Romantic Era Overview

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Romantic Era Overview
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Characteristics of Era

• Focuses on feelings and emotion, not facts and
  logic (as did the Neoclassical Era)
• Revolts against reason, Industrial Revolution
• Focus on Nature, independence, individuality
• Fluid logic and writing style (stream of
  consciousness)
• Brooding artists (The tortured artist)
• Historical paintings of Spanish Revolution, biased

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Romanticism (1760 - 1870) was

• A reaction to the Industrial Revolution
• A tendency to portray life as it is not
• Lilfe may distort the real world in order to
  escape from it.
• (Romanticism stands opposed to realism)
• Exotic
• A defiance of the established artistic rules
• Romanticism is the opposite of neoclassicism
• Faith in the imagination.
• Reason came in second to feeling and intuition.
• Playwrights abandoned the old rules and started
  using stylized methods

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Romanticism (1760 - 1870) was

• Faith in the individual.
• Humanitarianism and interest in the common person
  became important
• Patriotism
• Intense interest in the past, especially Medieval
  and Gothic
• Growing interest in nature as a positive force in
  man's existence
• Nature was conceived of as good in opposition to
  society which was bad
• Belief in the free individual.
• Anyone, even a rebel or outlaw, standing outside
  the evil influence of society, was good if he or
  she lived by emotion, not reason.
• It viewed man in isolation and a creature of
  emotion instead of man as part of a social order
  and a creature of reason.

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Romantic Era Music

• Music in Romanticism style contains strong
  emotion.  Beethoven's later music is considered
  a transition to the Romantic.
• He produced beautiful melodies for piano and
  powerful symphonies with strong themes, but it
  must be noted that he was mainly known as a
  Classical composer.
• Tchaikovsky wrote sweet, light ballet music. His
  ballets are recognized around the world.
• Wagner composed stirring operas (in German, of
  course) based on Germanic themes.

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The Nutcracker Suite

• The Romanticism movement saw the Golden Age of
  ballet develop, as we see in Tchaikovsky's
  Nutcracker Suite. The ballet is a narrative
  fantasy, for it shows the toys of a child coming
  to life and having an adventure. Part of the
  Nutcracker Suite is the "Dance of the Sugar Plum
  Fairy," a fantasy of magic, whim, and emotion so
  typical of the Romantic period. The Nutcracker
  shows two key elements of the Romantic Period
• a tendency to portray life as it is not it may
  distort the real world in order to escape from
  it, and
• reason came in second to feeling and intuition.
  Writers abandon the old rules and started using
  stylized methods.

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Romantic Theater

• Melodrama grew out of Romanticism.
• Several differences between melodrama and
  Romantic drama
• Melodrama had three acts, romantic had five acts,
  
• Romantic dramas avoided happy endings and were
  more poetic.

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Melodrama

• Three Acts  
• "A drama, such as a play, film, or television
  program, characterized by exaggerated emotions,
  stereotypical characters, and interpersonal
  conflicts."
• (from dictionary.com)  
• The villain was more memorable than the hero.
  (Example the villain who ties a lady to railroad
  tracks.)  
• Highly developed cliffhanger