To think that in days gone by (nearly three decades ago) I had listened along to The Lady of Shalott by Loreena McKennitt and was 'moved' at that time to abandon all but a remnant trace of Catholic morality that I had inherited from my forebears. The sirens of naturalist romanticism are powerful indeed. Throw in the Celtic Women in their stage personas and we men are sitting ducks.
Fortunately for me, I had chosen Francis as my confirmation name and the humble saint from Assisi eventually held sway over my sentiments guiding me back to the Goodness, Truth and Beauty of our faith. It was quite a battle.
Thank you Emily for reminding me to Thank God for my deliverence.
Thank you for this continuing analysis of Romantic thought in its effect on our modern world. And thank you for not damning the entirety of Romanticism. In visual art, the visual imagination thrives on some aspect of the wide sweep of drama that is found in human experiences of things beyond or behind “the veil”. That might not be Romanticism, but it does require something akin to it.
Another great post, i agree with your thesis that the mind set of todays social justice warrior is a counterfeit of Romanticism (minus any redeeming features and ideas it may have had like translating and producing Shakespeare). However, i have to defend Schiller, he’s not a Romantic but is one of the main and best known representatives of Weimar Classic, a competing intellectual movement (the Romantics were a nature hike away in Jena), which was opposed to Romanticism. See his About Naive and Sentimental Poetry. Sure there are examples from him which are similar to Romanticism, but in the sweep of his career he clearly repudiates Romanticism. He is friendlier with them as Goethe is, he acted as a go between between him and Friedrich Schlegel in Jena trying to resolve their dispute (very histrionic on Schlegels part, Schlegel never did talk to Goethe). At the same time, the Weimar Classic also extols the “genuis aesthetic” which you touched on as well. Schiller has a fascination with Kant in common with the Romantics. But Classic is trying to promote rationality in the tradition of ancient Greek and Roman culture (see Johann Winckelmann too) and rejects the irrationality and emotionalism of Romanticism. The interplay of these 2 competing movements, Romanticism and Weimar Klassik is a huge subject the secondary literature about which is impossible to exhaust. Related but more clashing than similar to each other.
Btw when i mention Romantics here i specifically mean only the German Early Romantics in this context.
Robert, thanks for your comment! The Romantics are indeed complex, and my purpose in these posts is not to sort out higher and lower varieties of Romanticism or to give rounded estimates of particular thinkers. Rather, it is to show what this Rousseauean variety of Romanticism looks like by illustrating its tendencies within particular thinkers. I actually quote Schiller's "On Naive and Sentimental Poetry" as an example of this very type of Rousseauean-sentimental Romanticism. The final emphasis in that particular essay, in my opinion, is on the need for freedom of the imagination. Schiller does not dwell on the need for a moral center to tether the imagination to reality, although he does hint at the need for some sort of guiding influence. Goethe is interesting because in his younger Werther years he is a quintessential Romantic thinker, but as he matured he came to repudiate this Rousseauistic version of Romanticism and to embrace classicism more and more.
Oh that's great, thanks for getting a copy. I selected the thinkers I did because they are the ones who, in my estimation, have been most powerful for pushing the ideology of democratism--it is probably no coincidence that these ideologues are not what you might consider first-rate philosophers. Rousseau, as incoherent as he is sometimes, has moved the world, and his imaginative vision of life and democracy has been enormously influential. To ignore Rousseau is to ignore one of the most central figures of modernity--indeed its prophet.
This all looks like another attempt to replace Heaven with an earthly utopia. Why is there a perennial human desire to do this--"ye shall be as gods"?
To think that in days gone by (nearly three decades ago) I had listened along to The Lady of Shalott by Loreena McKennitt and was 'moved' at that time to abandon all but a remnant trace of Catholic morality that I had inherited from my forebears. The sirens of naturalist romanticism are powerful indeed. Throw in the Celtic Women in their stage personas and we men are sitting ducks.
Fortunately for me, I had chosen Francis as my confirmation name and the humble saint from Assisi eventually held sway over my sentiments guiding me back to the Goodness, Truth and Beauty of our faith. It was quite a battle.
Thank you Emily for reminding me to Thank God for my deliverence.
Great story! And yes, let us thank God for deliverance from romanticism!
Thank you for this continuing analysis of Romantic thought in its effect on our modern world. And thank you for not damning the entirety of Romanticism. In visual art, the visual imagination thrives on some aspect of the wide sweep of drama that is found in human experiences of things beyond or behind “the veil”. That might not be Romanticism, but it does require something akin to it.
Another great post, i agree with your thesis that the mind set of todays social justice warrior is a counterfeit of Romanticism (minus any redeeming features and ideas it may have had like translating and producing Shakespeare). However, i have to defend Schiller, he’s not a Romantic but is one of the main and best known representatives of Weimar Classic, a competing intellectual movement (the Romantics were a nature hike away in Jena), which was opposed to Romanticism. See his About Naive and Sentimental Poetry. Sure there are examples from him which are similar to Romanticism, but in the sweep of his career he clearly repudiates Romanticism. He is friendlier with them as Goethe is, he acted as a go between between him and Friedrich Schlegel in Jena trying to resolve their dispute (very histrionic on Schlegels part, Schlegel never did talk to Goethe). At the same time, the Weimar Classic also extols the “genuis aesthetic” which you touched on as well. Schiller has a fascination with Kant in common with the Romantics. But Classic is trying to promote rationality in the tradition of ancient Greek and Roman culture (see Johann Winckelmann too) and rejects the irrationality and emotionalism of Romanticism. The interplay of these 2 competing movements, Romanticism and Weimar Klassik is a huge subject the secondary literature about which is impossible to exhaust. Related but more clashing than similar to each other.
Btw when i mention Romantics here i specifically mean only the German Early Romantics in this context.
Robert, thanks for your comment! The Romantics are indeed complex, and my purpose in these posts is not to sort out higher and lower varieties of Romanticism or to give rounded estimates of particular thinkers. Rather, it is to show what this Rousseauean variety of Romanticism looks like by illustrating its tendencies within particular thinkers. I actually quote Schiller's "On Naive and Sentimental Poetry" as an example of this very type of Rousseauean-sentimental Romanticism. The final emphasis in that particular essay, in my opinion, is on the need for freedom of the imagination. Schiller does not dwell on the need for a moral center to tether the imagination to reality, although he does hint at the need for some sort of guiding influence. Goethe is interesting because in his younger Werther years he is a quintessential Romantic thinker, but as he matured he came to repudiate this Rousseauistic version of Romanticism and to embrace classicism more and more.
Oh that's great, thanks for getting a copy. I selected the thinkers I did because they are the ones who, in my estimation, have been most powerful for pushing the ideology of democratism--it is probably no coincidence that these ideologues are not what you might consider first-rate philosophers. Rousseau, as incoherent as he is sometimes, has moved the world, and his imaginative vision of life and democracy has been enormously influential. To ignore Rousseau is to ignore one of the most central figures of modernity--indeed its prophet.