Romantic Theory Research Articles

The Rise of Modern Science and the Genesis of Romanticism

The replacement of the mechanical philosophy by an organic view of the cosmos is one of the most significant features of Romanticism. My article explains why the Romantics felt compelled to attack the mechanical philosophy and confirms Peckham's findings that the new organicism accounts for a large part of Romantic theory. This theory led to substantial progress in our understanding of the humanities. The Romantic world view is, however, no less flawed than the view it temporarily superseded: it is incompatible with the foundations of modern science.

The Irish Fairy Legends and the Brothers Grimm

The paper investigates the question why the Brothers Grimm translated Croker's Fairy Legends of the South of Ireland into German, and why Croker, in his turn, translated Wilhelm Grimm's long introduction to the work into English. On the basis of the correspondence between Croker and the Brothers Grimm, and within the context of prevailing romantic theories pertaining to folktale collections, the paper attempts to re-establish the value of the Fairy Legends as a milestone in the history of folklore research and children's literature.

Auden as Literary Evolutionist: Wordsworth's Dream and the Fate of Romanticism

ion as well as barbaric, inchoate matter-and replaces them with a single indissoluble unity. But because of its intuitive nature, this unity is not the product of a universally logical process but rather a sacred radical of the individually creative imagination. Thus the isologous symbol paradoxically defeats rational empiricism at its own game by elevating the referential aspect of romantic poetics, yet at the same time puts that referentiality beyond understanding, hence beyond analysis or criticism. This is both defense against the inroads of irreverent inquiry and compensation for the confusion of the romantic lexicon. Romanticism's theory of emotional motivation complements the isologous symbol by replacing the concept of literature as an arrangement of conventions or devices with the concept of literature as a series of inevitable yet mysterious relations. Because of the polysemous quality of the symbol, the number of these relations is greatly increased. The actual analysis of the second lecture centers upon Auden's discussion of one particular symbol, the Pequod in Moby-Dick, and the purpose of this analysis is to show that romantic practice does not conform to romantic theory. Any symbol, Auden implies, can be naturalized; that is, the referentiality denied in isology can be re-introduced by supplying a signified for the signifier. In the case of the Pequod, Auden finds such naturalization in various elaborations of the now familiar quest of postrenaissance man for freedom from a false and trivial necessity (i.e., life on shore) and subjection to a true and meaningful one (i.e., life on ship). Auden greatly simplifies his task by taking the Pequod as his example of a symbol; the white whale eventually endures a similar fate of naturalization, but it must await that fate until the third lecture. Once the claim to isology has been dismissed through naturalization, it becomes apparent that, despite their strongly affective quality, romantic

Bachelard and the Romantic Imagination

tion has long eluded students of his work. Because of his shifts in critical approach, a debate has arisen over what system, if any, governs his meditations on poetic imagery. The problem requires a comparative approach, since Bachelard's work is rooted in the poetics and poetry of English and German Romanticism, a period for which he declared his affinity. The purpose of comparing Bachelard's thought to that of his Romantic predecessors is not, however, to demonstrate his intellectual dependence. Many students of Bachelard have noted in passing his interest in writers like Novalis.1 Since none explores this interest in detail, it has not been recognized that his thought is closer to Romantic theories than to later aesthetic systems. The key point is that Bachelard turned to Romantic precedents not only for isolated ideas but also for his most characteristic and problematic critical procedures: his reliance on metaphoric associations, disjunctive maxims, and apparently contradictory assertions. These methods are

Kleist's Der zerbrochne Krug and Romanticism

In essence this article is concerned with two questions, firstly the position of Der zerbrochne Krug within the main corpus of Kleist's writing and thought, and secondly with the problematic issue of Kleist's general position within the dominant intellectual and artistic movement of the age in which he was writing, namely Romanticism.Three areas of Der zerbrochne Krug are analysed: the experience of the characters, especially Adam; the structure of the action; and the use of symbol, and it is argued from this analysis that the unifying centre of the work is to be found in the tension between subjective and objective, or free and necessary perception and response. This pattern is then related to Romantic theory of comedy in an attempt to demonstrate the ways in which Kleist significantly deviates from the central tenets of Romantic thought as embodied in that theory. On the basis of that contrast parallels are then drawn between Der zerbrochne Krug, Kleist's vision in general and the kind of experience of the years around the turn of the century which informs, for example, the genre of the fate tragedy.

Four Philosophies of Composition

1The research upon which this article is based was supported by a grant from the East Texas State University Office of Organized Research in the summer of 1976. The author wishes to thank Professor H. M. Lafferty, Chairman, and the Committee on Organized Research for their support. 2M. H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (New York: Norton, 1953), pp. 2-29. fect, Abrams labels pragmatic. When the universe shared by artist and auditor becomes the primary element and measure of success, then, Abrams says, we have a mimetic theory, such as that of Pope and the Neo-Classical period. Emphasis on the personal views of the ar ist, such as in the Romantic period, Abrams labels the expressive position. And finally, theories emphasizing only the internal relationships within the artifact, Abrams calls objective criticism. Abrams's analysis made me wonder whether a parallel set of four philosophies of composition might exist, each one stressing a different element in the communicative transaction. If so, each would provide-as do the philosophies Abrams outlined-both a description of the composition process and a method of evaluating the composed product. Furthermore, the existence of four such philosophies might help to explain both he widely recognized variations in English teachers' evaluations and (perhaps) what Kitzhaber in Thomas, Theories, and Therapy referred to as the bewildering variety of freshman composition courses. For application to composition, I prefer to make two shifts in Abrams's ter-

Kant's Metaphysics of Nature and Schelling's Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature

Kant's Metaphysics of Nature and Schelling's Ideasfor a Philosophy of Nature GEORGE DI GIOVANNI Ix IS wRosc TO LOOt AT Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature (1797) as a work in which Schelling reiterated the main tenets of Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre, adding to them only some obscure and highly dubious theory about the composition of matter. ' The Schelling of Ideas certainly thought of himself as inspired by Fichte." The philosophical position he sketched, however, was already far removed from anything his mentor would have been willing to avow as his own. In this paper I claim that the problem Schelling is grappling with in Ideas, and the solution he proposes for it, are best understood by confronting them directly with the thought of Kant--especially with Kant's reflections on the possibility of a transition from the transcendental principles of experience in general to the particular principles of a science of nature. Adickes has already called attention to the continuity between Kant's metaphysics of nature and Schelling's romantic theories.' However, since Adickes considered Kant's attempts to ground a priori the principles of a natural science as residues from his precritical past, he thought that in exploiting the themes Kant had adumbrated in his metaphysics of nature, Schelling was reverting to a mode of dogmatic l The fulltitle of the work is Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Naturals Einleitung in das Studium dieser Wi~nschaft. I shall cite from the text of Friedrich W. J. yon Schelling'sSdmmtliche Werke, ed. K. F. A. yon Schelling,14vols. (Stuttgart and Augsburg, 1856-61),sec. I, vol. 2, pp. 1-343.Arturo Massolo holds that Ideas is an essentially "Fichtean" work whileconcedingthat Schellinghad already shownmarked differencesfrom Fichte in writings that immediately preceded or accompanied its production (I1 Primo Schelling [Firenze:G. C. Sansoni, 1953],pp. 35-36, 40-42). XavierTillietteinterprets Ideas as an attempt by Schellingto introduce empirical material in a framework of thought that remains essentially "transcendental " (see Schelling: Une philosophic en devenir, 2 vols. [Paris: J. Vrin, 1970],1:129-30, 132-33, 145). In a somewhat similar vein, Jean-Frant;ois Marquet describes Ideas as "an awkward transposition " of Fichte's Grundri~ des Eigenthumlichen der Wissenschaftslehre (1975). He argues that Ideas is the result of two quite disparate factors, viz., the influenceof the transcendental thought of Kant and Fichte,and Schelling'sown interest in empiricalscience(Libert~et existence: l~tudesur laformation de la philosophic de Schelling [Paris: Gallimard, 1973],pp. 113-14,l15ff.).It is interestingto note that Manfred SchrOter, in his 1927reproduction of the Cotta edition of Schelling's works, includes only the introduction of Ideas in the sixmainvolumesof the edition and relegatesthe body of the work to the Ergdnzungsbdnde that contain "die weniger wichtigen Schriften" (Schellings Werke, Nach der Originalausgabe in neuer Anordnung, 8 vols. [Munich, 1927;reprinted 1965], l:viii). 2In a footnote to Ideas, Schellingacknowledgeshis indebtednessto Fichte without mentioning him by name (13.221, n. 1; Schellingrefers to Fichte as the "second creator" of Kant's philosophy). JErichAdickes,Kant als Naturforscher, 2 vols. (Berlin:Walterde Gruyter, 1925-25),1:57-59. Seealso Arthur Drews, Kants Naturphiiosophie als Grundlage seines Systems (Berlin, 1894),pp. 493-95. [197] 198 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY thinking that the more critical aspects of Kant had rendered outmoded. ~ In my paper, on the contrary, I argue that Kant had been driven to his search for a transition from transcendental to particular principles of experience because of a problem that arose directly out of his critical premises. The Schelling of Ideas was keenly aware of such a problem. And in pursuing his own theory of nature, he was exploiting and developing a line of thought essentially connected with Kant's critical enterprise. I. One of the many factors in the development of post-Kantian idealism was the desire to meet the skepticism that was the natural consequence of Kant's own critical idealism. Being accused of fomenting skepticism might have well appeared unjust to the older Kant, for his own motive in establishing metaphysics on a critical basis had been to counter the skepticism to which scholastic rationalism had led. But the charge was not unfounded. It should be noted...

Contemporary Neighborhood Theories

Theories of neighborhood government can be divided into three categories. Integrative theories grant neighborhoods a significant role in the metropolitan political process. Romantic theories outline nonattainable goals for the neighborhood. Reactive theories juxtapose neighborhood against metropolis by assuming that the neighborhood can be an instrument of social change. This article endorses integrative theories and criticizes theories which are romantic and reactive. The urban reform movement stimulated the development of romantic and reactive theories by attempting to suppress neighborhood politics. Mary Parker Follett suggests a viable way to integrate neighborhood and metropolis which deserves reconsideration.

Usher's Hypochondriasis: Mental Alienation and Romantic Idealism in Poe's Gothic Tales

O N THREE SEPARATE OCCASIONS narrator of Fall of House of refers to Roderick as a hypochondriac.' It seems odd that he should do so, since he never expresses slightest doubt that Roderick is really sick: indeed upon greeting Usher narrator is shocked by his boyhood friend's terribly altered appearance (III, 278). The apparent contradiction is explained, however, when we realize that narrator, who lays claim to some knowledge of the history of mental (III, 292) is using term in its medical rather than its popular sense. Although he is at least initially unaware of broad ramifications which disease has acquired in Usher's world, he has correctly diagnosed Roderick's peculiar combination of physical and mental complaints as symptomatic of hypochondriasis, a melancholic disorder which has been recognized for centuries and which was widely discussed among physicians in Poe's own time. The issue is of more than passing interest, since failure of modern critics to identify Usher's illness correctly has obscured one of most important themes in Poe's story: for only when we discover exact nature of Usher's disease can we fully appreciate rich parallels which Poe's tale develops between medical theories about progressive derangement of mind and romantic theories about growth of mind's perceptive powers.2

Two Costume Designs by Eugène Delacroix

In the process of concluding my thesis, ‘Alfred de Vigny and the French Romantic Theatre’ (Cornell University, 1973), I had written to France requesting permission to publish the various iconographic material relevant to the productions of Vigny's plays. A note from M. Sangnier was forwarded to me via the Association des Amis d'Alfred de Vigny concerning the existence in M. Sangnier's collection of two costume sketches by Delacroix ascribed to Vigny's La Maréchale d'Ancre. This ascription came as a pleasant surprise to me as there is no mention of Delacroix' association with the production in either his or Vigny's published papers, or in contemporary reviews of the production. A quick check of Delacroix biographies and catalogues confirmed my suspicion that the sketches (Plates I and II) had been heretofore unknown.

The Marvellous and Romantic Semiotics

IT is widely known that the Romantic poets favoured symbolic procedures, but somehow, it is less well known why they did so. The question leads, admittedly, straight into the man-traps and spring-guns of historical explanation. There is a variety of patterns to be followed. The protest principle explains that the young generation disliked what their fathers and grandfathers were doing; the anticipa tion principle explains how the seeds of a future were sown before that future; the principle of logical development explains how one state of affairs could not master the difficulties it had produced itself; the principle of adjacent causes explains that something has happened (e.g. in literature) because something else had happened (e.g. in politics). Finally, there is the reductive principle which reduces historical events to their conditions of possibility. I shall adopt the last principle and ask: what is it that made Romantic symbolism possible? And I shall argue that it was a new orientation in the theory of signs which pro vided the basis for Romantic literary theory and practice. That is to say, I shall attempt an essay in applied semiotics. History tells stories; historical explanations will have to be narrative at least to that extent that they describe a change in order to account for it.1 Let us group all sorts of remarks on the art of writing poetry and fiction under the vague heading of poetological discourse, and let this be the field of study. In order to describe a change in this field, I shall sketch the story of a single concept, of the marvellous.2 In order

Reviews

M.H. Abrams, Natural Supernaturalism, Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature, reviewed by J.R. de J. Jackson Frederick J. Marker, Hans Christian Andersen and the Romantic Theatre: A Study of Stage Practices in the Prenaturalistic Scandinavian Theatre, reviewed by Evert Sprinchorn

Hans Christian Andersen and the Romantic Theatre

Hans Christian Andersen and the Romantic Theatre

Jane Eyre's Imagination

Jane Eyre's Imagination

Ruskin and Baudelaire on Art and Artist

The parallels, the convergences, what Henri Lemaître, an editor of Baudelaire, calls the "résonances analogues," in the art criticism of Ruskin and Baudelaire are many and interesting. To begin with, Ruskin and Baudelaire each defend a great colourist, Turner and Delacroix. Each sees his favourite as the perfect artistic representation of the age. Each sees himself as the interpreter of an artist who, isolated by genius, is so original that few can understand or appreciate him in his own time. Ruskin begins Modern Painters in 1843, as Baudelaire begins his Salon de 1845, to defend his favourite painter against the malice and ignorance of periodical critics. Each proceeds to formulate as part of his defence a theory of art; and to create this theory of art each transfers the criteria, methods, and emphases of romantic poetic theory to the criticism of painting. Each as a result independently creates a romantic version of the principle of ut pictura poesis. And, having formulated a romantic theory of painting emphasizing the role of emotion, each is so troubled by the potentially distorting effects of emotion that he draws a portrait of an ideal artist-poet, who, though deeply emotional, can yet paradoxically remain impassive when moved.

Arcadia Re-Settled: Pastoral Poetry and Romantic Theory

Arcadia Re-Settled: Pastoral Poetry and Romantic Theory

The Active Universe: Pantheism and the Concept of Imagination in the English Romantic Poets

This book is a study of ‘Romantic Pantheism’ and its part in the development of the Romantic theory of the Imagination. The crucial point in the history of English Romanticism came when the philosophical concept of the ‘active universe’ met the developing theory of the Imagination. In its leading sense, Imagination meant full response to, and implication with, the living qualities of natural objects. That is why it was able to assimilate and transform contemporary theories of merely passing interest into an important poetic approach to the universe.

Antony and Cleopatra and the Subjective Convention

A major sortie in what Maxwell Anderson has called Bernard Shaw's “furious critical assault on the romantic theatre” is the section entitled “Better than Shakespear?” in the Preface to Three Plays for Puritans. Well-known today, this discussion offers proof of Eric Bentley's assertion that Shaw's Shakespeare criticism should be judged as polemic rather than criticism of a more objective sort. Shaw's attack in that Preface on Shakespeare's Julius Caesar has naturally been a principal object of critical attention ever since it was penned, but this fact should not blind us to another, that Shaw was at least as much concerned with Antony and Cleopatra, and that in fact his own comedy, as one scholar pointed out more than a generation ago, was more of a counterblast to Antony than to Caesar. It is easy to forget that Shaw followed the lead of certain of Shakespeare's predecessors and contemporaries in re-introducing Cleopatra into a play about Caesar (whom he called “this greatest of all protagonists”) whereas Shakespeare keeps the two rigorously separate. Shaw's purpose in doing what he did was clear, and this purpose is explicated in detail in his comments on Shakespeare's Antony.

The Affianced

Sylvia Plath: The Colossus and Other PoemsGraham Hough: Legends and Pastorals Thistles and Roses, by Iain Crichton Smith The Astronomy of Love, by Jon Stallworthy Heart's Needle, by W. D. Snodgrass The Map of Clay, by Jack Clemo Once Bitten Twice Bitten, by Peter PorterM. H. Abrams. The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition. Paper back edition Maurice Maeterlinck: A Study of his Life and Thought, by W. D. HallsDonald Davie, The Heyday of Sir Walter ScottRoger Asselineau. The Evolution of Walt Whitman; The Creation of a Personality

Edmund Burke's View of History

A study of Edmund Burke's theory of history has not, to my knowledge, been undertaken before. There are two principal justifications for it. The first is that since Burke is, as some have claimed, “the principal founder” of the Romantic theory of history, his theory of history, as one aspect of the complicated association of thought and feeling called Romanticism, is important in the history of ideas. The second reason is that almost all of Burke's politics depends on his view of history or, at least, can be explained by it.