ROMANTICISM

MAIN ASPECTS OF ROMANTICISM
1. An increasing interest in Nature, and in the natural, primitive and uncivilized way of life.

2. A growing interest in scenery, especially its more untamed and disorderly manifestations.

3. An association of human moods with the ‘moods’ of Nature – and thus a subjective feeling for it and interpretation of it.

4. A considerable emphasis on natural religion (Pantheism).

5. Emphasis for the need of spontaneity in thought and action in the expression of thought.

6. Increasing importance attached to natural genius and the power of imagination.

8. A tendency to exalt (or care for) the individual and his needs and emphasis on the need for a freer and more personal expression.

9. The cult of the Nobel Savage.

THE NOBLE SAVAGE and PRIMITIVISM
- The concept or title connotes the exemplar of primitive goodness, dignity and nobility uncorrupted by the evil effect of civilization.

- The origin of the idea have something to do with the belief that in a primitive and ‘free’ state, there exists innocence, prototypal human beings.

- Rousseau was a pioneer of this concept. He said: “Everything is well when it comes fresh from the hands of the Maker. Everything degenerates in the hands of Man.”

- The Noble Savage is mainly a protest against Industrialism. Capitalism and Materialism.

- Primitivism is a nostalgia for a primitive (or pre-civilized) way of life.

- The primitivist is anti-civilization, anti-materialism, anti-industrialism anti-progress and pro-Nature.

- The primitivist yearns for the time when he would have been: “As free as Nature first made Man.”