Hostname: page-component-6898cfcb55-kwdml Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-11T15:31:12.661Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Dominant Characteristics of German Romanticism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

John C. Blankenagel
John C. Blankenagel*
Affiliation:
Wesleyan University
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

German romanticism extends over a relatively long period, since in part it goes back to the ideas of Herder and the Storm and Stress movement in the seventies of the eighteenth century. Within narrower limits, one may assign to it the period from the seventeen-nineties to about 1830, when it was challenged by the Young German Movement. Obviously, however, this does not mark the end of its influence. To give a brief account of so complex and varied a movement, and to attempt to generalize in the face of marked individual differences is an undertaking beset with pitfalls.

Information

Type
Romanticism: A Symposium
Information
PMLA , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , March 1940, pp. 1 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1940

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

1 Legouis and Cazamian, A History of English Literature, new ed. (London: Dent, n. d.), p. 1028: “The Romantic spirit can be defined as an accentuated predominance of emotional life, provoked or directed by the exercise of imaginative vision, and in its turn stimulating or directing such exercise. Intense emotion coupled with an intense display of imagery, such is the frame of mind which supports and feeds the new literature.”

2 Walther Linden, in Hofstaetter and Peters, Sachwörterbuch der Deutschkunde (Berlin: Teubner, 1930), ii, 1021 (Translated and condensed.)

3 Fritz Strich, Deutsche Klassik und Romantik. 3d ed. (Munich: Meyer and Jessen, 1928). (Summary.)

4 Julius Petersen, Die Wesensbestimmung der Romantik. (Leipzig: Quelle and Meyer, 1926), pp. 101, 177.

5 Athenäum (Berlin: Vieweg-Frölich, 1798–1800), i, part 2, pp. 28 ff.

6 Ibid., i, part 2, p. 45.

7 Ibid., ii, 49 f.

8 Ibid., i, part 2, p. 64 f.

9 Ibid., ii, 21.

10 Ibid., ii, 23.

11 Ibid., ii, p. 28.

12 Ibid., iii, 12.

13 Ibid., iii, 8.

14 Ibid., ii, 14.

15 Ibid., iii, 9.

16 Ibid., iii, 1f.

17 Ibid., iii, 31.

18 Ibid, iii, 5.

19 Friedrich Novalis, Novalis' Schriften, herausgegeben von J. Minor (Jena: Diederichs, 1923). Die Christenheit oder Europa, ii, 22 ff.—Written in 1799.

20 Athenäum, i, part 2, p. 45.

21 Ibid., i, part 1, p. 90.

22 Ibid., iii, 101.

23 Ibid., iii, 6.

24 Ibid., iii, 7.

25 Ibid., iii, 31.

26 Ibid., iii, 28 f.

27 Ibid., iii, 11 f.

28 Ibid., iii, 108.

29 Ibid., iii, 11.

30 Ibid., iii, 19.

31 E. T. A. Hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke (Leipzig: Hesse, n.d.), Beelhovens Instrumental-Musik, i, 37.

32 Athenäum, iii, 351.

33 Ludwig Tieck, Franz Sternbalds Wanderungen. Deutsche National Literatur. (Berlin: Spemann, n.d.), cxlv, 259.

34 Ibid., p. 317.

35 Athenäum, I, 106.

36 Ibid., iii, 15.

37 Ibid., i, part 2, p. 73

38 Ibid., ii, 165.

39 Novalis' Schriften (Jena: Diederichs, 1923), ii, 301 f.

40 Athenäum, iii, 11.

41 Ibid., iii, 22.

42 Ibid., iii, 34–57.—Hülsen, Naturbetrachtungen auf einer Reise durch die Schweiz.

43 Schlegel, Friedrich: Sämtliche Werke (Vienna: Klang, 1846); Charakteristik der Meisterischen Lehrjahre von Goethe. (1798), viii, 100.

44 Quoted from Ricarda Huch, Die Romantik (Leipzig: Haessel, 1924), i, 280.

45 Athenäum, i, part 2, p. 78.

46 A. W. Schlegel, Sämtliche Werke (Leipzig: Weidmann, 1846); Etwas über William Shakespeare bei Gelegenheit Wilhelm Meisters, vii, 26.

47 Wilhelm H. Wackenroder, Werke und Briefe (Jena: Diederichs, 1910). Aufsatz—Das eigentümliche innere Wesen der Tonkunst und die Seelenlehre der heutigen Instrumentalmusik. i, 187.

48 Athenäum, iii, 59.

49 Ibid., ii, 285.

50 Ibid., iii, 124.

51 Ibid., iii, 126.

52 Ibid. iii, 127.

53 Friedrich Schlegel; Sämtliche Werke. Nachricht von den poetischen Werken des Johannes Boccaccio (1801), viii, 26.