Romantic realism

The term has long standing in literary criticism.{{cite book |title=Realism in Modern Literature |last=Becker |first=George J. |publisher=Frederick Ungar |location=New York |year=1980 |isbn=0-8044-2031-9 |page=102 |quote=Essentially exhibiting a paradox, this term has come into being among critics and historians in an attempt to characterize writing of the nineteenth century which is incompletely realistic.}} For example, Joseph Conrad's relationship to romantic realism is analyzed in Ruth M. Stauffer's 1922 book Joseph Conrad: His Romantic Realism. Liam O'Flaherty's relationship to romantic realism is discussed in P.F. Sheeran's book The Novels of Liam O'Flaherty: A Study in Romantic Realism. Fyodor Dostoyevsky is described as a romantic realist in Donald Fanger's book, Dostoevsky and Romantic Realism: A Study of Dostoevsky in Relation to Balzac, Dickens, and Gogol. Historian Jacques Barzun argued that romanticism was falsely opposed to realism{{cite book |title=Classic, Romantic, and Modern |last=Barzun |first=Jacques |author-link=Jacques Barzun|publisher=University of Chicago Press |edition=revised second |year=1975 |orig-year=1943 |isbn=0-226-03852-1|page=58 |quote=I now want to argue against this postponement of the realistic label and to suggest that on the evidence just set forth, romanticism is realism.}} and declared that "...the romantic realist does not blink his weakness, but exerts his power."{{cite book |title=Classic, Romantic, and Modern |last=Barzun |first=Jacques |author-link=Jacques Barzun|publisher=University of Chicago Press |edition=revised second |year=1975 |orig-year=1943 |isbn=0-226-03852-1|page=77}}

The term also has long standing in art criticism.{{cite book |title=American Art of Our Century |url=https://archive.org/details/americanartofour0000unse |url-access=registration |last1=Goodrich |first1=Lloyd |last2=Baur |first2=John I. H. |publisher=Frederick A. Praegar |location=New York |year=1961 |page=[https://archive.org/details/americanartofour0000unse/page/121 121] |quote=Romantic realism, long a powerful movement in American painting, has unquestionably waned since 1940. It has never disappeared, and some of its finest examples are recent ones, but it is significant that most of the painting reproduced here are by artist now dead or well past their middle years}} Art scholar John Baur described it as "a form of realism modified to express a romantic attitude or meaning".{{cite book |title=American Art of Our Century |url=https://archive.org/details/americanartofour0000unse |url-access=registration |last1=Goodrich |first1=Lloyd |last2=Baur |first2=John I. H. |publisher=Frederick A. Praegar |location=New York |year=1961 |page=[https://archive.org/details/americanartofour0000unse/page/121 121]}} According to Theodor W. Adorno, the term "romantic realism" was used by Joseph Goebbels to define the official doctrine of the art produced in Nazi Germany, although this usage did not achieve wide currency.{{cite book |first=Carl |last=Dahlhaus |others=trans. by Mary Whittall |title=Realism in Nineteenth-century Music |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=New York |year=1985 |isbn=0-521-26115-5 |page=58 |quote=The vague universality of the term 'romantic realism', which helped it to become a catchphrase, led eventually to political misuse as well. ... T.W. Adorno, paradoxically enough, cited Joseph Goebbels, who had spoken of 'romantic realism', evidently in order to signify his approval ... }}

In 1928 Anatoly Lunacharsky, People's Commissar for Education of the Soviet Union, wrote:

The proletariat will introduce a strong romantic-realist current into all art. Romantic, because it is full of aspirations and is not yet a complete class, so that the mighty content of its culture cannot yet find an appropriate framework for itself; realistic insofar as Plekhanov noted, insofar as the class that intends to build here on earth and is imbued with deep faith in such construction is intimately connected with reality as it is.{{Cite book|title=Krasnaya Gazeta|last=Lunacharsky|first=Anatoly|author-link=Anatoly Lunacharsky|year=1928|chapter=Romanticism|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lunachar/works/romantika.htm|publication-place=Leningrad|translator-last=P.|translator-first=Anton}}

Novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand described herself as a romantic realist,{{cite book |title=The Romantic Manifesto: A Philosophy Of Literature |last=Rand |first=Ayn |author-link=Ayn Rand|publisher=Signet |location=New York |year=1971 |isbn=0-451-14916-5 |edition=revised |page=167}} and many followers of Objectivism who work in the arts apply this term to themselves. As part of her aesthetics, Rand defined romanticism as a "category of art based on the recognition of the principle that man possesses the faculty of volition",{{Cite book|last=Rand|first=Ayn|title=The Romantic Manifesto}} a realm of heroes and villains, which she contrasted to naturalism. She wanted her art to be a portrayal of life "as it could be and should be".{{cite book |title=Letters of Ayn Rand |last=Rand |first=Ayn |author-link=Ayn Rand |editor-first=Michael S |editor-last=Berliner |location=New York |publisher=Dutton |year=1995 |isbn=0-525-93946-6 |page=[https://archive.org/details/lettersofaynrand00rand_0/page/243 243] }} She wrote: "The method of romantic realism is to make life more beautiful and interesting than it actually is, yet give it all the reality, and even a more convincing reality than that of our everyday existence."{{cite book |title=Letters of Ayn Rand |last=Rand |first=Ayn |author-link=Ayn Rand |editor-first=Michael S |editor-last=Berliner |location=New York |publisher=Dutton |year=1995 |isbn=0-525-93946-6 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/lettersofaynrand00rand_0/page/242 242–243] }} Her definition did not limit itself to the positive though. She considered Fyodor Dostoyevsky to be a romantic realist as well.

"Realism" in music is often associated with the use of music for the depiction of objects, whether they be real (as in Bedřich Smetana's "Peasant Wedding" of Die Moldau) or mythological (as in Richard Wagner's Ring cycle). Musicologist Richard Taruskin discusses what he calls the "black romanticism" of Niccolò Paganini and Franz Liszt, i.e., the development and use of musical techniques that can be used to depict or suggest "grotesque" creatures or objects, such as the "laugh of the devil", to create a "frightening atmosphere".{{cite book | last=Taruskin |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Taruskin |title=The Oxford History of Western Music. Volume 3: The Nineteenth Century|location= New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-19-516979-9 |page=255 and 264}} Thus, Taruskin's "black romanticism" is a form of "romantic realism" deployed by nineteenth-century virtuosi with the intent of invoking fear or "the sublime".

In the nineteenth-century, historians traditionally associate romantic realism with the works of Richard Wagner.{{Cite book|last=Peteri|first=Gyorgy|title=Imagining the West in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union|publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press|year=2010|isbn=978-0-8229-6125-3|location=Pittsburgh|pages=135}} It featured settings that are claimed to have historical accuracy in accordance with the prevailing myth of realism.{{Cite book|last=Williams|first=Simon|title=Wagner and the Romantic Hero|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2004|isbn=978-1-139-45166-6|location=Cambridge|pages=150}} These works formed part of Wagner's notion based on aesthetic realism called the "invisible theater", which sought to create the fullest illusion of reality inside the theater.

There are scholars who also identify musicians such as Hector Berlioz and Franz Liszt as romantic realists.{{Cite book|last=Dahlhaus|first=Carl|title=Realism in Nineteenth-Century Music|publisher=CUP Archive|year=1985|isbn=0-521-26115-5|location=Cambridge|pages=56}} Liszt was noted for his romantic realism, free tonality, and program-music as an adherent of the New German School.{{Cite book|last=Baker|first=Theodore|title=A Biographical Dictionary of Musicians|publisher=G. Schirmer|year=1900|location=New York|pages=358}} Historians also cite how totalitarian dictators choose romantic realism as the music for the masses.{{Cite book|last=Godwin|first=Joscelyn|title=Harmonies of Heaven and Earth: Mysticism in Music from Antiquity to the Avant-Garde|publisher=Simon and Schuster|year=1987|isbn=978-1-62055-095-3|language=en}} It is said that Adolf Hitler favored Parsifal while Joseph Stalin liked Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's piano concertos.

• Classical Realism
• Futurism
• Kitsch movement
• Low fantasy
• Magic realism
• Socialist realism
• Heroic realism

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book | title=Romanticism | url=https://archive.org/details/romanticism0000unse_o4h7 | url-access=registration |last=Abercrombie |first=Lascelles |author-link=Lascelles Abercrombie |publisher=Barnes and Noble |location=New York |year=1963 |orig-year=1926 |oclc=325656}}
• {{cite book |title=Classic, Romantic, and Modern |last=Barzun |first=Jacques |author-link=Jacques Barzun|publisher=University of Chicago Press |edition=revised second |year=1975 |orig-year=1943 |isbn=0-226-03852-1}}
• {{cite book |title=Realism in Modern Literature |last=Becker |first=George J. |publisher=Frederick Ungar |location=New York |year=1980 |isbn=0-8044-2031-9}}
• {{cite book |title=The Study of English Literature |last1=Cowardin Jr. |first1=Samuel Pendleton |last2=More |first2=Paul Elmer |author-link2=Paul Elmer More |publisher=Henry Holt and Company |location=New York |year=1939 |oclc=2861425}}
• {{cite book |first=Carl |last=Dahlhaus |others=trans. by Mary Whittall |title=Realism in Nineteenth-century Music |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=New York |year=1985 |isbn=0-521-26115-5}}
• {{cite book |title=Dostoevsky and Romantic Realism: A Study of Dostoevsky in Relation to Balzac, Dickens, and Gogol |last=Fanger |first=Donald |publisher=Northwestern University Press |location=Evanston, Illinois |year=1998 |orig-year=1965 |isbn=0-8101-1593-X}}
• {{cite book |title=American Art of Our Century |url=https://archive.org/details/americanartofour0000unse |url-access=registration |last1=Goodrich |first1=Lloyd |last2=Baur |first2=John I. H. |publisher=Frederick A. Praegar |location=New York |year=1961 |oclc=422186219}}
• {{cite book |title=Letters of Ayn Rand |last=Rand |first=Ayn |author-link=Ayn Rand |editor-first=Michael S |editor-last=Berliner |location=New York |publisher=Dutton |year=1995 |isbn=0-525-93946-6 |oclc=31412028}}
• {{cite book |title=The Romantic Manifesto: A Philosophy Of Literature |last=Rand |first=Ayn |author-link=Ayn Rand|publisher=Signet |location=New York |year=1971 |isbn=0-451-14916-5 |edition=revised}}
• {{cite book |title=The Novels of Liam O'Flaherty: A Study in Romantic Realism |last=Sheeran |first=P.F. |publisher=Wolfhound Press |location=Dublin |year=1976 |isbn=0-9503454-6-6 }}
• {{cite book |title=Joseph Conrad: His Romantic-Realism |last=Stauffer |first=Ruth M. |publisher=Kessinger Publishing |year=2006 |orig-year=1922 |isbn=1-4286-5840-8}}

Category:Modern art

Category:Objectivism

Category:Scholarship of Romanticism

Category:Realism (art movement)