Mark A. Noll
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195151114
- eISBN:
- 9780199834532
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195151119.003.0013
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
The historic Calvinist churches that still enjoyed significant leadership in American public life thoroughly incorporated common sense and republican emphases into their theology. In general, these ...
More
The historic Calvinist churches that still enjoyed significant leadership in American public life thoroughly incorporated common sense and republican emphases into their theology. In general, these theologians condemned the revolutions in France and were suspicious of the “infidel” Thomas Jefferson and his friend James Madison. American Calvinists were, however, not unified; their disputes grew from the different approaches they took to the problems of religious organization and national civilization posed by the new American nation.Less
The historic Calvinist churches that still enjoyed significant leadership in American public life thoroughly incorporated common sense and republican emphases into their theology. In general, these theologians condemned the revolutions in France and were suspicious of the “infidel” Thomas Jefferson and his friend James Madison. American Calvinists were, however, not unified; their disputes grew from the different approaches they took to the problems of religious organization and national civilization posed by the new American nation.
Karl Ameriks
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199205349
- eISBN:
- 9780191709272
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199205349.003.0010
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter considers Hegel's claim that earlier aesthetic theory was not adequately ‘objective’, and Jean-Marie Schaeffer's contentions that the differences between Hegel's aesthetics and others in ...
More
This chapter considers Hegel's claim that earlier aesthetic theory was not adequately ‘objective’, and Jean-Marie Schaeffer's contentions that the differences between Hegel's aesthetics and others in the classical German tradition are relatively insignificant because the tradition as a whole suffers from an overly unified ‘speculative’ and ‘ontological’ orientation. It argues that both Hegel and Schaeffer overlook significant and defensible ‘objective’ strands in the aesthetics and general philosophy of Kant and the Early Romantics.Less
This chapter considers Hegel's claim that earlier aesthetic theory was not adequately ‘objective’, and Jean-Marie Schaeffer's contentions that the differences between Hegel's aesthetics and others in the classical German tradition are relatively insignificant because the tradition as a whole suffers from an overly unified ‘speculative’ and ‘ontological’ orientation. It argues that both Hegel and Schaeffer overlook significant and defensible ‘objective’ strands in the aesthetics and general philosophy of Kant and the Early Romantics.
David Fairer
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264706
- eISBN:
- 9780191734557
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264706.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Milton Studies
According to Joseph Wittreich, Romantic poets empowered Milton by making him whole again through their readings of his poetry in the future tense, so that poems emerging from one moment of crisis ...
More
According to Joseph Wittreich, Romantic poets empowered Milton by making him whole again through their readings of his poetry in the future tense, so that poems emerging from one moment of crisis could reflect upon and explain another crisis in history when, once again, terror and tyranny overruled. In the Romantic period, it became a commonplace to link the prophetic Milton to the Romantic poets. This chapter discusses Milton and the Romantics. It examines the Romanticist readings of Paradise Lost and its influence in the writings of the Romantic poets. The chapter examines his tradition of prophecy and oppositional rhetoric, which found its way into the works of the Romantics.Less
According to Joseph Wittreich, Romantic poets empowered Milton by making him whole again through their readings of his poetry in the future tense, so that poems emerging from one moment of crisis could reflect upon and explain another crisis in history when, once again, terror and tyranny overruled. In the Romantic period, it became a commonplace to link the prophetic Milton to the Romantic poets. This chapter discusses Milton and the Romantics. It examines the Romanticist readings of Paradise Lost and its influence in the writings of the Romantic poets. The chapter examines his tradition of prophecy and oppositional rhetoric, which found its way into the works of the Romantics.
Halina Goldberg
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195130737
- eISBN:
- 9780199867424
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195130737.003.0006
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter outlines the history of the salon tradition in Poland, focusing on the central role of the intellectual salon in the early 19th century. It shows that during the period when Warsaw ...
More
This chapter outlines the history of the salon tradition in Poland, focusing on the central role of the intellectual salon in the early 19th century. It shows that during the period when Warsaw lacked institutional support for culture, the salon became a specifically Polish venue for artistic and intellectual endeavors and patronage. Intense political atmosphere and focus on nationalism differentiated Polish salons from their counterparts abroad. Typical salon activities are described, and the young Chopin is placed within the salon scene. Most interesting salons, especially those nurturing new trends are given particular attention: Princess Izabela Czartoryska and Klementyna Tańska proto-Romantic endeavors, the circle of the young Romantics, Chopin's friends — poets, writers, philosophers, and musicians — who were ardent supporters of Romantic ideology, are also discussed.Less
This chapter outlines the history of the salon tradition in Poland, focusing on the central role of the intellectual salon in the early 19th century. It shows that during the period when Warsaw lacked institutional support for culture, the salon became a specifically Polish venue for artistic and intellectual endeavors and patronage. Intense political atmosphere and focus on nationalism differentiated Polish salons from their counterparts abroad. Typical salon activities are described, and the young Chopin is placed within the salon scene. Most interesting salons, especially those nurturing new trends are given particular attention: Princess Izabela Czartoryska and Klementyna Tańska proto-Romantic endeavors, the circle of the young Romantics, Chopin's friends — poets, writers, philosophers, and musicians — who were ardent supporters of Romantic ideology, are also discussed.
Nicholas Halmi
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199212415
- eISBN:
- 9780191707223
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199212415.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This chapter begins with a discussion of the concept of the symbol as articulated by a number of German writers and Samuel Taylor Coleridge in the period designated as the age of Goethe in German ...
More
This chapter begins with a discussion of the concept of the symbol as articulated by a number of German writers and Samuel Taylor Coleridge in the period designated as the age of Goethe in German literary history and the Romantic period in British literary history, in the years between 1770 and 1830. It argues that the theorization of the symbol in the Romantic period may be understood as an attempt to foster a sense of the harmony of the human mind with nature, of the unity of seemingly disparate intellectual disciplines, and of the compatibility of individual freedom with a cohesive social structure — all for the sake of reducing anxiety about the place of the individual in bourgeois society (especially in the aftermath of the French Revolution and ensuing European wars) and about the increasing dominance of mechanistic science. To the extent that it sought to effect a re-enchantment of the world by reforming perception, the symbolist theory of the philosophically minded Romantics, for the most part Germans, was closely related to the poetic project of English poets like Wordsworth and Shelley, who sought to reveal the extraordinary in the ordinary and thereby transform human understanding of the external world.Less
This chapter begins with a discussion of the concept of the symbol as articulated by a number of German writers and Samuel Taylor Coleridge in the period designated as the age of Goethe in German literary history and the Romantic period in British literary history, in the years between 1770 and 1830. It argues that the theorization of the symbol in the Romantic period may be understood as an attempt to foster a sense of the harmony of the human mind with nature, of the unity of seemingly disparate intellectual disciplines, and of the compatibility of individual freedom with a cohesive social structure — all for the sake of reducing anxiety about the place of the individual in bourgeois society (especially in the aftermath of the French Revolution and ensuing European wars) and about the increasing dominance of mechanistic science. To the extent that it sought to effect a re-enchantment of the world by reforming perception, the symbolist theory of the philosophically minded Romantics, for the most part Germans, was closely related to the poetic project of English poets like Wordsworth and Shelley, who sought to reveal the extraordinary in the ordinary and thereby transform human understanding of the external world.
Nicholas Halmi
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199212415
- eISBN:
- 9780191707223
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199212415.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This chapter argues that the Enlightenment in its multiplicity made the Romantic concept of a universal and inherently meaningful symbolism not only intellectually desirable, but philosophically ...
More
This chapter argues that the Enlightenment in its multiplicity made the Romantic concept of a universal and inherently meaningful symbolism not only intellectually desirable, but philosophically possible. Four developments, each entailing in its way a rejection of dualism, were crucial: (1) the non-subjectivist recuperation of sensible intuition in the disciplines comprising ‘ natural history’; (2) the interpretation of humanity's cognitive relation to nature in terms of a microcosm-macrocosm analogy; (3) the increased acceptance of metaphysical monism after the reported affirmation of Spinoza's philosophy by the much-admired Lessing; and (4) the replacement of mechanistic with vitalist theories of matter in the later 18th century. These developments were not necessarily compatible with each other: vitalism, for example, rejected the mechanistic concepts that Spinoza applied more rigorously and comprehensively than anyone else. But by a process of syncretic assimilation the Romantics, especially Schelling (with active encouragement from Goethe), undertook to develop out of the various anti-dualist tendencies in Enlightenment thought ‘a markedly unified interpretation of matter and spirit, of nature and history, as elements of a single ascending process’ — in short, the Naturphilosophie on which the claims for the symbol would be based.Less
This chapter argues that the Enlightenment in its multiplicity made the Romantic concept of a universal and inherently meaningful symbolism not only intellectually desirable, but philosophically possible. Four developments, each entailing in its way a rejection of dualism, were crucial: (1) the non-subjectivist recuperation of sensible intuition in the disciplines comprising ‘ natural history’; (2) the interpretation of humanity's cognitive relation to nature in terms of a microcosm-macrocosm analogy; (3) the increased acceptance of metaphysical monism after the reported affirmation of Spinoza's philosophy by the much-admired Lessing; and (4) the replacement of mechanistic with vitalist theories of matter in the later 18th century. These developments were not necessarily compatible with each other: vitalism, for example, rejected the mechanistic concepts that Spinoza applied more rigorously and comprehensively than anyone else. But by a process of syncretic assimilation the Romantics, especially Schelling (with active encouragement from Goethe), undertook to develop out of the various anti-dualist tendencies in Enlightenment thought ‘a markedly unified interpretation of matter and spirit, of nature and history, as elements of a single ascending process’ — in short, the Naturphilosophie on which the claims for the symbol would be based.
Nicholas Halmi
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199212415
- eISBN:
- 9780191707223
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199212415.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This chapter explores the theological nature of the Romantic concept. It argues that to claim the concept for theology is to reclaim it from aesthetics, and in that respect, the claim constitutes an ...
More
This chapter explores the theological nature of the Romantic concept. It argues that to claim the concept for theology is to reclaim it from aesthetics, and in that respect, the claim constitutes an assertion of custodial rights rather than an act of explanation. What the symbol gains by being subsumed under the category of the theological is not greater clarity but greater legitimacy, since its irrationality can now be dignified as a mystery of transcendent origin. Underlying this claim is the assumption that the institutional divisions between the fields of theology and literary criticism correspond to actual distinctions between the chosen objects of study of these fields, so that whatever concerns the theologian should not concern the literary critic or intellectual historian. An important question is whether the appeal to transcendence is even necessary, as far as the historical legitimacy of the Romantic symbol is concerned. If the concept's irrational content can be explained rationally in terms of its social function, then it should not require the protective custody of a discipline in which inexplicable mysteries are accepted as a norm. The chapter shows that accepting the concept on the Romantics' terms rather than claiming it for a particular discipline entails the risk of discovering that it is not what it seems: that it is neither strictly aesthetic nor theological but sui generic.Less
This chapter explores the theological nature of the Romantic concept. It argues that to claim the concept for theology is to reclaim it from aesthetics, and in that respect, the claim constitutes an assertion of custodial rights rather than an act of explanation. What the symbol gains by being subsumed under the category of the theological is not greater clarity but greater legitimacy, since its irrationality can now be dignified as a mystery of transcendent origin. Underlying this claim is the assumption that the institutional divisions between the fields of theology and literary criticism correspond to actual distinctions between the chosen objects of study of these fields, so that whatever concerns the theologian should not concern the literary critic or intellectual historian. An important question is whether the appeal to transcendence is even necessary, as far as the historical legitimacy of the Romantic symbol is concerned. If the concept's irrational content can be explained rationally in terms of its social function, then it should not require the protective custody of a discipline in which inexplicable mysteries are accepted as a norm. The chapter shows that accepting the concept on the Romantics' terms rather than claiming it for a particular discipline entails the risk of discovering that it is not what it seems: that it is neither strictly aesthetic nor theological but sui generic.
Nicholas Halmi
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199212415
- eISBN:
- 9780191707223
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199212415.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
The ‘discovery’ of the symbol in antiquity may be understood as a response to the obstacles confronting the creation of a ‘new mythology’, a project conceived by the early German Romantics in ...
More
The ‘discovery’ of the symbol in antiquity may be understood as a response to the obstacles confronting the creation of a ‘new mythology’, a project conceived by the early German Romantics in explicit opposition to classical mythology. Although the purpose of an oppositional definition is to privilege one term at the expense of another, the logic of opposition renders the term to be privileged entirely dependent on the one to be suppressed: having determined to distinguish their prospective mythology from an existing one, the Romantics could hardly avoid referring to the latter. But it was not only for definitional reasons that the one mythology proved impossible to disentangle fully from the other. Just as the Querelle des anciens et des modernes, inaugurated in the late 17th century as an assertion of advancements in knowledge and manners since antiquity, paradoxically stimulated a half-century of intense interest in and identification with antiquity — the age of Winckelmann and Thomas Percy — so the Romantics wound up answering their call for a new mythology by seeking assistance from the old. This chapter argues that there were limits to the amount of assistance they could accept, and that one of those limits was reached in the project of a new mythology, with which the early German Romantics sought to continue the emancipatory work of enlightenment by the very means from which the Enlightenment had imagined itself to have been emancipated.Less
The ‘discovery’ of the symbol in antiquity may be understood as a response to the obstacles confronting the creation of a ‘new mythology’, a project conceived by the early German Romantics in explicit opposition to classical mythology. Although the purpose of an oppositional definition is to privilege one term at the expense of another, the logic of opposition renders the term to be privileged entirely dependent on the one to be suppressed: having determined to distinguish their prospective mythology from an existing one, the Romantics could hardly avoid referring to the latter. But it was not only for definitional reasons that the one mythology proved impossible to disentangle fully from the other. Just as the Querelle des anciens et des modernes, inaugurated in the late 17th century as an assertion of advancements in knowledge and manners since antiquity, paradoxically stimulated a half-century of intense interest in and identification with antiquity — the age of Winckelmann and Thomas Percy — so the Romantics wound up answering their call for a new mythology by seeking assistance from the old. This chapter argues that there were limits to the amount of assistance they could accept, and that one of those limits was reached in the project of a new mythology, with which the early German Romantics sought to continue the emancipatory work of enlightenment by the very means from which the Enlightenment had imagined itself to have been emancipated.
Mary Ann Smart
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520239951
- eISBN:
- 9780520939875
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520239951.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
When Friedrich Nietzsche dubbed Richard Wagner “the most enthusiastic mimomaniac” ever to exist, he was objecting to a hollowness he felt in the music, a crowding out of any true dramatic impulse by ...
More
When Friedrich Nietzsche dubbed Richard Wagner “the most enthusiastic mimomaniac” ever to exist, he was objecting to a hollowness he felt in the music, a crowding out of any true dramatic impulse by extravagant poses and constant nervous movements. This book takes Nietzsche's accusation as an invitation to listen to Wagner's music—and that of several of his near-contemporaries—for the way it serves to intensify the visible and the enacted. This productive fusion of music and stage movement often arises when music forsakes the autonomy so prized by the Romantics to function mimetically, underlining the sighs of a Vincenzo Bellini heroine, for instance, or the authoritarian footsteps of a Giuseppe Verdi baritone. The book tracks such effects through readings of operas by Daniel Auber, Bellini, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Verdi, and Wagner. Listening for gestural music, it finds resemblance in unexpected places: between the overwrought scenes of supplication in French melodrama of the 1820s and a cluster of late Verdi arias that end with the soprano falling to her knees, or between the mute heroine of Auber's La Muette de Portici and the solemn, almost theological pantomimic tableaux Wagner builds around characters such as Sieglinde or Kundry. The book shows how attention to gesture suggests a new approach to the representation of gender in this repertoire, replacing aural analogies for voyeurism and objectification with a more specifically musical sense of how music can surround, propel, and animate the body on stage.Less
When Friedrich Nietzsche dubbed Richard Wagner “the most enthusiastic mimomaniac” ever to exist, he was objecting to a hollowness he felt in the music, a crowding out of any true dramatic impulse by extravagant poses and constant nervous movements. This book takes Nietzsche's accusation as an invitation to listen to Wagner's music—and that of several of his near-contemporaries—for the way it serves to intensify the visible and the enacted. This productive fusion of music and stage movement often arises when music forsakes the autonomy so prized by the Romantics to function mimetically, underlining the sighs of a Vincenzo Bellini heroine, for instance, or the authoritarian footsteps of a Giuseppe Verdi baritone. The book tracks such effects through readings of operas by Daniel Auber, Bellini, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Verdi, and Wagner. Listening for gestural music, it finds resemblance in unexpected places: between the overwrought scenes of supplication in French melodrama of the 1820s and a cluster of late Verdi arias that end with the soprano falling to her knees, or between the mute heroine of Auber's La Muette de Portici and the solemn, almost theological pantomimic tableaux Wagner builds around characters such as Sieglinde or Kundry. The book shows how attention to gesture suggests a new approach to the representation of gender in this repertoire, replacing aural analogies for voyeurism and objectification with a more specifically musical sense of how music can surround, propel, and animate the body on stage.
Douglas Hedley
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199563340
- eISBN:
- 9780191731303
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199563340.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion, Religious Studies
This chapter extends a project begun in the book Living Forms of the Imagination, which involves a defence of the cognitive significance of imagination. Imagination and fantasy are distinguished and ...
More
This chapter extends a project begun in the book Living Forms of the Imagination, which involves a defence of the cognitive significance of imagination. Imagination and fantasy are distinguished and Vico, Shakespeare, Plato, Aristotle, and others are employed to challenge modern and contemporary disparaging of imagination. Personal identity is articulated in terms of imagination and values. A robustly romantic account of imagination in the tradition of Coleridge is defended against attacks stemming from the Enlightenment.Less
This chapter extends a project begun in the book Living Forms of the Imagination, which involves a defence of the cognitive significance of imagination. Imagination and fantasy are distinguished and Vico, Shakespeare, Plato, Aristotle, and others are employed to challenge modern and contemporary disparaging of imagination. Personal identity is articulated in terms of imagination and values. A robustly romantic account of imagination in the tradition of Coleridge is defended against attacks stemming from the Enlightenment.
Timothy Saunders, Charles Martindale, Ralph Pite, and Mathilde Skoie (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199588541
- eISBN:
- 9780191741845
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199588541.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book provides discussion of the relationship between Romanticism and Roman antiquity. Encompassing literature, music, sculpture, film, history, politics, and scholarship, it assesses the ...
More
This book provides discussion of the relationship between Romanticism and Roman antiquity. Encompassing literature, music, sculpture, film, history, politics, and scholarship, it assesses the influence that ancient Roman culture has had upon Romanticism, and that Romanticism has had upon the understanding of the ancient Romans up to the present day. Part One takes a selection of general themes and motifs — republicanism, time, originality, and love — and assesses how these themes and motifs circulate between Roman antiquity and Romanticism. Part Two contains case-studies of specific engagements between those who were alive in the so-called Romantic Period and specific aspects of Roman antiquity. Part Three then evaluates the reception of Romanticism in authors, writings, operas, and films that appeared after, and in full consciousness of, the formulation of this concept; it considers how these receptions are in turn shaped by and shaping the simultaneous reception of the ancient Romans. By highlighting in this way the key role that the Romans played in the creation and development of Romanticism, and that Romanticism has since played in conceptions of the Romans, this book initiates not only a reassessment of the relationship between its two protagonists, but a new understanding of each of them individually.Less
This book provides discussion of the relationship between Romanticism and Roman antiquity. Encompassing literature, music, sculpture, film, history, politics, and scholarship, it assesses the influence that ancient Roman culture has had upon Romanticism, and that Romanticism has had upon the understanding of the ancient Romans up to the present day. Part One takes a selection of general themes and motifs — republicanism, time, originality, and love — and assesses how these themes and motifs circulate between Roman antiquity and Romanticism. Part Two contains case-studies of specific engagements between those who were alive in the so-called Romantic Period and specific aspects of Roman antiquity. Part Three then evaluates the reception of Romanticism in authors, writings, operas, and films that appeared after, and in full consciousness of, the formulation of this concept; it considers how these receptions are in turn shaped by and shaping the simultaneous reception of the ancient Romans. By highlighting in this way the key role that the Romans played in the creation and development of Romanticism, and that Romanticism has since played in conceptions of the Romans, this book initiates not only a reassessment of the relationship between its two protagonists, but a new understanding of each of them individually.
Vittorio Hösle
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691167190
- eISBN:
- 9781400883042
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691167190.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This book provides an original history of German-language philosophy from the Middle Ages to today. In an accessible narrative that explains complex ideas in clear language, the book traces the ...
More
This book provides an original history of German-language philosophy from the Middle Ages to today. In an accessible narrative that explains complex ideas in clear language, the book traces the evolution of German philosophy and describes its central influence on other aspects of German culture, including literature, politics, and science. Starting with the medieval mystic Meister Eckhart, the book addresses the philosophical changes brought about by Luther's Reformation, and then presents a detailed account of the classical age of German philosophy, including the work of Leibniz and Kant; the rise of a new form of humanities in Lessing, Hamann, Herder, and Schiller; the early Romantics; and the Idealists Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. The following chapters investigate the collapse of the German synthesis in Schopenhauer, Feuerbach, Marx, and Nietzsche. Turning to the twentieth century, the book explores the rise of analytical philosophy in Frege and the Vienna and Berlin circles; the foundation of the historical sciences in Neo-Kantianism and Dilthey; Husserl's phenomenology and its radical alteration by Heidegger; the Nazi philosophers Gehlen and Schmitt; and the main West German philosophers, including Gadamer, Jonas, and those of the two Frankfurt schools. Arguing that there was a distinctive German philosophical tradition from the mid-eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, the book closes by examining why that tradition largely ended in the decades after World War II.Less
This book provides an original history of German-language philosophy from the Middle Ages to today. In an accessible narrative that explains complex ideas in clear language, the book traces the evolution of German philosophy and describes its central influence on other aspects of German culture, including literature, politics, and science. Starting with the medieval mystic Meister Eckhart, the book addresses the philosophical changes brought about by Luther's Reformation, and then presents a detailed account of the classical age of German philosophy, including the work of Leibniz and Kant; the rise of a new form of humanities in Lessing, Hamann, Herder, and Schiller; the early Romantics; and the Idealists Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. The following chapters investigate the collapse of the German synthesis in Schopenhauer, Feuerbach, Marx, and Nietzsche. Turning to the twentieth century, the book explores the rise of analytical philosophy in Frege and the Vienna and Berlin circles; the foundation of the historical sciences in Neo-Kantianism and Dilthey; Husserl's phenomenology and its radical alteration by Heidegger; the Nazi philosophers Gehlen and Schmitt; and the main West German philosophers, including Gadamer, Jonas, and those of the two Frankfurt schools. Arguing that there was a distinctive German philosophical tradition from the mid-eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, the book closes by examining why that tradition largely ended in the decades after World War II.
Jonathan Bate
- Published in print:
- 1989
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198129943
- eISBN:
- 9780191671883
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198129943.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
Although it is well known that the Romantics were obsessed with Shakespeare, extraordinarily little attention has been paid to how this affected their creative practice and their theories of the ...
More
Although it is well known that the Romantics were obsessed with Shakespeare, extraordinarily little attention has been paid to how this affected their creative practice and their theories of the imagination. Yet Shakespeare's effect on both was crucial, as the book shows in this study, which includes the first full critical discussions of Shakespeare and Wordsworth, and of the influence of the plays on the poetry of Blake and Coleridge. The book also offers a fresh account of Shakespeare's powerful presence in the letters and poems of Keats and Byron, and in the Romantic drama, especially in Shelley's The Cenci.Less
Although it is well known that the Romantics were obsessed with Shakespeare, extraordinarily little attention has been paid to how this affected their creative practice and their theories of the imagination. Yet Shakespeare's effect on both was crucial, as the book shows in this study, which includes the first full critical discussions of Shakespeare and Wordsworth, and of the influence of the plays on the poetry of Blake and Coleridge. The book also offers a fresh account of Shakespeare's powerful presence in the letters and poems of Keats and Byron, and in the Romantic drama, especially in Shelley's The Cenci.
Leon Chai
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195142822
- eISBN:
- 9780199850297
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195142822.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
Herman Melville's first few exposures to European culture took place during the 1850s, when the authority of the Romanticism movement was rarely challenged. Matthew Arnold's Essays in Criticism posed ...
More
Herman Melville's first few exposures to European culture took place during the 1850s, when the authority of the Romanticism movement was rarely challenged. Matthew Arnold's Essays in Criticism posed a major change in this situation, as he asserts that if Romantics had convinced themselves to read more, they would have cultivated their capability to ask more questions. It could be observed that Melville's works drew from answer to question instead of the other way around, since his works initially reflected a more hopeful outlook before he started to incorporate the notion of doubt. Melville, however, did not retain this sort of approach as he learned to return to adapting a Romantic framework in which he sought a transcendental irony. In this chapter, we explore how Romantics took on the notions of subjectivity, consciousness, and other such relevant concepts, and how these are incorporated in Romantic writings.Less
Herman Melville's first few exposures to European culture took place during the 1850s, when the authority of the Romanticism movement was rarely challenged. Matthew Arnold's Essays in Criticism posed a major change in this situation, as he asserts that if Romantics had convinced themselves to read more, they would have cultivated their capability to ask more questions. It could be observed that Melville's works drew from answer to question instead of the other way around, since his works initially reflected a more hopeful outlook before he started to incorporate the notion of doubt. Melville, however, did not retain this sort of approach as he learned to return to adapting a Romantic framework in which he sought a transcendental irony. In this chapter, we explore how Romantics took on the notions of subjectivity, consciousness, and other such relevant concepts, and how these are incorporated in Romantic writings.
Genevieve Liveley
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199588541
- eISBN:
- 9780191741845
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199588541.003.0006
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter explores an unexpected affinity between Romans and Romantics ‘on love’. It shows that one Roman poet in particular appears repeatedly reflected in the writings of the English Romantic ...
More
This chapter explores an unexpected affinity between Romans and Romantics ‘on love’. It shows that one Roman poet in particular appears repeatedly reflected in the writings of the English Romantic poets (Coleridge, Wordsworth, Percy Shelley, Byron, Keats) on the subject of love: Ovid, in his Amores, Ars Amatoria, and his Metamorphoses offers an uncannily Romantic image of love — not least of all in his representation of Narcissus. Challenging received readings in which Narcissus is seen as a figure for aesthetic, poetic, and emotional superficiality, it is argued that the Romantic reception of Narcissus reveals hidden depths to this Roman figure, whose love for his own image rather represents a desire for beauty, poetry, and sympathy — a Romantic Narcissus who holds up a mirror to show Romans themselves reflecting Romantics ‘on love’.Less
This chapter explores an unexpected affinity between Romans and Romantics ‘on love’. It shows that one Roman poet in particular appears repeatedly reflected in the writings of the English Romantic poets (Coleridge, Wordsworth, Percy Shelley, Byron, Keats) on the subject of love: Ovid, in his Amores, Ars Amatoria, and his Metamorphoses offers an uncannily Romantic image of love — not least of all in his representation of Narcissus. Challenging received readings in which Narcissus is seen as a figure for aesthetic, poetic, and emotional superficiality, it is argued that the Romantic reception of Narcissus reveals hidden depths to this Roman figure, whose love for his own image rather represents a desire for beauty, poetry, and sympathy — a Romantic Narcissus who holds up a mirror to show Romans themselves reflecting Romantics ‘on love’.
Carl J. Richard
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199588541
- eISBN:
- 9780191741845
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199588541.003.0014
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter demonstrates that most of the American Romantics who created the United States' first national literature, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne, were the products of an ...
More
This chapter demonstrates that most of the American Romantics who created the United States' first national literature, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne, were the products of an educational system dominated by the study of Latin. It shows that their intense training in the Latin authors was often supplemented by tours of Roman sites in Italy that profoundly affected them and reinforced their support for the classical education of future generations. It reveals how the Romans influenced the Romantics' conception of nature, mythology, and natural law. Finally, it demonstrates that the Romantics were so steeped in the Roman classics that they were generally unable to distinguish the Greek heritage from Roman adaptations of it. Thus, it shows that both the traditional interpretation of Romanticism as anticlassical, and the more recent revision that depicts Romantic classicism as almost exclusively Greek, require significant modification.Less
This chapter demonstrates that most of the American Romantics who created the United States' first national literature, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne, were the products of an educational system dominated by the study of Latin. It shows that their intense training in the Latin authors was often supplemented by tours of Roman sites in Italy that profoundly affected them and reinforced their support for the classical education of future generations. It reveals how the Romans influenced the Romantics' conception of nature, mythology, and natural law. Finally, it demonstrates that the Romantics were so steeped in the Roman classics that they were generally unable to distinguish the Greek heritage from Roman adaptations of it. Thus, it shows that both the traditional interpretation of Romanticism as anticlassical, and the more recent revision that depicts Romantic classicism as almost exclusively Greek, require significant modification.
Jonathan Bate
- Published in print:
- 1989
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198129943
- eISBN:
- 9780191671883
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198129943.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
When Shakespeare's works and cultural status emerged during the period between the age of Dryden and the age of Coleridge, no other English poet from both the 18th and 19th century could surpass the ...
More
When Shakespeare's works and cultural status emerged during the period between the age of Dryden and the age of Coleridge, no other English poet from both the 18th and 19th century could surpass the superiority that Shakespeare had achieved since his plays were viewed to have expressed various features of human nature. However, it was Goethe who raised the complaint regarding how it would be difficult to live up to Shakespeare's legacy. Harold Bloom emphasized his Oedipal theory of influence wherein poetry's history is portrayed as a series of encounters between strong poets and their precursors. There is another approach to this theory because later poets may be perceived as descendants instead of merely ‘one who comes later’. The chapter argues that Shakespeare gave Romantics the ‘tenets of poetical theory’ and analogies for both the poet and his poem.Less
When Shakespeare's works and cultural status emerged during the period between the age of Dryden and the age of Coleridge, no other English poet from both the 18th and 19th century could surpass the superiority that Shakespeare had achieved since his plays were viewed to have expressed various features of human nature. However, it was Goethe who raised the complaint regarding how it would be difficult to live up to Shakespeare's legacy. Harold Bloom emphasized his Oedipal theory of influence wherein poetry's history is portrayed as a series of encounters between strong poets and their precursors. There is another approach to this theory because later poets may be perceived as descendants instead of merely ‘one who comes later’. The chapter argues that Shakespeare gave Romantics the ‘tenets of poetical theory’ and analogies for both the poet and his poem.
Chris Baldick
- Published in print:
- 1990
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198122494
- eISBN:
- 9780191671432
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198122494.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein manages to achieve a double feat of self-referentiality, both its composition and its subsequent cultural status miming the central moments of its own story. Like the ...
More
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein manages to achieve a double feat of self-referentiality, both its composition and its subsequent cultural status miming the central moments of its own story. Like the monster it contains, the novel is assembled from dead fragments to make a living whole; and as a published work, it escapes Shelley's textual frame and acquires its independent life outside it, as a myth. These peculiarities of Frankenstein arise not because literary texts can refer to nothing beyond themselves, but because Romantic writing typically selects the creative labour of the artist as itself the adumbrating figure and symbol for all human engagement with the world, thereby making out of its apparently circular self-reference a wider domain of significance that aspires to the universal. There is even a case for reading Frankenstein as a dramatization of just this perversity in the Romantics' self-referring quest for universal meanings—which would make the novel self-referential to the second power.Less
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein manages to achieve a double feat of self-referentiality, both its composition and its subsequent cultural status miming the central moments of its own story. Like the monster it contains, the novel is assembled from dead fragments to make a living whole; and as a published work, it escapes Shelley's textual frame and acquires its independent life outside it, as a myth. These peculiarities of Frankenstein arise not because literary texts can refer to nothing beyond themselves, but because Romantic writing typically selects the creative labour of the artist as itself the adumbrating figure and symbol for all human engagement with the world, thereby making out of its apparently circular self-reference a wider domain of significance that aspires to the universal. There is even a case for reading Frankenstein as a dramatization of just this perversity in the Romantics' self-referring quest for universal meanings—which would make the novel self-referential to the second power.
Brian Hamnett
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199695041
- eISBN:
- 9780191732164
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199695041.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
Despite much discussion concerning the nature and purpose of Romanticism both at the time and afterwards, it took to the historical novel in a surge during the later 1810s and 1820s—partly under the ...
More
Despite much discussion concerning the nature and purpose of Romanticism both at the time and afterwards, it took to the historical novel in a surge during the later 1810s and 1820s—partly under the influence of German origins, and partly due to the popularity of Scott’s novels. Nevertheless, Romanticism and the historical novel were two different phenomena. Sooner or later the latter would have to free itself from the former. The many contradictions in Romanticism passed into the historical novel. Strong interest in medieval themes, particularly where medieval liberties were contrasted with modern absolutism, represented one element; the influence of the French Revolution, early liberalism, and nationalism, other elements. Medieval historians such as Thierry acknowledged the influence of Scott. Balzac contrasted local Catholic resistance to Paris Revolutionaries in ‘Les Chouans’, again setting fictional characters in first place. Vigny and Mérimée, by contrast, placed historical characters at the centre of the action. Dumas developed the romance element in the historical novel and gained a wide and lasting popular audience through his entertaining writing and plots. Hugo and Dickens observed French and English mobs with a mixture of artistic delight and social revulsion.Less
Despite much discussion concerning the nature and purpose of Romanticism both at the time and afterwards, it took to the historical novel in a surge during the later 1810s and 1820s—partly under the influence of German origins, and partly due to the popularity of Scott’s novels. Nevertheless, Romanticism and the historical novel were two different phenomena. Sooner or later the latter would have to free itself from the former. The many contradictions in Romanticism passed into the historical novel. Strong interest in medieval themes, particularly where medieval liberties were contrasted with modern absolutism, represented one element; the influence of the French Revolution, early liberalism, and nationalism, other elements. Medieval historians such as Thierry acknowledged the influence of Scott. Balzac contrasted local Catholic resistance to Paris Revolutionaries in ‘Les Chouans’, again setting fictional characters in first place. Vigny and Mérimée, by contrast, placed historical characters at the centre of the action. Dumas developed the romance element in the historical novel and gained a wide and lasting popular audience through his entertaining writing and plots. Hugo and Dickens observed French and English mobs with a mixture of artistic delight and social revulsion.
Marjorie Garber
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823242047
- eISBN:
- 9780823242085
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823242047.003.0011
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
What is a genius? And why does our culture have such an obsession with the word and with the idea? Genius is fundamentally an eighteenth-century concept, though it has had a good long run through the ...
More
What is a genius? And why does our culture have such an obsession with the word and with the idea? Genius is fundamentally an eighteenth-century concept, though it has had a good long run through the centuries since. Joseph Addison's essay “On Genius,” published in The Spectator in 1711, laid out the terrain of genius as we use the term today, to denote exceptional talent or someone who possesses it. The Romantics found genius not only in the supposedly wild and uncultivated William Shakespeare, but also in the poets and personalities of their own period—in the extravagant Lord Byron and the intense and charismatic Percy Bysshe Shelley. The eccentric genius is especially familiar to readers of detective fiction. Eccentricity has become a strong identifying mark of genius that the very notion of a non-eccentric genius seems like a contradiction in terms. With the invention of the intelligence quotient, or IQ, came the idea that genius could be quantified.Less
What is a genius? And why does our culture have such an obsession with the word and with the idea? Genius is fundamentally an eighteenth-century concept, though it has had a good long run through the centuries since. Joseph Addison's essay “On Genius,” published in The Spectator in 1711, laid out the terrain of genius as we use the term today, to denote exceptional talent or someone who possesses it. The Romantics found genius not only in the supposedly wild and uncultivated William Shakespeare, but also in the poets and personalities of their own period—in the extravagant Lord Byron and the intense and charismatic Percy Bysshe Shelley. The eccentric genius is especially familiar to readers of detective fiction. Eccentricity has become a strong identifying mark of genius that the very notion of a non-eccentric genius seems like a contradiction in terms. With the invention of the intelligence quotient, or IQ, came the idea that genius could be quantified.
