Enlightened individuals, such as Voltaire, championed deism, a religious outlook built upon the Newtonian world-machine, which suggested the existence of a mechanic God who had created the universe. According to this world-machine, God had no direct involvement in the world he had created but allowed it to run according to its own natural laws. In contrast, Romantics rejected the idea of a deist God of the Enlightenment and rather believed that “anyone seeking God will find him anywhere” (Novalis). Romantics instead upheld pantheism, a doctrine that equated God with the universe and all that is within it, including nature.
Romantics, like Wordsworth, further criticized the Enlightenment’s objective study of science, which in essence eliminated human imagination and soul. Wordsworth had believed that science and pure rationality had reduced nature to a cold object of study while industrialization had alienated people from their inner selves and the natural world surrounding them. Romantics rejected this objective, calculating view of life and utilized emotion and sentiment in all works of art. Beethoven’s Third Symphony reflected the elements of Romanticism in the degree of emotional intensity. Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantasique likewise evoked the passionate emotions of a tortured love affair and appealed to the irrational by creating a vision of opium-induced nightmare of a witches’ gathering. Both of these musical works defied the Enlightenment’s orderly appeal.
While Romanticism emphasized the human emotion, sentiment, and the bizarre, Realism emphasized what was inherently and actually there. The 1850s beginning of total war, mass casualties, and infliction of disease sparked the shift from romanticism to realism.
Alfred Tennyson’s The Charge of the Light Brigade reflected the Romanticist’s glorious idealization of the six hundred British Calvary men, dressed beautifully to go off in war. Yet, Tennyson presents the realist view of the inevitable slaughtering of these young, honorable soldiers who stand no chance against the cannons. Although Tennyson glorifies these men into the “Romantic hero,” his poem likewise presents a realist view of the destruction and realist portrayal of war. The Crimean War that resulted in 250,000 casualties for a small, limited engagement reflected the advances in military technology. Thus, this realist eye-opener in war reflected the shift from romanticism to realism by the mid-19th century.
Romanticism emphasized the unordinary individuals, such as the “Romantic hero.” Lord Byron in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage was the Romantic hero who participated in the movement for Greek independence yet died in Greece fighting the Ottomans. In contrast, Realists rejected the Romanticism’s emphasis on the unordinary hero and rather upheld ordinary characters from real life. Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations reflected a realist novel that focused on the ordinary life of a young orphan boy, Pip, and an ordinary blacksmith, Joe, in the Britain’s industrial era. While Romanticism celebrated the heroes in unusual settings, Realism emphasized ordinary individuals from real life.
In similarity, both Realists and Romanticists criticized industrialization, although for different reasons. Robert Southey, a Romantic poet, criticized industrialization for its overcrowding population, starvation, destitution, and environmental hazards – all of which harmed the individual. Other Romanticists criticized industrialization because they believed industrialization would cause people to become alienated from their inner selves and the natural world around them. Realist artists and novelists likewise condemned industrialization. Dickens’ Great Expectations conveyed the realist portrayal of the urban poor and the brutalization of human life. Courbet’s The Stonebreakers depicted road workers engaged in breaking stones to build a road, representing human misery of industrialization. Both Realists and Romanticists similarly condemned the effects of industrialization through artwork and literature.