Revolutionary Romanticism: Carl Schmitt on Bettina von Arnim

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This paper looks at Carl Schmitt’s critical analysis of Bettina von Arnim’s works in his book Political Romanticism (1919). Most of the political Romantics who Schmitt discusses are conservative, such as Adam Müller or the mature Friedrich Schlegel. Yet Schmitt contends that political Romanticism does not possess an ideological core or a stable normative orientation: the Romantic subject only uses politics as material in its project of asserting and enjoying its own creativity. To demonstrate the opportunistic character of political Romanticism, however, Schmitt must study both reactionary and revolutionary Romantics. This paper argues that Bettina von Arnim emerges as his most prominent example of revolutionary Romantic, a fact that has been overlooked in previous treatments of his book. Schmitt also shows that all Romantics—Müller as well as von Arnim—are ultimately shaped by covert liberal presuppositions. Regardless of whether they stand with conservatives or radicals, they privilege the preferences and whims of the individual subject over the binding character of objective institutions. Schmitt’s inclusion of Bettina von Arnim in his study thus allows him to highlight the apparent diversity of political Romanticism and to sharpen the image of Romanticism’s fundamentally liberal character.