Romanticism: Defining Literary and Historical Traits
Characteristics of Literary Romanticism
A “romantic soul” embodies specific traits, characterized by:
- Dissatisfaction with the contemporary world
- Profound concern about life
- Sadness without a discernible reason
- Prevalence of feeling over reason
- Worship of the “I” and strong subjectivism
- Love at the heart of life and artistic creation
- Attraction to aesthetic beauty in all its forms
Social and Historical Romanticism
Social and historical Romanticism introduced a distinct approach to writing history, differing significantly from the eighteenth-century Neoclassical style. The Neoclassical period favored a highly descriptive historical narrative that imitated classical historians. This approach primarily recorded political and military events, often neglecting the social, economic, and artistic aspects of people’s lives. It focused on abstract descriptions of battles and events, devoid of environmental context or local color.
The nineteenth-century Romantic historical narrative brought important changes. This new form of history focused mainly on national histories, described with a strong local flavor or color. It detailed customs and everything that highlighted the unique and differentiated elements of each people and each situation. Thus, history transitioned from an abstract, objective account to one where feeling, empathy, and regional or local elements held significant importance. This was coupled with a poetic language rich in imagery, similes, and metaphors, thereby linking history closely with literature.
Key Aspects of Romantic Historical Writing:
- Critical Vision of Reality: The romantic historian seeks to explain facts, relating them to the past to find their roots.
- Empathy: The historian identifies with the events narrated, hence the preference for national history and contemporary moments.
- Subjective View of Historical Events: As the historian is always present, everything is loaded with subjectivity; they are thrilled by the facts and often take sides.
- Support on Documentary Sources: The historian’s judgments must be based on real documents, requiring direct access to primary sources rather than chronicles or second-hand accounts.
- Poetic Style: As Romantics wrote with emotion, their style adapted to this circumstance. Prose often adopted a declamatory tone, aiming to stir and convince through poetic figures like metaphors, exclamations, questions, and various poetic images.
Neoclassicism: A Precursor Movement
Neoclassicism was a literary and art movement that originated in France in the late seventeenth century, as the first reaction against the excesses of the Baroque period.
Ideas concerning this vast plan were first unveiled in a paper titled “Pages of the History of Colombia and Venezuela and Illustrious Man of His Life,” which was published in the first issue of The Herald on March 25, 1859.
Notable Romantic Literary Works
- Amalia by José Mármol (1855)
- María by Jorge Isaacs (1867)
- Clemencia by Ignacio Altamirano (1869)
- Atala by Chateaubriand
- Paul and Virginia by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre
- The poem “Returns to the Motherland” was first published in Stanzas of the Poet in New York in 1877.
- The Niagara by Juan Antonio Pérez Bonalde was first published in 1880 as part of the book Rhythms.
Romanticism’s Poetic Legacy
Romanticism, as a movement that arose in opposition to Neoclassicism, led to a lyrical poetry with characteristics very different from its predecessor. Indeed, the romantic lyric was not impersonal; instead, it proclaimed the exaltation of passion and feeling, opposing the dominance of cool reason. It did not adhere to strict rules or canons.