The Romantic Encounters

Abstract

In this chapter I look at the label romantic which seems to bring us to the realm of love poetry and serenades sung under the balconies of various beauties confined to their family fortresses. Yet behind these images are psychological functions of the human mind to relate with their environment in imaginative, affectively overwhelming ways—in my terminology—using the pleromatic pathway of generalization (Chap. 1) in its dominance over the schematizing pathway. The main mechanism here is Einfuhlung—feeling-into the environment and thus feeling forward towards the future. The romantic movements in nineteenth-century Europe and the Bhakti traditions in India provide a good example of the use of sensuality in the macro-social realms. The feelings into one’s own body are guided towards anticipating the sublime, which in its turn leads to pleromatic signification of centrally relevant meanings (auspiciousness, patriotism, love) for human existence.