Romanticism, Artistic and Cultural Revolution
Romanticism is a cultural, artistic and literary movement that occurs in Europe from the end of the 18th century until the first half of the 19th century.
In Europe
Romanticism does not have a specific place of origin but took strength in Europe. Conservatives defend their privileges but the liberals and progressive struggle to suppress them.
This movement appears thanks to three events: the industrial revolution, the consolidation of the bourgeoisie and thus the state society is replaced by the class society, and finally the importance of the current of exaltation of freedom that arises following the revolutionFrench.
Romanticism implies an artistic, political, social and ideological revolution, it had fundamental ideals that were freedom, individualism, democracy, idealism, nationalism and sensitivity in art.
There were different topics: intimate feelings (love), interest in the medieval (magicians, sorcerers, castles, etc), taste for the exotic (stories of Arabs, gypsies, etc.), exaltation of nature and finally fervent nationalism.
The main authors are Friedrich Schiller (Germany), Lord Byron (England) and Walt Whitman (United States). The main genre of romanticism was the theater, which prevailed the creativity and freedom of the author and with this the dramatic poem arose.
Romanticism was the end of the classic order. Ended the absolutist monarchy. There was a popular supremacy, which implied the rejection of the neoclassical. The nationalist component against globalizing attitudes of enlightened takes strength. This is born as a reaction against neoclassicism and the principles of illustration.
The French revolution has an important role in romanticism since it was a source of inspiration for the first generation of romantic poets: Wordsworth, Coleridge and Blake. While this first generation was inspired by political and social changes, the second generation, Byron, Shelley and Keats reacted against the absence of these changes. The fall of the Bastille in 1789 represented the signal of hope of the abolition of feudal privileges, which led to these changes.
In Spain
Romanticism is late, Spain arrives in 1833 since it was a country with a clear delay compared to Europe, it arises as imitation not by necessity.
The characteristics of romanticism in Spain are: individualism, in which they revindicate the exaltation of the self, subjectivity, their literature is filled with emotions and feelings (love, yearning for happiness …) and defend the individuals of the peoples as well as nationalitieswith their own languages. Evasion and irrationalism, the romantics revealed against society and that led them to evasion towards the past and to fantastic, mysterious worlds ..
Predominance of feelings in the face of reason. Obsession with death and tragic outcome.
Romanticism is divided into two stages in Spain:
- The first stage was Romanticism, the most important authors of liberal ideology were José de Espronceda (Poetry), Mariano José de Larra (prose) and Duke of Rivas (Theater). And the most important author of traditional and conservative ideology was José Zorrilla.
- The second stage was the postromanticism that develops in the second half of the nineteenth century due to German poetry. The most important authors were Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer and Rosalia de Castro.
The themes of romanticism in Spain were impossible love, rebellion and the desire for freedom with the exaltation of the self, the fury of nature, existential anguish, the sepulchral and the dark and the exaltation of the local and the national.
The old regime was dominated by the aristocracy and a clergy attached to medieval customs, the new industrial society that opens to the world carries the thrust of the bourgeoisie. That makes, from all areas the word that best defines the time is transformation that involves the transformation towards the new regime costs in Spain.
As a consequence of this confrontation, revolutionary movements appear that would end in the great milestones of the early twentieth century. Positivist philosophy lives with empiricism and idealism. The first socialist ideas appear, of radical change in society. The atmosphere in general and in all orders are filled with a reply spirit. All ideas of neoclassicism are rejected. There is a pleasure in seeking the truth not only in the proven facts that had predominated in the century of lights but in the darkness of the unconscious, in the new forms of mysticism, in searches with beings that do not belong to this plane (ghosts,Spirits, forgotten, crazy …). Writers and artists self-erect in guides of society as a kind of demiurgos that can see what others do not see.
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