The Romantic Era!

Yes, out with rules and restraint! Let us eat cake.
Romanticism involves creativity, experimentation, and artistic freedom.
It seems the French Revolution was largely due to a reaction against "the excesses of absolute government.... and the economic transformation of society." There was a large intellectual as a direct result of the Enlightenment. It is amazing to me to see the connections and gradual growth of the arts and literature as political environs change.
Nationalism and how people used "folk song formats" to express their cultural foundations.(the ideas of "individual rights but also the obligations of the individual toward society or the nation as a whole..."
And, probably much alike the reoccurring theme in human history, a struggle between liberal thought and conservative thought that played out via religion, art and literature as well.
Kant
"literature is ruled only by its own laws rather than by morality and education"
Wow, this was a completely new approach and really throws all that classical thought right out the proverbial window.
"Kant argues, however, that using reason without applying it to experience will only lead to illusions, while experience will be purely subjective without first being subsumed under pure reason." The Kantian System
"There is no science of the beautiful, but only critique."
"All bodies are extended" and
"Everything which happens has its cause"
So, the Romantic period gave writers the ability to write about anything! Yes!
And, of course, I will choose a female poet!

Wild Nights – Wild Nights!
by Emily Dickinson


Wild Nights – Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile – the winds –
To a heart in port –
Done with the compass –
Done with the chart!

Rowing in Eden –
Ah, the sea!
Might I moor – Tonight –
In thee!


Yes, this is romantic and inspiring. Ms. Dickinson states that reality and measure have no place in romance, that her desire needs no compass...no chart...to "row" to her own Eden, a man whom she desires. Love, a luxury filled of wild nights.
A sea of love and feelings so quickly stated and aptly told with emotion.
The poem reflects a freedom of expression and no real reference to God or politics and does not relate a moral cause. She revels in a love and writes of it...freely.



Philosophers Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and Schopenhauer saw themselves as correcting and expanding the Kantian system.