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Verwood U3A Zoom History Spring 2021
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STORIES OF HEARTS AND MINDS IN THE 19 CENTURY
OUTLINE
“Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.”
(Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
“True love’s gift which God has given
To man alone beneath the heaven;
It is the secret sympathy,
The silver link, the silken tie.”
(Coleridge, Christabel
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These sessions will look at aspects of 19 century Europe and America. Modern
history can be described as an ongoing debate between the Enlightenment and the
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Romantic Movement. The 18 century Enlightenment was the Age of Reason; it gave
us key modern ideas: optimism and progress, freedom and equality, revolution and
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reform, reason and science. The Romantic Movement, from the end of the 18
century, was a reaction against this; Romanticism re-asserted emotion, faith and
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tradition. How did this debate play out in the 19 century? Could the conflicting
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claims of reason and emotion be reconciled? At the end of the 18 century, the
optimism of the Enlightenment seemed engulfed by the violence and war of the
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French Revolution. Had this optimism been recovered in the 19 century, and
“Paradise Regained”?
