Romantic Aesthetics Research Articles

THE POETRY BY MYKHAILO OREST: IDEAS AND FIGURATIVE STRUCTURE

The paper explores the structure of Mykhailo Orest’s poetry, delving into its main elements such as concepts of time, forest, silence, and word, as well as the motives of eschatologism and reincarnation. It focuses on the ideological and aesthetic originality of Orest’s poetry, examining his views on the nature of language and the essence of art. The distinctive feature of Orest’s poetry is a metaphor of time that comprises various philosophical meanings, including the eschatological understanding of time as “the world of the night,” the era of “the departure of God,” and “the end of things” as opposed to the concept of “the eternal day.” Orest’s eschatological poetics is rooted in medieval imagery and biblical metaphors. His poetic vision of the Apocalypse combines motives and images of diverse meanings and origins. Orest’s pantheism is seen as growing from romantic aesthetics, primarily the works of German romantics. The poet’s pantheistic ideas find expressive reflection through the cult of the forest, the symbolism of trees, particularly the archetype of the world tree. They are also related to the myth of birth and death, interpreted in Orest’s poetry, and the motive of metamorphosis. Medieval mythology takes a special place in Orest’s poetic world. In particular, the poet reinterprets the myths of Grail, Parsifal, Lohengrin, and Tannhäuser. The creative thought of Mykhailo Orest was constantly in search — a romantic inclination towards the irrational to a conscious interest in the world of things and the establishment of a complex system of relationship with it.

Rozpaczając jak Skandynawowie – estetyka romantyczna Karin Boye i Marii Pawlikowskiej-Jasnorzewskiej

In Romantic aesthetics there is an interpretive category of the poetry of the cultures of the North – including the Scandinavians, who were familiar with the “poetry of the night and the graves” – which expressed ferocity, gloom, harshness, melancholy, internal tensions. Maria Janion repeatedly referred to the parallel between Polish and Scandinavian literatures, writing: “It is good that there are despairing Scandinavians in the world.” This article will focus precisely on the aesthetics of Romantic “existential despair” and “gender despair” in the context of the poetry created by a Swedish woman, Karin Boye, and a Polish woman, Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, with particular emphasis on their last poems, written in the late 1920s and early 1930s. And although they do not create in the Romantic era – they implement Romantic aesthetics in their poetic program.

Cosmic Imagery in Russian Poetry at Turn of 18th and 19th Centuries: Strategies of Study

The article explores the mechanisms of poetic representation of celestial bodies, the celestial sphere, and extraordinary cosmic phenomena in Russian poetry at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries in the context of changing artistic paradigms (classicism and romanticism), poets’ worldview, and their artistic methods. It analyzes literary-critical articles from the 1820s-1840s and works by literary scholars from the second half of the 19th to the 21st centuries. The main research strategies for analyzing the cosmic imagery in Russian poetry of this period are identified. The existing methodology for interpreting the poetic works of G. R. Derzhavin and V. A. Zhukovsky, who were at the forefront of the leading artistic systems of the time, is evaluated in terms of understanding the image of the cosmic universe. It is determined that in literary criticism and scholarship, three main approaches have emerged in interpreting the image of the cosmic universe: interpretations of the astronomical universe as classical emblems, as typical elements of landscape in romantic aesthetics, and as ontologically charged images. It is proven that the study of cosmic motifs did not have a systematic character in relation to the literary process at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries.

The Concept of Music from Kafka’s The Metamorphosis: Author vs Translator

This article examines the problem of preserving the meaning of the translation of fiction texts. The author refers to the translation into Russian of “War er ein Tier, da ihn Musik so ergriff?”, a phrase from Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. It is argued that in the only translation of the novella into Russian by S. K. Apt, there is an inaccuracy in the translation of this phrase, which distorts the semantics of the source. The article reveals the grounds for the assumption of this inaccuracy in the translation of the outstanding Russian Germanist. They relate to the translator’s intuitive rejection of the concept of musical art, which is reflected in the phrase analysed. While reconstructing Kafka’s thought, the author of the article concludes that Kafka’s work expresses an understanding of music that completely disagrees with the one that distinguishes the classical works of European philosophy of music, forged on the basis of Romantic aesthetics. Kafka has a non-Romantic understanding of music: he refuses to venerate it as an ideal metaphysical essence, reflecting on the nature of the impact of music on the listener. The author puts forward a hypothesis that in Kafka’s work, there is a rethinking of the philosophy of musical art belonging to F. Nietzsche, who opposed music to the non-musical human world, subordinated to logic and language. Kafka radicalises this opposition: in his logic, music alienates people from the rational world, plunging them into an animal, primordially natural state. Gregor Samsa’s sensitivity to music, which he discovers after the metamorphosis, makes him recognise his animal essence, which requires that the analysed phrase be translated as a sentence with a clause of reason (“Was he an animal because music excited him so much?”) rather than a clause of condition (as in Apt: “Was he an animal if music excited him so much?”). The reference to other novellas about “animals responsive to music” (Investigations of a Dog, Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk) reinforces the proposed reconstruction of Kafka’s understanding of music, which, in turn, opens significant semantic layers of the novella related to the interpretation of the images of other characters (Gregor’s family, three guests in Mr. Samsa’s apartment) and its deep tragic content.

La folie féminine dans l’univers capitaliste mauriacien

The French novels of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th century are marked by a close relationship between writing and context, generally based on determinism and the psychology of the characters. François Mauriac is no exception to such a conception of romantic aesthetics, as evidenced by the novels, which retrace the life cycle of the heroine Therese Desqueyroux and revolve around the family nucleus, the forest economy, painting provincial customs, etc. In such a universe, the individual, in general, and the woman, in particular, unnecessarily go to war against the constraints of the environment. The dizzying decline of the rebellious character reveals all the beauty and greatness of his rejection. The objective of this article is therefore to show that the course of this character obeys certain poetics of feminine madness that can be identified with the help of criteria, in addition to those already mentioned by critics. These aspects of Mauritian writing already herald the impact of the impossible fitting of fragmentary soul shards in modern romantic aesthetics.

Amelia B. Edwards and Romantic Egyptology

Abstract Amelia B. Edwards (1831–1892) was renowned for her profound mastery of Egyptology, possessing a knowledge some said surpassed that of her male counterparts. Her archaeological endeavours in Egypt merged with a vivid narrative approach, evident in seminal works such as A Thousand Miles up the Nile (1877) and her captivating lectures across Britain and America. This harmonious blend of meticulous observation and romantic aesthetics not only carved her niche as a distinguished Egyptologist, but also heralded her as a forerunner in public history, adept at fusing erudite exploration with charming storytelling. Set against the tapestry of the Romantic era, Edwards forged a distinctive narrative, eschewing traditional academic boundaries to imbue her writings with heartfelt sentiment. This article delves into Edwards’ impact on Egyptology’s popularization: from her pivotal 1873 Egyptian sojourn, followed by her compelling lectures, to her personally curated Egyptian collection at home. With an adept fusion of artistic verve and academic rigour, Edwards bridged literature and archaeology. Her legacy signifies a refreshing deviation from orthodox methodologies, presenting a more immersive perspective on ancient Egypt. In stark contrast to the staid styles of her contemporary archaeological peers, she proclaimed herself the only romancer also versed in Egyptology, ardently championing a scientific discourse with broader appeal.

« Ces orgies d’inspirations ». Le destin du peintre d’après le Journal de Félix Ziem

“These orgies of inspiration”. The Destiny of the Painter According to the Journal of Félix Ziem The present paper focuses on the diary of the French painter Félix Ziem (1821-1911) and inquires the destiny of the painter emerging from his writings. Basing on the theories of diary writing (B. Didier, A. Girard, J. Lis), it shows how the artist represents his profession. The analyses convey that three elements are necessary for Félix Ziem to fulfill the destiny of the painter: hard work, dreamy contemplation of nature and travels. Those elements are described in detail in the three consecutive parts of the paper. The conclusions display a self-confident artist, influenced by Romantic aesthetics, who consciously constructs in his diary a testimony of his life as an example of painter’s destiny.

Wackenroder’s “Phantasies” about Art as a Manifest of Romantic Aesthetics

Wackenroder is a Romantic author of a metaphysical-religious orientation. For him, the creator of art and its most adequate perceiving subject is God. As for art, he sees it as most tightly connected to religion, for both help the human being to rise from the earthly hassle to the heavenly sphere. The art of all times and nations contains a common essence – the beautiful – which is expressed in a variety of ways. Therefore the human being is capable of learning how to see beauty in any art medium. Wackenroder speaks of two symbolic languages that help the human being grasp heavenly matters: the language of nature and the language of art. Creativity is based on inspiration, which is a divine gift. In creating their art artists must begin with nature and present it in a transformed way. The process of creativity begins in the inner world of the artist, when he or she constructs a future painting in its completeness. The contemplation of a work of art is like prayer. Therefore perception of art requires specific training. Before contact with art, the recipient must initiate in him or herself the ability to perceive the beautiful and sublime. The grasping of a true work of art is inexhaustible. Every act of contemplating an artwork reveals to our soul something new. The process of perception of art is enthusiastic in nature; Wackenroder presents it as a confession of our spirit. In his musical aesthetics the place of honor belongs to the spiritual content of music. In painting Wackenroder most highly esteems the pacifying art of Rafael, the allegorical art of Michelangelo, and the cognitive art of Leonardo Da Vinci.

The Man of Action of French Romanticism. Aesthetic Views of Victor Hugo and their Embodiment in Poetry and Dramaturgy

The subject of the study is the fundamental philosophical and aesthetic problems in the romantic aesthetics of one of its leaders in France - Victor Hugo. The evolution of his aesthetic views is traced - from adherence to the aesthetics of classicism and royalist views to the established theory and artistic practice of romanticism, colored with democratic pathos. The core of Hugo's aesthetics is revealed - the original concept of the grotesque, which has found a convincing embodiment in his poetry, drama, historical novels. Such main themes as the correlation of the tragic and the comic, the beautiful and the ugly, the sublime and the base, content and form, freedom and order, historical truth and fiction in art, romantic symbolization in the context of the formation of the concept of the artistic essence of romanticism by Hugo are considered. The features of his artistic and aesthetic concept related to the national specifics of art, local color, the problems of artistic taste, inspiration, imagination, aesthetic pleasure, artistic style, genius, talent are analyzed. The main conclusion of the study is the conclusion that all these topics form the basis of Hugo's judgments about the nature of romantic drama as the pinnacle of 19th century poetry and its differences from classic tragedy. The multidimensional nature of this study predetermined the use of a number of methodological approaches: philosophical and aesthetic approach, art history analysis, comparative, interdisciplinary methods. The author's special contribution lies in the fact that the study of Hugo's aesthetic theory and artistic practice is based on original material. The article provides a comparative analysis of the embodiment of Hugo's aesthetic views in various types and genres of art. Such a study was undertaken for the first time in domestic science.

La fotografía de difuntos del siglo XIX como reflejo psicosocial e intelectual de una época

The photography of the deceased, especially those taken during their years of public splendor, became a highly demanded product, not only for its emotional value as a reminder of the deceased, or as an aid to the psychological transition of mourning for close relatives, but also for its value as a sociocultural artifice. The post-mortem photography has been subject of profuse sociological, anthropological, artistic and even semiological studies, as a symbolic manifestation, but neither its value nor its meaning end there. Neither, by the way, were the familiar dead the only ones to be immortalized photographically, although they are the ones that have aroused the most interest and imagination in the present. After the nineteenth-century images of corpses, although their heyday continued until the 1920s, the long and controversial relationship that human beings have traditionally maintained with death and the "afterlife" survives. It is not surprising, in this sense, that the stellar moment of this photographic practice coincided temporarily with the birth of spiritualism. Nor that it crossed in time with the mentality and aesthetics of Romanticism, a cultural moment that maintained a peculiar connection to all intents and purposes with death, the dead, the new sociopolitical concepts when managing funeral practices, or the birth of the contemporary Thanatology. The 19th century, especially its second half, was an intellectual and cultural crossroads in which many ideas and approaches to death coming from the past had to merge with the rise of scientific positivism and an entirely new conception of human nature. This work tries to explore, through the photography of the deceased, this historical changes.

Paradigm of Western European romantic aesthetics in Mykola Lysenko’s work

Paradigm of Western European romantic aesthetics in Mykola Lysenko’s work

Romantic Aesthetics and the General Will in the Islamism of Sayyid Qutb

Recent research has pointed to the modern nature of the state that Islamists posit in contrast to medieval Islamic notions of political authority. This paper argues that a conceptual framework derived from romantic aesthetics underpinned the Islamist thought of Sayyid Qutb, who was for many years a secular literary writer. The aesthetic framework made possible the notion of human freedom and progress as the enactment of the general or collective will, which is the source of the state. Classical formulations of the general will in Rousseau, Kant, and Hegel are closely related to contemporaneous aesthetic notions of freedom as creative expression of interiority. Qutb participated in this line of thinking. The vitalist metaphysics and expressivist aesthetic theory of his literary period led him to later formulate an account of the general will that is embodied in Islamic law, the sharīʿa, which he identified with the state. He presented the Islamic state on this basis as resolving the fundamental contradiction of western modernity that romantic aesthetics had identified in the context of establishing the redemptive value of art. This contradiction, the disunity of the spiritual and the material, was equated by Qutb with the separation of church and state. Islamic law as the state is thus justified on aesthetic grounds as the reconciliation of humanity and nature now divided by Western materialism. Qutb’s thought in the context of its aesthetic genesis provides valuable insight into the nature of modern notions of individual and collective will.

The Holy Abyss of the Absolute: Poe’s Critique of Schelling in “Morella” and “The Fall of the House of Usher”

Abstract This article examines the impact of Schelling’s philosophy, especially his concept of the Absolute, on two of Poe’s tales: “Morella” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” It begins with a focused overview of Schelling’s chief doctrines, in particular his famous system of identity, and because this system was forged under the influence of Spinoza’s monism, the revival of the Dutch philosopher’s ideas in post-Kantian German philosophy is also briefly discussed. The article expands on one of the outcomes of this philosophy at the turn of the nineteenth century, namely, the perceived deficiency of philosophical and scientific inquiry and the ensuing privileging of art. As has been recognized, this shift had a direct bearing on emerging Romantic aesthetics, and its emphasis on the symbol as a way of conveying the inexpressible, of revealing the conceptually ungraspable. Both the Romantic theory of the symbol and Schelling’s idea of the Absolute provide a conceptual framework for understanding the philosophical resonances of “Morella” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.”

Countering colonial nostalgia and heroic masculinity in the age of accelerated climate change: The Arctic artworks of Katja Aglert and Isaac Julien

This article explores two screen-based artworks: Katja Aglert’s Winter Event – Antifreeze (2009–18) and Isaac Julien’s True North (2004) respectively, that exemplify diverse viewpoints contesting the essentialized identities of the Arctic past. These artworks recover the histories of women, the Inuit and African American men’s involvement in polar exploration, reimagining heroic narratives from historically excluded or ignored perspectives. By employing irony and humour, these artworks expand our understanding of how media-based art can respond to the ironies of a warming planet and challenge colonial nostalgia for White male heroism. The artworks traverse not just the human imperialism of the colonial era but also the newer imperialism in the age of the Anthropocene and the Capitalocene, decentring the mythic and exotic qualities of expedition narratives. Ultimately, the irreverent artwork encourages us to rethink an aesthetics of the distanced sublime from Romantic aesthetics and its roots in European Universalism, promoting a more inclusive and intersectional approach to the Arctic and its representation.

Романтизм: типология моделей художественного двоемирия (на материале зарубежной литературы XIX века)

The paper is devoted to the principle of romantic bi-worldness and the peculiarities of its implementation in foreign literature of the XIX century. The main aim of the study is to determine the basic models of bi-worldness, each of which is a sign of the dialectical unity of opposites. The paper is novel in that it is the first to reveal, identify and describe the systemic plurality of artistic bi-worldness models in the aesthetics of Romanticism. The works by S. Coleridge, W. Wordsworth, R. Southey, G. Byron, W. Scott, W. Irving, J. F. Cooper, E. A. Poe, H. Thoreau, H. Longfellow and E. T. A. Hoffmann served as the practical material for the study. The content of the paper is determined by consistently examining the binary models and their systematisation in the context of romantic poetics. The essential features of each model are illustrated using the example of literary texts. As a result of the analysis, the following varieties of romantic bi-worldness have been identified: the West and the East, the present and the past, the present and the future, nature and civilisation, the material and the spiritual, reality and art. These matrices predetermined the formation of such genres as travelogues, historical novel, utopian novel, as well as three types of short stories - psychological, science fiction and detective (logical).

The Pragmatics of Romanticism. Edmund Burke as Art Theorist

The article is devoted to the pragmatic aspects of Edmund Burke’s theory of art. The author identifies pragmatic components in the works of the British philosopher of various genres. The emphasis is on the interdisciplinary nature of Burke’s theory of art, which included artistic, psychological and political dimensions. The pragmatic dimension of Burke’s thought opens up a new field of research in the field of romantic aesthetics and art theory. The pragmatic romanticism of the British thinker complements our ideas about classical and modern art. His ideas shed new light on the development of Western European art from Baroque and classicism to avant-garde and postmodernism. At the same time, the problems of aesthetics, as well as the problems of power, are considered by Burke in a “psychoanalytic” and semiotic way, that is, without evaluation, and romantic special effects are subjected to objective analysis both in literature and art, and in politics. The pragmatic dimension allows us to redefine the role of Burke as the true founder of scientific art studies, who anticipated the most modern methods of analyzing artistic processes. The physiological, natural-scientific connotations of Burke’s work are also studied in the context of pragmatic strategies, as opposed to idealistic interpretations of the romantic theory of art.

An Ecocritical Reading of Hardy’s The Woodlanders: Supernature and EcoGothic

In The Woodlanders Thomas Hardy builds a kaleidoscopic vision of nature and the environment thanks to shifting modes of representation and the use of multiple generic perspectives, each one of which entails a specific discourse on ecology. Reworking Romantic aesthetics, using the supernatural and the fantastic forms and ecoGothic or adding a fairy-tale dimension to his novel, helps Hardy unfold a complex, idiosyncratic ecocritical vision which goes beyond the mere use of nature as a backdrop to his novels. In The Woodlanders, Hardy ceaselessly addresses the question of “belonging” or “not belonging”, of consuming nature or being part of it. Through a subtle generic interplay, using well-identified topoi (the woods, the tree, the hut) and turning them into supernatural images, Hardy asserts in his 1887 novel that the human and the non-human cannot be considered as distinct.

Provincializing Romanticism: Ottoman Hayaliyyun and Literary Globality in the Nineteenth Century

This essay considers the shortfalls of globalizing tendencies in nineteenth-century literary studies with a focus on the Ottoman Turkish articulation of romanticism, i.e., hayaliyyun. Retrieving a historically and geographically hybrid genealogy of romanticism through the Ottoman Turkish context, my discussion situates romantic imaginary and vocabulary back in the spatiotemporally dispersed, multilingual landscape where they emerged and evolved. As it seeks to move beyond the Euro-U.S.-centric frameworks employed in transnational accounts of romantic aesthetics, this article foregrounds linguistic difference and plurality as a conduit for rethinking globality in literary critical approaches to the nineteenth century.

Specifics of Representation of Figurative Spheres in the Mono-opera «The Death of a Poet» by S. Slonimsky

One of the vectors of active search for genre solutions in the domestic musical and theatrical art of recent decades is associated with the mono-opera genre. It is characterized by extreme diversity and participates in the active processes of transformation of the opera, the pull for renewal and adaptation to the social, cultural and spiritual needs of society. The concert mono-opera «The Death of a Poet» by Sergei Slonimsky for voice and piano, considered in this article, is an example that largely preserves the traditions of monologue forms of utterance in the opera genre. Slonimsky’s opus reveals the theme of the Poet, the unrecognized prophet, which is relevant for contemporary authors. The appeal to M. Lermontov’s poem of the same name, ambiguous in terms of genre and semantic content, which combined elegy and satire, determined the specifics of the formation of the mono-opera, its stylistic diversity associated with the comparison of two main figurative spheres of the mono-opera – sphere Poet (Pushkin, Lermontov) and Socially (high society, Dantes). The mono-opera completely lacks stage action and storyline, which brings it closer to the vocal poem genre; the literary basis is completely preserved, the declamatory type of intonation prevails. The theme of the «archetypal» conflict is presented by the composer within the framework of romantic aesthetics: the image of the rebellious Hero with his lyrical impulses is opposed to the alien world of the Anti-Hero. Surveillance of the mono-opera by S. Slonimsky «The Death of a Poet» allows us to conclude that it largely inherits the fundamental properties of the genre, which consist in focusing on the experiences of a creative person who is in conflict with others, however, it sharpens such properties of the newest mono-opera as a monologue confession of the hero in a critical life situation, maximum concentration on the image of the protagonist.

Новый романтизм в датской музыке: о творческом методе Бента Сёренсена

At the center of the article’s attention lies the music of contemporary Danish composer Bent Sørensen, who was awarded the prestigious Gravemeyer Awards in 2018. The author reveals the sources of compositional inspiration, the peculiarities of the figurative system, and the artistic ideas sustaining the musical compositions demonstrate the characteristic techniques which determine the descriptive topos of his music (an abundance of glissandi, sound repetitions, use of tapering of sound, special performance techniques, etc.). Special attention is given to two of Sørensen’s compositions – the triple concerto L’isola della сittà (2015), the second movement of which reevaluates the finale of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata opus 110, and the concerto for accordion and string instruments It is pain flowing down slowly on a white wall (2010), which contains a revised version of the idea of the musicians departing from the stage, similar to Haydn’s “Farewell Symphony.” On the basis of their analysis the particularities of the composer’s interaction with the past and with tradition are shown. A complex of specific features intrinsic to Sørensen’s artistic method is revealed: the programmatic character of the music; the poetics of silence; the aestheticization of the processes of decay; the specific figurative system focusing itself on “the evanescent” or “the absent”; the combination of tonality and atonality, sound and noise elements; the allocation of dialogue with the composer’s predecessors by means of stylistic allusions and the reevaluation of their architectonic constructions. In conclusion, emphasis is made of the connection between Sørensen’s musical thought and romantic aesthetics.