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The Authentic and Aesthetic

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (by Byron, Lord)
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor)
The Castle of Otranto (by Walpole, Horace)
The Sorrows of Young Werther (by Von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang)
Sämtliche Poetische Werke : Volume 1 (by Eichendorff, Joseph, Freiherr Von)
Les Trois Mousquetaires
The Count of Monte-Cristo (by Alexandre Dumas)
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (by Hugo, Victor)
Adam Mickiewicz : The National Poet of P... (by Monica Mary Gardner)

Art, music, and literature experienced a change in emphasis in the late 1700s and peaked in the mid 1800s. Fatigued and disillusioned by decades of war and corrupt politics, European—and especially British—writers adjusted their focus from morality and instruction to entertainment. The movement coincided with the rise of the Industrial Revolution and the growing reliance upon the logic and rationality of science.

Magic was disappearing from the world. Artists, musicians, and authors sought to restore a sense of wonder and promote the ideals of mankind, such as those the motto for the French Revolution: Liberté, egalité, fraternité (Liberty Equality Fraternity).

The Romantic period of the arts emphasized intense emotion as an authentic expression. Art and music of the time evoked emotions of awe, fear, and horror. In parallel, artists also drew and painted and sculpted works of great beauty for no other reason than beauty itself. The experience of the sublime carried as much authenticity as less comfortable emotions. This period coincided with the decadence of Regency England, the Bourbon Restoration in France, These period gave rise to the concept of the “noble savage,” a veneration of classical Roman and Greek art, literature, and architecture, and a romanticization of the grinding poverty of rural peasantry.

At least the peasant farmers got to breathe fresh air, as opposed to those working in dirty, loud, and oppressive factories in smoggy cities.

In literature, Romanticism found popular themes in reverence of the past, a respect for nature, and an idealization of womanhood and children. The period found expression in epic poetry like Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage by Lord Byron The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, as well as a fairly new literary form called the novel such as The Castle of Otranto written by Horace Walpole.

Other European poets and authors contributed to the period. German influence came from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s 1774 novel The Sorrows of Young Werther and the volumes of Sämtliche Poetische Werke by Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff. Contemporary authors in Scotland, such as Allan Ramsay and James Macpherson, worked to preserve the distinct Scottish heritage in the face of forced union with England.

Still reeling from the horrors of the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, France arrived late to the Romanticism party, but threw itself wholeheartedly into pleasure and the idealism regarding the righteous defeating evil and corruption. Contemporary French authors produced such classics as The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo, which have long since been picked up by Hollywood and adapted and re-adapted into films.

Not to be left out, Poland and Russia jumped on the bandwagon. Literature composed during the Romantic period revived old Polish traditions and folklore and celebrated the defeat of Russian occupation. This strong emphasis on nationalism, launched by poet Adam Mickiweicz, influenced Polish literature for the next century. Russia, Spain, Portugal, and Italy contributed reams of work influenced by world traveling Lord Byron and other prolific English and French writers. Poets, novelists, playwrights, composers, painters, and sculptors catered to the rise of nationalism in their countries, promoted the ideals of civilization, and drew a strong emotional response from their readers across the continent.

Their work today remains relevant and powerful, stirring tales of love won and lost, of justice and brotherhood, of sacrifice and forgiveness. They imbue us with heightened levels of awe and wonder and celebrate the cultural distinctions that define and enrich our identities. They restore the magic lost to technology and science.

By Karen M. Smith