Romanticism and Imagination Essay Sample free essay sample

Composers in the Romantic epoch challenged the restraints of a society upheaved by events such as the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. which they perceived to be barren of intending. They therefore championed that the person should encompass a relationship affecting the interplay of the imaginativeness with the human experience of nature and of emotion. Composers such as Samuel Coleridge in his verse form Frost at Midnight and This Lime Tree Bower my Prison and This Lime Tree Bower my Prison and William Wordsworth in his verse form The World is Too Much With Us and Johann Goethe in his novel The Sorrows of Young Werther and Emily Bronte in her fresh Wuthering Heights. One of the challenges made by Romantic composers was their enterprise to get the better of what they perceived to be an being devoid of the human experience of nature and the imaginativeness. which many of them valued. We will write a custom essay sample on Romanticism and Imagination Essay Sample or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page This being was a socio-economic byproduct of the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment. which resulted in a scientific and rational manner of thought. These events spawned what through a Marxist lens would be termed the ‘cash nexus’ . an being and system of believing that is based on philistinism. Wordsworth challenges the ‘cash nexus’ in The World is Too Much With Us. knocking it in the construction of the Petrarchan sonnet signifier by specifying it as a human quandary in the eight. In it he bemoans the nonmeaningful capitalist society that privileges ‘getting and spending’ over a fulfilling human experience of nature and later imaginativeness. as established by his important deficiency of imagination. Bronte in Wuthering Heights has a similar message. disputing the hierarchal construction of Victorian society in a period of category rebellion. Catherine and Heathcliff in their childhood reject the restrictive cultural confines of their society for nature. as evident in the simile: ‘growing up every bit rude as savages’ in the Fieldss. This channels the impression of the ‘ noble savage’ . of the natural province of worlds being superior to the over-civilisation of society. However. the conventions of society as represented by the Lintons coops Catherine. coercing her into feminine esthesia. as evident in the description of her ‘fingers whitened from remaining indoors. ’ Likewise Heathcliff subsequently sees a necessity of conforming and going one of the ‘new rich. ’ Nevertheless. their built-in connexion to nature spurs their powerful imaginativeness. exceeding even decease ; at Catherine’s grave. his imaginativeness Gothically provoked by the experience of ‘a autumn of snow†¦bleak as winter’ ; Heathcliff becomes cognizant of her presence. Thus Wordsworth and Bronte demonstrate that the interplay of imaginativeness as spurred by nature to be an enlightening one that guides persons to pantheistic Communion. promoting them from a universe constrained by the hard currency link and rationalism. The interplay between the experience of nature and the imaginativeness is farther explored in Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther and Coleridge’s Frost at Midnight. Both criticise the stiff restraints of a nonmeaningful society structured by properness and reason. Werther for illustration is equipped with the lesson of the experience of the sublimity of nature being fuel for the imaginativeness. evident in the extended imagination of ‘thick forest trees’ and ‘humming beetles’ of nature. which he argues is ‘infinitely rich. and entirely forms the creative person. ’ It is this meeting of the experience of nature and the imaginativeness of the creative person that illuminates Werther’s vision of the ‘Godhead’ . hence supplying him redemption from an ‘artificial life’ of the blue bloods who ostracised him. taking to his flight back to the countryside to be ‘healed’ . as per the doctrines of T horeau: ‘the wilderness is the redemption of the universe. ’ Coleridge likewise in his verse form Frost at Midnight channels Rousseau in his unfavorable judgment of the instruction system in the same society that Wordsworth spurns. He argues that kids should non be raised in conditions that deny them the experience of nature. as this prevents them from prosecuting with their imaginativeness. which as a Godhead energy opens the door to communicating with God. Coleridge utilises contrast between his ain immature ego and his kid to foreground the metaphorical prison that his schooling was. so afloat it was with the valuing of reason. non the interplay of imaginativeness and nature that his kid will be able to bask. Through the usage of imagination such as ‘crags of ancient mountain’ . Coleridge advises worlds to encompass nature and the experience of its sublimity to entree the deity of their imaginativeness to pantheistically commune and larn from God. the ‘Great Teacher’ who is ubiquitous in nature. Therefore these composers illuminate a challenge to the restraints of society. defending the powerful imaginativeness that derives from a human experience of nature and leads persons to a sense of meaningfulness. Composers of the Romantic epoch besides explored the interplay of the idealism of the human experience of emotion and the imaginativeness. as a challenge to society’s privileging of the stuff and the realist ( as valued by Enlightenment philosophers such as John Locke. who believed that the ‘mind is a looker-on on an external world’ . which suited the scientific guess of Newton ) over the imaginativeness and emotion. Wordsworth and Coleridge both advocate that the interplay of the experience of emotion is necessary to fuel the imaginativeness. leting them to carry through their functions as poets seeking for a nonnatural account of the universe of visual aspects ; for ‘poetry is the escape of powerful feelings. ’ ( Wordsworth ) In The World is Too Much With Us. Wordsworth criticises via metaphor the ‘sordid boon’ of ‘giving off our hearts’ in a capitalist exchange of ‘our powers’ of imaginativeness for material o bjects. The ‘heartless’ person is rendered incapable. Wordsworth argues. is ‘out of tune’ and emotionless. unable to see the dreamer sublimity of personified nature: the ‘Sea that bares her bosom. ’ In Lime Tree Bower. Coleridge intimates in a colloquial mode the manner his imaginativeness is spurred by the idealistic experience of nature that he besides champions in Kubla Khan. emphasised by the alternating systole/diastole construction of the verse form. The arbor is a microcosm. leting him to diastolically generalize the minute imagination of a ‘broad and cheery leaf’ to the ‘wide broad heaven’ ; he is able to see nature as a whole. This idealistic experience pedagogically teaches him that by imaginatively encompassing nature he is able to derive a ‘delight ( that ) comes sudden on ( his ) bosom. ’ Hence Wordsworth and Coleridge challenge the pragmatism and the stuff of their societies and show their perceptual experience of the importance of the idealistic experience of emotion in fuelling the imaginativeness. In The Sorrows of Young Werther. and Wuthering Heights. Goethe and Bronte demonstrate the value they hold for passionate emotion in fuelling the imaginativeness as Coleridge and Wordsworth do. but cautiousness restraint in the utmost individuality that arises. The coevals of individualists Catherine and Heathcliff are in blunt contrast to the coevals of their kids ; the emotional experiences of Heathcliff’s Gothic hero nature and Catherine the ‘tempest of passion’ jar with the more moderate Hareton’s ‘pleasantly glowing’ face and Cathy. ‘mild as a dove. ’ It is Catherine and Heathcliff whose passionate individuality range extremes. driving their nonnatural imaginativeness ; Catherine ‘breaks ( her ) bosom and in interrupting it ( interrupt Heathcliff’s ) ’ . However it is the same imaginativeness that destroys them ; Catherine. in the thick of a mad febrility brought on by her passionate love. and Heathcliff. in a province of dismaying Gothicism with his unclosing eyes. still woolgathering of his love. On the other manus. Cathy and Hareton survive. traveling symbolically to the Grange. which represents moderateness in the bright physical contrast to the Heights. Werther. excessively. is driven huffy by his love for nature and for Charlotte. until his ‘whole imaginativeness was absorbed’ metaphorically by these elements. This emotion fuels his challenge of the social restraints on passionate individualist imaginativeness that is labelled ‘intoxicated or insane. ’ So great is Werther’s committedness to individualist experience that he can non be in a society that denies his lover the bureau to accept his passions ; she can non get away her social restraints of monogamous matrimony. Werther’s letdown manifests in a concluding minute of imaginativeness. in the hapless false belief of nature via the mimetic linguistic communication of nature ‘putting on mourning’ ; the Sun ‘covers itself with a thick cloud’ ; and Werther commits self-destruction. And so. these composers represent their challenge of social restraints and their value of emotion idealistically and besides individualistically. in exciting the imagination- but they besides represent a caution. warning against extremes.