SheFran.html