Romantics often emphasized the beauty, strangeness, and mystery of nature. Romantic writers expressed their intuition of nature that came from within. The key to this inner world was the imagination of the writer; this frequently reflected their expressions of their inner essence and their attitude towards various aspects of nature. It was these attitudes that marked each writer of the Romantic period as a unique being. These attitudes are greatly reflected in the poem “When I Heard the Learned Astronomer” by Walt Whitman.
Walt Whitman reflects this Romantic attitude in the speaker of his poem. He situates the speaker in a lecture about astronomy that the speaker finds very dull and tedious. Thus the speaker looks past the charts, diagrams and the work that is involved with them and starts to imagine the beauty of the stars alone. Being lifted out of the lecture room, the speaker is freed of his stress and boredom and is able to enjoy the peace and true beauty that the stars embrace. Varying degrees of Romantic attitude has affected many areas in our lives today.
A vast area that Romantic attitude has affected is The Arts. The Arts, composed of many types of genre, are composed and interpreted very different. Some people may look at a painting and imagine extremely different attitudes than the artist who painted it had intended. Another area that the Romantic attitude has drastically affected is fashion. As you glance around you’ll probably observe that very few people dress similar and each person has developed their own style of dress.
Fashion often reflects a person’s attitude towards life and may express the mood that the particular person has, this gives each person a unique quality to distinguish them from the rest of society. As you can see, in almost every case, the Romantic greatly expressed their attitude towards the beauty, strangeness, and mystery of nature. This attitude gave each Romantic a distinct characteristic that separated them from other Romantics. The Romantic attitude is portrayed in various aspects of our lives today including fashions and The Arts.
