Romantic
& Realisitic Theory / Play Analysis Thea 371
Early
19th Century Romanticism vs. The Enlightenment & Classicism):
Romanticism was an artistic and intellectual movement
that originated in late
18th century
Western Europe. In part a revolt against aristocratic social
and political norms of the
Enlightenment period and a reaction against the
rationalization of nature. In art and literature it stressed
strong emotion as a source of aesthetic experience, placing a
new emphasis on such emotions as trepidation, horror, and the
awe experienced in confronting the
sublimity of nature. It elevated folk art, language and
custom, as well as arguing for an epistemology based on usage
and custom. It was influenced by ideas of the Enlightenment,
particularly evolution and uniformitarianism, which argued that
"the past is the key to the present", and elevated medievalism
and elements of art and narrative perceived to be from the
medieval period. The name "romantic" itself comes from the term
"romance" which is a prose or poetic heroic narrative
originating in the medieval.
The ideologies and events of the
French Revolution are thought to have influenced the
movement. Romanticism elevated the achievements of what it
perceived as misunderstood heroic individuals and artists that
altered society. It also legitimized the individual imagination
as a critical authority which permitted freedom from classical
notions of form in art. There was a strong recourse to
historical and natural inevitability in the representation of
its ideas.
Philosophical
Thought:
Emmanuel
Kant (1724-1804 ): Pre Romantic
(Idealist)
The
universe is incomprehensible to man.
Existence is dualistic, a relationship between the individual (ego) and
the universe. The universe
contains an unknowable essence. The
duality extends top individuals in two realms, the senses (necessities), and
reason (moral freedom). Kant
stresses the harmonization of those spheres and the autonomy of art to reveal
those truths. Utilitarian art
is meaningless. The arts are
an idealization of the ego, revealing the universal, eternal truth hidden behind
the mundane, but present with empirical reality.
Christian Freidrich Hebbel
(1813-1863 ): Anti-Idealism &
Realism
An
extreme pessimist he resigned that man and the truth of the universe were both
unresolved and would remain in an unresolved conflict.
He felt that the individual was similar to a lump of ice in a river
eventually absorbed into the flow.
Johan
Freidrich Goethe
(1749-1832 ): Pre Romantic, Pro
Classicist, Dramatist
Goethe
examined the dialectic between Classicism and romanticism or plot versus
character. On one hand was
the ancient classical pagan natural realistic necessity driven plays of destiny
and on the other the modern romantic sentimental Christian idealistic freedom
driven by will. Developing
the conflict of the ego and the universe he goes on to defend the use of
rational and flexible classicism to address the unknowable essence.
Functions
of Art:
Entertainment
Chance to Observe
Edification
Chance to Learn
Exaltation
Chance to Change/Grow
Economics
Self- Sustaining
Freidrich Schiller
(1759-1805 ): Weimar Classicist (Goerthe),
Dramatist, German Romaniticist
Schiller put Goerthe's philosophies into action developing the Weimar School of
Classical Thought and the German Romantic Movement which highly influenced
Richard Wagner.
Arthur Schopenhauer
(1788-1860 ):
Integrated Hindu Philosophy and further developed a dualistic
universe, ala Kant. The Ego
is separated into two spheres of Will and Determination (striving).
Saw tragedy as the negation of the will and determination through its
presence in society. Called for a new form of tragedy that addressed Will
and Determination (Strum Und Drang).
Soren
Kierkegaard (1813-1855 )
Logic
is finite, intuition is just as deterministic.
Aesthetic
choice based on subjectivity (within one's mind) lead to despair.
Objective choices
(outside one's mind) and
based on moral duty lead to crisis.
Religious choice, by art or faith transcends both aesthetic and objective
choice. Art is a realized philosophy just as the world is a
realized idea. It is a
creation of God and a reflection of Man.
Georg Willhelm Freidrich Hegel
(1770-1831):
Mono-egoism
or Monogistic. Man is
egocentric, platonic in his ability to process and evoke change. Man uses a dialectical process to seek revelation.
The Hegelian Universe
In
a triad of interaction the absolute (truth) reacts to both fate or the force of
justice, and to individual and divine knowledge. Where mans reconciliation to the universe is the
absolute (truth).
Late
19th Century Melodrama vs. Naturalism / Symbolism
Freidrich Nietzche
(1844-1900 ): Philosopher, Determinist,
Realist
Duality
of existence is expressed as the Apollonian and Dionysian modes.
The Apollonian mode is based on the individual, the ego, and is a
compilation of illusion and dreams. It
is nature, beauty, form, and balance.
Its artistic impetus resides in the plastic arts.
The Dionysian mode is the Id, the primordial unity of intoxication, and
the duality of creation and destruction.
It is ritual and performance.
Sigmund
Freud (1856-1939): Psychologist,
Philosopher
In
the analysis of the Psyche Freud splits the duality into an interaction between
the Id, the Ego, and the Super Ego. The
Id being the primordial nature of man, the ego the Apollonian ideal, and the
Super Ego the self-regulating moral referee of the two.
Gustav Freytag
(1816-1895 ) Neo-Classicist, Realist,
Dramatist
Structuralism
Exposition
Confrontation
(Inciting Incident, Major Dramatic Question)
Rising
and Falling Dramatic Action
Crisis
(Forces MDQ to Surface)
Climax
(Decision, MDQ answered)
Resolution
Denoument
Carl
Jung (1875-1961 ): Psychologist,
Philosopher, Hypnotist, Early Symbolist
Collective Unconsious, Dream
States, Archetypes
