Tide Falls Romanticism

Romanticism is the involvement of emotion, fantasy, and intuition in a story. It happens to be the opposite of rationalism which involves logic, reason, and rationality in a story. There happens to be five romantic elements to choose from. They include: dissatisfaction with city life, desire to connect with nature, concern of individualism, nostalgia for the past, and supernatural interest. Of the six stories we could choose from all of them have some part of romanticism in them in one way or another. I chose to express a desire to connect with nature in “Rip Van Winkle”, “Thanatopsis”, and Walden.

The Romanticism art movement praised imagination over reason, emotions over logic, and literature over science. The Romanticism artists were known for replacing the classical 18th century literature heroes with much more complex and passionate characters. Romanticism focuses on self-expression and individual uniqueness that does not lend itself to be defined nor controlled by society. The landscape on Romanticism was commonly displayed in cool rich colors and untamed peaceful surroundings. In Romanticism, nature was used to represent the extension of the human personality, the capability of feeling love, serenity, and sympathy.

American Romanticism is a journey away from the corruption of civilization and the limits of rational thoughts, and toward the integrity of nature and the freedom of imagination. In other words, it is a journey away from industrialism or rationalism, which is working hard and earning money. This movement, originally started in Europe and later reached in America. It can be best defined as a thought that values feeling and intuition over reason. Some of the characteristics include the importance of feeling and intuition over reason, placing faith in inner experience and the power of imagination, preferring youthful innocence over educated sophistication, finding beauty and reality in exotic locales. It encouraged people to enjoy the integrity of nature and freedom of imagination. It also encouraged one to have faith in imagination and inner experience. In addition, romanticists found inspiration in myth, legend, and folk culture and found poetry as the highest expression of imagination. Romanticists believed that the landscape was regarded as an extension of the human personality, capable of sympathy with man 's emotional state, whereas nature was regarded as a vehicle for spirit just as man; the breath of God fills both man and the earth. However, romantics would create chaos when the issues were connected with human rights, individualism, and freedom from oppression (Arpin 138-150).

In my opinion, Walden, or Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau is an excellent example of a Romantic point of view. Thoreau successfully conveys his Romantic ideas through his literature, and makes clear where he stands.

Washington Irving illustrates the characteristics of American Romanticism through his representation of nature. A characteristic of an American Romantic story is how it “contemplates nature’s beauty as a path to spiritual

To begin, in the short story “The Devil and Tom Walker”, awe of nature is used to

Imagine a candle-lit dinner on a starry night in Paris, the Eiffel Tower just in view with dazzling lights shining into the night. This image is probably what you think of when you hear the word “romantic,” correct. However, this image is a stumbling block when people think of the “Romanticism Period” in literature. Where “romantic” means having a lovely time with the person you love the most, “Romanticism” is a piece of literature written with key themes in mind. Those themes tend to be a strong emotion, imagery or worship of nature, and individuality and subjectivity. The peak of inspiration for these pieces was in the years 1800-1850, and there are famous poems that are well loved today from this period. Many of the poets that you enjoy reading and know are, in actuality, Romanticism writers, and instill the themes above in our minds.

Nature is almost a must in identifying romantic pieces. Its all powerful and continues to provide and take from people. Romantics often look into the will of nature, usually good or evil. Thanatopsis features a man communicating with nature as Bryant writes, “him who in the love of Nature holds / Communion with her visible forms” (1-2). In Poe’s poem a raven enters a man’s chamber and ‘torments’ him by repeating the same meaningless word, “Nevermore” (Line 48).

. ." (Drabble 853). As to emotions, Romanticism "expressed an extreme assertion of the self and the value of individual experience . . ." (Drabble 853). The Romantics also "sought reassurance in the face of change by thinking about the relationship between the human mind and what is out there . . ." (Anderson 606). It was within this faith of change that the ideas of the Romantics originated.

The three main ideas associated with Romanticism are emotion over reason, personal fulfillment, and follow your heart. These ideas were often associated with living simply on a farm and being with nature. Often they reflected more of a middle class lifestyle. Two authors I read about that used this style of writing are Goethe and Monzaemon.

The world around us holds so many different things. There is the natural beauty of nature, found in waterfalls, and forests, deserts and beaches, that help us to appreciate where we come from. There is the supernatural, almost the exact opposite, being something that we either envy and want or despise and fear, such as witches and vampires, superheroes and magic. Everything we feel as people, as individuals plays into what we want and how we act. All of these things are aspects of Romanticism, which we can see in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

In 1820, the US publish many stories and poetries by a group of authors, also known as the American Romantics. These Romanticism author rebelled against their religion rules and found nature; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote; “A Psalm of Life” and “The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls”, and James Russell Lowell wrote; The First Snowfall. In Romanticism literature that impacted this period of time shows emotions, rights of the individual, and nature.

Qualities of "reality," the divine, or divinities may be reflected in nature in Romanticism and we can sense God or the gods through our sensing of nature.While in Neo_classicism there is a concern for "nature"--or the way things are (and should be). This relates back to the distrust of innovation and inherent conservatism of neoclassicism. The artistic rules of old, for instance, Pope describes as having been "discovered, not devised" and are "Nature methodized"; so too, "Nature and Homer" are "the same" (Essay on Criticism 88ff., 135). This belief in "nature" implies a conviction that there is a permanent, universal way things are (and should be), which obviously entails fundamental political and ethical commitments. The focus on natural feeling over conventional rules led to an emphasis on the self over the earlier neoclassical emphasis on society. The individual becomes the source of wisdom and morality, displacing the received set of rules and norms given by society. As a result, emphasis is paced on understanding the individual's subjective state, especially as it relates to the outside world. Works ranging from Rousseau's Confessions and Reveries of a Solitary Walker to Wordsworth's Prelude, Coleridge's «conversation» poems, «Dejection», «Frost at Midnight», «Lime Tree Beauty» are examples of the romantic exploration

Romantic poetry encompasses many things, involving, but not limited to; nature, the sublime, and strong senses of emotion. Many of the romantic poets wrote about nature, and how nature strongly relates to that sense of emotion. Of course when you lack emotion, or you are struck with many negative emotions, romantic poetry shows that nature itself is the remedy that you may require. Not only does romantic poetry show that nature can cure, but it shows that an escape to nature is required in order to understand it, and receive the cure that you seek. It shows that you must abandon your past struggles, and learn to embrace nature.

The beginning of the nineteenth century was also the start of a legendary movement in literature, known as Romanticism. Authors during this period created their own worlds by using their imaginations. Individuals no longer saw themselves a measure of everything around them, but rather as one more component of the great source of life and creativity: nature. The Romantics placed emphasis on emotions such as apprehension, terror, and awe as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, as well as the feelings that accompany confronting the sublimity and beauty of nature, especially. Supernatural elements are not present in all Romantic literature; however, the supernatural approach was an important and arguably crucial strategy for Romanticism to achieve its purposes.