Romanticism in Germany

- by Petre Mihail George -

(En-Ger, An 2, 2016-2017)

1. Introduction

Romanticism, which is also known under the name of the Romantic Era or
the Romantic Period, was the leading philosophy of the 18th and 19th centuries which
had a major influence on pretty much every aspect of peoples lives, ranging from
politics to arts.
The origins of the word romantic is highly debated, and various groups of thought
relate it to either the root roman (from Latin languages), which refers to and glorifies
the beauty and purity of nature (without and sexual connotation) or the new literary
form of the novel, called roman.
What is unequivocally agreed on is the rising of romanticism in response to the
Enlightenment movement, and it is this opposition, with all the characteristics that it
implies, that defines the romantic current and especially, its translation into literature.
By and large, romanticism focuses on the individual, the divine seed which
resides in each and every human being, seed which not only connects one another, but
it is also the origin of a higher truth.
Most of the people who identified themselves or were categorized as Romantics,
were considered to hold progressive beliefs, even though some of them developed,
after a rise in nationalism, conservative views.

2. The epoch

What is called the Romantic period has no clearly defined boundaries,

particularly because the movement started, or was picked up, at different times in
different parts of the word. But, if we really want to give it some temporal contour,
we could place it roughly between 1750 and 1850.
The difficulty to draw the lines increases when we consider other fields; musical
Romanticism, for instance, is thought to have had a major influence up until the first
half of the 20th century (also called Late Romanticism).
When it was born, romanticism came to a world in turmoil, plagued by war and
civil unrest: the French Revolution (1789-1799), the Napoleonic Wars (until 1815).
These social and political tensions, and all the issued associated with such times, is
what served as a background for Romanticism. It was only natural that from earlier
stages of glorifying legends and folklore, romantics and their ideas easily transferred
to feelings of patriotism and nationalism, inspiring men and women, young and old, to
revere their own history and current goals as unique, and furthermore, proper.

3. The characteristics

From its very first stages, romanticism made it clear that it was going its own
current, complete with characteristics that would eventually position it against the

1
norms of the time, making it a revolutionary philosophy at the time. Some of its most
defining traits shall be described next.
In broad terms, romanticism focuses on emotion, individualism, the glorification
of the medieval past and the time of knights and chivalry, and nature, as a setting for
all the other intense experiences to unfold onto. It was a reaction, an opposite one to
modernity of the times, which included: the Industrial revolution, the aristocracy, the
political rules of the Enlightenment, and the emerging scientific and rationalization
mentalities.
Speaking of Romanticism, we have to refer to emotions, and, for romantics,
intense feelings, pushed to exaggeration, became the norm. Apprehension, horror,
terror, awe were all meant to highlight the raw beauty of nature and natural originality.
Thus, it is no wonder that it regarded folklore, ancient customs to the highest regards,
and put an emphasis on spontaneity as a desirable trait, especially in ones decisions to
rise up against the population growth and industrialism, even if that rising meant,
most often than not, a retreat in the welcoming embrace of nature and small villages
and remote sanctuaries.
Naturally, we can assume that romantics did not trust the human society, and
looked for solitude, where they could reflect and create in peace. And from that well
established, solid place of originality, poets and other artists were preaching their
original views through their work, inviting and sometimes pushing their audience into
picking up their moral views. In other words, romantic poetry invited readers to
identify the protagonists with the poets and themselves, in an attempt to fuel more
strength into their standpoint. Romanticism assigned a high value to the achievements
of "heroic" individualists and artists, whose examples, it maintained, would raise the
quality of society.It also promoted the individual imagination as a critical authority
allowed of freedom from classical notions of form in art.

4. Romanticism in Germany

The earliest influences of romanticism in Germany came from Johann

Wolfgang von Goethe, whose novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, in 1774, had
young European men imitating its protagonist, a young artist with a very sensitive and
passionate temperament.
Another philosophic influence came from the German idealism of Johann
Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Schelling, making Jena (where Fichte lived, as well as
Schelling, Hegel, Schiller and the brothers Schlegel) a center for early German
Romanticism (see Jena Romanticism).
Some of the most prominent figures were Ludwig Tieck, Novalis (Heinrich von
Ofterdingen), Heinrich von Kleist, and Friedrich Hlderlin. Heidelberg later became
the epicenter of German Romanticism, where artists such as Clemens
Brentano, Achim von Arnim, and Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff were often drawn
into literary circles.
As with all Romantics, German ones focuses on motifs such as traveling, nature,
and Germanic myths. The later German Romanticism grew progressively darker in its
motifs, including gothic elements. Late-stage German Romanticism also emphasized
the tension between the daily world and the irrational and supernatural projections of
creative genius.
The significance to Romanticism of childhood innocence, the importance of
imagination, and racial theories all combined to give an unprecedented importance

2
to folk literature, non-classical mythology and children's literature, above all in
Germany.
German Romanticism was the dominant intellectual movement in the philosophy,
the arts, and the culture of German-speaking countries in the late-18th and early 19th
centuries. Contrasting with the seriousness of English Romanticism, the German
variety of Romanticism valued wit, humor, and beauty.

5. German Romantics

Art in Germany has never had a shortage of representatives; thus, literature

and Romanticism are no exception. Some of the most famous writers include Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe, whose works include epic and lyric
poetry; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography; literaryand aesthetic
criticism; treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour; and four novels. In addition,
numerous literary and scientific fragments, more than 10,000 letters, and nearly 3,000
drawings by him exist. Needless to say, he was a very productive writer.
Novalis, Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg (2 May 1772 25
March 1801), was a poet, author, mystic, and philosopher of Early German
Romanticism.
Brentano and von Arnim were other significant literary figures who together
published Des Knaben Wunderhorn ("The Boy's Magic Horn" or cornucopia), a
collection of versified folk tales, in 180608.
Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist (18 October 1777 21 November 1811) was
a German poet, dramatist, novelist, short story writer and journalist. The Kleist Prize,
a prestigious prize for German literature, is named after him, as was the Kleist
Theater in his birthplace.
Brothers Grimm are, at least to children, the most memorable name. Unlike the
much later work of Hans Christian Andersen, who was publishing his invented tales
in Danish from 1835, these The Grim Fairy tales were at least mainly based on
collected folk tales, and the Grimms remained true to the style of the telling in their
early editions, though later rewriting some parts.

6. Representative Works

From the multitude of writers and poets who took up the romantic philosophy
and poured their original views back down on paper, some of them met and still know
widespread fame.
One such piece of art is the short epistolary novel, Die Leiden des jungen
Werthers, or The Sorrows of Young Werther, published in 1774, recounts an unhappy
romantic infatuation that ends in suicide. The novel remains in print in dozens of
languages and its influence is undeniable; its central hero, an obsessive figure driven
to despair and destruction by his unrequited love for the young Lotte, has become a
pervasive literary archetype. Epistolary novels were common during this time,
letter-writing being a primary mode of communication. What set Goethe's book apart
from other such novels was its expression of unbridled longing for a joy beyond
possibility, its sense of defiant rebellion against authority, and of principal importance,
its total subjectivity.
Another popular piece was Eckbert the Blond (Der blonde Eckbert), written in
1796. It was republished in 1812 in Tieck's collection of tales Phantasus.

3
 A third example would be The Lorelei (German: Loreley), which told the story of
an enchanting female associated with the rock. In the poem, the beautiful Lore Lay,
betrayed by her sweetheart, is accused of bewitching men and causing their death.
Rather than sentence her to death, the bishop consigns her to a nunnery. On the way
thereto, accompanied by three knights, she comes to the Lorelei rock. She asks
permission to climb it and view the Rhine once again. She does so and thinking that
she sees her love in the Rhine, falls to her death; the rock still retained an echo of her
name afterwards. Brentano had taken inspiration from Ovid and the Echo myth.

7. Final thoughts

According to Isaiah Berlin, Romanticism embodied "a new and restless spirit,
seeking violently to burst through old and cramping forms, a nervous preoccupation
with perpetually changing inner states of consciousness, a longing for the unbounded
and the indefinable, for perpetual movement and change, an effort to return to the
forgotten sources of life, a passionate effort at self-assertion both individual and
collective, a search after means of expressing an unappeasable yearning for
unattainable goals.
The quintessential Romantic figure was the Wanderer, literally and figuratively
journeying in search of new lands, new places in the imagination, and new vistas for
the soul. Exotic lands, the amorphous world of dreams, the dark terrors of the psyche
as well as the dizzying heights of creativity and the dazzling beauties of Nature.
For the Romantic, Nature was, indeed, a constant companion and teacher. She
became the stage on which the human drama was played, the context in which man
came to understand his place in the universe, the transforming agent which
harmonized the individual soul with what the Transcendentalists would call the
Over-Soul. Throughout all of Romantic literature, music, and art, Nature is a dynamic
presence, a character who speaks in a language of symbols at once mysterious and
anthropomorphic. who engages man in a dialogue with the life-force, itself. The artist
assumes the status of prophet and moral leader, a divinely inspired vehicle through
which Nature and the common man find their voices.
All in all, it is commonly agreed is that since the Romantic Movement, the
relation of the individual to society has been one of the central themes of modern
literature.

Bibliography

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Romanticism
http://www.froebelweb.org/web4003.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novalis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_von_Kleist
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_H%C3%B6lderlin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_Grimm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sorrows_of_Young_Werther
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorelei