Early German Romanticism Research Articles

The Law as Fragment

When Hannah Arendt writes about the law, she does so as a political theorist, genocide survivor and critic of modernity. She also writes as a phenomenologist, which is to say, she is mindful not only that people create the law, but that law constitutes a people. In Origins, she calls attention to the importance of the rule of law in the emergence of totalitarianism. In On Revolution, she seeks a way of grounding political authority in something other than an Absolute. In the process, Arendt looks to another group of intellectuals who grappled with the nature of authority under conditions of modernity—the Early German Romantics. Romantic fragments are philosophical, poetic, even musical. For Arendt, the most highly valued fragments are historical because these fragments provide not only protection against totalitarianism but also a possible solution to the problem of authority. In this article, I explore Arendt’s interpretation of the Declaration of Independence as a historical fragment. She draws on a phenomenological approach to fragments, found primarily in the work of Rahel Varnhagen and Dorothea Veit-Schlegel, to create a resilient yet malleable basis for authority, thereby grounding political authority in concrete historical events, rather than in human nature.

Die praxis der Übersetzung

Abstract Around 1800, to be more precise, in Early German Romanticism, a decisive leap to an aesthetic imperative of form is being articulated. This new concept of form borrows its template from (empirical) life, where again in the concept of “vital force” (Lebenskraft) the origin for the drive of life is thought? to be found. This paper aims to investigate how this concept, emerging? in the life sciences, not only is being implemented into, but is also declared to be the motor of the life of literature. The initial observation of this investigation is the statement that (the) life (of literature) comes into being because force gives it form. Literature, in turn, can bring this process to view – this is its epistemological merit. Because literature in Early German Romanticism not only elevates itself to a form of life, but also sees the shaping of life as the result of an engagement with literature, the propaedeutic of which is in turn itself, literature – according to the hypothesis – becomes the vital force of life and thus praxis.

The Contemporary Significance of Early German Romantic Philosophy

Abstract Recent interest in early German Romantic philosophy can be linked to other approaches, such as that of John Dewey, which are critical of the dominant direction of modern philosophy. The Romantics rethink the relationship between philosophy and art as a way of questioning modern philosophy’s focus on epistemology and scepticism that leads to a lack of attention to the diverse other ways in which human beings make sense of things.

Novalis und Nietzsche. Analogien und Differenzen zweier Dichter-Denker

AbstractNovalis and Nietzsche: Analogies and Differences Between Two Poetic Thinkers.There are several substantial similarities between Novalis and Nietzsche. Stylistically, they both present their arguments and ideas in the form of short and concise prose (Aphorismus,Fragment), but there is also considerable overlap in terms of the general orientation of their thinking: both exhibit a certain concern for earthly nature and show an interest in the figure of the extraordinary individual, but they also have a common interest in physiology, in the idea of fiction, and in the night as a allowing for greater experiential depth. Moreover, Novalis and Nietzsche both warned of the rise of nationalism in Europe, to some extent anticipating a new form of war that eventually became a reality in the First World War. This essay, thus, seeks to outline a range of connections between early German romanticism and Nietzsche that would require further research.

Uncertainty in Early German Romanticism

This introduction explores how uncertainty was used as a poetic and philosophical tool around 1800. It first sets up the historical context for the appropriation of uncertainty by underscoring the philosophical interest in challenging the foundations of knowledge. It then focuses on German Romanticism, using the writings of Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel as its primary reference point for an analysis of the poetic and philosophical implications of uncertainty. The authors argue that the work of these two writers presents a philosophical engagement with uncertainty as a problem in its own right and a desire to connect uncertainty to important romantic concepts such as chaos and hypothesis. The introduction concludes with an emphasis on Schlegel’s contributions to the problem of uncertainty.

“Wie eine Äolsharfe vom Winde berührt” Translation in Walter Benjamin’s Early Writings

The article aims at analysing the concept of translation in Walter Benjamin’s early writings, especially with reference to the essays Über Sprache überhaupt und über die Sprache des Menschen (On Language as Such and on the Language of Man, 1916) and Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers (The Task of the Translator, 1921) but also taking other contemporary writings into consideration. It is shown how the concept of translation, inextricably linked to Benjamin’s reflection on language, draws on the one hand on the hermeneutics of early German Romanticism and on its reflection on translation and on the other is charged with the entire semantics of Jewish messianism, in continuous confluences of which the concepts of pure language (reine Sprache), transformation (Verwandlung), of the unintentional (intentionslos) and the inexpressive (ausdruckslos) are the most evident precipitate.

Orientation Strategies at Apparatgeist Era: Distributed Cognition and Romantic Ideals of Education

In this article, we examine digitalization in its relation to the problems of educational philosophy. We argue that the set of changes that have taken place in recent decades, referred to as the Apparatgeist era, has led to the necessity of rethinking education in terms of an orientational perspective. We will show how the philosophical notion of orientation relates to the digital transformation of space and the emergence of hybrid space on the one hand and to the German Romantic ideas about the essence of education on the other. However, we do not intend to take a comprehensive look at all Romantic ideas about Bildung: the involvement of education in politics and social structure, the emphasis on aesthetic issues, etc., may also find interpretations in today’s conditions, but the main focus of our research is on the problem of orientation in education and the realization of this goal on the basis of Romantic ideals. In doing so, we intend to pay special attention to specifically Early German Romanticism as having defined the non-classical vector of the development of the intellectual tradition in general and the later Romantic ideas in particular. Finally, we investigate how in the concept of distributed cognition, one can find opportunities for the implementation of the orienting function of education, corresponding to the Romantic notions.

POESIA ROMÂNTICA E O SISTEMA DE ARTE

ABSTRACT This paper is an attempt at connecting the emergence of second order observation in critical philosophy with the theory of aesthetic autonomy as developed by Early German Romanticism. In outlining the genesis of an autonomous art system from the reception of critical philosophy, my intention is to show how those apparently overly hermeneutical philosophical developments relate to the birth of a system of production and reproduction of artworks, which – as I will argue – are the very materialization of the system’s code.

Imagery, Irony, and Transcendence in Carl Jonas Love Almqvist's The Queen's Tiara

Imagery, Irony, and Transcendence in Carl Jonas Love Almqvist's <i>The Queen's Tiara</i>

“Not there at all”: Criticism and Its Concept in Walter Benjamin's Doctoral Dissertation

ABSTRACT Submitted at the University of Bern in 1919, Walter Benjamin’s doctoral dissertation “On the Concept of Criticism in German Romanticism” has regularly been understood as an attempt to describe the nature of criticism in early German Romanticism through the idea of art’s criticizability. No longer governed by external criteria, works, according to this concept, become mediators of the absolute idea of art, and criticism simply unfolds their potential for infinite reflection. This article seeks to challenge the dominant understanding of the dissertation by suggesting that, rather than taking the conceptual nature of criticism for granted, Benjamin’s text recognizes and tarries with a potentially unbreachable distance between criticism and its concept. After an initial reading of a letter in which Benjamin describes a relation between language and criticism so entangled that the possibility of a coherent concept of criticism is questioned, the article engages closely with the dissertation to suggest that the concept of criticizability relies upon Benjamin’s identification—and immediate suppression—of a withdrawn linguistic form. By showing that Benjamin elsewhere problematizes even this “minimal Romanticism,” the article’s conclusion briefly considers the implications of Benjamin’s work for contemporary Romantic studies.

From an Atmospheric Point of View

This article investigates, from an atmospheric point of view, the constellation of a selection of works from the post-war period and their recent reiterations by artist and political activist Gustav Metzger (1926--2017) to render visible the conceptual underpinnings that inform their philosophical coherence, so as to illuminate their capacity to resonate with the alarming features of our own contemporary air condition. The Second World War, in which the war was in the air on a global scale, was the deadliest moment in human history. Given the prominent role and dialectical conceptualization that the air (and subsequently the act of breathing) plays in the history of modern civilization as both common air and common threat, it is in the context of the atmospheric constellations of the air war that we will consider Metzger's counter-modernity project. After-images of the air war figure prominently in his uncompromising interventional and radical actions for anti-capitalist, anti-war and environmental causes to perform an aesthetic and social critique on our damaged life, damaged nature and denatured culture. Like the early German Romantics, Metzger sought to restore our relationship with nature by generating alternative ways through which harmony between people and their breathing space might be established. Featuring the author's interviews with Metzger published for the first time, this article provides a critical interpretation of Mica and Air Cube, Dancing Tubes, Mobbile, Earth minus Environment and Project Stockholm, June (Phase 1) to argue that the contemporary relevance of Metzger's works in the context of the current environmental crisis is quite telling and now feels more imperative than ever.

Bettina von Arnim's Romantic Philosophy inDie Günderode

AbstractThis article puts forward a philosophical interpretation of Bettina von Arnim's epistolary bookDie Günderode, in the following stages. First I situate von Arnim's work in relation to women's participation in early German Romanticism and idealism. The ideal ofSymphilosophie, which was integral to Romantic epistemology, created possibilities for women to participate in philosophical discussion, albeit not on equal terms with men. This suggested that perhapsSymphilosophiebetween women could be more equal and reciprocal. However, interpreters have considered theSym-in Günderrode and von Arnim'sSymphilosophiemore than the-philosophie, whereas here I foregroundDie Günderode's rich philosophical content. I trace the stages in the unfolding dialogue between Günderrode and von Arnim and identify von Arnim's philosophical standpoint as it emerges from this dialogue. For Günderrode, finite beings are attracted together and can only fully unite by dying and superseding their boundaries. This feeds into a gigantic cosmic process through which the earth spiritualizes itself, progressively transcending its own materiality. Von Arnim likewise thinks that all finite beings are dynamically interconnected within the earth's creative process. But, unlike Günderrode, von Arnim thinks that finite beings can realize their interconnectedness within life without needing to die, which means in turn that material nature can rise into successive levels of spirit without its materiality having to be superseded. This metaphysical difference orchestrates many other philosophical disagreements between the two women. I then conclude that on balance, and with significant qualifications,Die Günderodeembodies a successfulSymphilosophiebetween women, but that von Arnim is simultaneously pointing out the fragility ofSymphilosophie. The more independence dialogue partners have, the more liable they are to move away in new directions and abandon or outgrow the conversation, just as Günderrode turns away from von Arnim by the end of the book.

Darkly truthful: An indigenous séance with Novalis

Thinking and writing draw on those who have gone before, in a more than abstract way. In this article, I answer the call of one philosopher–Novalis, the early German Romantic–in the form of a séance, which is really a dialogue with the dead. I speak to him, as a Maori writer, about the abstract philosophical issues that Maori encounter and anticipate his responses and his thinking. I suspect Novalis would have taken delight in this sort of a-rational event, especially with his own tendency to focus on the supernatural and invisible realms. He revered the dead and darkness. He was an interdimensional communicator par excellence, and my aim in this article is to speculate alongside him and, as a Maori writer, form some productive ideas in community with him.

Philosophical and historical-cultural context of establishment of the doctrine of creativity as the fundamentals of understanding the Early German Romanticism in philosophy

The subject of this article is the prerequisites for the establishment of the doctrine of creativity in the philosophy of Early German Romanticism. The source of the romantic concept on creativity is the I. Kant&amp;rsquo;s &amp;ldquo;Theory of Genius&amp;rdquo;, the meaning of which the Romanticists spread onto the entire human nature. The article highlights and analyzes the two groups of prerequisites for the establishment of the Romanticist doctrine of creativity as the fundamentals of understanding. The first group includes the elements of historical approach, which gained widespread in the German culture of the late XVIII century, while the second group includes the concepts of nature and emergence of the language that manifested during this period. The research leans on the principles of historicism and dialectics, method of historical and philosophical reconstruction, as well as elements of hermeneutical and comparative methods. The author considered not only philosophical works dedicated to Romanticism, but also literary, religious, and culturological works on Romanticism. An opinion is substantiated that the philosophical and historical-cultural context of establishment of the concept of creativity in philosophy of the Early German Romanticism indicates both, rational and non-rational components, which is especially evident in the Romanticist Theory of Language. In this field, the methods of scientific study of language and culture naturally align with the idea of &amp;ldquo;poetic&amp;rdquo; origin of the language, which has religious-mythological grounds.

Drama in the Music of Franz Schubert ed. by Joe Davies and James William Sobaskie

Reviewed by: Drama in the Music of Franz Schubert ed. by Joe Davies and James William Sobaskie Marie Sumner Lott Drama in the Music of Franz Schubert. Edited by Joe Davies and James William Sobaskie. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, 2019. [xxix, 348 p. ISBN 9781783273652 (hardcover), $99; ISBN 9781787444393 (e-book), price varies.] Music examples, figures, tables, bibliography, index. Schubert studies have flourished in the past decade and taken an exciting turn toward reevaluating this composer’s contributions to musical culture, embracing the many ways in which he and his works opened new, distinctive avenues for musical expression and romanticism. In addition to important single-author works by Susan Wollenberg (Schubert’s Fingerprints: Studies in the Instrumental Works [Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2011]), John Gingerich (Schubert’s Beethoven Project [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014]), and Lisa Feurzeig (Schubert’s Lieder and the Philosophy of Early German Romanticism [Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2014]), several important essay collections and special issues of journals have also taken on the task of “reexamining” Schubert since 2001 (including Schubert and His World, ed. Christopher H. Gibbs and Morton Solvik [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014]; Rethinking Schubert, ed. Lorraine Byrne Bodley and Julian Horton [New York: Oxford University Press, 2016]; and Schubert’s Late Music: History, Theory, Style, ed. Lorraine Byrne Bodley and Julian Horton [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016]). Finally, Nineteenth-Century Music Review published a special issue, “Schubert Familiar and Unfamiliar: New Perspectives,” in 2008 and a follow-up, “Schubert Familiar and Unfamiliar: Continuing Conversations,” in 2016. As editors James Sobaskie and Joe Davies note in their preface to Drama in the Music of Franz Schubert, this reexamination has often involved a remarkable [End Page 75] collegiality, bringing together performers, cultural historians, and music theorists to provide new insights into music that fascinates and delights listeners and scholars alike. The book features a veritable “who’s who” of influential writers with, on average, twenty to thirty years of experience in Schubert studies. The volume offers a fresh understanding of the concept of musical drama with thorough, engaging discussions of individual works, and it provides an appealing introduction to the major concerns of Schubert studies in the twenty-first century. The collegiality of the Schubertian community is on display throughout the book, which is filled with intertextual references that provide common threads when reading continuously from one chapter to the next. I had the charming impression of listening in on a group of accomplished scholars and musicians as they discussed music and ideas in great detail and with a catching enthusiasm. The warm dedication of the volume to Susan Wollenberg (who also contributed a brilliant essay on the lied “Adelwold und Emma,” D. 211) further emphasizes the familial quality of this collection. The book starts from the premise that traditional notions of musical “drama” based in theatrical effectiveness—particularly in relation to operatic works and their reception—do little to explain the effect of Schubert’s music on listeners, both in the modern day and in his own time. Whereas Schubert’s operatic ambitions were largely unsuccessful by the usual measures (performances, critical reactions, engagements for future works), his musical style in both texted and untexted works has always resonated in a personal way with listeners and performers. Thus, by decoupling “drama” from the theatrical stage, the contributors to this volume have opened the term to new considerations. As Laura Tunbridge notes in her introduction, the volume asks, “What did drama mean for Schubert? What does drama in Schubert mean now?” (p. 1). The answers presented here illuminate how Schubert’s music conveys tension and resolution, conflict and reconciliation, and the ebb and flow of human emotion. The thirteen essays are grouped into three sections. Part 1 deals with stage and sacred works, part 2 concerns lieder, and part 3 considers instrumental music, which in this case means string chamber music and solo piano works. Although many readers will probably encounter these essays one at a time as they seek out analysis of particular works, reading the essays of an entire “part” together gives a richer understanding of the individual components. For example, part 1 opens with a study by Lorraine Byrne Bodley on Schubert’s 1815...

Resurrecting place: Visual representation and the poetic imagination

With reference to an ongoing practice-based project, illustration in this article is considered for its capacity as an authorial practice able to complement and communicate ideas emanating from academic research. This article discusses the phenomenon of ‘place’, specifically, place as a lived concrete site comprising both physical and emotional phenomena and culminating in a meaningful experience of ‘being-in-the-world’. With particular reference to more marginal settings of everyday public experience, this article argues that as a result of current cultural phenomena relating to the economic and practical necessities of daily action, and historical developments in western thinking, place is an idea that is commonly obscured from daily experience. Through the teachings of phenomenology and early German romanticism, this article explores ideas that, through visual representation, meaningful notions of place can be resuscitated and transmitted between the illustrator and viewer. Further, through discussion of ideas emerging from postmodernism, conditions that affect our experience and expectations of place in the present are also addressed. Whilst place as a lived and meaningful totality is invariably informed by structures of subjectivity, visual representation is considered here, for its usefulness in appealing to meaningful, poetic dimensions of wider human experience.

Elemental Connections: Concinnity’s Romantic Aftermath

ABSTRACT This essay considers the conceptual aftermath of concinnitas—roughly, an agreeable interplay of parts—from the point of view of Early German Romanticism. In the Renaissance, concinnitas plays a central role in Leon Battista Alberti’s architectural writings due to its ability to masterfully connect and compose other essential elements, such as number, outline, and position. At that time, concinnitas also served other discourses beyond architecture, including rhetoric and music, where the concept of harmony is closely linked to concinnitas. From the perspective of German Romantic aesthetics, it seems logical that such a concept, with its ability to move easily among various aesthetic discourses and to navigate between parts and the whole, would be of particular interest. This essay argues that the Romantic concepts of Ebenmaß and Architektonik offer the most logical connections to Alberti’s theory of concinnity. With reference to Novalis’s encyclopedia project and his novel, Heinrich von Ofterdingen, I suggest that reflection on concinnity has something special to offer a discussion of Romantic elements: a heightened awareness of materiality in the midst of conceptual abstractions. As a guiding concept that becomes embodied in various ways in Romantic thinking, concinnity might also become a valuable heuristic tool for Romanticist scholars.

Personality as a subject of creation in the concepts of Novalis and F. Schlegel

The subject of this research is the doctrine of personality in philosophy of the early German romanticism. As the main source of establishment of the romantic concept of personality, the author examines I. Kant&amp;rsquo;s doctrine of the genius nature of creation. Detailed analysis is conducted on the artistic-philosophical fragments of Novalis and F. Schlegel, in which the concept of personality as a subject of creation is described most vividly. The article substantiates the fundamental significance of the concept of personality of all elements of the philosophy of romanticism, namely for the romanticists&amp;rsquo; theory of understanding. The author analyzes not only the philosophical research on romanticism, but also literary, culturological, and religious publications on the topic. The article systematically substantiates the position, according to which creation in the philosophy of romanticism manifests as a universal substance of human spirit, which finds individual reflection in each person, and becomes the foundation for his growth and knowledge. The peculiarity of semantic theory of creative personality consists in the fact that in cannot be exhaustively cognized by the rational means; only artistic-aesthetic and religious consciousness allows approximating to comprehension of the nature of creation.

열린 체계의 토대로서의 ‘단편’ 형식 - 독일 초기낭만주의 ‘단편’ 개념에 대한 소고

열린 체계의 토대로서의 ‘단편’ 형식 - 독일 초기낭만주의 ‘단편’ 개념에 대한 소고

Romanticism and the Re-Invention of Modern Religion: The Reconciliation of German Idealism and Platonic Realism. By Alexander J. B. Hampton

At once lucid and multifaceted, Alexander J. B. Hampton’s Romanticism and the Re-Invention of Modern Religion offers a fresh understanding of the German Romantic movement at the turn of the 19th century. As its subtitle promises—and as its cover image illustrates with the personification of Germany and Italy embracing—the book maintains that key figures of the movement reconcile the German post-Kantian emphasis on idealism and immanence with the Platonic-Christian legacy of a realist transcendent absolute. Tracing in particular Early German Romanticism (‘Frühromantik’, 1795–1801) as embodied in Schlegel, Hölderlin, and Novalis, this work argues that the Romantic project was a creative pursuit of a religious nature. It thereby distinguishes itself from two common and simplified characterisations of Romanticism, the first being part of the secularisation narrative, a picture that ‘associate[s] its ideas with the progressive decline and disappearance of religion’, and the second placing the movement firmly in one of two intellectual camps, that is, as ‘a development of either post-Kantian Fichtean aesthetic egoism or Spinozistic monist pantheism’ (p. 6). Both characterisations, according to Hampton, depend on a narrow definition of the term ‘religion’, as institutionally- and doctrinally defined, and as strictly separated from philosophy (pp. 5, 6). Challenging these characterisations, Hampton argues for a Romanticism that had an intrinsic constructive religious dimension by highlighting the movement’s elements of transcendence and the absolute (p. 7).