Romanticism

Romanticism

Can you imagine if almost all rules and regulations in society were dropped? If you could throw your trash anywhere, drive in whichever lane was open, park your car anywhere that suited you? That’s basically how it was for people living in large cities in the time between 1820 to 1840. Relatively young cities (young compared to other large European cities) like New York, Boston, and Philadelphia quadrupled in this period giving these young cities no time to create all the rules and regulations you need to control large cities. With few rules and regulations and thousands of people flooding in the cities everyday they became a hectic mess. People could throw garbage anywhere, horses could lay droppings anywhere, and there was not one person to clean all of it up or keeping order. In all of this chaos people needed a break from the harsh realities surrounding them. To break away from the crummy usual day, writers began writing in a more imaginative artistic style of writing, giving berth to Romanticism. Romanticism focuses on intuition over logic very different from there fathers, Rationalist, who focused on reason to describe the world around them.

Rip Van Winkle, written by Washington Irving is a great example of Romantic Writing. Some of the parts are a little boring but most of the book is quite good. At the beginning of Rip Van Winkle it was overly descriptive and boring. By being so descriptive Irving would get off from the main point of the story and start to ramble about peoples clothing.
"On nearer approach he was still more surprised at the singularity of the stranger's appearance. He was a short square-built old fellow, with thick bushy hair, and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the antique Dutch fashion--a cloth jerkin strapped round the waist--several pair of breeches, the outer one of ample volume, decorated with rows of buttons down the sides, and bunches at the knees. He bore on his shoulder a stout keg, that seemed full of liquor, and made signs for Rip to approach and assist him with the load."
This would get annoying because I really just wanted to read about the story not about the characters clothing.

Towards the end of the book is when I started to enjoy it, because Irving started focusing more on the story, less on people’s clothes, and the story picked up. One thing that I thought was interesting was how Irving didn’t tell you whether the whole scene with the elves was real or not because it made me stop and think whether if he was already dreaming or if drinking with the elves made him begin sleeping.

When I was reading the story I was very intrigued by all the unique illustrations. All of the pictures in the book are very dark, and many of the people in the illustrations seem to be old, dirty, and poor. To me this represents the majority of the people in this time period and the dark gloomy backgrounds represent the sad city settings.

What I found particularly Romantic was the use of fantastic elements in the story. When Rip goes out hunting in the woods and comes along a band of little people. "in the centre was a company of odd-looking personages playing at nine-pins. They were dressed in a quaint outlandish fashion; some wore short doublets, others jerkins, with long knives in their belts, and most of them had enormous breeches, of similar style with that of the guide's." This is very illogical and probably would never happen in the real world. Another example of the surreal is Rip going to sleep for twenty years. The reader is expected to believe that Rip survives for two decades without food or water. This is scientifically impossible because a human cannot live without sustenance.

The poem Thanatopsis written by William Cullen Bryant is a little bit of a depressing poem. Though there is an underdog theme most of the poem he is talking about the beauty of earth and the darkness of death.
"By those, who in their turn shall follow them.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan,

that moves To the pale realms of shade,

where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, "
This part of the poem I thought was particularly depressing. Death being a dark, silent, nothing I think is what everyone fears of death and doesn’t want death to be.

What I found to be romantic in Thanatopsis was the underdog theme of the average American. What Bryant is saying in the poem is that though Europeans might call Americans unsophisticated and stupid, Americans don’t really care and believe they can do just as good and live just as happy lives as Europeans without being sophisticated, and when we die we all rot in the ground as complete equals.

The Poem Ropewalk, written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, is really imaginative poem. The point of this poem was that even though this guy’s job sucked he could go deep in his head and imagine something good. While walking down the ropewalk he starts to imagine what all of the rope he’s spinning is going to be used for.

"Two fair maidens in a swing,

Like white doves upon the wing,"
This quote from the poem really is the easiest thing for me to picture. Two beautiful girls flying through the air in a swing held up by a strong, thick, white rope.

What I thought was romantic about Ropewalk was that the main character could escape from his everyday life. Even though spinning rope was hard, hot, and tedious the character could get out and go to a much more imaginiative world where things weren't so bad.

I think that this picture is romantic because to me it represents natures power over man, and no matter what man makes it want be as beautiful, great, or powerful as what nature creates. The way the sun shines down on all bellow I think is a way the artist wanted to symbolize the sun as the real power in the universe. The cliffs and mountains I think are representing how nature can create huge beautiful landmarks that humans will never be able to match.

American Romanticism was a really cool time in history. When everything was dark and logic ruled all thinking, there came Romantics believing in intuition of logic which was a break for the everyday factory beaten Americans. Knowing your going to work in factory all day long everyday for the rest of your life making just pennies a day is a harsh reality that I think Americans wanted to escape. Romantic Books by Washington Irving and poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow were perfect antidotes for the rough city life of Americans in the Industrial Revolution.