Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Modern Day Romanticism

When someone says the words 'Romantic Era', many things come to mind - perhaps the landscape paintings of Thomas Cole and the Hudson River Valley school, or the lilting melody of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, possibly the long white veils and folded arms of Giselle's wilis, and - certainly for all of us - the poetry of Walt Whitman. But all of these works are centuries old, and while still seen or performed today, their creation is seemingly a thing of the past. Markers of the Romantic era include vivid emotion, appreciation of nature, and focus on the individual. While the Romantic period has ended, these virtues still exist.

One fad from a few years ago that reminds me of romanticism is the idea of mindfulness. Mindfulness refers to a psychological process of focusing deeply on the experiences that your body is having in the exact moment, and was popularized recently as a form of relaxation and stress relief. In a way, mindfulness is very similar to Romanticism. It places the focus on the individual experience and the importance of menial daily tasks (as opposed to grand and formal ideals) by requiring you to think in depth about solely these things. Mindfulness also allows a person to, at least momentarily, shed the customs and burdens of society as they focus on only their immediate sensations. Oftentimes, mindfulness is done in a natural setting, allowing people to think deeply their relationship to and interactions with nature by way of the five senses.

Of course, mindfulness is not a direct subset of romanticism. It's more like a distant cousin; stemming from similar principles, but more or less detached from each other. Still, the relationship between the two is clear. Even if we work under the assumption that the Romantic era is past and gone, we do not have to assume that everything about Romanticism is dead. The virtues of the Romantic era live on, since they were formative in creating a solid American identity after the revolutionary war. The practice of mindfulness is just one such example of how these virtues permeate our society, even to this day.

2 comments:

  1. I would've never thought to connect mindfulness to Romanticism until I read this, but your argument makes a lot of sense. I like how you described mindfulness on its own, since it helped me better understand the connection to this poetry unit. I also appreciate the Giselle reference :-)

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  2. This is a really cool comparison! It could maybe even be taken even further to suggest that mindfulness allows you to find your inner Romanticism.

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