Berlioz And Edgar Allan Poe Research Paper

Berlioz, Goya and Poe: The dark side of the Romanticism movement

The Industrial Revolution changed not only the way that the world functioned in its day to day proceedings, but it also inspired a new wave of creativity in art, music, and literature. This new wave ignited a yearning not only in those who created the works, but also in those that were inspired by the works themselves. The works that were classified as part of the Romanticism movement contained a combination of seven various aspects. Those seven aspects include imagination, nature, symbolism, emotion, individualism, the supernatural, and the exotic. Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, Francisco Goya’s The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, and Edgar Allan Poe’s The City in the Sea are shining examples of the seven aspects of Romanticism.
Hector Berlioz was one of Beethoven’s successors, but he made a name for himself by being original. Like Beethoven, his work was
autobiographical and he created new methods in composition.
Berlioz wrote a total of three symphonies in his artistically charmed life: Roméo et Juliette, Harold en Italie, and the Symphonie fantastique. Berlioz’s symphonies were notorious for being almost deafeningly loud due to the size of the orchestra that played them. “The Symphonie fantastique, subtitled “Episode in the Life of an Artist,” was inspired by the composer’s passionate love affair with Irish Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson.” (Sayre 902) “The emphasis on overwhelming emotion, passion, and otherworldly scenes marks Berlioz as a key figure in the romantic movement of the nineteenth century.” (Sayre 911) What is significant about this piece is that there are five movements instead of four that were traditionally performed in symphonies of the day. In movement one, we see a young musician that meets and falls in love with the girl of his dreams. Movement two finds our hero watching his beloved dancing a concert waltz. The third movement in the piece shows the emotional
range of our artist as he seeks solace and serenity in nature. Next, while hallucinating on opium, our artist believes that he has killed his love and is marching toward the scaffolds in preparation of his own execution. The final sequence pays homage to the supernatural. His beloved materializes on broomstick surrounded by a cacophony of macabre shrieking. This musical masterpiece draws inspiration from emotion and nature. The inspiration of Emotion is due to the fact that the entire composition revolves around the birth and death of true love, and nature because the artist in his most dire moments seeks solace in the serenity of natural surroundings. Symphonie fantastique was such an important piece that Berlioz, in 1845 he began composing his sequel, a melologue, entitled Le Retour à la Vie, The Return of Life.
Francisco Goya’s The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters is a perfect example of what man’s imagination can truly create, and the symbolism that is ever present in the Romanticism movement. This etching was originally the title page of a series of prints called the Les Caprichos, that included about 80 prints on a large range of controversial topics ranging from prostitution, witches, and corrosive commentary which Goya used to express his anger toward Napoleon’s reign. “According to biographers, it shows Goya himself asleep at his work table as winged creatures swarm in the darkness behind him. An owl, a symbol of wisdom, takes up Goya’s pen as if urging him to depict the monsters of his dreams.” (Sayre 902) The creatures seem to be circling as a bird of prey would encircle a carcass. In 1792, Goya was stricken with a mysterious illness that is believed to be some form of syphilis. This disease plagued him for the better part of a year, and in return destroyed his ability to hear. The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters was created due to the isolation of his deafness and created his mentally instability. The imagination aspect of Romanticism is represented in the piece by the various monsters lurking in the background that seem to be in control of his mind while he sleeps. Audibly shut off from the world, the monsters in his head became the only voices of reason he knew, and his madness eventually became his reality. .
Edgar Allan Poe was part of the American Romanticism movement. His poem, The City in the Sea, was originally titled The Doomed City and was published in a book of his poetry in 1831. It was revised and re-published as The City in the Sea in 1836 in The Southern Literary Messenger. This piece has elements of the supernatural in the way that it refers to Death as a reigning ruler of this ill-fated city, and it refers to the exotic in the location where the inspiration is believed to have come from. Poe began in the last moments before the sinking: Lo! Death has reared himself a throne In a strange city lying alone Far down within the dim West, Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best Have gone to their rest. There shrines and palaces and towers (Time-eaten towers that tremble not!) Resemble nothing that is ours. Around, by lifting winds forgot, Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie. (1-11)
The setting is an empty, aging city that is doomed to sink into the sea. The calmness of the city, the sense of prescience surrounding it, and the inhabitance of Death all give the poem an aura of a Gothic setting. It is believed that Poe may have drawn inspiration for the city from biblical stories regarding Sodom and Gomorra. These cities were located near the Dead Sea which lends the poem an air of the exotic. Biblically speaking, it was heaven-sent brimstone that destroyed the cities.
The Industrial Revolution sparked the flame of the Romanticism movement thanks in large part to contributors of the arts community such as Hector Berlioz, Francisco Goya, and Edgar Allen Poe. All artists, and their works, of that day were influenced by seven major aspects which were imagination, nature, symbolism, emotion, individualism, the supernatural, and the exotic. Without that movement, the world would never know the emotion of a Berlioz score, the imagination of Goya, or the supernatural and sometimes exotic prose of Poe, and the works of that day continue to inspire the arts world of today.