Intro to the Humanities - Essay Example

Introduction Romanticism was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that began around the middle of the 18th century in Europe. The Romantic era was a period of immense change and liberation. While the Classical era had stringent laws of balance and restraint, the Romantic era moved away from that by allowing artistic freedom, experimentation, and creativity. Romantic Heroes The Romantics argued that not all truth could be deduced from truism, that there were palpable realities in the world which could only be understood through emotion, feeling and intuition.

The heroes of this era were also non- traditional, both in life and fantasy. The music of this era was very expressive, and melody became the central feature. Composers even used melody to display nationalism. This became a motivating force in the late Romantic period, as composers used rudiments of folk music to express their cultural identity. The romantic generation saw Beethoven as their ideal of a heroic artiste, a man who first devoted the Eroica Symphony to Consul Bonaparte as a champion of freedom and then dared Emperor Napoleon by striking him out from the dedication of the Symphony In the Romantic period, the virtuoso performances gained great popularity.

Extraordinarily gifted performers - pianists, violinists, and singers all became extremely popular. Franz Liszt personified all of the great ambitions of the Romantic era, and several of its contradictions. In his early career, he was an extravagant virtuoso, an architect of new and adventurous music. Later, he became a priest, wrote sacred music, and championed the music of a new generation. As a virtuoso pianist, he filled his piano music with unbelievable technical demands, and represents the ultimate in nineteenth century virtuosity.

George Gordon, Lord Byron was an Anglo-Scottish bard and a leading figure in Romanticism. Among Lord Byrons best-known works are the narrative poems Childe Harolds Pilgrimage and Don Juan. He was considered as one of the greatest European poets and remains widely read even today. Lord Byrons fame was due not only on his works but also on his life, which was marked by extravagant living, plentiful love affairs, debts, separation, and charges of incest and sodomy.The Byronic hero first created in Childe Harolds Pilgrimage is an idealized, but flawed, character exemplified in the life and writings of Lord Byron .Thomas B. Macauley defined the Byronic hero as, “proud moody, cynical with defiance on his brow, and misery in his heart implacable in revenge yet capable of deep and strong affection.

” Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was the most significant of the French Romantic painters. He was inspired by Byron, with whom he shared a strong recognition with the "forces of the sublime", of nature often in fierce action. According to Jobert “Delacroix was a curious mixture of skepticism, politeness, dandyism, willpower, cleverness, despotism, and finally, a kind of special goodness and tenderness that always accompanies genius”.Conclusion Romanticism elevated the accomplishments of what it viewed as misunderstood heroic individuals and artists that changed society.

Romanticists repeatedly focused on emotions and ideas in their works.