Romanticism (7)

-Romanticism - The Egotistical Sublime-

Romanticism is a creative period where the cultural view of the world had to be readjusted.
In this period there’s was an intention to explore new possibilities of outlook, interest and behaviour.
There was further use of imagination, as a means of giving expression to emotional experience.
The limitless possibilities of the human mind were celebrated and several means (ways) were used to penetrate ‘subconscious’ levels.

There was serious concern about the experience and insights of childhood.
To a Romantic, a child was purer than an adult, because he was unspoilt by civilisation; so, childhood was a state to be admired and cultivated.

There was new emphasis on the significance of the individual: man was seen in the solitary state, and stressed the special qualities of each individual’s mind.
They exalted the atypical, the outcast, the rebel, the hero.

Society was seen as an evil force; the current of though represented by Rousseau pointed out that the conventions of civilisation represented intolerable restrictions on the individual personality.
It followed that ‘natural’ behaviour, that is unrestrained and impulsive, is good, in contrast to the ‘rational’ behaviour, which is governed by rules and customs of society.

The ‘Noble Savage’ concept is a Romantic one: the savage appears primitive, but he has an instinctive knowledge of himself and of the world, often superior to a civilised man.

Rousseau promoted the ‘Cult of the Exotic’, so of what is far away both in space and in time, what is picturesque, formidable, remote and unfamiliar.
The remotest parts of Europe and the Near East were seen as strange and unpredictable.