Imagination in German Romanticism: Re-Thinking the Self and Its Environment by Jeanne RiouMusic and Literature in German Romanticism by Siobhán Donovan, Robin Elliott

Abstract

MLR, I0I.4, 2006 I I71 into the volcano and the renewal of the polis as corresponding modes for seizing the favourable moment. At the beginning of Chapter 7Honold shows how Holderlin, in the hymn-draft 'Wie wenn der Landmann', uses an ancient topos to establish a con nection between nature and history. He argues that Empedocles achieves Napoleonic greatness in his capacity as 'Religionsstifter' (p. 354). In particular, the philosopher is presented as 'Inaugurator einer neuen Kalenderordnung' (p. 390) because he exhorts the citizens of Agrigentum 'den Gottern der Natur ein Fest zu bringen' and thus echoes the revolutionary festivals in France (p. 364). The long concluding chapter considers the great elegies as Holderlin's effort to reconcile divine and human time through ritual and celebration, as in 'Brod und Wein' (p. 396). Honold identifies the 'Friedensfiirst' of 'Friedensfeier' with Napoleon and the festival itself with the various festivals of revolutionary France; at the same time, he argues for the 'synoptic quality' of the poem, which combines antiquity and Christianity in its 'syncretistic rituals and festivals' (pp. 447-48). In conclusion, he discusses 'Der Einzige' as a 'coda' that recapitulates all the various themes of his book: a remembrance of the 'naturzyklische[] Grundlagen des Gotterkosmos und der Kalenderordnung' (p. 463). At times, to be sure, Honold pursues his thesis a bit too single-mindedly, as in his almost routine identification of H6lderlin's many 'Feste' with French revolutionary celebrations, and his Procrustean bed causes him to ignore aspects of poems taken as a whole, especially the longer elegies and hymns. His search for the esoteric sometimes leads him to overlook the obvious. Is not Gibbon as powerful an example of the theme of decline and fall asVolney's Les Ruines (I79 )? Surely Goethe's Werther provided an obvious model for the seasonal symbolism of Hyperion. The contrast of past and present that dominates Goethe's 'Euphrosyne' and Schiller's 'Der Spaziergang' both thematically and structurally lay nearer at hand than the festivals of Eleusis when Holderlin was seeking temporal patterns for his own elegies (see my The Classical German Elegy I795-I9 50 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, I980)). Could such a time-conscious poet asHolderlin have ignored the fiercely debated controversy be tween the Neunundneunziger and the Nullisten regarding the proper date for the new century, which intrigued not only Goethe and Schiller but all the Romantics? (See Die deutschen Sdkulardichtungen an der Wende des i8. und I9g.Yahrhunderts, ed. by August Sauer (Berlin: Behr, I90I).) Such considerations would have strengthened Honold's central argument without leading him as far afield as do some of his often distracting excursuses. Finally, when did German publishers start omitting indexes from these dense Habilitationsschriften? In sum, however, Honold's rich and provocative project lends substantial body to the generally familiar framework of Holderlin's obsession with time, astronomy, and the French Revolution. PRINCETON UNIVERSITY THEODOREZIOLKOWSKI Imagination in German Romanticism: Re-thinking the Self and its Environment. By JEANNERiou. Oxford and Bern: Peter Lang. 2004. 262 pp. ?30; $50.95. ISBN o-8204-7198-4. Music and Literature inGerman Romanticism. Ed. by SIOBHANDONOVAN and ROBIN ELLIOTT. Rochester, NY: Camden House. 2004. 233 pp. $75; /50. ISBN i 57II3-258-9. These two fine volumes on key aspects of German Romanticism not only demonstrate the necessity of pursuing interdisciplinary approaches to this period of German litera ture and culture; they also provide examples of the respective virtues (and hazards) of a scholarly monograph and a collection of essays by experts from different fields. I I72 Reviews Jeanne Riou undertakes the ambitious task of situating the role of the imagination inGerman Romanticism within the context of shifting paradigms in science and phi losophy since the Renaissance. Until that time, she argues in her introduction, the notion of human beings as microcosms linked them with the natural world, whose four elements provided the bases for the theory of humoral pathology inmedicine. With Descartes, the human mind isno longer connected to themechanical operations of the body, and it becomes the task of thinkers from Leibniz to Schelling to recon ceive the relationship of body, mind, and soul to one another and to the surrounding world. After tracing...