Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T05:46:32.012Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 7 - Romanticism and Romantic opera in Germany

from Part II - The nineteenth century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Get access

Summary

The Romantic age grew out of the upheavals of the Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution and the subsequent Napoleonic Wars. As these spread across Europe, so there developed a modern sense of nationhood and popular freedom that was expressed according to each country's historic and political needs through their particular cultural traditions. However, a characteristic of Romanticism was its shared themes and the close relationship between all the arts, in particular music, poetry, painting and theatre.

Revolution and war

Eighteenth-century Sentimentality had begun to value the importance of emotional response, reflected in the German Sturm und Drang (Storm and stress). But a major change came from an increasing sense that the Enlightenment's belief in rationalism had failed. The rationalist project had sought to control nature, both within and without the individual, to create an ordered world. But by the last decades of the century it was clear that poverty, crime, disease, war – all the blights of mankind – were still its major condition. At the same time, whatever its merits, the project had depended upon centralist, aristocratic imposition. But as the century advanced so did the power of the bourgeoisie, who increasingly became the real driving force of the European economies. Despite this they were excluded from the machinery of state, able neither to advise upon nor influence the laws that regulated their role. This ultimately exploded first in the American and then the French Revolutions which had in common the struggle against unbalanced and inept financial management, taxation policy and legislation.

Type
Chapter
Information
Opera , pp. 105 - 126
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×