Final answer:
The Romantic Era featured two main worldviews: Orientalism, which idealized Eastern cultures, and the Gothic tradition, which explored themes of the supernatural and the mysterious. Both reflected a move away from Enlightenment rationality towards a focus on emotion and the unknown.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Two Worldviews of the Romantic Era
The Romantic Era encompasses a period of artistic, musical, and literary proliferation that championed individual expression, exalted emotion, and glorified the beauty of nature. Within this cultural movement, which stood in contrast to the Enlightenment's emphasis on reason and scientific thought, two distinctive worldviews emerged: Orientalism and the Gothic tradition.
Orientalism referred to the Western fascination with and depiction of the cultures of the East, often idealized and exoticized in art and literature. This perspective was frequently evident in the era's poetry and music, reflecting a romanticized understanding of places and cultures distant from Europe.
The Gothic tradition, on the other hand, delved into darker themes such as the supernatural, the unknown, and the power of nightmares. Influential artists like Henry Fuseli produced works that evoked terror and the sublime, connecting to the Romantic inclination toward the awe-inspiring and mysterious aspects of existence. This worldview carried over into literature with novels that often presented eerie settings, dramatic and emotion-filled narratives, and a sense of apprehension about the supernatural.
Both worldviews of the Romantic Era, Orientalism and the Gothic, expressed a pivoting away from enlightenment rationality towards a deeper exploration of the emotional spectrum and the mysteries of both the natural and supernatural worlds. This ethos resonates in the era's artistic manifestations, from poetry and music to visual art, all of which conveyed the prevailing beliefs of the Romantics and later, the transcendentalists.