468 Chapter 24
Romanticism: European Culture
in the Age of Metternich
The standards of neoclassical culture that had charac-
terized the Old Regime did not survive into the
postrevolutionary era. Even before the French Revolu-
tion, classicism had come under attack for its strict
rules, formal styles, and stress upon reason. When the
Congress of Vienna assembled in 1815, European high
culture had become quite different. The new style,
known as romanticism, reached its apogee in the age of
Metternich and continued to be a force in European
culture past midcentury.
Romanticism is difficult to define because it was a
reaction against precise definitions and rules, and that
reaction took many forms. The foremost characteristic
of romanticism was the exaltation of personal feelings,
emotions, or the spirit, in contrast to cold reason. The
emphasis upon feelings led in many directions, from
the passions of romantic love to the spirituality of reli-
gious revival. Other attitudes also characterized ro-
manticism: a return to nature for themes and
inspiration, the admiration of the Middle Ages instead
of classical Greece and Rome, a fascination with the
exotic and the supernatural, and the canonization of
the hero or genius.
The emphasis upon feelings had begun in the late
eighteenth century. Rousseau, one of the central figures
of Enlightenment rationalism, was a transitional figure, a
precursor of romanticism who argued, “To exist is to
feel!” The greatest German poet, Johann von Goethe,
similarly bridged the change from the classical to the ro-
mantic. His short novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther,de-
picted feelings so strong that the protagonist’s suicide
began a vogue for melancholy young men killing them-
selves as Werther had, with moonlight falling across the
last page of Goethe’s book. The name of the school of
German literature that evolved around Goethe, the Sturm
und Drang(“storm and stress”) movement, suggests the in-
tensity of this emphasis upon feelings. Romanticism was
the triumph of that emphasis. At the peak of romanti-
cism, the British poet William Wordsworth simply de-
fined poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings,” and the landscape painter John Constable simi-
larly insisted that “[p]ainting is another word for feeling.”
The return to nature inspired much romantic po-
etry, especially Wordsworth’s. It produced two genera-
tions of landscape painters, such as Constable and
J. M. W. Turner, who found inspiration in natural
scenery. This mood even extended to symphonic mu-
sic, inspiring Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, known as
the Pastoral Symphony. The romantic fascination with
medieval Europe likewise had far-reaching influence.
The most visible expression of it was a Gothic revival in
architecture (see illustration 24.4). This produced both
new construction in the flamboyant Gothic style of the
late Middle Ages (such as the new Palace of Westmin-
ster, home of the British Houses of Parliament, built in
1836) and campaigns to preserve surviving Gothic mas-
terpieces (such as Viollet-le-Duc’s restoration of Notre
Dame Cathedral in Paris). The same inspiration stimu-
lated historical literature such as Hugo’s The Hunchback ofIllustration 24.4
Romanticism in Painting.This
painting of the ruins of a medieval
monastery in northern Germany ex-
presses several of the themes of roman-
ticism. The power of nature is vividly
depicted (and felt?) in the stark force of
winter and the weathering of the ruins.
The viewer’s focus is drawn, however,
to the misty gothic architecture
(pointed arches and portals typified late
gothic churches) of a lost and moving
past, which is presented with a strong
dose of sentimentality.