Romanticism
Ken Palmer
The HALF-CENTURY from approximately 1775 to 1830 saw the American
Revolution and the emergence of the United States, the French Revolution
and Napoleon, the spread throughout Europe and America of democratic and
egalitarian ideals, the origin or intensification in every European
country of a sentiment of national identity, and, especially in England,
the first important development of the industrial system. At the same
time, virtually every realm of thought and art underwent a profound
modification of which we still feel the impact. Three famous names in
Germany alone-Kant, Geothe, Beethoven-may briefly suggest something of the
scope of this cultural achievement and transition.
The term "Romantic," which is conventionally applied to the last thirty
years of this period (1800-30), is far from adequate. All historical
labels are, of course, simplifications and fail to suggest the diversity
of life, thought, and art in the period to which they are applied. And
this particular era, which in many respects ushered in the modern world,
was at least as diverse as any previous thirty-year period. As a
qualitative or descriptive term, the word "Romantic" -in its traditional
and popular sense-is strictly applicable to only some aspects of the
intellectual and cultural character of these thirty years. To begin with,
the word still carries overtones it acquired in the early and middle
eighteenth century, when it was connected with one of several reactions
against neoclassical taste. In contrast to the rational order,
regularity, and generalization associated with neoclassical
art,"Romanticism" -largely because it was associated with the art and
literature of the Middle Ages-suggested the "irregular," "picturesque,"
"wild," and distant. Of course interest in these qualities was strong in
the early nineteenth century. But if the literature of the "Romantic" era
was concerned with the remote or the distant, it was also concerned, in a
new and vital way, with the concrete and the directly familiar; and in it
we find the beginnings of modern naturalism and realism. If it was
idealistic, it was also at times directly empirical, and it flourished
contemporaneously with a rapid development of historical study and
psychological analysis; and its critical values both encouraged and
profited from a resurgent and more informed study of the classical.
Beginning in 1798 the "Romantic" was caught up by the influential German
critics Friedrich and August Wilhelm von Schlegel, who gave it a deeper
and more specific group of meanings; and throughout the nineteenth century
the term became more widely used for the simple reason that nothing better
appeared. The Schegel brothers were interested in defining a contrast
between the art and literature of the classical world and that of the
Middle Ages and Renaissance (which they called "modern" in antithesis to
"ancient"). According to the Schlegels, the "modern" is relatively
indifferent to artistic form and seeks instead "fullness and life"- a
complete expression of all life in its dynamism and its endless variety
and particularity. Because this ideal is infinite, the spiritual quality
of "modern" or Romantic" art differs totally from the classical. The
Romantic" refuses to recognize restraints in subject matter or form and so
is free to represent the abnormal, grotesque, and monstrous and to mingle
standpoints, genres, modes of expression (such as philosophy and poetry),
and even the separate arts in a single work. Ultimately it mirrors the
struggle of genius against all limitation, and it leads to a glorification
of yearning, striving, and becoming and of the personality of the artist
as larger and more significant than the necessarily incomplete expression
of it in his work. In this antithesis the Schlegels exalted the Romantic
over the classical, but, it may be repeated, they applied the term to
medieval literature and to such figures as Cervantes and Shakespeare and
did not, on the whole, have in mind the writers of their own day.
Nevertheless, they defined an ideal with which men of their time could
identify, and it is especially as a result of their writings that the
"Romantic," as Goethe said in 1830, "goes over the whole world and causes
so may quarrels and division . . . everyone talks about classicism and
romanticism-of which nobody thought fifty years ago."
Even this more comprehensive use of the term is frequently attacked. It
is argued that English writers did not think of themselves as "Romantic"
or as constituting a "movement"; even in Germany the group that called
itself "Romantic" did not include most of the figures now embraced by that
generalization. Furthermore, as a critical term it tends to equivocate
between the Romantic considered as a recurring type of personality and as
a
particular historical era. Moreover, even as the name of a cultural epoch
the term constantly shifts meaning. Romanticism was not the same
phenomenon in literature, fine arts, music, philosophy, historiography, and
science; nor did it fall within the same span of time in the separate
lines of endeavor and in the several nations. Hence, the argument goes,
Romanticism is a name without a corresponding object, and it should either
be used in the plural ("Romanticisms") or scrapped. On the other hand, it
can be urged that the era under consideration, however variously
delimited, was relatively short, and that within it one can identify
widespread, though not necessarily harmonious, ideals, concepts, tastes,
interests, and feelings. The term will be used here to refer to leading
aspects of this cultural era, keeping in mind the era's variousness and
distinctness.
David Perkins
* *Sharon McElroy* *
without sharing one of your wonderful
articles that took you sooooooo much
time to do, could you? (smile) I
always appreciate them! Thanks!
Sharon (o:
Gabr...@my-dejanews.com
Chopin, like Stravinsky and Cage, received bad publicity at first. Peoples
historically question new phenomena, and hopefully this doesn't take the form
of a riot (Stravinsky and Duchamp).
Are we aiming at Romantic language or vision? Personally, yes, and yes with
reservations. Romantic vision rarely 'splices' narratives, unlike dreams, or
the phenomenon most designative of modernity and postmodernity: the
television, in which channel-surfers juxtapose several preferred 'responses.'
Romantic vision corporealizes consciousness, which is only a half-truth
since that corporeality extends sensations congruent to objectives if neither
identical to nor influenced by their space. If biography, as an aesthetic,
is to subsume the romantic anatomy, so that memory is also considered organic
(cf. S.T. Coleridge's ideas on this subject), I then think similarly that
much Romantic poetry is relevant. Don Juan cannot understand me, but Byron,
his author, whose favorite poet was the 'neoclassicist' Alexander Pope, would
probably acquiesce to the poet's permeation of temporospatial experience.
Irregularity is also an oriental verse attribute; perhaps Byron noted this in
his many 'arabesques.' Blake appears to have read the Tao Te Ching
(Prolific/Devouring, Los/Enitharmon), and there was an early translation
thanks to that awful vampiric institution: the Company, who peddled procured
opium. Kurokawa, the architect, notes an *ambiguity* characteristic of both
modernism and postmodernism. Ambiguity doesn't mean 'vague'; it denotes
multiplicity, and is easiest characterized by puns, though that its most
exalted appearance is in quotation (according to K.) Quotation is an
omnipresent attribute of music and architecture, in which it is invariably
necessary to borrow a few bars here and there, e.g. the doric influence
(Greek columns) permeated many other periods of construction.
We are definitely NOT romantic in the German sense, e.g. no one is doing
anything like Caspar Friedrich, though Fueslis and Blakes abound making dada
sonnets of their lucubrations.
In article <Pine.SUN.3.95.980715040844.23699A-100000@scfn>,
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