The Romantic Imperative

Frederick C. Beiser

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9780674971257
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophical Metaphysics

The Early Romantics met resistance from artists and academics alike in part because they defied the conventional wisdom that philosophy and the arts must be kept separate. Indeed, as the literary component of Romanticism has been studied and celebrated in recent years, its philosophical aspect has receded from view. This book, by one of the most respected scholars of the Romantic era, offers an explanation of Romanticism that not only restores but enhances understanding of the movement's origins, development, aims, and accomplishments--and of its continuing relevance.Poetry is in fact the general ideal of the Romantics, Frederick Beiser tells us, but only if poetry is understood not just narrowly as poems but more broadly as things made by humans. Seen in this way, poetry becomes a revolutionary ideal that demanded--and still demands--that we transform not only literature and criticism but all the arts and sciences, that we break down the barriers between art and life, so that the world itself becomes "romanticized." Romanticism, in the view Beiser opens to us, does not conform to the contemporary division of labor in our universities and colleges; it requires a multifaceted approach of just the sort outlined in this book.

CHAPTER 1

The Meaning of “Romantic Poetry”

1. Aims and Scruples

“Romanticism,” Arthur Lovejoy wrote in 1923, is “the scandal of literary history and criticism.” Lovejoy argued that it would be better just to abandon such a woolly concept, because scholars kept giving completely conflicting accounts of its meaning. What one scholar saw as the very spirit or essence of romanticism another saw as its exact antithesis. This problem arose not simply from having opposing interpretations of the same texts, Lovejoy noted, but also from the lack of agreement about which texts should be counted as romantic in the first place. To remedy such anarchy, he recommended talking about “romanticisms” in the plural rather than “romanticism” in the singular.¹

Since Lovejoy wrote these provocative lines, there have been some notable attempts to answer him. Some scholars have attempted to find common features behind the apparently contradictory aspects of romanticism,² while others have discerned universal patterns behind the use of the term “romantic” in various European countries.³ Although much of this work has been informative and illuminating, it is questionable whether it takes us very far. The problem is that these common features and universal patterns are too general and anemic to help us understand one of the romanticisms, that is, the specific goals, ideals, and beliefs of thinkers working in a particular intellectual context. Even worse, such generalizations are very fragile, since they can be easily refuted by citing a few contrary instances. For these reasons, it is still prudent to follow Lovejoy’s advice.

So, in the spirit of Lovejoy, I want to lay aside any claims to speak about romanticism in general and to focus instead on one of the romanticisms. I would like to examine one brief period of intellectual life in Germany in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the period known in German as Frühromantik and in English as early German romanticism. Scholars generally agree about the approximate dates of Frühromantik: it began in the summer of 1797 and declined in the summer of 1801.⁴ There is also little disagreement about who were the central figures of this movement. They were W. H. Wackenroder (1773–1801), F. W. J. Schelling (1775–1845), F. D. Schleiermacher (1767–1834), Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829) and his brother August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767–1845), Ludwig Tieck (1773–1853), and Friedrich von Hardenberg (1772–1801), better known by his pen name “Novalis.”

I would like to ask today one very basic question about Frühromantik. Namely, what did the young romantics mean by “romantic poetry” (romantische Poesie)? To be sure, this is no easy question, and it would take several volumes to answer it fully. Friedrich Schlegel himself warned his brother that he could not provide him with an adequate account of what he meant by romantic poetry since it would be 125 sheets long.⁵ I do not pretend here to provide anything like a full explanation of the meaning of this very difficult and elusive phrase. I am going to set aside all questions about its etymology and suspend any discussion of its philosophical foundations. All I want to do now is to raise one very basic question about the meaning of this phrase. Namely, to what does it apply? Or, in short, what were the young romantics talking about when they spoke of romantic poetry?

I choose to examine the concept of romantische Poesie because it still provides the best point of entry into the magical and mysterious world of early German romanticism. There can be no doubt that this concept was pivotal for the young romantics themselves. It expressed or presupposed many of their basic interests and ideals, and they sometimes used it to distinguish their ideas from those of the past. Nevertheless, despite its importance for them, it is necessary to note that the young romantics did not define themselves in terms of this concept. They never referred to themselves as die Romantiker or as die romantische Schule. The term was first applied to a later group of romantics only in 1805, and then it was used only satirically; it acquired a neutral connotation, more akin to the contemporary meaning, only in the 1820s.⁶ Still, provided that we recognize that the romantics did not define themselves with this term, the anachronism in calling them romantics is not vicious; indeed, the concept of romantische Poesie was so crucial for the young romantics that we are justified in naming them after it.

Of course, the importance of the concept of romantic poetry for the young romantics has been recognized long ago. It has been the subject of intensive investigation by many eminent scholars, among them Rudolf Haym, Arthur Lovejoy, Hans Eichner, and Ernst Behler. It might well be asked, therefore, what point there can be in reexamining it. My main reason for doing so is that I want to reexamine the traditional, and still very prevalent, conception of early German romanticism. According to that conception, Frühromantik was an essentially literary and critical movement, whose main goal was to develop a new form of literature and criticism in reaction against neoclassical literature and criticism.⁷ This interpretation has taken as its centerpiece and foundation the concept of romantische Poesie, which it assumes designates nothing more than a new kind of literature and criticism.

Let me lay down my cards right now and confess that I think that the traditional interpretation has been a disaster. The main problem behind it is that it has justified an academic division of labor that has had two very damaging consequences for the study of Frühromantik. First, most philosophers ignore the subject because they think that the central concerns of early romanticism fall within the realm of literature. Second, the subject has been almost the exclusive preserve of literary scholars, who do not focus sufficient attention on the fundamental metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, and political ideas that are the real foundation of early romanticism. As a result, philosophers have narrow intellectual horizons, while literary scholars have a very amateurish understanding of their subject.

Still, though I think that the standard literary conception has had these sad consequences, I do not wish to rest my case on it. I wish to criticize the standard interpretation on its own grounds by reexamining the very texts that are supposed to support it. My chief complaint is that this interpretation cannot do justice to the main concept it intends to explain: romantic poetry. Against the traditional interpretation, I wish to put forward two theses about the meaning of this concept. First, it refers to not only literature, but also all the arts and sciences; there is indeed no reason to limit its meaning to literary works, since it also applies to sculpture, music, and painting. Second, it designates not only the arts and sciences but also human beings, nature, and the state. The aim of the early romantic aesthetic was indeed to romanticize the world itself, so that human beings, society, and the state could become works of art as well.

According to my interpretation, then, romantische Poesie designates not a form of literature or criticism but the romantics’ general aesthetic ideal. This ideal was truly revolutionary: it demanded that we transform not only literature and criticism but all the arts and sciences; and it insisted that we break down the barriers between art and life, so that the world itself becomes “romanticized.”⁸

2. The Standard Interpretation

So much by way of anticipation. Before I begin to criticize the standard interpretation, let me, for the sake of fairness, explain it in a little more detail. This will help us see its limitations.

The standard interpretation maintains that the central aim of the young romantics was to create a new romantic literature and criticism, which they developed in reaction against the neoclassical literature and criticism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This neoclassical literature could take two forms: it could refer to the neoclassical tradition of the earlier eighteenth century in France and Germany; or it could designate the neoclassicism of Goethe, Schiller, and Voß later in the eighteenth century, which was formulated in reaction against the romantics. Usually, the contrast between Romantik and Klassik applies to the literary values of the romantics versus those of later Goethe and Schiller.

Whatever the contrast with neoclassicism, the fundamental premise behind the standard interpretation is that the phrase romantische Poesie designates some form of literature. The only question that remains is which form, or precisely how we should characterize it.

It is important to see the precise assumptions behind this premise. It is not assumed, contrary to the associations of the term Poesie, that this phrase designates only poetry, that is, literature in verse form. Everyone recognizes that the romantics also used the phrase romantische Poesie to refer to works in prose. It is also not assumed that the phrase refers to some specific genre or style of poetry or prose, such as the lyric, epic, or idyll; for everyone also agrees that romantische Poesie refers to some mixture or synthesis of styles, a work that can combine many genres into one. What is assumed, however, is that the term Poesie—the genus of which romantische Poesie is only a species—designates some literary use of language, however eclectic in style, and whether in prose or verse.

There is some evidence to support such an interpretation, though most of it comes from Schlegel’s early writings, especially those he wrote between 1795 and 1797, the rough dates of his early neoclassicist phase. Schlegel then used the term Poesie mainly to refer to poetry, especially the various forms of verse, such as lyric, epic, and satire. But he did not use the term exclusively in this narrow sense, because he also applied it to works written in prose. He found it odd, for example, that Herder did not think of the novels of early modern literature as Poesie; although these works were in prose, they were still for Schlegel “poetry in prose.”⁹ Schlegel’s explicit definition of Poesie does seem to confirm the assumption that this term designates some literary use of language, any aesthetic production in words. According to his definition, “poetry is any use of language whose main or secondary goal is the beautiful.”¹⁰ Schlegel is also careful to distinguish poetry from the other arts. In one of his early fragments he makes poetry one of the three forms of art along with music and sculpture.¹¹ What distinguishes these three forms are their different media. While the medium of music is movement and while the medium of sculpture is body, the medium of poetry is language. So, in sum, for the young Schlegel, poetry is only one of the arts; it is that art whose medium is language; and its goal is to create beauty. That seems to confirm the crucial assumption behind the standard interpretation that romantische Poesie refers to some specific form of literature.

The crucial question remains, however, whether Schlegel continued to use the term Poesie in this sense when, in early 1797, he abandoned his neoclassicism and developed his concept of romantische Poesie. The tacit assumption behind the standard interpretation is that Schlegel retained his early concept of Poesie when he wrote his manifesto of romantische Poesie in Athenäumsfragment no. 116, the locus classicus for the early romantic definition. It is admitted that Schlegel later expanded the meaning of the concept of Poesie, so that by 1800 he applied it virtually to all forms of art, and indeed to nature itself. But it is still assumed that as late as 1798 he used the concept essentially in his earlier sense. It is indeed virtually taken for granted that Poesie refers to some literary production, whether in verse or in prose. The only question that has divided scholars has been what kind of literary production romantische Poesie is supposed to be.

The persistence of this assumption becomes apparent from a famous controversy about the precise meaning of romantische Poesie in Athenäumsfragment no. 116. The occasion for the controversy was Rudolf Haym’s blunt claim, in his magisterial Die romantische Schule, that Schlegel’s romantic poetry essentially referred to the modern novel, of which Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister was the paradigm.¹² According to Haym, romantische Poesie was nothing less than Romanpoesie, where Roman, true to its German etymology, referred to the novel (der Roman). To prove his point, Haym noted the remarkable affinity between Schlegel’s account of romantic poetry in Athenäumsfragment no. 116 and the characteristics he attributed to Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister in his laudatory review of that work.

Although Haym’s explanation is seductively simple, it was vehemently attacked by Arthur Lovejoy in a celebrated 1916 article on the grounds that it could not account for some very basic facts.¹³ Against Haym, Lovejoy countered that Schlegel’s romantic poetry had no essential connection with the modern novel, because Schlegel’s paradigm of the romantic writer was Shakespeare, who was, of course, a dramatist. He then pointed out that Schlegel used the term “romantic” to designate “the romances of chivalry” and “medieval and early modern literature,” whose main paradigms were Dante,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: Romanticism Now and Then
• 1 The Meaning of “Romantic Poetry”
• 2 Early German Romanticism: A Characteristic
• 3 Early Romanticism and the Aufklärung
• 4 Frühromantik and the Platonic Tradition
• 5 The Sovereignty of Art
• 6 The Concept of Bildung in Early German Romanticism
• 7 Friedrich Schlegel: The Mysterious Romantic
• 8 The Paradox of Romantic Metaphysics
• 9 Kant and the Naturphilosophen
• 10 Religion and Politics in Frühromantik
• Abbreviations
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index