Misplaced Pages

#51948

119-592: Christina Georgina Rossetti (5 December 1830 – 29 December 1894) was an English writer of romantic , devotional and children's poems, including " Goblin Market " and "Remember". She also wrote the words of two Christmas carols well known in Britain: " In the Bleak Midwinter ", later set by Gustav Holst , Katherine Kennicott Davis, and Harold Darke , and " Love Came Down at Christmas ", also set by Darke and other composers. She

238-480: A pastoral conception of a more "authentic" European past with a highly critical view of recent social changes, including urbanization , brought about by the Industrial Revolution . Romanticism lionized the achievements of "heroic" individuals—especially artists, who began to be represented as cultural leaders (one Romantic luminary, Percy Bysshe Shelley , described poets as the "unacknowledged legislators of

357-645: A centre of German Romanticism, where writers and poets such as Clemens Brentano , Achim von Arnim , and Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff ( Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts ) met regularly in literary circles. Important motifs in German Romanticism are travelling, nature, for example the German Forest , and Germanic myths . The later German Romanticism of, for example E. T. A. Hoffmann 's Der Sandmann ( The Sandman ), 1817, and Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff 's Das Marmorbild ( The Marble Statue ), 1819,

476-614: A collection of versified folk tales, in 1806–1808. The first collection of Grimms' Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm was published in 1812. Unlike the much later work of Hans Christian Andersen , who was publishing his invented tales in Danish from 1835, these German works were at least mainly based on collected folk tales , and the Grimms remained true to the style of the telling in their early editions, though later rewriting some parts. One of

595-679: A complicated history. By the 18th century, European languages—notably German, French and Slavic languages—were using the term "Roman" in the sense of the English word " novel ", i.e. a work of popular narrative fiction. This usage derived from the term "Romance languages" , which referred to vernacular (or popular) language in contrast to formal Latin . Most such novels took the form of " chivalric romance ", tales of adventure, devotion and honour. The founders of Romanticism, critics (and brothers) August Wilhelm Schlegel and Friedrich Schlegel , began to speak of romantische Poesie ("romantic poetry") in

714-428: A considerable number always had, or developed, a wide range of conservative views, and nationalism was in many countries strongly associated with Romanticism, as discussed in detail below. In philosophy and the history of ideas, Romanticism was seen by Isaiah Berlin as disrupting for over a century the classic Western traditions of rationality and the idea of moral absolutes and agreed values, leading "to something like

833-599: A defence of religion and the medieval spirit ( Génie du christianisme , 1802), and finally in the 1830s and 1840s his enormous autobiography Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe ("Memoirs from beyond the grave"). After the Bourbon Restoration , French Romanticism developed in the lively world of Parisian theatre , with productions of Shakespeare , Schiller (in France a key Romantic author), and adaptations of Scott and Byron alongside French authors, several of whom began to write in

952-478: A distinct national identity and began to enjoy an international reputation. Allan Ramsay (1686–1758) laid the foundations of a reawakening of interest in older Scottish literature, as well as leading the trend for pastoral poetry, helping to develop the Habbie stanza as a poetic form . James Macpherson (1736–1796) was the first Scottish poet to gain an international reputation. Claiming to have found poetry written by

1071-524: A dramatist, with his play on the life of the English poet Chatterton (1835) perhaps his best work. George Sand was a central figure of the Parisian literary scene, famous both for her novels and criticism and her affairs with Chopin and several others; she too was inspired by the theatre, and wrote works to be staged at her private estate . French Romantic poets of the 1830s to 1850s include Alfred de Musset , Gérard de Nerval , Alphonse de Lamartine and

1190-434: A letter to his father's friend, Charles Lyell of Kinnordy, stating that it would definitely appeal to members of a religious community. It was a common subject in medieval and renaissance art and usually shows Mary with a book on her lap as her mother, Anne , teaches her to read. But instead Rossetti shows Mary embroidering a lily (traditional symbol of Mary's purity) under Anne's guidance while her father, Joachim , prunes

1309-535: A line in Rossetti's poem A Dirge . Christina Rossetti is commemorated in the Church of England calendar on 27 April. Romanticism Romanticists rejected the social conventions of the time in favour of a moral outlook known as individualism . They argued that passion and intuition were crucial to understanding the world, and that beauty is more than merely an affair of form , but rather something that evokes

SECTION 10

#1733093066052

1428-612: A longing for the unbounded and the indefinable, for perpetual movement and change, an effort to return to the forgotten sources of life, a passionate effort at self-assertion both individual and collective, a search after means of expressing an unappeasable yearning for unattainable goals". Romantic artists also shared a strong belief in the importance and inspirational qualities of Nature. Romantics were distrustful of cities and social conventions. They deplored Restoration and Enlightenment Era artists who were largely concerned with depicting and critiquing social relations, thereby neglecting

1547-423: A major religious crisis. Up Hill Does the road wind up hill all the way?         Yes, to the very end. Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?         From morn to night, my friend. But is there for the night a resting-place?        A roof for when the slow dark hours begin? May not

1666-521: A new importance to experiences of sympathy , awe , wonder , and terror , in part by naturalizing such emotions as responses to the "beautiful" and the "sublime". Romantics stressed the nobility of folk art and ancient cultural practices, but also championed radical politics , unconventional behavior, and authentic spontaneity. In contrast to the rationalism and classicism of the Enlightenment , Romanticism revived medievalism and juxtaposed

1785-408: A novel by Laurence Sterne (1759–1767), introduced a whimsical version of the anti-rational sentimental novel to the English literary public. An early German influence came from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , whose 1774 novel The Sorrows of Young Werther had young men throughout Europe emulating its protagonist, a young artist with a very sensitive and passionate temperament. At that time Germany

1904-458: A sister: Dante Gabriel became an influential artist and poet, and William Michael and Maria both became writers. Christina, the youngest, and a lively child, dictated her first story to her mother before she had learnt to write. Rossetti was educated at home by her mother and father through religious works, classics, fairy tales and novels. Rossetti delighted in the works of Keats , Scott , Ann Radcliffe and Matthew Lewis . The influence of

2023-884: A speck   Her air was frank and simple. Rossetti's Christmas poem " In the Bleak Midwinter " became widely known in the English-speaking world after her death, when set as a Christmas carol by Gustav Holst and later by Harold Darke . Her poem " Love Came Down at Christmas " (1885) has also been widely arranged as a carol. British composers receptive to Rossetti's verse included Alexander Mackenzie ( Three Songs , Op. 17, 1878), Frederick Cowen , Samuel Coleridge-Taylor ( Six Sorrow Songs , Op. 57, 1904), Hubert Parry , Hope Squire , Charles Villiers Stanford , and Jack Gibbons (sixteen song settings). In 1918, John Ireland set eight poems from her Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book to music in his song cycle Mother and Child . The first verse of Yoko Ono 's song " Who Has Seen

2142-459: A strong emotional response. With this philosophical foundation, the Romanticists elevated several key themes to which they were deeply committed: a reverence for nature and the supernatural , an idealization of the past as a nobler era , a fascination with the exotic and the mysterious , and a celebration of the heroic and the sublime . The Romanticist movement had a particular fondness for

2261-579: A thorn'). The Annunciation is prefigured by a dove, symbolising the Holy Spirit . It received a generally good reception and reviews at the Free Exhibition. It was bought for £80 by Louisa, marchioness of Bath, wife of John Thynne, 4th Marquess of Bath and a family friend of the Rossettis. Rossetti repainted Mary's dress and the angel's face before sending the work to her, whilst the payment for it funded

2380-569: A trip to Belgium and France by him and William Holman Hunt . It was exhibited again in 1850 in the Portland Gallery Exhibitions at the Royal Academy , where it received a less friendly reception. By 1864 it was owned by Lady Louise Fielding, who that year sent it back to Rossetti for repainting — he turned the angel's wings from white to deep pink and Mary's sleeves from yellow to brown. The original frame with its rounded upper corners

2499-576: A very typical view, and about 1830, perhaps a little later than some other critics. Others have proposed 1780–1830. In other fields and other countries the period denominated as Romantic can be considerably different; musical Romanticism , for example, is generally regarded as only having ceased as a major artistic force as late as 1910, but in an extreme extension the Four Last Songs of Richard Strauss are described stylistically as "Late Romantic" and were composed in 1946–1948. However, in most fields

SECTION 20

#1733093066052

2618-696: A vine in the background, referring to the coming of Christ (who calls himself "the True Vine" in John 15.1 ). The vine is shaped like a cross, prefiguring Christ’s passion . Rossetti made several preliminary studies in chalk and the Scottish poet and artist William Bell Scott saw the work in progress in Hunt's studio and remarked on young Rossetti's technique: He was painting in oils with water-colour brushes, as thinly as in water-colour, on canvas which he had primed with white till

2737-533: A wide circle of friends and correspondents. She continued to write and publish for the rest of her life, mainly devotional work and children's poetry. In the years just before her death, she wrote The Face of the Deep , (1892) a book of devotional prose, and oversaw an enlarged edition of Sing-Song , originally published in 1872, in 1893. She died late the next year. Rossetti was one of the first female stamp collectors, beginning her collection in 1847, just seven years after

2856-524: Is Like a Rose" was set to music by Constance Cochnower Virtue ; "Love Me, I Love You," was set to music by Hanna Vollenhoven ; and "Song of the Dawn" was set to music by Elise Fellows White . In 2000, one of many Millennium projects across the country was a poetry stone placed in what had been the grounds of North Hill House in Frome. On one side is an excerpt from her poem, "What Good Shall My Life Do Me": "Love lights

2975-550: Is a stone tablet on the façade of 30 Torrington Square, Bloomsbury , marking her final home, where she died. Rossetti's popularity in her lifetime did not approach that of her contemporary Elizabeth Barrett Browning , but her standing remained strong after her death. Her popularity faded in the early 20th century in the wake of Modernism , but scholars began to explore Freudian themes in her work, such as religious and sexual repression , reaching for personal, biographical interpretations of her poetry. Academics studying her work in

3094-479: Is cited as an influence for current nature conservation efforts. The majority of film scores from the Golden Age of Hollywood were written in the lush orchestral Romantic style, and this genre of orchestral cinematic music is still often seen in films of the 21st century. The philosophical underpinnings of the movement have influenced modern political theory, both among liberals and conservatives . Romanticism

3213-402: Is less about "the objectification of women" than about "the male artist's self-worship". Rossetti's first commercially printed collection, Goblin Market and Other Poems , was published under her own name by Macmillan & Co. in 1862, when she was 31. Dante Gabriel Rossetti became his sister's collaborator and created much-praised woodcut illustrations to the book which enhanced the effect of

3332-445: Is most evident in the aesthetics of romanticism, where the notion of eternal models, a Platonic vision of ideal beauty, which the artist seeks to convey, however imperfectly, on canvas or in sound, is replaced by a passionate belief in spiritual freedom, individual creativity. The painter, the poet, the composer do not hold up a mirror to nature, however ideal, but invent; they do not imitate (the doctrine of mimesis), but create not merely

3451-642: Is now most highly regarded for his short lyrics and his generally unromantic prose writings, especially his letters, and his unfinished satire Don Juan . Unlike many Romantics, Byron's widely publicised personal life appeared to match his work, and his death at 36 in 1824 from disease when helping the Greek War of Independence appeared from a distance to be a suitably Romantic end, entrenching his legend. Keats in 1821 and Shelley in 1822 both died in Italy, Blake (at almost 70) in 1827, and Coleridge largely ceased to write in

3570-469: Is often called "romantic originality". The translator and prominent Romantic August Wilhelm Schlegel argued in his Lectures on Dramatic Arts and Letters that the most valuable quality of human nature is its tendency to diverge and diversify. According to Isaiah Berlin , Romanticism embodied "a new and restless spirit, seeking violently to burst through old and cramping forms, a nervous preoccupation with perpetually changing inner states of consciousness,

3689-661: Is ostensibly about two sisters' misadventures with goblins, but critics have seen it in various ways including an allegory of temptation and salvation, a comment on Victorian gender roles and female agency, and a work of erotic desire and social redemption. Rossetti worked voluntarily in 1859–1870 at the St Mary Magdalene house of charity in Highgate , a refuge for ex-prostitutes. It is suggested that Goblin Market may have been inspired by "fallen women" she came to know. There are parallels with Samuel Taylor Coleridge 's The Rime of

Christina Rossetti - Misplaced Pages Continue

3808-543: Is the reference for the modern notion of " romanticization " and the act of "romanticizing" something. For most of the Western world, Romanticism was at its peak from approximately 1800 to 1850. The first Romantic ideas arose from an earlier German Counter-Enlightenment movement called Sturm und Drang (German: "Storm and Stress"). This movement directly criticized the Enlightenment's position that humans can fully comprehend

3927-827: The Ancien Régime , and the French Revolution had been more of an inspiration to foreign writers than those experiencing it at first-hand. The first major figure was François-René de Chateaubriand , an aristocrat who had remained a royalist throughout the Revolution, and returned to France from exile in England and America under Napoleon, with whose regime he had an uneasy relationship. His writings, all in prose, included some fiction, such as his influential novella of exile René (1802), which anticipated Byron in its alienated hero, but mostly contemporary history and politics, his travels,

4046-506: The Anglo-Catholic movement that developed in the Church of England . Religious devotion came to play a major role in her life. In her late teens, Rossetti became engaged to the painter James Collinson , the first of three suitors. He, like her brothers Dante and William, was a founding member of the avant-garde Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood , established in 1848. The engagement ended in 1850 when he reverted to Catholicism . In 1853, when

4165-616: The Crusades that he had researched to a degree that was new in literature. In contrast to Germany, Romanticism in English literature had little connection with nationalism, and the Romantics were often regarded with suspicion for the sympathy many felt for the ideals of the French Revolution , whose collapse and replacement with the dictatorship of Napoleon was, as elsewhere in Europe, a shock to

4284-539: The Lake Poets were widely regarded as a marginal group of radicals, though they were supported by the critic and writer William Hazlitt and others. In contrast, Lord Byron and Walter Scott achieved enormous fame and influence throughout Europe with works exploiting the violence and drama of their exotic and historical settings; Goethe called Byron "undoubtedly the greatest genius of our century". Scott achieved immediate success with his long narrative poem The Lay of

4403-587: The Middle Ages , which to them represented an era of chivalry , heroism, and a more organic relationship between humans and their environment. This idealization contrasted sharply with the values of their contemporary industrial society, which they considered alienating for its economic materialism and environmental degradation . The movement's illustration of the Middle Ages was a central theme in debates, with allegations that Romanticist portrayals often overlooked

4522-455: The national poet of Scotland and a major influence on the Romantic movement. His poem (and song) " Auld Lang Syne " is often sung at Hogmanay (the last day of the year), and " Scots Wha Hae " served for a long time as an unofficial national anthem of the country. Scott began as a poet and also collected and published Scottish ballads. His first prose work, Waverley in 1814, is often called

4641-572: The supernatural / occult and human psychology . Romanticism tended to regard satire as something unworthy of serious attention, a view still influential today. The Romantic movement in literature was preceded by the Enlightenment and succeeded by Realism . The precursors of Romanticism in English poetry go back to the middle of the 18th century, including figures such as Joseph Warton (headmaster at Winchester College ) and his brother Thomas Warton , Professor of Poetry at Oxford University . Joseph maintained that invention and imagination were

4760-507: The working class . By World War I , Romanticism was overshadowed by new cultural, social, and political movements, many of them hostile to the perceived illusions and preoccupations of the Romantics. However, Romanticism has had a lasting impact on Western civilization, and many works of art, music, and literature that embody the Romantic ideals have been made after the end of the Romantic Era. The movement's advocacy for nature appreciation

4879-725: The "romantic harp" and "classic lyre", but in 1820 Byron could still write, perhaps slightly disingenuously, It is only from the 1820s that Romanticism certainly knew itself by its name, and in 1824 the Académie française took the wholly ineffective step of issuing a decree condemning it in literature. The period typically called Romantic varies greatly between different countries and different artistic media or areas of thought. Margaret Drabble described it in literature as taking place "roughly between 1770 and 1848", and few dates much earlier than 1770 will be found. In English literature, M. H. Abrams placed it between 1789, or 1798, this latter

Christina Rossetti - Misplaced Pages Continue

4998-474: The 1790s, contrasting it with "classic" but in terms of spirit rather than merely dating. Friedrich Schlegel wrote in his 1800 essay Gespräch über die Poesie ("Dialogue on Poetry"): The modern sense of the term spread more widely in France by its persistent use by Germaine de Staël in her De l'Allemagne (1813), recounting her travels in Germany. In England Wordsworth wrote in a preface to his poems of 1815 of

5117-406: The 1820s. Wordsworth was by 1820 respectable and highly regarded, holding a government sinecure , but wrote relatively little. In the discussion of English literature, the Romantic period is often regarded as finishing around the 1820s, or sometimes even earlier, although many authors of the succeeding decades were no less committed to Romantic values. The most significant novelist in English during

5236-477: The 1970s saw beyond the lyrical sweetness to her mastery of prosody and versification . Feminists held her as a symbol of constrained female genius and a leader among 19th-century poets. Her writings strongly influenced writers such as Ford Madox Ford , Virginia Woolf , Gerard Manley Hopkins , Elizabeth Jennings , and Philip Larkin . The critic Basil de Sélincourt called her "all but our greatest woman poet... incomparably our greatest craftswoman... probably in

5355-675: The Ancient Mariner in religious themes of temptation, sin and redemption by vicarious suffering. Swinburne in 1883 dedicated A Century of Roundels to Rossetti, as she adopted his roundel form in a number of poems, for instance in Wife to Husband . She was ambivalent about women's suffrage , but many have found feminist themes in her work. She opposed slavery in the United States , cruelty to animals in prevalent vivisection , and exploitation of girls in under-age prostitution. Rossetti kept

5474-589: The French retreat from Moscow in 1812, fantasies of heroism and adventure had little appeal for him, and like Goya he is often seen as a forerunner of Realism. His most important works are Le Rouge et le Noir ( The Red and the Black , 1830) and La Chartreuse de Parme ( The Charterhouse of Parma , 1839). Romanticism in Poland is often taken to begin with the publication of Adam Mickiewicz 's first poems in 1822, and end with

5593-605: The Last Minstrel in 1805, followed by the full epic poem Marmion in 1808. Both were set in the distant Scottish past, already evoked in Ossian ; Romanticism and Scotland were to have a long and fruitful partnership. Byron had equal success with the first part of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage in 1812, followed by four "Turkish tales", all in the form of long poems, starting with The Giaour in 1813, drawing from his Grand Tour , which had reached Ottoman Europe, and orientalizing

5712-482: The Romantic ideal, stressing depth of emotion in art and music while showcasing technical mastery in a mature Romantic style. By the time of World War I , though, the cultural and artistic climate had changed to such a degree that Romanticism essentially dispersed into subsequent movements. The final Late Romanticist figures to maintain the Romantic ideals died in the 1940s. Though they were still widely respected, they were seen as anachronisms at that point. Romanticism

5831-436: The Romantic interest in folk literature, but neither had a fully Romantic approach to life or their work. Though they have modern critical champions such as György Lukács , Scott's novels are today more likely to be experienced in the form of the many operas that composers continued to base on them over the following decades, such as Donizetti 's Lucia di Lammermoor and Vincenzo Bellini 's I puritani (both 1835). Byron

5950-465: The Romantic period is said to be over by about 1850, or earlier. The early period of the Romantic era was a time of war, with the French Revolution (1789–1799) followed by the Napoleonic Wars until 1815. These wars, along with the political and social turmoil that went along with them, served as the background for Romanticism. The key generation of French Romantics born between 1795 and 1805 had, in

6069-524: The Romantic tradition. Her first two poems published were "Death's Chill Between" and "Heart's Chill Between", in the Athenaeum magazine in 1848. She used the pseudonym "Ellen Alleyne" in the literary periodical, The Germ , published by the Pre-Raphaelites from January to April 1850 and edited by her brother William. This marked the beginning of her public career. Rossetti's more critical reflections on

SECTION 50

#1733093066052

6188-680: The Virgin Mary in his first completed oil painting, The Girlhood of Mary Virgin , and the first work he inscribed with the initials "PRB", later revealed as standing for the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood . The following year she modelled for his depiction of the Annunciation , Ecce Ancilla Domini . A line from her poem "Who shall deliver me?" inspired a painting by Fernand Khnopff called I lock my door upon myself . In 1849 she again became seriously ill with depression, and around 1857 had

6307-460: The Wind? " (1970) was taken from Rossetti's homonymous poem. The poem "Song" was an inspiration for Bear McCreary 's composition When I Am Dead , published in 2015. Two of Rossetti's poems, "Where Sunless Rivers Weep" and "Weeping Willow", were set to music by Barbara Arens in her All Beautiful & Splendid Things: 12 + 1 Piano Songs on Poems by Women (2017, Editions Musica Ferrum ). Rossetti's "Love

6426-696: The ancient bard Ossian , he published translations that acquired international popularity, being proclaimed as a Celtic equivalent of the Classical epics . Fingal , written in 1762, was speedily translated into many European languages, and its appreciation of natural beauty and treatment of the ancient legend has been credited more than any single work with bringing about the Romantic movement in European, and especially in German literature, through its influence on Johann Gottfried von Herder and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe . It

6545-581: The artistic movement her brother had begun were expressed in an 1856 poem "In the Artist's Studio". Here she reflects on seeing multiple paintings of the same model. For Rossetti, the artist's idealised vision of the model's character begins to overwhelm his work, until "every canvas means/ the one same meaning." Dinah Roe, in her introduction to the Penguin Classics collection of Pre-Raphaelite poetry, argues that this critique of her brother and similar male artists

6664-448: The beginning of a tradition of resistance to Enlightenment rationalism—a "Counter-Enlightenment"— to be associated most closely with German Romanticism . Another early definition comes from Charles Baudelaire : "Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor exact truth, but in the way of feeling." The end of the Romantic era is marked in some areas by a new style of Realism , which affected literature, especially

6783-479: The best known works, which became a paradigm of the French Romantic movement. The preface to his unperformed play Cromwell gives an important manifesto of French Romanticism, stating that "there are no rules, or models". The career of Prosper Mérimée followed a similar pattern; he is now best known as the originator of the story of Carmen , with his novella published 1845. Alfred de Vigny remains best known as

6902-478: The brothers, Jacob , published in 1835 Deutsche Mythologie , a long academic work on Germanic mythology. Another strain is exemplified by Schiller's highly emotional language and the depiction of physical violence in his play The Robbers of 1781. In English literature , the key figures of the Romantic movement are considered to be the group of poets including William Wordsworth , Samuel Taylor Coleridge , John Keats , Lord Byron , Percy Bysshe Shelley and

7021-418: The chief qualities of a poet. The Scottish poet James Macpherson influenced the early development of Romanticism with the international success of his Ossian cycle of poems published in 1762, inspiring both Goethe and the young Walter Scott . Thomas Chatterton is generally considered the first Romantic poet in English. Both Chatterton and Macpherson's work involved elements of fraud, as what they claimed

7140-550: The collection of Tate Britain , to which it was bequeathed in 1937 by Agnes Jekyll . It was his first completed oil painting and is signed "Dante Gabriele Rossetti P.R.B. 1849". He first exhibited it at the 'Free Exhibition' at the Hyde Park Corner Gallery. Rossetti began the work in summer 1848, working hard and aiming to have it completed for exhibition in March 1849. In November 1848 he mentioned his choice of subject in

7259-690: The crushing of the January Uprising of 1863 against the Russians. It was strongly marked by interest in Polish history. Polish Romanticism revived the old "Sarmatism" traditions of the szlachta or Polish nobility. Old traditions and customs were revived and portrayed in a positive light in the Polish messianic movement and in works of great Polish poets such as Adam Mickiewicz ( Pan Tadeusz ), Juliusz Słowacki and Zygmunt Krasiński . This close connection between Polish Romanticism and Polish history became one of

SECTION 60

#1733093066052

7378-481: The darkness hide it from my face?         You cannot miss that inn. Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?         Those who have gone before. Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?         They will not keep you standing at that door. Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?         Of labor you shall find

7497-437: The defining qualities of the literature of Polish Romanticism period, differentiating it from that of other countries. They had not suffered the loss of national statehood as was the case with Poland. Influenced by the general spirit and main ideas of European Romanticism, the literature of Polish Romanticism is unique, as many scholars have pointed out, in having developed largely outside of Poland and in its emphatic focus upon

7616-512: The difficulty of defining Romanticism in his seminal article "On the Discrimination of Romanticisms" in his Essays in the History of Ideas (1948); some scholars see Romanticism as essentially continuous with the present, some like Robert Hughes see in it the inaugural moment of modernity , while writers of the 19th Century such as Chateaubriand , Novalis and Samuel Taylor Coleridge saw it as

7735-417: The downsides of medieval life. The consensus is that Romanticism peaked from 1800 until 1850. However, a "Late Romantic" period and " Neoromantic " revivals are also discussed. These extensions of the movement are characterized by a resistance to the increasingly experimental and abstract forms that culminated in modern art , and the deconstruction of traditional tonal harmony in music. They continued

7854-556: The early nineteenth century, caused Edinburgh to emerge as the cultural capital of Britain and become central to a wider formation of a "British Isles nationalism". Scottish "national drama" emerged in the early 1800s, as plays with specifically Scottish themes began to dominate the Scottish stage. Theatres had been discouraged by the Church of Scotland and fears of Jacobite assemblies. In the later eighteenth century, many plays were written for and performed by small amateur companies and were not published and so most have been lost. Towards

7973-444: The end of the century there were " closet dramas ", primarily designed to be read, rather than performed, including work by Scott, Hogg, Galt and Joanna Baillie (1762–1851), often influenced by the ballad tradition and Gothic Romanticism. Romanticism was relatively late in developing in French literature , more so than in the visual arts. The 18th-century precursor to Romanticism, the cult of sensibility, had become associated with

8092-414: The exotic and historical settings pioneered by the Romantics, but experimentation with form and technique was generally reduced, often replaced with meticulous technique, as in the poems of Tennyson or many paintings. If not realist, late 19th-century art was often extremely detailed, and pride was taken in adding authentic details in a way that earlier Romantics did not trouble with. Many Romantic ideas about

8211-556: The family had financial difficulties, Christina helped her mother keep a school in Fromefield, Frome , but it did not succeed. A plaque marks the house. In 1854 the pair returned to London, where Christina's father died. She later became involved with the linguist Charles Cayley , but declined to marry him, also for religious reasons. A third offer came from the painter John Brett , whom she likewise refused. Rossetti sat for several of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's paintings. In 1848, she sat for

8330-472: The family servant Williams for Joachim. The angel's face was originally based on the half-sister of Thomas Woolner (1825-1892), but in August 1849 Rossetti replaced her features with those of another girl, recommended to him by his fellow Pre-Raphaelite James Collinson (1825-1881). Rossetti wrote two sonnets to explain the painting's symbolism — the first was engraved at the bottom of the original frame, whilst

8449-483: The family, and Maria became a live-in governess, a prospect that Christina Rossetti dreaded. At the time her brother William was working for the Excise Office and Gabriel was at art school, leaving Christina increasingly isolated at home. When she was 14, she suffered a nervous breakdown and left school. Bouts of depression and related illness followed. During this period she, her mother and her sister became absorbed in

8568-656: The fields of intellectual history and literary history throughout the 20th century, without any great measure of consensus emerging. That it was part of the Counter-Enlightenment , a reaction against the Age of Enlightenment , is generally accepted in current scholarship. Its relationship to the French Revolution , which began in 1789 in the very early stages of the period, is clearly important, but highly variable depending on geography and individual reactions. Most Romantics can be said to be broadly progressive in their views, but

8687-499: The first historical novel. It launched a highly successful career, with other historical novels such as Rob Roy (1817), The Heart of Midlothian (1818) and Ivanhoe (1820). Scott probably did more than any other figure to define and popularise Scottish cultural identity in the nineteenth century. Other major literary figures connected with Romanticism include the poets and novelists James Hogg (1770–1835), Allan Cunningham (1784–1842) and John Galt (1779–1839). Scotland

8806-456: The first stamp was issued. Song When I am dead, my dearest,  Sing no sad songs for me; Plant thou no roses at my head,  Nor shady cypress tree: Be the green grass above me  With showers and dewdrops wet: And if thou wilt, remember,  And if thou wilt, forget. I shall not see the shadows,  I shall not feel the rain; I shall not hear the nightingale  Sing on as if in pain: And dreaming through

8925-454: The first twelve of the masters of English verse." The year stood at its equinox,   And bluff the North was blowing. A bleat of lambs came from the flocks,   Green hardy things were growing. I met a maid with shining locks,   Where milky kine were lowing. She wore a kerchief on her neck   Her bare arm showed its dimple. Her apron spread without

9044-409: The flamboyant Théophile Gautier , whose prolific output in various forms continued until his death in 1872. Stendhal is today probably the most highly regarded French novelist of the period, but he stands in a complex relation with Romanticism, and is notable for his penetrating psychological insight into his characters and his realism, qualities rarely prominent in Romantic fiction. As a survivor of

9163-501: The ideals and achievements of French revolutionaries. A confluence of circumstances led to Romanticism's decline in the mid-19th century, including (but not limited to) the rise of Realism and Naturalism , Charles Darwin 's publishing of the Origin of Species , the transition from widespread revolution in Europe to a more conservative climate, and a shift in public consciousness to the immediate impact of technology and urbanization on

9282-454: The imagination of born artists followed instinctively when these individuals were, so to speak, "left alone" during the creative process. These "natural laws" could support a wide range of different formal approaches: as many, perhaps, as there were individuals making personally meaningful works of art. Many Romantics believed that works of artistic genius were created " ex nihilo ", "from nothing", without recourse to existing models. This idea

9401-540: The issue of Polish nationalism . The Polish intelligentsia, along with leading members of its government, left Poland in the early 1830s, during what is referred to as the " Great Emigration ", resettling in France, Germany, Great Britain, Turkey, and the United States. The Girlhood of Mary Virgin The Girlhood of Mary Virgin is an 1849 oil on canvas painting by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti , measuring 83.2 by 65.4 cm and now in

9520-495: The late 1820s. Cliques of pro- and anti-Romantics developed, and productions were often accompanied by raucous vocalizing by the two sides, including the shouted assertion by one theatregoer in 1822 that "Shakespeare, c'est l'aide-de-camp de Wellington" ("Shakespeare is Wellington 's aide-de-camp "). Alexandre Dumas began as a dramatist, with a series of successes beginning with Henri III et sa cour (1829) before turning to novels that were mostly historical adventures somewhat in

9639-452: The lives of the poor in his native Lake District , or his feelings about nature—which he more fully developed in his long poem The Prelude , never published in his lifetime. The longest poem in the volume was Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner , which showed the Gothic side of English Romanticism, and the exotic settings that many works featured. In the period when they were writing,

9758-444: The manner of Scott, most famously The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo , both of 1844. Victor Hugo published as a poet in the 1820s before achieving success on the stage with Hernani —a historical drama in a quasi-Shakespearean style that had famously riotous performances on its first run in 1830. Like Dumas, Hugo is best known for his novels, and was already writing The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831), one of

9877-408: The means but the goals that they pursue; these goals represent the self-expression of the artist's own unique, inner vision, to set aside which in response to the demands of some "external" voice—church, state, public opinion, family friends, arbiters of taste—is an act of betrayal of what alone justifies their existence for those who are in any sense creative. Arthur Lovejoy attempted to demonstrate

9996-433: The melting away of the very notion of objective truth", and hence not only to nationalism, but also fascism and totalitarianism , with a gradual recovery coming only after World War II. For the Romantics, Berlin says, in the realm of ethics, politics, aesthetics it was the authenticity and sincerity of the pursuit of inner goals that mattered; this applied equally to individuals and groups—states, nations, movements. This

10115-521: The mid-century the undoubtedly Romantic novels of the Yorkshire -based Brontë family appeared, most notably Charlotte 's Jane Eyre and Emily 's Wuthering Heights , both published in 1847, which also introduced more Gothic themes. While these two novels were written and published after the Romantic period is said to have ended, their novels were heavily influenced by Romantic literature they had read as children. Byron, Keats, and Shelley all wrote for

10234-602: The movement. Though his novels celebrated Scottish identity and history, Scott was politically a firm Unionist, but admitted to Jacobite sympathies. Several Romantics spent much time abroad, and a famous stay on Lake Geneva with Byron and Shelley in 1816 produced the hugely influential novel Frankenstein by Shelley's wife-to-be Mary Shelley and the novella The Vampyre by Byron's doctor John William Polidori . The lyrics of Robert Burns in Scotland, and Thomas Moore from Ireland, reflected in different ways their countries and

10353-436: The much older William Blake , followed later by the isolated figure of John Clare ; also such novelists as Walter Scott from Scotland and Mary Shelley , and the essayists William Hazlitt and Charles Lamb . The publication in 1798 of Lyrical Ballads , with many of the finest poems by Wordsworth and Coleridge, is often held to mark the start of the movement. The majority of the poems were by Wordsworth, and many dealt with

10472-557: The nature and purpose of art, above all the pre-eminent importance of originality, remained important for later generations, and often underlie modern views, despite opposition from theorists. In literature, Romanticism found recurrent themes in the evocation or criticism of the past, the cult of " sensibility " with its emphasis on women and children, the isolation of the artist or narrator, and respect for nature. Furthermore, several romantic authors, such as Edgar Allan Poe , Charles Maturin and Nathaniel Hawthorne , based their writings on

10591-414: The novel and drama, painting, and even music, through Verismo opera. This movement was led by France, with Balzac and Flaubert in literature and Courbet in painting; Stendhal and Goya were important precursors of Realism in their respective media. However, Romantic styles, now often representing the established and safe style against which Realists rebelled, continued to flourish in many fields for

10710-422: The peak Romantic period, other than Walter Scott, was Jane Austen , whose essentially conservative world-view had little in common with her Romantic contemporaries, retaining a strong belief in decorum and social rules, though critics such as Claudia L. Johnson have detected tremors under the surface of many works, such as Northanger Abbey (1817), Mansfield Park (1814) and Persuasion (1817). But around

10829-417: The poet then "recollect[s] in tranquility", enabling the poet to find a suitably unique form for representing such feelings. The Romantics never doubted that emotionally motivated art would find suitable, harmonious modes for expressing its vital content—if, that is, the artist steered clear of moribund conventions and distracting precedents. Samuel Taylor Coleridge and others thought there were natural laws

10948-451: The reader to identify the protagonists with the poets themselves." This quality in Romantic literature, in turn, influenced the approach and reception of works in other media; it has seeped into everything from critical evaluations of individual style in painting, fashion, and music, to the auteur movement in modern filmmaking. The group of words with the root "Roman" in the various European languages, such as "romance" and "Romanesque", has

11067-399: The relationship between people and Nature. Romantics generally believed a close connection with Nature was beneficial for human beings, especially for individuals who broke off from society in order to encounter the natural world by themselves. Romantic literature was frequently written in a distinctive, personal "voice". As critic M. H. Abrams has observed, "much of romantic poetry invited

11186-477: The rest of the century and beyond. In music such works from after about 1850 are referred to by some writers as "Late Romantic" and by others as "Neoromantic" or "Postromantic", but other fields do not usually use these terms; in English literature and painting the convenient term "Victorian" avoids having to characterise the period further. In northern Europe, the Early Romantic visionary optimism and belief that

11305-420: The second was printed in the Free Exhibition catalogue. A crossed palm branch on the floor refers to Palm Sunday and Good Friday and the pale roses and thorn-shaped branches on the wall to Christ's passion and Mary's seven joys and seven sorrows . The oil lamp symbolises piety, three of the books are in colours symbolising the three cardinal virtues and the rose is another symbol of Mary (the 'rose without

11424-523: The stage, but with little success in England, with Shelley's The Cenci perhaps the best work produced, though that was not played in a public theatre in England until a century after his death. Byron's plays, along with dramatizations of his poems and Scott's novels, were much more popular on the Continent, and especially in France, and through these versions several were turned into operas, many still performed today. If contemporary poets had little success on

11543-558: The stage, the period was a legendary one for performances of Shakespeare , and went some way to restoring his original texts and removing the Augustan "improvements" to them. The greatest actor of the period, Edmund Kean , restored the tragic ending to King Lear ; Coleridge said that "Seeing him act was like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning." Although after union with England in 1707 Scotland increasingly adopted English language and wider cultural norms, its literature developed

11662-510: The sum. Will there be beds for me and all who seek?         Yea, beds for all who come. From 1842 onward Rossetti began writing down and dating her poems. Most of them imitated her favoured poets. In 1847 she began experimenting with verse forms such as sonnets , hymns and ballads , while drawing on narratives from the Bible, folk tales and the lives of saints. Her early pieces often meditate on death and loss in

11781-422: The sun: love through the dark/Lights the moon's evanescent arc:/Same Love lights up the glow-worms spark." She wrote about her brief stay in Frome, which had "an abundance of green slopes and gentle declivities: no boldness or grandeur but plenty of peaceful beauty". In 2011, Rossetti was a subject of a Radio 4 programme, In Our Time . The title of J. K. Rowling 's novel The Cuckoo's Calling (2013) follows

11900-426: The surface was a smooth as cardboard, and every tint remained transparent. I saw at once that he was not an orthodox boy, but acting purely from the aesthetic motive. The mixture of genius and dilettantism of both men shut me up for the moment, and whetted my curiosity. The models were sourced from close to home — Anne was portrayed by Rossetti's mother Frances , his sister Christina Rossetti modelled for Mary, and

12019-424: The themes of the Gothic novel in verse. These featured different variations of the " Byronic hero ", and his own life contributed a further version. Scott meanwhile was effectively inventing the historical novel , beginning in 1814 with Waverley , set in the 1745 Jacobite rising , which was a highly profitable success, followed by over 20 further Waverley Novels over the next 17 years, with settings going back to

12138-516: The twilight  That doth not rise nor set, Haply I may remember,  And haply may forget. In her later decades, Rossetti suffered from a type of hyperthyroidism – Graves' disease – diagnosed in 1872, suffering a near-fatal attack in the early 1870s. In 1893, she developed breast cancer . The tumour was removed, but there was a recurrence in September 1893. Christina Rossetti died in great pain and anguish of cancer on 29 December 1893 and

12257-527: The visual arts, music, and literature; it also had a major impact on historiography , education, chess , social sciences , and the natural sciences . Romanticism had a significant and complex effect on politics: Romantic thinking influenced conservatism , liberalism , radicalism , and nationalism . Romanticism prioritized the artist's unique, individual imagination above the strictures of classical form. The movement emphasized intense emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience. It granted

12376-422: The words of one of their number, Alfred de Vigny , been "conceived between battles, attended school to the rolling of drums". According to Jacques Barzun , there were three generations of Romantic artists. The first emerged in the 1790s and 1800s, the second in the 1820s, and the third later in the century. The more precise characterization and specific definition of Romanticism has been the subject of debate in

12495-431: The work and emphasised its sensuality. Goblin Market was widely praised by critics, who placed her as the foremost female poet of the day; sales, however, were disappointing. She was lauded by Gerard Manley Hopkins , Algernon Swinburne and Tennyson . After its publication, Rossetti was named the natural successor to Elizabeth Barrett Browning , who had died the year before in 1861. The title poem, one of her best known,

12614-589: The work of Dante Alighieri , Petrarch and other Italian writers filled the home and influenced Rossetti's later writing. Their household was open to visiting Italian scholars, artists and revolutionaries. The family homes in Bloomsbury at no.38 and later no.50 Charlotte (Hallam) Street (now demolished) were within easy reach of Madame Tussauds , London Zoo and the newly opened Regent's Park , which she visited regularly. Unlike her parents, Rossetti felt at home in London and

12733-480: The world through rationality alone, suggesting that intuition and emotion are key components of insight and understanding. Published in 1774, " The Sorrows of Young Werther " by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe began to shape the Romanticist movement and its ideals. The events and ideologies of the French Revolution were also direct influences on the movement; many early Romantics throughout Europe sympathized with

12852-427: The world was in the process of great change and improvement had largely vanished, and some art became more conventionally political and polemical as its creators engaged polemically with the world as it was. Elsewhere, including in very different ways the United States and Russia, feelings that great change was underway or just about to come were still possible. Displays of intense emotion in art remained prominent, as did

12971-539: The world" in his " Defence of Poetry "). Romanticism placed the highest importance on the freedom of the artists to authentically express their sentiments and ideas. Romantics like the German painter Caspar David Friedrich believed that an artist's emotions should dictate their formal approach; Friedrich went as far as declaring that "the artist's feeling is his law". The Romantic poet William Wordsworth , thinking along similar lines, wrote that poetry should begin with "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings", which

13090-401: Was a complex movement with a variety of viewpoints that permeated Western civilization across the globe. The movement and its opposing ideologies mutually shaped each other over time. After its end, Romantic thought and art exerted a sweeping influence on art and music , speculative fiction , philosophy , politics , and environmentalism that has endured to the present day. The movement

13209-555: Was a multitude of small separate states, and Goethe's works would have a seminal influence in developing a unifying sense of nationalism . Another philosophic influence came from the German idealism of Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Schelling , making Jena (where Fichte lived, as well as Schelling, Hegel , Schiller and the brothers Schlegel ) a centre for early German Romanticism (see Jena Romanticism ). Important writers were Ludwig Tieck , Novalis , Heinrich von Kleist and Friedrich Hölderlin . Heidelberg later became

13328-409: Was a sister of the artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti and features in several of his paintings. Christina Rossetti was born in 38 Charlotte Street (now 110 Hallam Street ), London, to Gabriele Rossetti , a poet and a political exile from Vasto , Abruzzo, Italy, since 1824, and Frances Polidori , the sister of Lord Byron 's friend and physician John William Polidori . She had two brothers and

13447-456: Was also popularised in France by figures that included Napoleon . Eventually it became clear that the poems were not direct translations from Scottish Gaelic , but flowery adaptations made to suit the aesthetic expectations of his audience. Robert Burns (1759–96) and Walter Scott (1771–1832) were highly influenced by the Ossian cycle. Burns, an Ayrshire poet and lyricist, is widely regarded as

13566-437: Was also the location of two of the most important literary magazines of the era, The Edinburgh Review (founded in 1802) and Blackwood's Magazine (founded in 1817), which had a major impact on the development of British literature and drama in the era of Romanticism. Ian Duncan and Alex Benchimol suggest that publications like the novels of Scott and these magazines were part of a highly dynamic Scottish Romanticism that by

13685-475: Was buried on 2 January 1894 in the family grave on the west side of Highgate Cemetery , which, notoriously had been opened in October 1869 so that Gabriel could retrieve a volume of poems he had buried with his wife. There she joined her father, mother and Elizabeth Siddal , wife of her brother Dante Gabriel. Her brother William was also buried there in 1919, as were the ashes of four subsequent family members. There

13804-399: Was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as the glorification of the past and nature, preferring the medieval over the classical. Romanticism was partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution , and the prevailing ideology of the Age of Enlightenment , especially the scientific rationalization of Nature. The movement's ideals were embodied most strongly in

13923-455: Was darker in its motifs and has gothic elements. The significance to Romanticism of childhood innocence, the importance of imagination, and racial theories all combined to give an unprecedented importance to folk literature , non-classical mythology and children's literature , above all in Germany. Brentano and von Arnim were significant literary figures who together published Des Knaben Wunderhorn ("The Boy's Magic Horn" or cornucopia ),

14042-469: Was earlier literature that they had discovered or compiled was, in fact, entirely their own work. The Gothic novel , beginning with Horace Walpole 's The Castle of Otranto (1764), was an important precursor of one strain of Romanticism, with a delight in horror and threat, and exotic picturesque settings, matched in Walpole's case by his role in the early revival of Gothic architecture . Tristram Shandy ,

14161-448: Was seemingly happy. In the 1840s, Rossetti's family faced financial troubles due to a deterioration in her father's physical and mental health. In 1843, he was diagnosed with persistent bronchitis , possibly tuberculosis , and faced losing his sight. He gave up his teaching post at King's College and though he lived another 11 years, suffered from depression and was never physically well again. Rossetti's mother began teaching to support

#51948