Book Review. ‘The Romantic Revolution’ by Tim Blanning is renowned for its insight into the romantic revolution and its effects on the world as we know it today. In this essay, this book will be reviewed by focusing on, if the aims he sets out were met, was the book reader friendly and was his argument sufficiently made and backed up. His book has a lot of information crammed into 180 pages and he bases a lot of work off the assumption people have previous knowledge of the people, works and ideas he discusses. Despite this being a famous piece of work, it is definitely not without flaws. In short, Blanning discusses all the key elements of romanticism and mentions the most famous of the romantic poets, including: Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Burns, to Beethoven, Wagner, Berlioz, Rossini and Liszt, to Goya, Turner, Delacroix and Blake. Blanning notes throughout this book that the Romantic Revolution is not easy …show more content…
In the introduction Blanning argues that, besides the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, the Romantic Revolution was as, if not more, important, and just as radical and extensive. He then sets out to prove his point in a very rational setting. In his introduction, Blanning writes that the only way one can hope to understand Romanticism is ‘to enter the world of the romantics by the routes they chose themselves.’ His argument is that in order to fully appreciate Romanticism, one must know, or at least experience, its many appearances in literature, art and music. The book is filled with references to the iconic paintings, operas and novels that were born during the Romantic era. Chapter one 'The Crisis of the Age of Reason ', deals with the beginnings of romanticism, the radical shift it caused from an unoriginal event to an expressive visual, how it led to the cult of the artist genius and these same