Romanticism FRQ

Please answer the following in a five paragraph academic free response: To what extent did Romanticism challenge Enlightenment views of human beings and the natural world and how did this challenge illustrate changes between the Enlightenment and Romantic views of the relationship between God and the individual?


Romanticism was an era in European history which challenged the views and ideas of the Enlightenment. Romanticism was about feelings and emotions, while the Enlightenment was about order and systematic structures. Both periods demonstrate the ways in which European ideas are forever changing, but Romantic thoughts and ideas are much closer to how people think and act today. The era of Romanticism let emotions take control of the human being, as seen through the literature of Victor Hugo, Mary Shelley, and Nataniel Hawthorne; opposed to the Enlightenment idea where God was in control of the human mind. 


Victor Hugo was a French novelist during the Romantic period. One of his most famous works is Les Miserables. His novel itself demonstrates the changing of ideas from the Enlightenment period to the Romantic period. In the age of the Enlightenment people were creating literature, art, music, etc. for the government or Church; in the age of Romanticism literature, art, music, etc. was about expressing the author's feelings and challenging ideas of their time. Hugo challenged his government in Les Miserables. In his novel, he discussed the hardships that were put on families and individuals all across France because of the government. An Enlightenment thinker would not have cared about how people felt. Hugo's novel shows this change in ideas from the Enlightenment to Romanticism, and how emotions were more important than mathematics or science.


Along with this change from mathematics to emotions, came change in religious views. Now that poets, authors, composers, musicians, and so forth were finding inspiration for their creations they realized it was coming from within them. Before Romanticism, inspiration for music, books, or artwork came from God, not from within. Now these imaginative, creative people were realizing that the creativity they had was their own, not God's. Therefore more creative people of this time period focused less on God, some even completely rejected Him, and focused more on their own individual talents. One of these people was Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. Her novel would not have been accepted in a pre-Romanticism era. Frankenstein, the monster of the book, would have been considered a monster or demon. Demons were considered to possessed by the devil, so therefore her book would have been labeled as anti-religious. 


A final showcase of how views and ideas changed from the Enlightenment to the Romantics was Nathaniel Hawthorne's Wurthering Heights. This novel was all about emotions and love between two tragic characters. Pre-Romantic novels consisted mostly of perfect characters and instructions on how to be the perfect male or female, for example The Courtier. The main male character of Wurthering Heights , Heathcliff, was the exact opposite of a perfect gentlemen. Before Romanticism all fiction male heroes were portrayed as the perfect gentlemen or else so satirical that it was obvious that the male hero was not to be taken seriously. Hawthorne's radical view of love and heroes paved the way for more changes to Enlightenment ideas so that views would become more Romantic. 


The main change from Enlightenment ideas to Romantic ideas was that God was no longer more important than feelings. Poets, musicians, authors, composers, and so forth showcased what it meant to be a Romantic thinker. Being a Romantic thinker was not being a thinker at all, it was being a creative engineer. Creativity and imagination dawned in the Romantic era.