The Age of Romanticism: Painting, Literature, Politics
Course Description
When a poem begins with "Oh," it might seem like bad news—a sign of a breathy, sentimental outburst of feeling: in short, a "Romantic" one. Yet in the period 1790-1820 poets such as William Wordsworth wrote in these terms without a second thought, and painters, in their own medium, found a way to bare their souls as well. In our own moment—which privileges rational inquiry and ironic distance as ways of apprehending the world—we will consider what credibility, if any, the Romantic mode offers us now. Artists and writers under consideration, in addition to Wordsworth: Francisco Goya, Caspar David Friedrich, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Mary Shelley, and William Blake.
Meet the Instructor: Alexander Nemerov
Alexander Nemerov teaches the popular Art 1B course "How to Look at Art and Why" every fall. He is the author of many books, including, most recently, The Forest: A Fable of America in the 1830s, and the biography Fierce Poise: Helen Frankenthaler and 1950s New York. He has recently been featured in Stanford Magazine.
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