The history of art and literature was developed under the influence of different rational motion, the most outstanding and of import of which are Romanticism and Realism. Romanticism was a complex artistic, literary and rational motion of 18th-19th century that appeared in Europe and was spread all over the universe. It appeared as a reaction to rationalism and mechanistic aesthetics of classicalism and the Enlightenment. It was one of the most complex and internally contradictory phenomena in the history of civilization. Disappointment in the ideals of the Enlightenment, in the consequences of the Gallic Revolution, the denial of utilitarianism of modern world, the rules of businessperson practicality, whose victims was human individualism, a pessimistic position of chances for societal development were combined in romanticism with the desire of harmoniousness and religious unity of the person with a inclination towards “ eternity ” , the hunt for new, absolute and unconditioned ideals. Sharp strife between the ideals and oppressive world made romantics experience the morbidly fatalistic sense of outrage, acrimonious jeer of the disagreement between dreams and world.
Particular of the romantic art is the job of two universes ; authors of that clip compared and contrasted the existent and fanciful universes. And the world, “ the prose of life ” with their utilitarianism and deficiency of spiritualty were understood as subhuman empty sense, which opposed the true universe of values.
Representatives of Romanticism aggressively condemned urban civilization and left it for description of the Middle Ages or nature. In the quiet life of countryside and simpleness they looked for the redemption from societal jobs of urban life, opposing it to a simple “ undefiled ” life of the state. “ Simple ” manner of life was their ideal, and for illustration, William Wordsworth showed it in fiction. He set a regulation “ to take a originative stuff from mundane life, to do out it in ordinary mode, utilizing an ordinary linguistic communication ” ( Sutherland 125 ) . In his “ Preface to Lyrical Ballads ” , he said that “ the chose an ordinary life because all constituents of it are natural and true, simple life does non belie the beautiful and sustainable signifiers of nature ” ( Wordsworth 6 ) . As a existent romantic author, Wordsworth wrote a batch about people and nature. Conventional husbandmans are good represented in the lay “ We Are Seven ” , and for illustration his “ Excursion Book ” is an illustration of brilliant descriptions of nature.
At the same clip, another outstanding representative of English Romanticism, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the writer of “ Ancient Mariner ” , “ Christabel ” and other novels, showed the unusual mix of world and fiction. He was the representative of English Romanticism, oriented on desire for the marvelous. Coleridge chose the country of events and characters of fiction and romantic genre, giving them human involvement and a gloss of world, which attracts readers. Such gradual passage from world to pure phantasy is the chief response of Coleridge ; it as if by magic works in the “ Ancient Mariner ” , where incidents of an ordinary ocean trip transform to the country of admirations, where the natural and the supernatural merge into an indivisible unit.
American Romanticism differed from European. In America, romantic thoughts have contributed to the religious and aesthetic cognition. Romantics argued that art more than scientific discipline was able to show the truth. Romantics underscored the importance of art for people and the whole society. For illustration, in the essay “ The Poet ” , written by Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of the most influential authors of Romanticism, the writer stated: “ All work forces live under the Torahs of truth and necessitate a manner to show their ideas. aˆ¦The adult male is merely a half of himself ; the 2nd half of him is that ‘s how he expresses his feelings ” ( Emerson 109 ) .
Representatives of Romanticism criticized the world, for illustration the plants of American novelist William Howells “ The Lady of the Aroostook ” , “ Opportunity meeting ” show the strong influence of romanticism on the writer. The novels of William Howells contain unfavorable judgment of American world, which increases and in subsequently plants even socialist thoughts appear ( “ Through the Eye of the Needle ” ) .
Therefore, the characteristics of Romanticism in changing grades are common for many creative persons. Romanticism is built-in in pictures and drawings of Swiss Henry Fuseli. In his plants, inexorable sophisticated grotesque interruptions in through the classical lucidity of images. Besides romantism is built-in in mystical airy plants of poet and creative person William Blake and plants of the late Francisco Goya, full of unchecked phantasy, tragic poignancy, and passionate protest against the national humiliation in Spain. In France, it is built-in in created during the radical old ages heroic portrayals by Jacques-Louis David, early dramatic composings and portrayals by Antoine-Jean Gros, dreamy and lyrical plants of Pierre-Paul Prud’hon and besides in the plants by Francois P. Gerard, who combines romantic inclinations with the academic methods.
The plants of many ulterior Western romantics are imbued with pessimism in towards society. The heroes of many romantic plants ( Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand, Alfred de Musset, George Byron, Alfred de Vigny, Alphonse de Lamartine, Heinrich Heine, etc. ) were influenced by the temper of hopelessness and desperation, which acquired the common human nature. The chief subjects of plants sounded like: “ the flawlessness is lost everlastingly ” , “ the universe is ruled evil ” , “ the ancient pandemonium is raising ” . The subject of “ awful universe ” was built-in to all romantic literature, and the most clearly it was embodied in the alleged “ black genre ” ( in “ Gothic novel ” – Ann Radcliffe, Charles Maturin ; in the “ play of destiny ” or “ calamity of destiny ” – Heinrich von Kleist, Franz Grillparzer ) , and besides in the plants of George Byron, Clemens Brentano, Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann, Edgar Allan Poe, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Realism was an rational motion, characterized by true and nonsubjective contemplation of world by specific agencies that were peculiar to assorted signifiers of art. During the historical development of art pragmatism there were formed concrete signifiers of some originative methods, such as educational, critical, and socialist. Assorted realistic tendencies were expressed in different types and genres of art.
Therefore, there were two opposite waies in the theory, one – pragmatism – the desire of the art to reproduce, to demo the world genuinely ; and the other – idealism – the desire of the art to “ finish ” the world, to make new signifiers. And the starting point does n’t dwell of existent facts, but of ideal representation.
The first American author, who has to the full realized the thought of pragmatism in art, was Mark Twain. His work was developed under the influence of critical pragmatism, which objectively reflected the American world foremost in amusing and later in satiric manner ( “ Licentiousness of Print ” , “ Runing For Governor ” ) . The writer ‘s later works, such as booklets and satirical short narratives ( “ The adult male who seduced Gedliberg ” , “ The United States of Lyncherdom ” , “ Monologue of the male monarch ” ) show the true face of American imperialism.
Henry James was besides one of the brightest representatives of pragmatism ; he was one of the first in American literature, who spoke against the bourgeois platitude of world. Dissatisfaction of American manner of life forced him to travel to Europe, so many characters of his plants were the Americans who emigrated from the United States ( “ Roderick Hudson ” , “ The American ” ) . In the novel, “ The Bostonians ” he aggressively and uncompromisingly criticized the U.S. world – that is the kernel of pragmatism.
Many realists wrote prose narrative narratives about the destiny of ordinary people, the heroic poem of private life. The most of import realist novel of the eighteenth century were written in the UK ( Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, Tobias George Smollett, Laurence Sterne ) , in France ( Antoine Francois Prevost, Denis Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau ) , in Germany ( Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ) . The most interesting fact is that really frequently the heroes of novels were non monarchs and Lords, but people of in-between category – the merchandisers, townsfolk, soldiers, crewmans, etc. , demoing them in mundane household life.
There is besides a demand to advert that in the center of the nineteenth century Realism changed. If the chief characters of Stendhal, Balzac and Dickens could defy inauspicious conditions, so European Realism of the 2nd half of the century represents chiefly the disaffection of personality, its grading, the loss of character, will, the resiliency of environment. It is peculiarly expressive shown by William Thackeray and Gustave Flaubert. However, this sort of disaffection, partially in the UK ( George Eliot ) , but peculiarly in Russia ( Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy ) resisted acceptance of high humanity and the battle for humane ideals. The deepness of philosophical jobs in the plants of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, the widest coverage of societal world, compassion for the destiny of the “ insulted and injured ” , the nuance of psychological analysis made these authors famous.
Sum uping, it is possible to state that Realism in literature and art was characterized by the want of creative persons to picture, stand for the world as it was. Artists of Realism represented the life in the manner the individual really sees it, utilizing the signifiers of the life itself. At the same clip, Romanticism is characterized by denial of current world, the unfavorable judgment of capitalist civilisation, new signifiers of subjection of the multitudes, rebuke of anti-intellectual stagnant and limited parties of the bourgeois civilization and religious life. Most representatives of Romanticism criticized the world ; they were unsatisfied with it and could n’t accept it. Artists of both, Romanticism and Realism left a great heritage – their fantastic plants of art.