Compare And Contrast The Enlightenment Era And The Romantic Era

Both the Enlightenment and the Great Awakening are well known throughout history. The Great Awakening had huge consequences that helped shaped America. Although the Enlightenment did contribute to the Great Awakening, it had minor consequences. Without the Great Awakening some major events and changes would’ve never happened. The American Revolution, different perspectives on religion, divisions between colonist, new schools showing up, and more were all outcomes of it.

From 1450 to 1750 C.E., the Europeans were beginning to settle in the Western part of Europe in places such as: France, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and many more. Like many other of the surrounding countries and empires, the Europeans began to question many of the hierarchies in Europe at the time such as the Catholic Church by asking “Should we trust their process or attempt to reform?” or even “Should we ignore the intentions of the church and start something completely new that we believe is better for the people?” The development of both the Protestant Reformation and the Age of Enlightenment began to answer these questions and enforce their beliefs in European society. Through the inspiration of the “needed” change of tradition in European society the Protestant Reformation sought to bring back the early versions of Christianity, while the Age of Enlightenment sought to abandon Christianity and move forward. But both the Protestant Reformation and the Age of Enlightenment sought to focus on similar moral tenants such as the belief of individualism and the use of reason to analyze text. Overall, both the Protestant Reformation and the Age of Enlightenment in Europe desired to move away from the selfish, incompetent, and lazy Catholic Church of that time, and either move forward or reform to stabilize European thinking for centuries to come.

The styles we call High Renaissance, Baroque style, Scientific Reformation, The Enlightenment Era, and The Romantic Era are all shaped by historical forces, the most significant being the Protestant Reformation’s successful challenge to the spiritual and political power of the Church. Martin Luther, son of a rural coal miner had a mass impact in all these eras but Scientific Reformation was more prominent than the rest. Luther was a German monk and Professor of Theology at the University of Wittenberg. Luther’s studies were put on hold by a political crisis in Augustinians. He found himself agitated due to the corruption and lack of spirituality he saw in Rome. He saw openly corrupt priests who would taunt the rituals of their faith. Luther sparked the Reformation in 1517 by posting his "95 Theses" on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. The 95 theses were a list of statements which expressed Luther's concerns about many Church practices. These ‘Theses’ traveled around Europe. He felt in a manner, that the church was not always right. He did not believe that the Pope was spiritual heir to Saint peter. The Church known now as the Roman Catholic Church was very powerful politically and spiritually in Western Europe. I believed that Martin Luther Help spark the Scientific Era was due to the fact when he mad the 95Theses people began to second guess themselves. People began to have changes in thought & belief.

Ever since the invention of language, humans have been obsessed and intrigued with the aspect of storytelling. Each story, whether written or spoken, holds an important theme within its creative words and exciting plot. While each story is special and unique, over the course of history, different periods of literature have formed where authors tend to focus on similar themes and messages. One of which was the American Romantic era, where authors used their stories to challenge the boundaries of society, and delve deeper into what makes people inherently human, both the flaws and perfections. Some of America’s greatest works of literature were born in this period, like those of Poe, and Hawthorne. A very common literary theme during the romantic period was that of good versus evil, in both individual characters and society as a whole; this theme is especially evident in works such as The Tell Tale Heart, The Raven, and Young Goodman Brown.

America’s romantic era followed after the rise of transcendentalism. Some of the foundational beliefs and ideologies from transcendentalism carried to this era, which the writings possessed. Many literary works showed the value in individualism, one’s self development, and freedom. Writers and poets like Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville alluded to these values in their stories. However, they also alluded to evils that are in society. There are several similarities and differences between the types of evils their stories represented.

History has had a tremendous effect on everything we believe, know, and love in today’s society, and this will continue on forever. The past has a way of manifesting a long lasting effect on society, beliefs, culture, music, and many other important aspects of life. Two time periods that exemplify this are the Enlightenment and the Romantic Period. The Romantic period is the Hegelian antithesis to the ideals of the Enlightenment in a number of ways, and both have managed to equally impact the world. The Enlightenment took place from 1685 to about 1815, and is referred to as the “Age of Reason”. The Enlightenment is known for its intellectual and scientific progress. The Romantic Period took place just as the Enlightenment ended, and then diminished around 1850. This time period is well known for the transformation of poetry, ballet, paintings, music, and all other forms of the arts.

After reading the passages given throughout the quarter I found the Enlightenment era to be interesting and a very influential time period. It was an era where people pushed the boundaries of critical thinking and began to question things in a scientific manner, whether it was philosophy, art, politics or science the era of enlightenment was one of drastic revolution in intellectual and philosophical ideas . One particular issue or topic that was really prevalent in two of the readings covered , was the topic of society and government, to the extent of what is society and government? do we really need Government, is it essential to the human society or existence? Or is it just a construct to protect us from ourselves? After reading

In each of his stories Edgar Allan Poe writes about a character who commits atrocities, but feels that they are not responsible because some external factor drives them to it. Each of these external factors drive the character to become angry and this anger controls them. This theme of emotions overpowering reason is a common theme in much of romantic literature, because romanticism was a movement focused on emotion, rather than reason. Poe highlights this loss of control through the use of irony, between how the character acts normally and how they act when enraged. Through irony, Poe’s characters losing control to their emotions is a perfect example of the romantic theme of the power of emotion over reason.

Just as I mentioned first in the previous reading response, both Romanticism and Realistism responded to the enlightenent in a good way. These artists did not affirm or critique the ideas projected by the enlightenment instead they modified those believes and used them to their advantages. I personally admired the realistic artistics that where either criticize or monked for painting an artwork as they saw it through their days. One of the realistic painter known as Gustave Courbet said, “I have never seen an angle. Show me an angel, and I’ll paint one”. This means that he never painted anything that he or others did not see or had an experience with.1111111111111111111111111

The Enlightenment period was a time of reason and observation that has helped shape our society as a whole. Observation and reasoning were detrimental to find out the truth behind a subject, because with this, one could discover patterns in nature. Thinkers at this time were “hopeful that they might discover new ways to understand and improve their society” (Background Essay). During the late 17th and 18th centuries numerous changes had brought about disagreements and questions on ways of living and knowing life. The enlightenment period was a time when philosophers and other people spoke out against society’s standards of living and decided to live for themselves rather than how society said the world should work.

Enlightenment and Romanticism are concepts that contradict each other often in history. These both are very similar and also very different when opposed and compared to one another. The most obvious difference is that, in the Enlightenment, there was a stronger belief in mechanical and machinery as opposed to Romanticism where most of the focal point was God and belief. It ties with the concept of reason vs. emotion, in which Enlightenment being the “reason” and Romanticism being the “emotion.” Both of these were to move away from old regime and traditions and look forward to the future traditions.

The Age of Reason, also known as the Enlightenment, took place in Europe in the 18th century. It became a time period that consisted of new knowledge and wisdom. People began to see the world in a different way, and began to think more logically. The Enlightenment was a major turning point in Europe since it led to new scientific discoveries, a secular way of viewing religion, and a shift in the way the government ruled.

In contrast to the certainties of the Enlightenment and fed the growth of popular nationalism — was the intellectual and artistic movement named Romanticism. Artists inspired by romanticism abandoned the emphasis on reason associated with well­-known Enlightenment philosophes like Voltaire or Montesquieu. Instead Romantics supported instead emotional exuberance, unrestrained imagination, and spontaneity in both art and personal life. Preoccupied with emotional excess, romantic works explored the awesome power of love and desire and of hatred, guilt, and despair. One of the first Romantic poets, William Blake protested the loss of the bucolic countryside to the pollution of new industry, as well, as describing the hardships of the poor people.

By observing the Age of Enlightenment, we can see the influence of the added application of reason that was used to free cities from the historically pressed ‘minority’ ordeal. Countless scientific breakthroughs occurred and many new ideas were formulated as a result of individuals making use of their own reason without direction from someone else, all in a matter of a few years. The influence of the Enlightenment thinking is shown by Foucault to have travelled much further than its time period; influencing recent thought processes such as the modernist movement. Therefore, it can be said that the Enlightenment can be considered the age of reason because, for the first time, numerous individuals were able to reason for themselves by the loosening of the grip of minority and as a result, the root of many modern concepts and ideas as well as modes of thinking are found in this precise point of

The Romantic Period, an era described as an expression of emotional liveliness, unrestrained imagination, impulse in both art and personal life, enchantment of poetry, and the embracing of the unknown . It is perhaps the rebellious condition of man to accept such liberal ideals in contrast to the conservative threshold of the Catholic Church. The response to the enlightenment era of logic and reason was cried from the footprints of historical sands. Notable figures that stood out as leaders of this epic social battle such as William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Blake, John Clare, Walter Scott, Mary Shelley, Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allen Poe. The passive approach of writing allows the Romantic literature produced to transcend throughout history and influence the likes of philosophers, poetics, social activists, and other prominent figures of the modern age. These individuals used the mighty pen to attack the average and affected the hearts and minds of millions. This is a great alternative to shape the world in their image as opposed to immoral means, such as genocide, imperialism, and revolution. Some notable works which is analyzed and inferred to for historical context is Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher”, Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Hawthorne’s “The Ministers Black Veil”. These pieces use romantic and gothic settings to convey a darker and a deeper message to the