HISTORY 5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, Noble Savage

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28 Oct 2016
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I. Intro
Rom = counter-enlightenmt
challenged ideal that reason was fundamental tool of human emancip; insist that
emotion is at heart of humanity
also challenges Enl notion of autonomy, that indivs can emancip themselves; Rom =
corporate project
rejects universalizing project of SciRev, which threatens to overwhelm the diffs tw things
that make them great
counter-industrialization - ironic, b/c romantics themselves members of bourg
hearkened back to mythical middle age, ppl more in touch w/ nature
argued that technology would make monsters not miracles
as a cultural movemt, Rom dies out, but will spawn a movemt that remains potent today:
nationalism
II. Romanticism: Counter-Enlightenment and Counter-Industrializatn
Origins of Romanticism
first stirrings found ~1750s, response to Enl emphasis on rationality
for many writers, focus on reason seems to rob ppl of sense of aw
the sublime: the overpwring, majestic exp beyond human comprehension
classic example: looking down from a mtn; Friedrich’s painting “Wanderer abv
the sea of fog” - view from above surpasses what you’re capable of rationalizing,
realize how small you are
Enl had a version of the sublime; Kant wrote an impt essay on it, but it’s about order, how
the world imprints itself on ur mind by reflecting mind’s own internal symmetry
Romantic: sublime/beauty isn’t just about harmony, but uncontainable disorder
another precursor in Goethe’s Sorrows of the Young Werther (1774)
young sensitv artist falls in love w/ married woman; suffers from guilt, kills himself
point isn’t the plot, but its philosophical baggage - passionate temperament of title chara,
living in constant state of emotional turmoil makes u truly human
super influential/popular book, everyone in Ger reads it; leads to late 18c fad in Ger of
men weeping as they walk down the street LOL
Limits of reason
Rom emerges in aftermath of FrRev - for some observers, FrRev shows dark underbelly/failure of
reason/Enlightenment
Romantics stress the ideal of the genius - someone who transcends order/reason, embodies
brilliance of their society…
origin of our idea now that artists somehow feel things more deeply etc
1st great exemplar: John Keats, Eng Rom poet; dies at 26, one of his last requests is to
put on his tombstone “Here lies one whose name was writ in water”
Humanity and nature
reject notion of nature as tidy machine; Romantics saw it as something in constant state of
un/becoming, and its untidiness makes it beautiful
re-enchantmt of natural world, which ppl can access thru dreams/songs rather than
analytic parsing
JMW Turner’s painting “Hannibal and his army” (1812) - beauty of painting comes from
capturing wildness of nature, rather than containing it
William Blake: “Nature has no outline”
Rousseau’s a great hero of Romanticism, b/c of notion of noble savage
civilization corrupts us w/ artificial duty; man’s lost natural liberties
nature = source of inspiration b/c a space of freedom, leave human soc behind
Romanticism and spirituality
Enl stripped away a lot of Eur’s spirituality; Roms wanted to reassert, but not w/ theology
idea of authentic soul, something transcendent
faith > knowledge; religion of the heart, “mankind turning his heart to infinity”
very out of step w/ 18c rationalist Christianity
Cath areas: return to ceremony/ritual, emotional exp of religion (not just relig of the Word)
Prot places might abandon Christianity for nature worship or cultism
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re-enchantment of the world (Enl took away the invisible realm, but w/o that we’re impoverished)
William Blake (poet, painter, printer, radical)
represents spiritual aside of Romanticism
despised orthodox religion/Xianity as much as he despised the Enl (twin evils that
insisted on rational grid of the mind)
has mystical dreams/visions in his life; work combines Biblical imagery w/ Norse myths
and Greek gods and stuff he makes up - believes in his own mythology
all religions are one, just relig of the heart
Neo-medievalism
(most Romantics are the bourg - ppl w/ time to sigh and paint - a sense of guilt and expiation)
neo-medievalism: return in theory to era before modernity alienated humanity from nature
“the romance” - medieval genre
pre-Raphaelite art movement rejects Enl + Ren, wants to return to medieval purity
Lothebourg’s “Coalbrookdale at Night” - hellish fire of industry
Environmentalism
Romantic lit: Frankenstein
probably greatest novel of Eng Romanticism
plot = Romantic allegory
Frankenstein = Enlightenment modernity, rationality, tryna conquer death thru science
but monster teaches him how little he understands abt humanity
monster
allegory for Industrial Revolution
conseqs of technology run amok in the world; problems mankind creates but can’t solve
also an allegory for the other kind of new human being - industrial proletariat
book also filled w/ examples of sublime
begins/ends in wasteland of Arctic; failure of humanity b4 nature’s awesome pwr
Mary Shelley personally reacts against Enl
child of the Enl - father William Godwin = Eng Jacobin polit philosopher; mother Mary
Wollstonecraft, author of Vindicatn of Rights of Women
easy to see autobiographical elements - child of Enl rejecting her parents; puts herself in
the monster’s space
Romantic Art: Gericault’s “Raft of the Medusa”
Beethoven’s grt example of Romanticism - pounding emotional register of later symphonies
all Western music obsessed w/ order; but Beethoven produces impression of order thru
enormous contrasts tw diff parts of music, no given moment is an orderly whole
classic Enlightenment painting: Jacques-Louis David’s “Oath of the Horatii” 1784
FrRev painter, subject matter is about reason - 3 bros agree to fight on behalf of country,
sacrifice for greater good
symmetry, classical lines, geometric shapes
Caspar Friedrich’s “Monk by the sea” 1810
not that long after, but huge diff - human beings are tiny, disappearing into pwr of nature
John Martin’s “Destruxn of Sodom and Gomorrah” (1852) - humans cower b4 God/nature
“Raft of the Medusa” 1819 - the masterpiece of Fr Romanticism
aftermath of notorious shipwreck from 3 yrs ago; some sailors survived w/ makeshift raft
self-consc effort to portray the unportrayable; utterly realistic, but not a rational sense
uses rational idioms to try capture a sublime, incomprehensible subject
Gericault was obsessed w/ “realism,” make horrors as lifelike as possible
spent weeks in Paris morgues making sketches of bodies, taking body parts
home to his studio to get the color/texture just right…
worked closely w/ ship’s carpenter who had built the raft
when it was time to paint: shaved his head, locked himself in studio, starved himself for
weeks to really feel what the exp had been like
enormous - 23ft long - walk into the room and it overwhelms u with its pwr
waves washing over the raft - can’t see where culture ends and nature begins
living/dead mixed promiscuously together
death is everywhere in Rom - transcendent moment when reason fails
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