The choice of Vesuvius as a theme thus serves to reveal that the shift from Enlightenment to Romanticism was complex and nuanced, with aspects of both often co-existing side by side - as with the marriage of William Hamilton, the quintessential man of the Enlightenment in his commitment to empirical observation and his sense of public obligation, and Emma Hart, whose famous ‘attitudes’ represent a shift towards a Romantic concern with emotional intensity and subjective response.

A similar overlap between reason and emotion, empirical observation and subjective response can be discerned in Goethe’s comment on his ascent of Vesuvius: ‘Even in my transports, I did not forget to take notes’. Goethe, who was working on his great poetic drama Faust throughout the entire period, resists neat categorisation as belonging to either of its two great cultural movements. Whilst he had a thoroughly Romantic belief in the priority of the creative imagination, he shared with Hamilton not only an interest in science but also a reverence for classical antiquity.

These typically enlightened interests persisted into the new century; the Royal Institution of Great Britain (founded in 1799), for example, fostered public interest in science and the architect John Soane continued to build in the classical style (whilst at the same time introducing into it his own highly individual innovations).

Focussing on Vesuvius also helps to introduce one of the central themes of the course: travel, tourism and a fascination with the foreign. For visitors to Naples, the poor inhabitants of the city seemed to belong to a completely different culture; according to Mme de Staël, the city belonged as much to Africa as to Europe. Other travellers of the period went to Africa itself, notably Mungo Park whose 1799 account of his journey was a great bestseller. By this time, the French Revolutionary wars had put an end to British travellers going on the ‘Grand Tour’ to Italy. This helps to account for the growing popularity of domestic tourism, notably to the Lake District, which provided the inspiration for poetry and painting by Wordsworth, Turner and Constable.

When peace returned to Europe after the fall of Napoleon in 1815, Vesuvius was no longer active and Naples had lost its attraction – at any rate, for Byron who scornfully wrote that it might as well be Ramsgate it was so full of tourists, and opted instead for travel further afield. His poetry, which made him famous as the epitome of the brooding Romantic hero, can be aligned with the contemporary vogue for the exotic that also found expression in the Orientalist paintings of Delacroix and in the Royal Pavilion, Brighton. But it was not just a case of Europeans taking an interest in other cultures: a number of former slaves, such as Quobna Ottobah Cugoano, produced their own narratives of their experiences.

I have mentioned here only some of the historical figures and works of art and literature that are covered in A207. Among the others is Mozart’s opera, Don Giovanni (1787) which opens the course with a bang – if you’ll forgive the pun. Together, they evoke the great diversity and richness of this extraordinary moment in the history of European culture.

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Content last updated: 17/06/2003

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