Romanticism was an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century; in most areas it was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism, clandestine literature, paganism, idealization of nature, suspicion of science and industrialization, as well as glorification of the past with a strong preference for the medieval rather than the classical. It was partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, the social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment, but also the scientific rationalization of nature. It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music and literature; it had a major impact on historiography, education, chess, social sciences and the natural sciences. It had a significant and complex effect on politics, with romantic thinkers influencing conservatism, liberalism, radicalism and nationalism.
Romantic nationalism is the form of nationalism in which the state claims its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs. This includes such factors as language, race, ethnicity, culture, religion, and customs of the nation in its primal sense of those who were born within its culture. It can be applied to ethnic nationalism as well as civic nationalism. Romantic nationalism arose in reaction to dynastic or imperial hegemony, which assessed the legitimacy of the state from the top down, emanating from a monarch or other authority, which justified its existence. Such downward-radiating power might ultimately derive from a god or gods (see the divine right of kings and the Mandate of Heaven).
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1842.
Sir Martin Archer Shee was an Irish portrait painter. He also served as the president of the Royal Academy.
William Charles Macready was an English actor.
James Sheridan Knowles was an Irish dramatist and actor. A relative of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Knowles enjoyed success writing plays for the leading West End theatres. Later in his career he also produced several novels.
John Baldwin Buckstone was an English actor, playwright and comedian who wrote 150 plays, the first of which was produced in 1826.
George Frederick Cooke was an English actor. As famous for his erratic habits as for his acting, he was largely responsible for initiating the romantic style in acting that was later made famous by Edmund Kean.
Frederick Robson, born Thomas Frederick Brownbill was an English comedian, actor and ballad singer. During his acting career, he combined outstanding comic gifts with the power of moving an audience to a sense of tragedy or pathos. Although Robson's career spanned more than two decades, the period of his greatest success was at the Olympic Theatre, beginning in 1853 and lasting only a few years.
William Creswick was an English actor. A popular tragedian on the London stage, he appeared with many leading actors of his day, including William Charles Macready, Edwin Booth and Fanny Kemble and was well known for his Shakespearean and melodrama roles in Britain, the U.S. and Australia.
Romanticism in Scotland was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that developed between the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries. It was part of the wider European Romantic movement, which was partly a reaction against the Age of Enlightenment, emphasising individual, national and emotional responses, moving beyond Renaissance and Classicist models, particularly to the Middle Ages. The concept of a separate national Scottish Romanticism was first articulated by the critics Ian Duncan and Murray Pittock in the Scottish Romanticism in World Literatures Conference held at UC Berkeley in 2006 and in the latter's Scottish and Irish Romanticism (2008), which argued for a national Romanticism based on the concepts of a distinct national public sphere and differentiated inflection of literary genres; the use of Scots language; the creation of a heroic national history through an Ossianic or Scottian 'taxonomy of glory' and the performance of a distinct national self in diaspora.
Mary Amelia Warner, best known by her stage name Mrs Warner, was an English actress and theatre manager.
The Anthony Street Theatre was an early New York City theatre which operated intermittently from 1812 to 1821. It opened as the Olympic Theatre in May 1812 and had multiple names during its brief existence.
The Haunted Inn is a 1828 melodrama by the British writer Richard Brinsley Peake. It was first acted at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and was part of a group of plays that used a country inn as a setting for sinister or threatening events.
The Beggar's Daughter of Bethnal Green is a five-act comedy play by the Irish writer James Sheridan Knowles. It was first staged at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1828 in London. It takes its name from a traditional popular song of the same name. On its opening night the audience began heckling in the second act, and by the third act, their dissatisfaction had become so tumultuous that the stage manager "implored a patient hearing, pledging himself that if the opinion of the audience was so decidedly against the piece at its conclusion, it should be withdrawn". The play was harshly criticised by the press for its weakness, lack of action, thinly sketched characters and lack of originality. In 1834 a revised version entitled The Beggar of Bethnal Green was staged at the Victoria Theatre. The action takes place in London and Romford, then in Essex.
John of Procida: The Bridals of Messina is an 1840 historical tragedy by the Irish writer James Sheridan Knowles. It is based on the life of the thirteenth century Italian physician and diplomat. It premiered at the Covent Garden Theatre in London.
Thomas James Serle (1798–1889) was an English dramatist and actor. He was also a journalist with the Weekly Dispatch.
Fortescue is an 1846 three-volume novel by the Irish writer James Sheridan Knowles. He had for many years been a leading West End playwright, but by this stage his career was in gradual decline and he turned to novel-writing. It is set in Cork where Knowles was born and raised. The The New Monthly Magazine review believed that the novel may have been semi-autobiographical. It was serialised in The Sunday Times. It was published in New York by Harper Brothers in 1847.
Caius Gracchus is a tragedy by the Irish playwright James Sheridan Knowles. It is based on the life of Gaius Gracchus, a politician in Ancient Rome. The play premiered at the Belfast Theatre in 1815 and enjoyed a good reception. It debuted in London's West End at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 18 November 1823, following the success of the author's Virginius. The London cast included William Macready as Caius Gracchus, William Penley as Licinius, Alexander Pope as Drusus, Daniel Terry as Titus, Charles Mayne Young as Vettius, George Yarnold as Fulvius Flaccus, Thomas Archer as Opimius, Mrs. West as Licinia and Margaret Bunn as Cornelia.
Love is an 1839 play by the Irish writer James Sheridan Knowles. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden on 4 November 1839 with a cast that included Charles Selby as Prince Frederick, James Vining as Sir Rupert, Alfred Wigan as Sir Conrad, William Payne as Stephen, Ellen Tree as Countess, Emma Brougham as Empress and Lucia Elizabeth Vestris as Catherine. Knowles was paid six hundred pounds for the work by the management of Covent Garden.
