Concetti Chiave
- In the Early Romantic Age, emotion became more valued than reason, seen as freeing individuals from the mental constraints of rationalism.
- Nature began to be viewed as a living entity rather than a set of divine rules, aligning with the subjective perception of beauty.
- Poets used personal and autobiographical themes, marking a shift toward lyrical and individual expression in literature.
- The Graveyard School, known for its melancholic themes, used settings like cemeteries and ruins to evoke emotions related to sublimity.
- The concept of the Sublime engaged with fear and horror, finding beauty in the infinite and terrifying aspects of nature.
What is the shift from reason to emotion?
In the last years of the 18th century are the years of the Early Romantic Age; during this period the attitude towards reason changed because of a new sensibility became dominant and began to influence people; reason has given way to emotion, as now it wasn’t seen as the only way of knowledge, because it was a sort of mental prison, repressing emotions and feelings.
There were new interests in humble, everyday life, ruins, melancholy, graveyards, desolation; there were also been a revaluation of the past, especially of the middle ages.
Changing views on nature and beauty
Also changed the way Nature was seen: now it’s seen as a real and live creature; before it was seen as a set of divine laws and principles, that men could control with his reason.
Even the conception of beauty changed, as it wasn’t still objective, but it’s subjective, because as David Hume said, each mind perceives a different beauty.
The new poets established a new trends which managed to prepare the way for the Romantic poets.
Poets tended to use subjective, autobiographical material, starting a new trend towards the expression of a lyrical and personal experience of life.
Early Romantic poets reacted to the social changes taking place in the country with a re-evaluation of rural origins.
Pastoral Poetry celebrated and praised country life for its simplicity and domesticity, free from the corruption of urban life.
The graveyard school and the sublime
One of the most influential groups of poets it’s known as ‘The Graveyard School’, because of their melancholy tone and the choice of cemeteries, ruins, stormy landscapes as the setting of their poems; Thomas Gray, one of the poets of this school, wrote the ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’.
Sublime refers to a linguistic, literary or artistic form which express noble or elevate feelings and behaviour.
The Sublime doesn’t arise from the pleasure produced by beautiful forms and also not from the detached contemplation of the object, but it has its roots in the feelings of fear and horror created by what is infinite and terrible.
Void, obscurity, loneliness and silence are sublime.
This ‘horrible’ beauty gave aesthetic dignity to anything ugly existing in nature, and affected the literature of the end of the 18th century.
Domande da interrogazione
- What marked the shift from reason to emotion during the Early Romantic Age?
In the late 18th century, the Early Romantic Age saw a shift from reason to emotion as a dominant sensibility. Reason was no longer viewed as the sole path to knowledge, as it was considered a mental prison that repressed emotions and feelings. This period embraced new interests in everyday life, melancholy, and a revaluation of the past, particularly the Middle Ages.
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