Tuesday, November 28: analysis of Romantic images: literary parallels

Coming up: vocabulary quiz on Wednesday, December 6 (copy below)

In class: connecting / analyzing visual and literary elements of Romanticism (class handout and images below)

Background information on Romanticism as opposed to the Enlightenment or the Age of Reason.

Plato described humans as a careful balance of reason, passions and appetites, with reason as the guide.

Please copy the following in your notebooks

The Age of Reason or the Enlightenment elevated reason, but perhaps suppressed passions too much. For some, the emphasis on reason had gotten out of balance with the rest of human nature. 

Romanticism (also the Romantic era or the Romantic period) was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850.

“The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters,”

With this print, Goya is revealed as a transitional figure between the end of the Enlightenment and the emergence of Romanticism.n the image, an artist, asleep at his drawing table, is besieged by creatures associated in Spanish folk tradition with mystery and evil. The title of the print, emblazoned on the front of the desk, is often read as a proclamation of Goya’s adherence to the values of the Enlightenment—without Reason, evil and corruption prevail.

However, Goya wrote a caption for the print that complicates its message, “Imagination abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters; united with her, she is the mother of the arts and source of their wonders.”

 For Goya, art is the child of reason in combination with imagination.


Qualities of Romanticism

Love of Nature

Idealization of Rural Living
Faith in Common People
Emphasis on Freedom and Individualism
Spontaneity, intuition, feeling, imagination, wonder
Passionate individual religiosity
Life after death
Organic view of the World

 The Romantics were a group of writers, artists, and thinkers who rebelled against the rational thinking of the Enlightenment by championing intense emotion and feeling as the truest form of aesthetic experience. 

Henry Fuseli's The Nightmare

What qualities of Romanticism do you see in this image?

Look at the list on the graphic organizer and discuss with a neighbor for two minutes.

Qualities of Romanticism

Love of Nature
Idealization of Rural Living
Faith in Common People
Emphasis on Freedom and Individualism
Spontaneity, intuition, feeling, imagination, wonder
Passionate individual religiosity
Life after death
Organic view of the World

Using your graphic organizer, respond to each of the following as to what aspects of Romanticism are reflected in the painting. There is a copy below for anyone who is absent.
1.

Saturn Devouring His Children by Francisco Goya

2.

Wivenhoe Park by John Constable

3)

The Wanderer by Casper Friedrich

4)                      Liberty   by Eugene Delacroix

5)  Fur Traders  by Caleb Bingham

Name___________________________________

Elements of Romanticism: the eye reveals

Qualities of Romanticism

Love of Nature

Idealization of Rural Living

Faith in Common People

Emphasis on Freedom and Individualism

Spontaneity, intuition, feeling, imagination, wonder

Passionate individual religiosity

Life after death

Organic view of the World

Beside each of the following titles, write one observation concerning a character, setting, plot, tone. Next, look at the accompanying handout, and write one quality of Romanticism that you note is represented by the image.

Painting	Literary Element Observation	Romantic quality
1.    Saturn Devouring His Children- Francisco Goya
2.    Wivenhoe Park by John Constable
The Wanderer by Caspar Friedrich
Liberty   by Eugene Delacroix
Fur Traders on the Missouri John Caleb Bingham

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge 

Vocabulary quiz, Wednesday, December 6

    1.kin (noun)- one's family and relations.

 2.  kirk (noun)- church (most often used in Scotland)

  3.   tyrannous (adjective)- unjustly severe  (think of a tyrant)

   4.    prow (noun)- the portion of a ship's bow above water.

    5.shroud (noun)- a length of cloth in which a dead person is wrapped for burial;          a thing that envelops

         6. to aver (verb)- state or assert to be the case.

7       7. furrow (noun)- long narrow trench made in the ground by a plow or a rut or groove; note that you may have a furrow (noun) on your brow and you may furrow (verb) your brow

8        8.   agape (adjective) -     agog, wide open, especially with surprise or wonder; gobsmacked

         9.   gossamers (noun)- a fine, filmy substance consisting of cobwebs; used to refer to something very light, delicate. (think fairy wings)

1      10. spectre-bark (noun)    - ghost ship

         11. vespers (noun)- the sixth of the canonical hours (times one was required to pray)

 12. skiff (noun)- a flat bottomed boat.