Self and Imagination in Romanticism

The amative era is denoted by an extensive question and air of challenging notions building on the convictions of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment challenged the Christian Orthodoxy which had dominated Europe for 1,000 years. Romanticism proposed an geographic expedition of self, speech patterning the primacy of the idiosyncratic and a vision of humanity animated by the visual modality, endorsing a reverence and personal connection to nature. The coif texts check and Ode to a Nightingale explore a conception created by imagination, emphasising the greatness of reflection and sustaining a relationship with nature.Northanger Abbey however, examines the interplay between reason and imagination. The related text Thanatopsis possesses tropes of Dark Romanticism, depicting humanitys curiosity of the un hidely whilst Beethovens works analyse the expression of intense feeling and nature as a moral force. A propensity for self analysis and introspection is a feature of Rom anticism. This notion gained impetus as a response to the Neo-Classicist belief that humans were created as hearty beings, knowing to conform to the status quo and abide by tradition.As well as a defiance against social duty and personal discipline, an emphasis on the individual came about as a progeny of anti-establishmentism. Closely connected to the Romantics rejection of the unlifelike was a growing opposition to established institutions such as the monarchy and the Church. capital of Minnesota Brians, an American Scholar stated The idea that the best path to cartel is by dint of individual choice, the idea that the government exists to serve individuals who have created it argon products of the Romantic celebration of the individual at the expense of edict and tradition. affable conventions and acceptable barometers of behaviour are questi unityd done with(predicate) the responders identification with protagonists who are marginalised or different. This is seen finis hed the characterisation of Emily Brontes, Heathcliff and Mary Shelleys, Monster. Romantic ideologues, in agate line to Neo-Classicists, valued the solitary state and the unique qualities of an individuals caput sooner than the outer social earthly concern. Romanticism encouraged the creative exploration of the inner self and praised unconventionality.Such focus is shown through the continual use of first-person lyric poems. This technique is prevalent in Keats works, particularly in his poem Ode to a Nightingale. Keats questions Do I wake or sleep? his proclivity toward consume voice accentuates the importance of self reflection and moulds reader response. Keats describes the archetypal alien an obsessive, egocentric man of extremes who is disenchanted with life. These periods of deep introspection highlight the importance placed on feelings and creative contemplation.For the Romantics, objective outlook is inundated by a new focus on the individual and the subconscious. Th e Romantic emphasis on introspection and imaginative reflection is critiqued in Jane Austens Northanger Abbey through the characterisation of the protagonist, Catherine Morland. Catherine is described as an atypical Gothic heroine -No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her to be born an heroine and through her reflections and fanciful Gothic delusions, the composer highlights how imaginings hinder personal growth and objective outlook.Through salient irony, Austen derides these fantasies and demonstrates how they conflict with everyday realities. The composer suggests that a love for Gothic literature, or the magical appoint in the contemporary texts of her time as a Romantic concept contributes to impaired judgment and unworldliness. Through the growth of the antagonists in her story, Austen describes social pretension and unlike the concerns of Gothic literature, tells of a natural evil rather than the bizarre, macabre story lines of Gothic texts.Austen criticises the notion of the supernatural, but reinforces the Romantic holy person that personal freedom is of more importance than complying with social mores as picture in the expulsion of Catherine from the Abbey. The scene of General Tilneys dismissal of Catherine uncovers a dark, secretive side of human psychology, parallel to the villainous figures in Gothic novels, particularly Radcliffian works. Through plot development, Austen reveals that Gothic texts are an imaginative word picture of a mundane evil found within everyday society and hence, contribute to an understanding of the Romantic saint of individualism.Romanticism fostered the idea that the ideal world that was conjured up by the imagination was more real than the material world and that the metaphysical or transcendental spiritual reality that was conjured by the senses and the imagination had more authenticity. Romantics believed that Fancy was crucial to the expansion of the human mind an d spirit. Keats frequently references the imagination as a fount of elation and exhilaration, his poem Fancy focusing on how the creative situation of the mind can set up the human experience and impart immortality. She will bring, in spite of frost,/Beauties that the earth hath lost Keats implies that Fancy is a way of preserving feelings and periods, providing an escape from the bitterness of a Romantic ideologues reality. The philosopher Emmanuel Kant acknowledged imagination as the source of order and Friedrich Von Schelling argued that imagination had a divine quality that was triggered by the generating power of the universe. The divine was quintessential to Romantic ideology, Romantics striving for perfectibility which they felt was only achieved through nature.The height of imaginative experience is the concept of the sublime. Crucial to the full expression of imagination, the sublime was the cause of awe and terror. personalitys rugged saucer and power was seen as bo th a source of jealousy and dream evident in William Cullen Bryants Thanatopsis. The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,/ are shining on the sad abodes of death describes nature as a transcendental force that surpasses the limitations of the superficial world. The importance of the sublime was stressed as a result of pantheism which saw nature as a powerful, dotty force to be worshipped.Pantheism came about as a response to free thought and its rational view of the world as being ordered, possessing mechanistic patterns and laws. free thought supported the idea that social order was hierarchal and that human globe was divinely ordered and sanctioned. Romantics however, shared the belief that reality was organic and without any set order. Romanticism brought forward the idea that with Nature lay an ideal state, free from the artificial aspects and constraints of civilisation. To be alone in wild, lonely places was for the Romantics to be near to heaven.This is obvious in Be ethovens works, particularly moonlight Sonata, which is known to be a musical delineation of the night sky. Nature was described by the Romantics as innocent and virtuous, an entity that could not be sully by the wrongs of humanity. In this way, Beethoven depicts the morality of nature through his excellent harmonies and the employment of adagio, creating a tone of gentleness. The composer uses the musical techniques of dolce and legato to calm down his audience.The Romantic idea that nature was a moral force and signpost was used by Beethoven to criticise the French Revolution. Beethovens 5th piano concerto, known as The Emperor, was a political bid inspired by the ideas of justice and freedom as a result of his disillusionment with Napoleon. The idea of liberation and independence was central to Romantic ideals, a notion which came about as a response to middle and proletarian oppression and societys hindrance of self-expression.Through their interpretations, whether they l iterary or musical, Romantics found within nature a means of expressing themselves. The universe was seen as mysterious, control by hidden, dark and supernatural forces. This is evident in the prevalence of references to the strange and Gothic in Romantic texts. Keats La Belle Dame Sans Merci tells of a woman of supernatural beauty, describing her as a faerys child implying the seductress is opposite-worldly. This trance with the Exotic was a response to the novelty of international exploration.Romantics had an obsession with other cultures different either in time or distance the gray-haired and the primitive (Keats Ode on a Grecian Urn a perfect congressman of how the ancient influenced Romantic texts through his frequent references to ancient Greece as he describes Tempe or the dales of Arcady? ), Oriental, alien, vanished or Gothic. Following naturally from the Romantic interest with the senile and exotic was an attraction to the supernatural and bizarre as seen in Gothi cism. Gothicism was the concentration with the supernatural, influenced by a desire to defy the God-fearing Catholic Church.Examples of its relevance in Romantic texts can be seen in Brontes Wuthering high and Bryants Thanatopsis. Bronte writes of spectres whilst Bryant writes of His favourite phantom portraying the Romantic predilection to the paranormal. The conglomerate concepts of self and imagination are analysed by the ideologues of the Romantic era through their subversion of the conventional measures of behaviour and their defiance against the traditional notions of the Enlightenment. These ideas formed the floor of the Romantic period and hence dominate Romantic texts.