Lesson 2: Romanticism and Realism

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 5

Lesson 2:

Romanticism and Realism

What do you think of when you hear
'Romanticism'?

Romanticism

The triumph of the values of imaginative spontaneity, visionary originality, wonder, emotional self-expression (over balance, order, restraint, proportion and objectivity) – desires and dreams prevail over everyday realities. Individualism privileged the particular experience over the general rule, nostalgia, nature as the reflection of what goes on in the mind, in language of man to man.

It is found nowadays in lyrics, romance, most biographies

From the 1770s

Some classic works in English: Lyrical Ballads – Coleridge & Wordsworth, Charlotte Brontë – Jane Eyre, Emily Brontë – Wuthering Heights

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed:

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Discuss

To what extent does this poem fit into the category 'Romanticism'?

Do you know who it is by?

When was it written?

What do you think of when you hear
'Realism'?

Realism

Representing life as it seems to the common reader – of unexceptional people, who live through ordinary experiences, a non-idealized representation of life.

Most situation comedy (sitcom) uses these, for instance:

Modern Family, Brooklyn 99, The Office, How I met your Mother, etc. 

From the 1800s

Some classic works in English: Jane Austen – Pride and Prejudice, George Elliot – Middlemarch, William Dean Howells – The Rise of Silas Lapham

Turn to your hand-out please. Discuss:

The first sentence of Pride and Prejudice is one of the most well-known lines in literature. Had you heard it before? What does it mean? Read the rest of the page as well. Anything interesting? Why does it fit the category 'Realism'?

'I wandered lonely as a cloud' - what do you think this poem means? Why does it fit the category 'Romanticism'? Any lines that speak to you?