Monday, December 8: analysis of Romantic images: literary parallels

Learning Targets: I can propel a conversation by posing and responding to questions that probe reasoning and evidence.

            I can draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
In class: 1) new vocabulary. Note the vocabulary quiz is on Thursday, not Friday.
              2) reviewing the qualities of Romanticism and applying to images from the first half of the 19th century. Graphic organizer; copy below. If you are absent, please complete the organizer, using the images on today's blog.

Anyone who was absent on Friday has until the end of today to make up the vocabulary test. This was explained to you on Thursday. You may do so anytime but during class. 
As well, I am handing you your notebook, as you have a quick write to complete. That is due tomorrow for a graded assignment. I have noted the blog date in the notebook for you. 

New vocabulary: test this Thursday (not Friday). 

1. sojourn -noun -a temporary stay; verb- to stay or reside temporarily

2.malady-noun -a disease or ailment.
3.  (noun)- boredom, feeling of listlessness or dissatisfaction
4. solace (noun)- comfort in a time of distress
5. cataleptic (adjective)-A condition characterized by lack of response to external stimuli and by muscular rigidity, so that the limbs remain in whatever position they are placed.
6. dirge (noun)- a mournful song or melody, often associated with funerals
7.  (noun)-daydreams
8. pinion (noun)- the outer part of a bird's wing including the flight feathers.
9. fortnight (noun)- two weeks
10. prolixity (noun)- the use of two many words to express an idea

(Alyssia- in lieu of a vocabulary quiz, please write a sentence for each word that clearly demonstrates you understand the meaning of the word. These should be similar to the contextual sentences that show up on our weekly assessments. As well, take a look at Friday's blog for the quick write. Send along as a word document.  Thanks.)

Background information on Romanticism as opposed to the Enlightenment or the Age of Reason.

Plato described humans as a careful balance of reason, passions and appetites, with reason as the guide.

The Age of Reason or the Enlightenment elevated reason, but perhaps suppressed passions too much. For some, the emphasis on reason had gotten out of balance with the rest of human nature. 

Romanticism (also the Romantic era or the Romantic period) was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850.

“The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters,”

With this print, Goya is revealed as a transitional figure between the end of the Enlightenment and the emergence of Romanticism.n the image, an artist, asleep at his drawing table, is besieged by creatures associated in Spanish folk tradition with mystery and evil. The title of the print, emblazoned on the front of the desk, is often read as a proclamation of Goya’s adherence to the values of the Enlightenment—without Reason, evil and corruption prevail.

However, Goya wrote a caption for the print that complicates its message, “Imagination abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters; united with her, she is the mother of the arts and source of their wonders.”

 For Goya, art is the child of reason in combination with imagination.


Qualities of Romanticism

Love of Nature

Idealization of Rural Living
Faith in Common People
Emphasis on Freedom and Individualism
Spontaneity, intuition, feeling, imagination, wonder
Passionate individual religiosity
Life after death
Organic view of the World

 The Romantics were a group of writers, artists, and thinkers who rebelled against the rational thinking of the Enlightenment by championing intense emotion and feeling as the truest form of aesthetic experience. 

Henry Fuseli's The Nightmare

What qualities of Romanticism do you see in this image?

Look at the list on the graphic organizer and discuss with a neighbor for two minutes.

Working during the height of the Enlightenment, the so-called “Age of Reason,” the Swiss-English painter Henry Fuseli (born Johann Heinrich Füssli)  chose to depict darker, irrational forces in his famous painting The Nightmare. In Fuseli’s startling composition, a woman bathed in white light stretches across a bed, her arms, neck, and head hanging off the end of the mattress. An apelike figure crouches on her chest while a horse with glowing eyes and flared nostrils emerges from the shadowy background. The painting shocked, titillated, and frightened exhibition visitors and critics when it was first displayed. The scene is an invented one, a product of Fuseli’s imagination.

 The painting has yielded many interpretations and is seen as prefiguring late nineteenth-century psychoanalytic theories regarding dreams and the unconscious (Sigmund Freud allegedly kept a reproduction of the painting on the wall of his apartment in Vienna). Although it is tempting to understand the painting’s title as a punning reference to the horse, the word “nightmare” does not refer to horses. Rather, in the now obsolete definition of the term, a mare is an evil spirit that tortures humans while they sleep.
Qualities of Romanticism

Love of Nature
Idealization of Rural Living
Faith in Common People
Emphasis on Freedom and Individualism
Spontaneity, intuition, feeling, imagination, wonder
Passionate individual religiosity
Life after death
Organic view of the World
Using your graphic organizer, respond to each of the following as to what aspects of Romanticism are reflected in the painting. There is a copy below for anyone who is absent.
1.

Saturn Devouring His Children by Francisco Goya

2.

Wivenhoe Park by John Constable

3)

The Wanderer by Casper Friedrich

4)                      Liberty   by Eugene Delacroix

5)  Fur Traders  by Caleb Bingham

Name___________________________________

Elements of Romanticism: the eye reveals

Qualities of Romanticism

Love of Nature

Idealization of Rural Living

Faith in Common People

Emphasis on Freedom and Individualism

Spontaneity, intuition, feeling, imagination, wonder

Passionate individual religiosity

Life after death

Organic view of the World

Beside each of the following titles, write one observation concerning a character, setting, plot, tone. Next, look at the accompanying handout, and write one quality of Romanticism that you note is represented by the image.

Painting	Literary Element Observation	Romantic quality
1.    Saturn Devouring His Children- Francisco Goya
2.    Wivenhoe Park by John Constable
The Wanderer by Caspar Friedrich
Liberty   by Eugene Delacroix
Fur Traders on the Missouri John Caleb Bingham

New vocabulary: test this Thursday (not Friday). 

1. sojourn -noun -a temporary stay; verb- to stay or reside temporarily

2.malady-noun -a disease or ailment.
3.  (noun)- boredom, feeling of listlessness or dissatisfaction
4. solace (noun)- comfort in a time of distress
5. cataleptic (adjective)-A condition characterized by lack of response to external stimuli and by muscular rigidity, so that the limbs remain in whatever position they are placed.
6. dirge (noun)- a mournful song or melody, often associated with funerals
7.  (noun)-daydreams
8. pinion (noun)- the outer part of a bird's wing including the flight feathers.
9. fortnight (noun)- two weeks
10. prolixity (noun)- the use of two many words to express an idea