Romantic Realism - Romantic Realism in Literature and Art

Romantic Realism in Literature and Art

The term has long standing in literary criticism. For example, Joseph Conrad's relationship to romantic realism is analyzed in Ruth M. Stauffer's 1922 book Joseph Conrad: His Romantic Realism. Liam O'Flaherty's relationship to romantic realism is discussed in P.F. Sheeran's book The Novels of Liam O'Flaherty: A Study in Romantic Realism. Fyodor Dostoyevsky is described as a romantic realist in Donald Fanger's book, Dostoevsky and Romantic Realism: A Study of Dostoevsky in Relation to Balzac, Dickens, and Gogol. Historian Jacques Barzun argued that romanticism was falsely opposed to realism and declared that "...the romantic realist does not blink his weakness, but exerts his power."

The term also has long standing in art criticism. Art scholar John Baur described it as "a form of realism modified to express a romantic attitude or meaning". According to Theodor W. Adorno, the term "romantic realism" was used by Joseph Goebbels to define the official doctrine of the art produced in Nazi Germany, although this usage did not achieve wide currency.

The writer/philosopher Ayn Rand described herself as a romantic realist, and many followers of her Objectivist philosophy who work in the arts apply this term to themselves. As part of her aesthetics, Rand defined romantic realism as a portrayal of life "as it could be and should be." She wrote: "The method of romantic realism is to make life more beautiful and interesting than it actually is, yet give it all the reality, and even a more convincing reality than that of our everyday existence."

"Realism" in music is often associated with the use of music for the depiction of objects, whether they be real (as in Bedřich Smetana's "Peasant Wedding" of Die Moldau) or mythological (as in Richard Wagner's Ring cycle). Musicologist Richard Taruskin discusses what he calls the "black romanticism" of Niccolo Paganini and Franz Liszt, i.e., the development and use of musical techniques that can be used to depict or suggest "grotesque" creatures or objects, such as the "laugh of the devil", to create a "frightening atmosphere." Thus, Taruskin's "black romanticism" is a form of "Romantic realism" deployed by nineteenth-century virtuosi with the intent of invoking fear or "the sublime."