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Romanticism And Age Of Reason
The Age of Reason or The Enlightenment symbolizes the attitude and ethnicity of the 18th century. During this phase, the main aspect of the philosophy was reasoning. Sentiments such as emotion and faith took a back seat and the focus lay on science, math and logic. The times signifying the beginning and ending of this period are not clearly demarked. |
Some proclaim the middle of the 17th century or the beginning of the 18th century as the onset of the Age of Reason, others have mapped the date to mid 1600s wherein its origin was highlighted in Discourse on the Method by Descartes which was published in 1637. There are yet others who trace it to Britain's Glorious Revolution of 1688 or correlate it to the publication of Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica. As for the culmination of the Age of Reason, the French Revolution of 1789 or the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars (1804–15) is considered as a landmark.
The movement spread over a large domain that included Germany, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal and Spain. In fact, it is believed that the participants of the American Declaration of Independence, the United States Bill of Rights, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and the Polish-Lithuanian Constitution of May 3, 1791; were all enthused by the doctrine of this era. The Age of Reason did not embody any one solitary line of thought. On the contrary, many of the viewpoints expressed during this span were incongruous. In essence, The Enlightenment was a value system structured on the ethics of democracy, reason and freedom.
However, towards the latter part of the 18th century, the movement suffered a decline ushering in the era of Romanticism. The idea of reason was discarded for sentiments, which embodied the Romantic Movement. Senses and emotion were given preference over reasoning and intellect. The movement promoted the inherent virtues of mankind. The patrons of this ideology prophesied that reasoning is only required if man was born immoral but if he is intrinsically good then feelings can be relied upon. These very ideals of goodness and emotional strength endorsed the notion of Romantic individualism. Romanticism canvassed the return to nature and put the artist’s personal creativity at the helm of art. Romanticism also had streaks of patriotism. The movement evoked National pride that paved way for the French Revolution and the unification of Germany.
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