Roots of Romanticism and Questions Answered

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Should magical realism be secluded to where it originated from?

  Absolutely not, reading the work of Marquez was very entertaining it felt like an escape from reality.  Although there was not any one character I would admit to identifying with there were many facets of behavior that I can relate to.  Marquez takes the mundane to the limits of imagination.

Are magical realism and romanticism the same movements but within different worlds?

I am going to say that magical realism and romanticism are the same type of movements both are used to take the minds of the masses away from the daily oppression of reality and change their focus to other possibilities.    I think that romanticism differs from magical realism in that magical realism deals with reality with a strange and bizarre twist and romanticism is the abandonment of reality and deals more in athletics and aspirations.  I think that magical realism and romanticism exists in all worlds.

Is a connection between Marquez and Poe too much of a coincidence or is there some kind of influence derived from Poe by Marquez?

I found a reference to this influence found in the Seattle Times however, I think that this influence won Marquez a Nobel Prize.

“Strange Pilgrims” by Gabriel García Márquez  This newly reissued 1993 story collection by the Nobel laureate makes a perfect starting place for newcomers to García Márquez (“One Hundred Years of Solitude”). Its 12 tales show an Edgar Allan Poe influence infiltrating the magic realism for which the Colombian author is best known. (Michael Upchurch, Seattle Times book critic)

 

How is romanticism viewed by people outside of the US and Europe?   I could not find a reference to romanticism outside US and Europe. But I found much proof of how romanticism is viewed by people in the US and Europe.

Although the movement was rooted in the German Sturm und Drang movement, which prized intuition and emotion over the rationalism of the Enlightenment, the events of and ideologies that led to the French Revolution planted the seeds from which both Romanticism and the Counter-Enlightenment sprouted. The confines of the Industrial Revolution also had their influence on Romanticism, which was in part an escape from modern realities. Indeed, in the second half of the 19th century, “Realism” was offered as a polarized opposite to Romanticism.^[6] Romanticism assigned a high value to the achievements of ‘heroic’ individualists and artists, who’s pioneering examples, it maintained, would raise the quality of society. It also vouched for the individual imagination as a critical authority allowed of freedom from classical notions of form in art. There was a strong recourse to historical and natural inevitability, a Zeitgeist, in the representation of its ideas. (Wikipedia)

I also thought that this was a good synopsis of romanticism I found on the US Embassy Web site.

The Romantic Period, 1820-1860: Essayists and Poets
By Kathryn VanSpanckeren

The Romantic movement, which originated in Germany but quickly spread to England, France, and beyond, reached America around the year 1820, some 20 years after William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge had revolutionized English poetry by publishing Lyrical Ballads. In America as in Europe, fresh new vision electrified artistic and intellectual circles. Yet there was an important difference: Romanticism in America coincided with the period of national expansion and the discovery of a distinctive American voice. The solidification of a national identity and the surging idealism and passion of Romanticism nurtured the masterpieces of “the American Renaissance.”

Romantic ideas centered around art as inspiration, the spiritual and aesthetic dimension of nature, and metaphors of organic growth. Art, rather than science, Romantics argued, could best express universal truth. The Romantics underscored the importance of expressive art for the individual and society. In his essay “The Poet” (1844), Ralph Waldo Emerson, perhaps the most influential writer of the Romantic era, asserts:

For all men live by truth, and stand in need of expression. In love, in art, in avarice, in politics, in labor, in games, we study to utter our painful secret. The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression.

The development of the self became a major theme; self-awareness a primary method. If, according to Romantic theory, self and nature were one, self-awareness was not a selfish dead end but a mode of knowledge opening up the universe. If one’s self were one with all humanity, then the individual had a moral duty to reform social inequalities and relieve human suffering. The idea of “self” – which suggested selfishness to earlier generations – was redefined. New compound words with positive meanings emerged: “self-realization,” “self-expression,” “self-reliance.”

As the unique, subjective self became important, so did the realm of psychology. Exceptional artistic effects and techniques were developed to evoke heightened psychological states. The “sublime” – an effect of beauty in grandeur (for example, a view from a mountaintop) – produced feelings of awe, reverence, vastness, and a power beyond human comprehension.

Romanticism was affirmative and appropriate for most American poets and creative essayists. America’s vast mountains, deserts, and tropics embodied the sublime. The Romantic spirit seemed particularly suited to American democracy: It stressed individualism, affirmed the value of the common person, and looked to the inspired imagination for its aesthetic and ethical values. Certainly the New England Transcendentalists – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and their associates – were inspired to a new optimistic affirmation by the Romantic movement. In New England, Romanticism fell upon fertile soil.
http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/publication/2008/05/20080512215714eaifas0.1850855.html#ixzz2tjE4OCki

 

 

Could it be the same as how we view magical realism?

  I think that romanticism (more lofty) is not the way I view magical realism (disguising reality).

Question taken from our WordPress post.

He (Marquez) concludes his Nobel Lecture by saying that we as a society should try to create an “opposite utopia” in which races condemned to earth will have a second opportunity.

With this in mind, how do you re-interpret the ending of the novel? Does knowing what Marquez truly believes allow you to envision the ending as a strong cautionary tale rather than a hopeless closure?

In answer to Professor Rogers question and the above take on his question.

I don’t believe the One Hundred Years of Solitude, was meant to be a cry for help or a wakeup call.  I think that the novel provided the stage in which we could visualize a different time and place and be educated to the history of Columbia and the plight of its people.  Alternately the ending was not unexpected in view of the rest of the novel.