German Romanticism Research Articles

Translating in Spite of Stereotypes: On the First Comprehensive Poetic Translation of Seneca’s Tragedies into German

The first complete poetic translation of Seneca’s tragedies into German was made in Bohemia, at the time part of the Habsburg monarchy, in the years 1821–1830 by the Czech national revivalist poet and philologist Václav Alois Svoboda (1791–1849). His translation of the Roman playwright raises several important questions. It is not only interesting that the author was strongly influenced by the “Sturm und Drang” movement and wrote radical freethinking poems in the group of patriotic students. One must also consider the influences of Neo- Humanism, which promoted Greek culture, since Svoboda translated Schiller, Goethe and the poetry of German Romanticism and corresponded with de la Motte-Fouqué, Goethe, and Wilhelm Humboldt. Why did Svoboda fight against contemporary contempt for Seneca’s tragedies? Why did he not choose some Classical Greek plays in accordance with the general preferences of the period and current stereotypes about “perfect Greece” and “decadent Roman culture”?

STUDY OF THE CINEMATOGRAPHIC COMPONENT OF E. T. A. HOFFMANN'S NOVELS AND FAIRY TALES

E. T. A. Hoffmann is considered the most outstanding figure in the history of German romanticism, although he was not one of the first representatives of this literary movement. His creative heritage contains the main themes and ideas of romanticism, its most important features. Romanticism appeared at the break of the era and during the French Revolution. The central theme of the new literary trend was the confrontation between man and the world, and the main conflict was the struggle between Good and Evil. Everything incomprehensible, mystical, fantastic, which is closely intertwined with reality, attracted romantics. Such works of E. T. A. Hoffmann as “The Pot of Gold”, “Little Tsaches, nicknamed Cinnabar”, “Elixirs of the Devil”, “The Sandman”, etc. are vivid examples of the new literary era. E. T. A. Hoffmann belongs to those writers whose artistic world has become a nominal concept. However, his writing talent is only one manifestation of his creative nature. During his lifetime, he was a singer, conductor, musical theater director, composer, and artist. Such a phenomenon, when artists simultaneously have talents in different areas of art, is also called Doppelbegabung (German – “double talent, ability”) in literary studies, and U. Weisstein suggests the term “multitalent” for such artists. Their thinking is synthetic, and their works acquire a polyartistic character and are vivid examples of the interaction of arts. That is why the writer's style differs from others in its musicality and plasticity. And because of this, the most appropriate analysis of E. T. A. Hoffmann's works is intermedial, which involves the organization of the text through the interaction of different types of art at the semantic level. Intermedial aesthetics arises precisely in the historical and cultural transitional eras – baroque, romanticism, modernism, postmodernism. On the other hand, E. T. A. Hoffmann's creative legacy is surprisingly cinematic. His short stories are almost ready-made scripts, full of unexpected plot twists and visual tricks. The film stylistics of E. T. A. Hoffmann's novels is manifested both in plot references and in the peculiarities of his poetics as film poetics. The literary problem “poetics of a literary work – film poetics” is one of the most important in the intermedia relations of these two arts. Its importance and relevance are determined by the awareness that absorbing, for example, a literary text as a result of the synthesis of the arts of elements of some other art means expanding and enriching one's expressive possibilities. Therefore, the approach to the literary texts of the German writer with the “cinematic code” is a promising direction in the development of the methodology for the study of the poetics of the literary text and enables a deeper understanding of the creative legacy of E. T. A. Hoffmann.

ВОКАЛЬНЫЙ ЦИКЛ Н.Я. МЯСКОВСКОГО «РАЗМЫШЛЕНИЯ»: ПОЭТИЧЕСКОЕ СЛОВО И МУЗЫКА

The article examines N. Myaskovsky's early vocal cycle «Reflections», written in the early period of creativity, from the perspective of the relationship between the poetic text and the musical language, emphasizes the special importance of this composition in the composer's work. In the study of the peculiarities of the organization of poetic speech and its influence on musical stylistics, the authors come to the following conclusions. The use of iambics, enjambment, alliteration, adherence to the Old Slavonic and church vocabulary to embody «high style», following the traditions of German romanticism when describing nature and appeal to antique models can be pointed out in the structure of poems. The affinity of Baratynsky's world of art and the Symbolists’ poetry was also revealed. The language of music is characterized by leitmotiv, dominance of plagal progressions, the contrast of diatonicism and active chromaticism to create a romantic duality. The composer uses the method of pentatonic scale and avoids tonic where the poetic text speaks of illusory worlds or of the future. The authors conclude that many of the music language elements discovered will be further developed in Myaskovsky's later works.

The Music Sent by God

Mugham is deeply rooted in Azerbaijan’s history as it is undoubtedly depicted as the pearl of Azerbaijani musical art. Mughаm (Azerb. Muğam) (God sent music) is one of the main genres in traditional Azerbaijani music, part of the musical-poetic art of Azerbaijan’s nation. The Mughаm embodies philosophical poetry including the philosophy of music as a complement to the harmony of being. In 2008, UNESCO proclaimed the Azerbaijani Mugham as one of the masterpieces of verbal and intangible cultural heritage. This music must be understood in its two dimensions – as an example of an art and as a way of thinking, in which Sufism and Mysticism are two lines that intersect. The aim of the article is to show the unity of Azerbaijan’s spiritual culture and the synthesis of music and religion. Special attention is focused on Mugham as a type of connection with God, through mystical love and spiritual experience. This perspective differs from that of common research and discussions of Mugham, which view it principally as a unique type of poetic-musical communication between performers and a devoted audience. The post-Soviet period allowed Western scholars to become acquainted with the musical works of Azerbaijani masters of Mugham and to compare their musical-aesthetic features with those of German Romanticism. In this paper, we move beyond such considerations to claim that Mugham ought to be recognized ‘as a spiritual process preserving the dynamism of thinking’. The report will conclude with the concomitant claim that Mugham represents an intercultural philosophy.

Pretexts for Writing: German Romantic Prefaces, Literature, and Philosophy by Seán M. Williams

Pretexts for Writing: German Romantic Prefaces, Literature, and Philosophy by Seán M. Williams

НАСЛЕДИЕ ЕВРОПЕЙСКИХ РОМАНТИКОВ И МОТИВ ПУТНИКА В НОЧИ (А. С. ПУШКИН И М. Ю. ЛЕРМОНТОВ)

This article examines European origins of Pushkin's and Lermontov's romantic motif 'wandering in the night' in the works of German and English Romantic poets. The image of the night as an «echo» of the day held an important place in the hierarchy of «universal empathy» in the Romanticist poetic thinking («the light also shines in the night», interpret-ing the biblical text: «and the light shines in darkness, and darkness has not embraced it» (John 1:5). In the famous works by Pushkin and Lermontov, «The Winter Road», «The Possessed», and «I Go Out Alone on the Road...», wander-ing in the night is immersed in an atmosphere of romantic dual reality. The motif of communication in poetic texts is by no means the property of our global communication age alone, but goes back to earlier eras: Antiquity (Homer's Odys-sey), the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (the poetry of Dante and Chaucer), Pre-Romanticism and Romanticism (the poetry of Goethe, Eicheldorf, and Hölderlin). Pushkin's later poem «The Wanderer» (1835) goes back to John Benja-min's poem «The Way of the Pilgrims» (1678). Pushkin's poetic quest of the 1830s turned to the motifs of Salvation and Light, the search for the Right Way (the image of a young man reading a book (the Bible) in «The Wanderer», showing the traveler the Right Way and the narrow gate of Salvation). Lermontov, in his famous nocturne «I go out alone on the road...» (1840s), creates an image of a traveler in the night, which is closely related to the tradition of the German Romantics: Goethe, Eichendorff, and Hölderlin. Pushkin's «night inquiries» in 1830 and 1835 texts, with refer-ences to John Benjamin's English poem and to the Lake School poets W. Wordsworth and R. Southey, are a striking proof of F. M. Dostoyevsky's thoughts on the «universal empathy» of our great poet.

Kultura przekładu i krytyki. Friedricha Schleiermachera modele tłumaczenia w rozważaniach Piotra de Bończa Bukowskiego

The Culture of Translation and Criticism. Friedrich Schleiermacher’s Translation Models in the Piotr de Bończa Bukowski’s Studies Friedrich Schleiermacher’s philosophic-philological reflection forms the creative foundation of modern translation science. It creates spaces for constructing more and more inspirations in literature and culture through artistic translation also in the 21st century. In his monograph of the German theologian and translator Friedrich Schleiermacher, Piotr de Bończa Bukowski presents Schleiermacher’s views on the exceptional importance of disseminating world literature through translation, various aspects of the choice of text and translator, translation thoughts and the requirements Schleiermacher set for literary criticism, and translation criticism in particular. The following article focuses on the concept of the thoughts of the German Romanticist and on the selection of research guideposts in the reading of the Polish comparative translator.

Od natury słowa do słowa o naturze. Recenzja książki Bolesława Andrzejewskiego pt. Filozofia słowa. Zarys dziejów

Herethis paper is review on monographical pulication „Filozofia słowa. Zarys dziejów” [The Philosophy of the Word. A Short History] by Bolesław Andrzejewski. The Polish philosopher’s book is one and only publication which dares to present and contrast concepts and theories on the word which appears in the history of Western Civilisation from the times of ancient Greek philosophers, through Christian thinkers and German romantics and representants of Enlightenment, ending with English and American pragmatists and positivists, not to omit prominent linguists like Ferdynand de Saussure, Noam Chomsky, Ernst Cassirer or Wilhelm von Humboldt. Original view of the author on philosophy of language makes the reviewed book unique, since Andrzejewski tries to break through the analytic, so common nowadays, paradigm and proposes to run the consideration concerning language in the spirit of lingua ac communitas, so to speak, he treats language basically as a tool for interpersonal communication and a way of gaining understanding within community.

Estrada, Jorge. Experiencing Ethics with Sterne and Musil: A Relentless Character Construction.

Estrada, Jorge. <i>Experiencing Ethics with Sterne and Musil: A Relentless Character Construction</i>.

The Aesthetics of Fear in German Romanticism by Paola Mayer

<i>The Aesthetics of Fear in German Romanticism</i> by Paola Mayer

"POETICS" OF ARISTOTLE IN RUSSIAN TRANSLATIONS

The article presents an overview of the existing translations of Aristotle's “Poetics”, characterizes the features of each of them. In the preface to his translation of Aristotle's “Poetics”, V. Zakharov characterized the work of the Greek philosopher as a “dark text.” Each translation of this treatise, which forms the basis of European and world literary theory, is also its interpretation, an attempt to interpret the “dark places.” The first Russian translation of “Poetics” was made by B. Ordynsky and published in 1854, however, the Russian reader was familiar with the contents of the treatise through translations into European languages and its expositions in Russian. For instance, in the “Dictionary of Ancient and New Poetry” Ostolopov sets out the Aristotelian theory of drama and certain other aspects of “Poetics” very close to the original text. Ordynsky translated the first 18 chapters of “Poetics”, focusing on the theory of tragedy. The translator presented his interpretation of Aristotle’s concept in an extensive preface, commentaries and a lengthy “Statement.” This translation set off a critical analysis by Chernyshevsky, and influenced his dissertation “Aesthetic relations of art to reality”, in which the author polemicizes with the aesthetics of German romanticism. In 1885 V. Zakharov published the first complete Russian translation of “Poetics”, in which he offered his own interpretation of Aristotle's teaching on language and epic. The author of this translation returns to the terminology of romantic aesthetics, therefore the translation itself is outside the main line of perception of the teachings of Aristotle by domestic literary theory, which is clearly manifested in the translations of V. G. Appelrot (1893), N. N. Novosadsky (1927) and M. L. Gasparov (1978). The subject of discussion in these translations was the interpretation of the notions of μῦϑος and παθος, the concepts of mimesis and catharsis, the source of suffering and the tragic, the possibility of modernizing terminology. An important milestone in the perception and assimilation of Aristotle's treatise by Russian literary criticism was its translation by A. F. Losev, which was not published, but was used by the author in his theoretical works and in criticizing other interpretations of “Poetics”. M. M. Pozdnev penned one of the last translations of “Poetics” (2008). The translator does not seek to preserve the peculiarities of the original style and interprets “Poetics” within the framework and terms of modern literary theory, focusing on its English translations. The main subject of the translator's reflection is Aristotle's understanding of the essence and phenomenon of poetic art. Translations of the Greek philosopher's treatise reflect the history of the formation and development of the domestic theory of literature, its main topics and terminological apparatus.

THE “ARABESQUES” CYCLE BY N. V. GOGOL: UNITY OF COMPOSITION AND PROBLEMS

The unity of the problematics and the author’s principles of composition of the collection of N. V. Gogol “Arabesques” (1835) are investigated. The unobvious unity and integrity of the writer’s poetic encyclopedia — “Arabesque” — become apparent through the coverage of the cross-cutting themes and motives of the cycle, the numerous interconnections and overlaps between the articles, essays and stories included in the collection. It is established that the organizing beginning of the cycle is the writer’s reflections of a religious and political nature. From the point of view of this main component, all eighteen works of the collection are analyzed in detail. For the first time, the influence of spiritual literature — the lives of saints, patristic works, the significance of the articles of “Philokalia” — a well-known collection of works on the prayer-contemplative experience of monastic life — is highlighted in the early works of Gogol. The spiritual aspect of the writer’s reflections on history, arts, folk art, world literature, poetry of A. S. Pushkin is noted. Gogol’s polemic with the positions of one of the founders of German romanticism, V. G. Wackenroder, is touched upon. The problems posed in the collection of the opposition of old age and youth, “sensual” life and the poetry of spirituality are analyzed, the image of the “fragmentation” of life as a distinctive feature of modernity is traced. The organic correlation of “Arabesques” with the previous and subsequent works of the writer is revealed — with the youthful poem “Ganz Kuchelgarten,” with the cycle “Mirgorod,” with “Dead Souls,” “Theatrical tour after the presentation of a new comedy,” “Selected passages from correspondence with friends” and etc. The author emphasizes the consistency of the writer’s creative path and the integral spiritual and moral character of his legacy.

Мельникова Л. А. Рецепция идей Ф. М. Достоевского в новелле Т. Манна «Паяц»

The paper examines ‘Notes From the Underground’ story by F. M. Dostoevsky and ‘The Clown’ short story by T. Man from the point of view of literary interconnections. The purpose of the study is to identify parallels in the artistic worlds of the above-mentioned works in the aspect of psychologism through a comparative analysis of the images of the paradoxalist and the clown. It was found that the German writer, guided by the experience of the Russian classic, in his short story makes an attempt to study the consciousness of the hero who voluntarily broke ties with society. Turning to the technique of confession allows T. Mann not only to identify the main stages of the formation of his character’s worldview, to determine the reasons for his departure into social isolation, but also to trace the dynamics of the degradation of his personality. In both works, the key moments of the narrative testing the life philosophy of the heroes for strength are episodes of the clash of the paradoxalist and the clown with real life. Finding themselves in situations that presuppose the inevitability of communication with other people, the characters were able to realize the illusory nature of their own ideas about their chosen life position and come to an understanding of the fact of the inevitability of the collapse of their ideals. At the same time, in terms of their scale, the images of these characters are not equivalent: the clown’s thoughts are not endowed with the philosophical depth that turns out to be inherent in the arguments of the paradoxalist. Reconstructing the character of the clown T. Mann also takes into account the traditions of German romanticism.

Between Hoffmann and Goethe: The Young Brahms as Reader

AbstractThis article provides a critical account of Brahms’s early collection of quotations, aphorisms and poems commonly known as Des jungen Kreislers Schatzkästlein in the context of the composer’s youthful engagement with German literature. Drawing on archival materials housed in Vienna, it evaluates the 1909 publication of the Schatzkästlein by the Deutsche Brahms-Gesellschaft and traces Brahms’s path in assembling his quotations to reveal borrowings from sources he encountered in the Schumann house in Düsseldorf in 1854. The second section of the article considers the different modes of reading implied by Brahms’s collection, while the third reflects on the artistic worldview articulated by the assembled entries. While scholars have viewed the Schatzkästlein largely as evidence of Brahms’s adolescent infatuation with the writings of the German Romantics, this investigation emphasizes the competing conceptions of artistry present in these fascinatingly messy notebooks and argues that this youthful collection points to the important role played by literature in the development of Brahms’s distinctive musical sensibility.

The Resonance of Music Across Cultures

What predestines music to be able to transgress geo-cultural boundaries? I argue that music’s sensuous, bodily-affective immediacy requires a mode of cross-cultural translation via what I call auditory resonance—the spontaneous attunement of listeners with the sonic presence of music through media-technological transmission despite vestiges of cultural colonialism and other sociopolitical barriers. I trace such resonance effects from German Romanticism through our global present, focusing especially on the conversations between two Japanese cultural figures, the conductor Seiji Ozawa and the novelist Haruki Murakami. These texts show that the category of auditory resonance is more suitable for addressing European music’s global significance than its traditional claims to transcultural universality. Keywords: Music, resonance, immediacy, presence, media technologies, cultural translation, Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder, Walter Benjamin, Seiji Ozawa, Haruki Murakami

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.

Remembering Ken Newton

Remembering Ken Newton

Remembering Ken Newton

Remembering Ken Newton

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.