Classicism vs.

Romanticism

Classicism

(Also known as the Enlightenment 1669-1798)

An attitude to language and literature found in many ages and cultures. In the West, it is
based on respect for and often veneration of, the models and achievements of Greece
and Rome. Advocates of classicism value tradition and usually believe that written
language should be governed by traditional, formal rules. They are generally conservative
and often consider that contemporary culture cannot match the achievements of the
ancients. They usually value regularity and simplicity of form, seek to maintain order and
proportion, admire elegance and polished wit, encourage emotional restraint, and regard
literature as art at its best when paying close attention to technique.
(Oxford Companion to the English Language)

  revitalized interest in the values and ideas of the classical world 

 Greek architecture 
 clarity 
 symmetry 
 disciplined structure 

Literature in America during this time consisted of revolutionary writings, pamphlets, and
speeches by such figures as Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton.

Romanticism (1798-1850)
A literary, artistic, musical, philosophical, and social movement that occurred as a
reaction to the overly structured enlightenment.

• Emotion over reason

• Intuition over intellect
• Subjective over objective
• Individual/self-reliance
• Nature—source of goodness and inspiration
• Democracy—common man
• Mysterious/exotic

Darker Side of Romanticism

Imagination
Shadowy region—fantastic, demonic, insane, potential evil
Hawthorne—truths of the human heart (fear, greed, vanity, mistrust,
betrayal) Poe—decaying estates, insane protagonists, live burials
Neoclassicism vs Romanticism

Neoclassicism and Romanticism are two periods of artistic, literary, and intellectual
movements that show some differences between them in the history of the Western
culture. The period of Neoclassicism was from the 18th century to the early 19th
century. On the other hand, the Romanticism flourished towards the end of the 18th
century. This is one of the main differences between the two periods of neoclassicism
and romanticism. Though they affected many fields such as literature, architecture, and
art, we can observe most characteristics of each period in the fields of literature and art.
Let us find out more about both neoclassicism and romanticism.

What is Neoclassicism?
Neoclassicism was a movement that took place from the 18th century to the early 19th
century. This was a movement that was visible in many fields such
as art, literature and architecture. Neoclassicism draws its inspiration from the
AncientGreece and Rome where the culture and art were considered classical.

Since neoclassicism gave value to logic and reason, you can see that the neoclassic
writers have paid much importance to logic and reason in their writings. When it comes
to the subject matter of the works of the writers of the Neoclassicism period, you will
see that the subject dealt primarily with the human beings. For example, these works
spoke about the flaws of human beings. When it comes to art, you can see that the art
of neoclassicism was inspired by ancient legends such as the Odysseus and Oedipus.

Literature or rather poetry in literature was a field that showed much of the
characteristics of the neoclassical period. Diction and grammar were given ample
importance during the neoclassical period. Works were written in grammatical style.
Most works were impeccable in grammar. By reading a work written during the
neoclassical period, a reader could see the mind and the description of the other
person through the mind of the poet. That is because the society was explored and
characters were given much more importance. Therefore, the feelings and the
sentiments of the primary and other characters of the poem are given more importance
and preference when compared to the individual feelings or the personal feelings of the
poet in the case of neoclassical poetry.

The chief architects of the Neoclassicism period were John Dryden and Alexander
Pope. Pope’s satirical verses inspired many a person during the neoclassical period.

Oath of the Horatii

What is Romanticism?
Romanticism was a movement that took place towards the end of the 18th century. This
was a movement that was visible in many fields such as art, literature, and architecture.
Romanticism draws its inspiration from movements such as theEnlightenment and the
Industrial Revolution.

Emotions were given much value during romanticism. That is why you can see that
writers who belonged to the Romantic period giving importance to emotions and self-
experience. Also, most works of the writers of the period of Romanticism are laden with
descriptions of nature. This is because romanticism was more focused on nature rather
than the society which was the focus of neoclassicism.

The liberal nature of the romanticism can be explored by the poetry that existed during
the period. The language of the common person was used in majority of the works that
belonged to the Romantic period. Diction was not given that much of importance by the
writers of the Romantic period. By reading a work written during the Romantic period, a
reader could see the mind of a poet. Personal feelings of the poet are reflected in the
imagery of the poet in the case of romantic poetry. The primary character of the poem
is not being recognized in any manner. He just comes and goes.

Wordsworth and Coleridge are two of the greatest of the Romantic period of writing.
There are other writers too that made a significant contribution to poetry during the
period of Romanticism. These poets include Keats, Shelley, and Byron.

Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog

What is the difference between Neoclassicism and

Romanticism?
• Periods:
• The period of Neoclassicism was from the 18th century to the early 19th century.

• On the other hand, the Romanticism flourished towards the end of the 18th century.

• Inspiration:
• Neoclassicism draws its inspiration from the classical art and culture of ancient Rome
and Greece.

• Romanticism was inspired by the Industrial revolution and the Enlightenment.

• Logic and Reason vs Emotions:
• Neoclassicism gave importance to logic and reason.

• Romanticism gave importance to emotions and self-experience.

• Society vs Nature:
• Neoclassicism examined the society.

• Romanticism examined the nature.

These are the differences between Neoclassicism and Romanticism.

Romanticism and Classicism
There are two distinctive tendencies in the history of literature—Classic and Romantic. At
some period in the history of Literature one tendency dominates, and then it is followed by the
predominance of the other tendency, and in this manner they appear alternately, one following
the other. In the history of English literature, the Elizabethan period may be called the first
Romantic period, dominated by Marlowe, Shakespeare, Spenser and others. It was followed by
the Classical period in the eighteenth century whose important literary figures were Dryden,
Pope, Addison, Swift and Dr. Johnson.

The later part of the eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth century,
whose prominent poets were Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, Byron, Shelley, Keats, was
dominated by the romantic tendency, and hence it is called the Romantic period.
During the Victorian period in English the romantic tendency continued to dominate
literature, but the twentieth century literature shows signs of the Classical tendency.

The distinctive symptoms of Classicism are: belief in reason: emphasis on the civilized,
modern and sophisticated modes of life; interest in urban society; preoccupation with human
nature; love for mundane actuality; satirical tendency; expression of accepted moral truth;
realistic recognition of things as they are; belief in good and evil; acceptance of established
religious and philosophic creeds; attachment to normal, generic abstraction; impersonal
objectivity; interest in public themes; emphasis on formal correctness, and the ideal of order;
popularity of poetry of prose statement; use of formal poetic diction; self—conscious
traditionalism; and rational sobriety of Latin literature. On the other hand, the symptoms
of Romanticism are: belief in feelings, imagination and intuition; emphasis on the primitive,
medieval and natural modes of life; interest in rural solitude; pre-occupation with the aesthetic
and spiritual values of external nature; love for visions of the mysterious, the ideal and the
infinite; tendency of myth-making; discovery of the beauty that is truth; faith in progress; belief
in man and goodness and individual speculation and revelation; attachment to concrete
particulars; subjectivism; interest in private themes; emphasis on individual expressiveness,
and the ideal of intensity, popularity of image and symbol: use of common language; self-
conscious originality and romantic Hellenism.

But the terms Classical and Romantic are not so strictly opposed to each other as has been
pointed out; in fact, one grows out of the other and they overlap each other. In reality both the
tendencies are present in great works of literature, though in varying proportions. In this
connection Pater has observed in his book. Appreciations: “The words, classicaland romantic,
although like many other critical expressions, sometimes abused by those who have understood
them too vaguely or too absolutely, yet define two real tendencies in the history of art and
literature. Used in an exaggerated sense, to express a greater opposition between these
tendencies than really exists, they have at times tended to divide people of taste into opposite
camps. The terms classical, fixed as it is, to a well-defined literature is clear indeed; but then it
has often been used in a hard, and merely scholastic sense, by the praisers of what is old and
accustomed, at the expense of what is new, by critics who would never have discovered for
themselves the charm of any work, whether new or old, who value what is old, in art or
literature, for its accessories, and chiefly for the conventional authority that has gathered about
it.
 “And as the term classical has been used in a too absolute, and therefore, in a misleading
sense, so the term romantic has been used much too vaguely, in various accidental senses. The
sense in which Scott is called a romantic writer is chiefly this: that in opposition to the literary
tradition of the eighteenth century, he loved strange adventure, and sought it in the Middle
Ages…But the romantic spirit, is, in reality, ever present, an enduring principle, in the artistic
temperament; and the qualities of thought and style which, that and other similar uses of the
word romantic really indicate, are indeed but symptoms of a very continuous and widely
working influence…

“The charm of what is classical, in art or literature, is that of a well-known tale, to which we
can, nevertheless listen over and over again, because it is told so well. To the absolute beauty of
its artistic form, is added the accidental, tranquil charm of familiarity…It is character in art; and
the desire of beauty being a fixed element in every artistic organization, it is the addition of
curiosity to the desire of beauty, that constitutes the romantic temper…The essential elements,
then, of the romantic spirit are curiosity and the love of beauty; and it is only as an illustration
of these qualities that it seeks the Middle Ages; because, in the overcharged atmosphere of
Middle Ages, there are unworked sources of romantic effect, to be won, by strong imagination,
out of things unlikely and remote…

“But however false these two tendencies may be opposed by critics, or exaggerated by artists
themselves, they are tendencies really at work at all times in art, moulding it, with the balance
sometimes a little on one side, sometimes a little on the other, generating, respectively as the
balance inclines on this side or that, two principles, two traditions in art and literature.”

Classical and Romantic tendencies, when carried to the extreme do much damage to
genuine literature. The former degenerates into rigid formalism and slavish obedience to rules,
which suppress and undermine all initiative and originality of the writer, as was the case during
the eighteenth century in England. The latter turns itself into license, extravagance and lack of
restraint, which lead to chaos, as it happened in the later phases of Elizabethan romanticism.
The best type of literature combines in equal proportion both the Classical and Romantic
elements. In it we find strength exercised with restraint, disciplined imagination, perfect
harmony, originality in conformity with the highest standard of literary excellence and, above
all, ‘nothing too much’. Great writers like Chaucer, Milton, Shakespeare, exhibit in their work
both the tendencies harmoniously blended.