The Characteristics Of Romanticism In The Romantic Era

Romanticism has very little to do with things popularly thought of as "romantic," although love may sometimes be the subject of Romantic art. The emphasized characteristics of Romanticism was emotion and independency throughout the entire era. Romanticism was the most influential movement the world has experienced. Due to its music, artists, and poets, Romanticism was the uppermost, ravishing era. The Romantic era was a literary, artistic, abstract, and musical movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 17th century and reached its peak from 1800 to 1850. Its principal elements were individualism and emotion. Romanticism observed a constant release of the rules of artistic expression, whether it be about the literary

By the dawn of the nineteenth century, experimenting with new and different styles and subjects became much more of an acceptable thing. The sophisticated language of the previous poets was replaced with more natural vocabulary and modulation, musicians were composing previously-forbidden chords that would no longer result in death, and “bizarre” painters were seen as artistic. Romantics were free to express themselves without legal discipline or social judgement. Josh Rahn, who wrote Literature Periods & Movements, holds a Masters degree in English Literature from Morehead State University, and a Masters degree in Library Science from the University of Kentucky, states, “The importance the Romantics placed on emotion is summed up in the remark of the German

1 Prelude” and comparing it to a romantic piece such as Claude Debussy’s “Clair De Lune” shows a spectacular difference between the two. Though both pieces were written for solo string instruments, Bach’s Suite is actually a dance. The Six Suites for unaccompanied Violoncello (“Cello Suite No. 1 Prelude” is the very first piece of the six movements) is mainly composed of arpeggiated chords (a chord that is played as a sequence of descending or ascending notes) and is the best known movement from the entire set of suites and is frequently heard in films. “Clair De Lune” is the third movement of the four Suite bergamasque. “Clair De Lune” translates to “moonlight” from French. It was named after a poem by Paul Verlaine published in 1869 of the same name, which alludes to a bergamasque. “Clair De Lune” was originally titled “Promenade Sentimentale” and Debussy began composing the suite in 1890. He did not, however, finish and publish the work until 1905. Before making it available to the public, Debussy revised the Suite to insure its finest quality. “Clair De Lune” is mainly filled with singular notes rather than chords and is andante (means “moderately slow” in the music world). The audience can feel the thick blanket of serenity throughout the entire piece; leaving a sense of