Differences Between the Enlightenment and Romantic Periods

¶ … ideological and aesthetic differences between the Romantic and the Enlightenment Period

Perhaps the clearest aesthetic distinction between the Romantic and Enlightenment periods can be found in a comparison and contrast of the poetry of Alexander Pope and William Wordsworth. Alexander Pope, who wrote "The Rape of the Lock," was an Enlightenment Classicist. He wrote in highly formulized couplets, parodying the ancient epic style of Homer, with a rigid, logical format of poetic expression. His style is opposed to the looser, more personal and reflective style of the early Romantic poet William Wordsworth. Thus, the distinctions between Romanticism and the Enlightenment may be categorized as follows:

Distinction 1: Art vs. nature

The earlier Enlightenment period valued the aesthetic of artifice and the self-consciously artificial style of constructed rhymes and poetic and artistic systems of rigid, logical expression. Nature was approached as something to be tamed, not apprehended with delight. Romanticism stressed the spontaneous, personal appreciation of nature through art, and the fact that nature was better left in a raw state, rather than tampered with. The science of the Enlightenment attempted to understand nature by breaking it down with science, Romanticism celebrated nature in its art

Distinction 2: Reason vs. emotion

The rational approach of scientific understanding and discovery of the world was stressed during the Enlightenment. Romantics stressed the emotion as a valid construct with which to apprehend the world on a personal as well as an intellectual level. As emotions were a part of human nature and human individuality, emotions should be celebrated. The Enlightenment saw the unique gift of humanity as scientific and logical, the quality that elevated humanity above the beasts.

Distinction 3: Classical aesthetic models vs. The Gothic and Medieval of Romanticism

The Enlightenment marked a return to the scientific understanding of ancient Rome and Greece and thus the period valued historical models and traditions in art and science. Romanticism valued the imperfect and natural artistic approach, the intuitive and the magical ethic as exemplified in the medieval view of the world through faith and belief rather than understanding.

Distinction 4: The future vs. The past

The Enlightenment's stress upon science created a future-oriented emphasis. Despite its classical stress, ultimately it viewed humanity as forging ahead through rational understanding into a state of continual progress. Romanticism, as seen in Mary Shelly's Romantic novel, Frankenstein, viewed scientific and human progress with much greater skepticism -- rationalism, by failing to take into consideration the human need for connection could fail, even when science was a technical success.