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Unit 2: Major Literary Terms-II

This idea was in contrast with the preceding artistic tradition, in which copying had been seen as a Notes
fundamental practice of the creative process; and has been especially challenged since the beginning
of the 20th century, with the boom of the modernist and postmodern movements.

2.3 Romanticism and Music

Although the term “Romanticism” when applied to music has come to imply the period roughly
from the 1820s until around 1900, the contemporary application of “romantic” to music did not
coincide with this modern interpretation. In 1810 E.T.A. Hoffmann called Mozart, Haydn and
Beethoven the three “Romantic Composers”, and Ludwig Spohr used the term “good Romantic
style” to apply to parts of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Technically, Mozart and Haydn are
considered Classical composers, and by most standards, Beethoven represents the start of the musical
Romantic period. By the early 20th century, the sense that there had been a decisive break with the
musical past led to the establishment of the 19th century as “The Romantic Era”, and it is referred to
as such in the standard encyclopedias of music.
The traditional modern discussion of the music of Romanticism includes elements, such as the
growing use of folk music, which are also directly related to the broader current of Romantic
nationalism in the arts as well as aspects already present in 18th-century music, such as the cantabile
accompanied melody to which Romantic composers beginning with Franz Schubert applied restless
key modulations.
The heightened contrasts and emotions of Sturm und Drang (German for “turbulence and urge(ncy)”)
seem a precursor of the Gothic novel in literature, or the sanguinary elements of some of the operas
of the period of the French Revolution. The libretti of Lorenzo da Ponte for Mozart’s eloquent music
convey a new sense of individuality and freedom. The romantic generation viewed Beethoven as
their ideal of a heroic artist—a man who first dedicated a symphony to Consul Bonaparte as a
champion of freedom and then challenged Emperor Napoleon by striking him out from the dedication
of the Eroica Symphony. In Beethoven’s Fidelio he creates the apotheosis of the ‘rescue operas’
which were another feature of French musical culture during the revolutionary period, in order to
hymn the freedom which underlay the thinking of all radical artists in the years of hope after the
Congress of Vienna.

2.3.1 Romantic Literature

In literature, Romanticism found recurrent themes in the evocation or criticism of the past, the cult
of “sensibility” with its emphasis on women and children, the heroic isolation of the artist or narrator,
and respect for a new, wilder, untrammeled and “pure” nature. Furthermore, several romantic
authors, such as Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne, based their writings on the
supernatural/occult and human psychology. Romanticism also helped in the emergence of new
ideas and in the process led to the emergence of positive voices that were beneficial for the
marginalized sections of the society.
The roots of romanticism in poetry go back to the time of Alexander Pope (1688–1744). Early pioneers
include Joseph Warton (headmaster at Winchester College) and his brother Thomas Warton, professor
of Poetry at Oxford University. Joseph maintained that invention and imagination were the chief
qualities of a poet. The “poet’s poet” Thomas Chatterton is generally considered to be the first
Romantic poet in English. The Scottish poet James Macpherson influenced the early development
of Romanticism with the international success of his Ossian cycle of poems published in 1762,
inspiring both Goethe and the young Walter Scott.
An early German influence came from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, whose 1774 novel The Sorrows
of Young Werther had young men throughout Europe emulating its protagonist, a young artist

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