Romantic Neoclassic

Before comparing various works of different authors who wrote during the Romantic Age and the Neoclassic Age, it is useful to have a definition of the elements of each age which are quite distinct. The Neoclassic Age represents a revival of the classical style. Writers like Swift, Racine, and Moliere are considered to embody the elements of the Neoclassic Age, also known as the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment “Their connection with the classical past is exemplified by their emphasis on traditionally classic values, such as sense of form, balance, discipline, dominance of reason, restraint, unity of design and aim, clarity, proportion, and a view that art should be based on man” (Murphy 723).

The Romantic Age writers, like Rousseau, Tennyson, and Melville, were part of the movement against neoclassicism. This movement and age focused on the imagination and emotions as superior to intellect and reason. The romanticism movement embodies the following characteristics “A belief in the innate goodness of man in his natural state; individualism; reverence for nature; primitivism; philosophic idealism; a paradoxical tendency toward both free though and religious mysticism; revolt against authority and social convention; exaltation of physical passion; the cultivation of emotion and sensation for their own sakes; and an interest in the supernatural, the morbid, the melancholy” (Murphy 884). We shall n

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Mack 358). Gulliver’s Travels greatly illustrates the element of neoclassicism that reason rules supreme. The Houyhnhnms represent rational man perfected, devoid of evil, lies, greed and other weaknesses. Because of their sophisticated reason, the Houyhnhnms represent the perfection of nature. In an attack on slavery and oppression, the Houyhnhnms recoil in indignity when Gulliver informs them Houyhnhnms are castrated and made servile in his homeland. After describing the warring and destructive habits of the Yahoos, we see the Houyhnhnms have the virtue of not tolerating violence against other rational men “Although he hated the Yahoos of this country, yet he no more blamed them for their odious qualities, than he did a gnnayh for its cruelty, or a sharp stone for cutting his hoof. But when the creature pretending to reason could be capable of such enormities, he dreaded lest the corruption of that faculty might be worse than brutality itself” (Swift 451). We see the focus on reason as supreme, a hallmark of neoclassicism, while also seeing intolerance and lack of focus on violence and cruelty which was a focus of romanticism. Rousseau is considered the father of romanticism. His Confessions are in contrast to neoclass
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1450
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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