(Originally Written September 13, 2006 in World Lit)
Goethe notes
Neoclassicism: 1650-1789
Romanticism: 1789-1840?, 1910?
Neoclassic vs. Romantic
Authority lies with social institutions in neoclassicism. Authority lies with the individual in romanticism.
Neoclassicism values reason, moderation, order, limitation and the cultivated. Romanticism values imagination, emotion, self-expression, transcendence, the natural, the primitive, the uneducated and the unspoilt.
Neoclassicism's version of Faust is Marlowe's Dr. Faustus. The Romanticism Faust is Goethe's. Marlowe's Faustus knows beyond human limits and ends in damnation. In Goethe, Faust is dissatisfied and desires what is beyond usual limits and ends in salvation.
The Poet (High Brow) Values: art, education, inspiration, posterity
The Clown (Low Brow) Values: entertainment, instant gratification
The Director (Middle Brow) Values: money, spectacle, variety
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