The greatest Representatives of Romantism

[JohnAvg]

In your opinion who are the most important personalities of Romantism in music(classic), literature, poetry, philosophy, painting

[JBI]

Goethe, Leopardi, Foscolo, Hugo, Novalis, Wordsworth, Pushkin, Beethoven, Friedrich, Wagner, Goya, Verdi, Hegel, Blake, Schiller. That seems a pretty narrow list though, as I didn't spread my range to include more painters, or more eastern European humanists.

Edit, add Henrich Heine and, if we can count him, Emerson.

Second edit, and Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, and Chateaubriand. I'm also looking for a romantic in the Spanish and Portuguese literary traditions, but my knowledge won't yield a major figureheads for either. The closest I come for Spanish seems to be Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, though he was a little too late I think.

[johann cruyff]

Also, John Keats and Shelley?

[JBI]

Also, John Keats and Shelley?

I didn't want to look anglo-centric, though I think I still came off that way. You could throw other Romantics in there as well, I just figured Wordsworth would say enough for the English romantic poetic movement. And I threw Byron in there because of his influence on his contemporaries, especially Pushkin.

[Bitterfly]

Ah, you forgot the French! What about Musset, Lamartine, Nerval, Vigny and Hugo for poetry? Chateaubriand, Hugo, Barbey d'Aurevilly, Gautier for prose.

And some musicians: Beethoven, Schumann, Schubert, Chopin, Lizst.

A philosopher: Hegel.

[Virgil]

Good list JBI. I would include Keats and Shelley. Yes, it might appear anglo centric, but the English Romantic poets were ciritical to Romanticism as a whole and we might as well include them. I would also include Emerson and Thereau (sp?) on the American side and as essayests. You left out painting. Any Romantic painters? I know this is far fetched and certainly debatable, I might include the impressionist painters as part of the Romantic movement. Though they may not fit time-wise, I do think they fit in spirit.

[stlukesguild]

To JBI's list you should certainly add the poets Hölderlin and Heinrich Heine... Jan Potocki, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Alphonese de Lamartine, Gerard de Nerval, the operatic composer Gioachino Rossini, composers Franz Schubert, Hector Berlioz, Anton Bruckner, Hugo Wolf, perhaps Johannes Brahms (although he may be a bit late), Franz Liszt, Robert Schumann, Frédéric Chopin, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (again another late entry), Vincenzo Bellini, Gaetano Donizetti, and artists William Blake, J.M.W. Turner, Caspar David Friedrich, John Constable, Eugene Delacroix, Théodore Géricault, Antoine-Jean Gros, Henry Fuseli, Samuel Palmer, Jean Baptiste Carpeaux, François Rude...

[stlukesguild]

I may have some idea where you are coming from with the suggestion of the Impressionist painters... but in all reality they were almost as far from Romanticism as possible. In fact they were intentionally anti-Romantic. Where Romanticism employed the fantastic, the grandiose, and the sublime... the Impressionists were focused upon that in their own back yard: Parisian nightclubs, ballerinas backstage at the theater, the landscape of Parisian suburbs. Nothing like Turner's almost apocalyptic views of nature at its most turbulent or Friederich's sublime of the endless horizons or antique ruins shrouded in mist. Impressionism was a sophisticated urban art form based almost entirely upon direct observation of the everyday world in which the artists lived and worked. Romanticism often employed the fantastic, the imagined, the invented... the feelings that were evoked by the artist's response to his subject.

[stlukesguild]

I love Gautier... but he is almost too late, isn't he. At that point we're getting closer to Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Henry James, Walt Whitman, etc...

[JBI]

I don't get it - people are suggesting I add things to my list that are there :() weird.

[Virgil]

I may have some idea where you are coming from with the suggestion of the Impressionist painters... but in all reality they were almost as far from Romanticism as possible. In fact they were intentionally anti-Romantic. Where Romanticism employed the fantastic, the grandiose, and the sublime... the Impressionists were focused upon that in their own back yard: Parisian nightclubs, ballerinas backstage at the theater, the landscape of Parisian suburbs. Nothing like Turner's almost apocalyptic views of nature at its most turbulent or Friederich's sublime of the endless horizons or antique ruins shrouded in mist. Impressionism was a sophisticated urban art form based almost entirely upon direct observation of the everyday world in which the artists lived and worked. Romanticism often employed the fantastic, the imagined, the invented... the feelings that were evoked by the artist's response to his subject.

I stand corrected StLukes. Thanks. It does seem the impressionist idolized nature and tried to capture an emotion. But I understand what you're saying.

[JBI]

For anyone interested, I posted a few Canadian romantic poems on the classical poetry thread in the poetry forum. They are interesting and good poems, though the poets themselves aren't quite so significant outside of Canadian traditions. The poems however, offer something which is rather mature, and often glimmering in early modernism.

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showpost.php?p=628957&postcount=27
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showpost.php?p=630272&postcount=33
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showpost.php?p=630275&postcount=34

[Bitterfly]

I love Gautier... but he is almost too late, isn't he. At that point we're getting closer to Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Henry James, Walt Whitman, etc...

That's sort of true. He started off as a Romantic, before becoming a Parnassien.
By the way, I read somewhere that American Romanticism came later? At the beginning of the twentieth century. Is that true?

[JBI]

No, it came around 1840-1850, and stayed, I would argue, in one form or another until modernism.

In France and Russia Symbolism and realism were the in the middle, in England, Victorianism, which very much is its own genre, in Italy, the Decadent movement. In America however, things seem to have been slower.

This of course, is more apparent in Canadian literature, where Romanticism ended right when modernism came in, and didn't even really end until a little after that even.

[Bitterfly]

Ah, thank you. But then why did I read of Fitzgerald as an American Romantic? Because you couldn't even consider him as a modernist, could you? I have difficulty placing American authors in general, I must say... What about Hawthorne? What is he? Or even Poe? Couldn't he be considered as a Romantic (strains of the Gothic - which was Romantic)?

And wouldn't you say French Symbolism comes after Romanticism, rather, inspired by it but still distinct from it? And you have Decadent literature both in France and in England as well as in Italy.

[Karl Rommel]

Heinrich von Kleist. Coleridge - sorry if repetition there

[JBI]

Ah, thank you. But then why did I read of Fitzgerald as an American Romantic? Because you couldn't even consider him as a modernist, could you? I have difficulty placing American authors in general, I must say... What about Hawthorne? What is he? Or even Poe? Couldn't he be considered as a Romantic (strains of the Gothic - which was Romantic)?

And wouldn't you say French Symbolism comes after Romanticism, rather, inspired by it but still distinct from it? And you have Decadent literature both in France and in England as well as in Italy.

Poe and Hawthorne are both romantics, but I wouldn't call Fitzgerald one, as he clearly fits better, both chronologically, and stylistically with modernism.

As for Symbolism, yes, it comes after, and it often contradicts, or goes beyond romanticism, I find. As for Decadent literature, yes you have a point, but the Decadentismo was a very specific movement in Italy, equivalent to the symbolist movements elsewhere.

[JBI]

From a rather bland, but accurate public domain translation by A. S. Kline

The Infinite by Giacomo Leopardi


It was always dear to me, this solitary hill,
and this hedgerow here, that closes off my view,
from so much of the ultimate horizon.
But sitting here, and watching here,
in thought, I create interminable spaces,
greater than human silences, and deepest
quiet, where the heart barely fails to terrify.
When I hear the wind, blowing among these leaves,
I go on to compare that infinite silence
with this voice, and I remember the eternal
and the dead seasons, and the living present,
and its sound, so that in this immensity
my thoughts are drowned, and shipwreck
seems sweet to me in this sea.

Note, the virtuosic style wasn't replicated at all in this translation, and I used this one purely for the reason of it being in the public domain.

[Bitterfly]

I like this poem, even if I imagine it must be far more beautiful in the original Italian (it's so frustrating to have to read poems like this one in translation). So what was Leopardi, a Romantic or a Decadent? I'd say Romantic because of his dates, but Decadent because of the tone and style (as you say it's virtuosic).

[JBI]

I like this poem, even if I imagine it must be far more beautiful in the original Italian (it's so frustrating to have to read poems like this one in translation). So what was Leopardi, a Romantic or a Decadent? I'd say Romantic because of his dates, but Decadent because of the tone and style (as you say it's virtuosic).

He's a middle-ground player between Classicism and Romanticism. In terms of schooling, he was a very well established classical scholar even in his youth, where he had already achieved a sort of renown by the age of 18 and earlier. As for his poetry though - mid-career he seems to have had an about face, and given up on classical reverence, in favor of a harsher, more destructive poetics, that, I would think, he intended to capture the harshness of nature, and of life.

[ksotikoula]

I just wanted to add to the list of literature the Bronte sisters: Charlotte, Emily and Anne ;)

[Iago]

I just wanted to add to the list of literature the Bronte sisters: Charlotte, Emily and Anne ;)

I think few would classify them as Romantic. We can of course speak of romantic - or gothic - influences (e.g. Wuthering Heights ) but I would not think of them as Romantic - and not only because of chronological reasons

[kelby_lake]

Fitzgerald?

[Emil Miller]

Fitzgerald?

JBI has already indicated above that Fitzgerald is a modernist.

[shortstoryfan]

Well, since he wrote his own librettos I will say Richard Wagner.

[Wilde woman]

Sadly, I know more about Romantic classical music than literature. :( So...

RACHMANINOFF

Talk about the personification of a dark, tortured soul. He was one artist who truly achieved catharsis in his music. Some of his stuff, especially his piano concertos are aboslutely orgasmic. :blush:

Also, Debussy - though I'm not a fan of his particular brand of Romanticism. And Saint-Saens, whose I am. Grieg. Schumann. Mendelssohn. Paganini. And who could forget Berlioz, whose Symphonie fantastique is often used as THE textbook example of Romantic program music.

And if we're talking opera, how could we forget PUCCINI, whose operas are easier on the ears than Wagner's (shudder).

[Emil Miller]

Sadly, I know more about Romantic classical music than literature. :( So...

RACHMANINOFF

Talk about the personification of a dark, tortured soul. He was one artist who truly achieved catharsis in his music. Some of his stuff, especially his piano concertos are aboslutely orgasmic. :blush:

Also, Debussy - though I'm not a fan of his particular brand of Romanticism. And Saint-Saens, whose I am. Grieg. Schumann. Mendelssohn. Paganini. And who could forget Berlioz, whose Symphonie fantastique is often used as THE textbook example of Romantic program music.

And if we're talking opera, how could we forget PUCCINI, whose operas are easier on the ears than Wagner's (shudder).

Oh Wilde Woman, how I agree with you about Rachmaninov & Co but why not join our music appreciation section, where your views will be much appreciated.

[JBI]

Debussy was more modernist than romantic.

[JCamilo]

I can not imagine anything (and romantism is a wider classification) but romantic to Emily Bronte.
Adding the brazilian most likely romantics such Gonçalves Dias, Castro Alves, José de Alencar...

[Wilde woman]

Debussy was more modernist than romantic.

If you consider Impressionism more modernist than Romantic, sure.

But if you consider Beethoven Romantic, there's no reason not to consider Debussy the same. Both Debussy and Beethoven were more in the transitional vein towards and away from Romanticism than actually in the Romantic period. We could argue all day about this.

[Emil Miller]

If you consider Impressionism more modernist than Romantic, sure.

But if you consider Beethoven Romantic, there's no reason not to consider Debussy the same. Both Debussy and Beethoven were more in the transitional vein towards and away from Romanticism than actually in the Romantic period. We could argue all day about this.

This discussion has already taken place in the Music Appreciation group but if you want to continue it you could join as I suggested.

[kelby_lake]

JBI has already indicated above that Fitzgerald is a modernist.

What is a modernist? Simply speaking :)

[JBI]

If you consider Impressionism more modernist than Romantic, sure.

But if you consider Beethoven Romantic, there's no reason not to consider Debussy the same. Both Debussy and Beethoven were more in the transitional vein towards and away from Romanticism than actually in the Romantic period. We could argue all day about this.

Debussy was more interested in form and composition than personal expression - that's why I call him a modernist, and not a romantic - he's more invisible from his work than romantic composers generally are, and his form emphasis shows a concern more for perspective than for emotional reaction. In truth, he and Ravel stand somewhere between romanticism, and modernism, but still, I think he leans closer to modernism than romanticism.

[Bitterfly]

Debussy was more modernist than romantic.

I'd say Debussy was an impressionist, actually. When I first listened to him, that was the movement that came to my mind, and a piano teacher of mine confirmed it. I don't know if everyone uses that term for him, though.

Beethoven wasn't strictly speaking a Romantic, but he is definitely a precursor. I think it depends on the pieces: some are very classical, others Romantic.

Saint-Saens I love, but would NEVER categorise as a Romantic! A post-romantic maybe, and even then, he has nothing to do with Prokofiev, for example.


What is a modernist? Simply speaking

It's difficult to define modernism quickly! I would say it's the period of upheaval at the beginning of the twentieth century, with authors who were:
_ often shocked by WW1 which they saw as the end of civilisation (Lawrence)
_ interested in experimentation (think of Woolf or Joyce)
_ interested in myth (Joyce, Yeats, Lawrence -also considered a late Romantic)
I'm a bit tired so have forgotten the other criteria, but this probably merits a thread of its own! :)

[JBI]

The term was used for him even in his lifetime, but he personally despised it. In truth, the term impressionist, in music, generally has an idiosyncratic meaning, referring to the works of Ravel and Debussy, in addition to a few minor composers around the same time. But I wouldn't call it a movement, as much as an attribute. Either way though, Rachmaninoff writing at the same time, is easily recognized as being far more romantic than Debussy - Debussy tried to distance himself by innovating away from romanticism.

[Bitterfly]

Interesting, thank you. I didn't know all that. And yes, you're right about time periods - there are always overlaps and composers who are hard to categorize.

Another representative of Romanticism in music which hasn't, I think, been mentioned is Scriabin (although I would hesitate to classify him as a Post-Romantic, if it weren't for his dates). I love him!!! And I suppose Liszt and Chopin have been said...

[Emil Miller]

What is a modernist? Simply speaking :)

Well modernism encompasses that period from late 19th century to early 20th century. Fitzgerald belongs to that era.

[Pecksie]

I'm also looking for a romantic in the Spanish and Portuguese literary traditions, but my knowledge won't yield a major figureheads for either. The closest I come for Spanish seems to be Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, though he was a little too late I think.

Try the Duke of Frías, aka Ángel de Saavedra. His play 'Don Álvaro or the Force of Destiny' (1835) is pretty Romantic in its style, themes, etc.

[Taliesin]

Sibelius.