The Romanticism. With little dictionary: Sublime, Streben, Sensucht, Genius, Infinite
Romanticism was officially born in 1798 in Berlin when the first issue of the journal Atheneum, which counts among its partners the brothers Schlegel, Novalis, Tiek, Goethe, Schiller. Of course, as was the case with any other movement of culture, including the Romantic not born from nothing, but had been prepared in Germany by the movement of Sturm und Drang, storm and assault, (1770-1775). The triumph of the school took place in 1774 with the publication of "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Goethe. In the Sturm und Drang that already there are unique aspects of Romanticism: the contempt for form and harmony of classical art, the need for immediate poetry, the glorification of genius, rebellious to every rule and every law, the 'admiration for the Middle Ages as the cradle of the national characteristics of the German people. It must be emphasized also that the English Romantic movement with Coleridge, Keats, Shelley and Byron and produced great works in posia in an innovative poetic prose. That is demonstrated minimal short verses printed on the examples below the German Novalis (From Hymns to the Night) and English Keats (from Sleep and Poetry).
Keeper of my faith / port of my courage day / night but oh the night / I am dying of love / in the fire inside of me /
When they feel, friend a moment / that you'll never see you again and again / I'll ever enjoy the love / no problems - then ... / On the beach in the world I'm alone and think Till love and fame lie in anything.
Romanticism has, as most evident, opposition to the civilization that had preceded it, the civilization of the Enlightenment, but if you look carefully, you will see that is the opposition of his son to the father of the child who feels different and feeds on new requirements and yet is tied - in its basic features - the paternal characteristics. In essence, the Enlightenment had been thrown into crisis by the French Revolution, who was out of the breast. For three reasons: because it had revealed the existence of an office next to the company and perhaps more passionate than that of Reason had fueled the revolutionary fervor, because he had revealed the appearance on the floor in terms of History of the masses are not yet enlightened, who had broken the limits of paternalism reformist, had refused to be mere object of reform and enlightenment had claimed the right to be protagonists: the subject, because he had made it clear that the ideas of the Enlightenment were abstract in their pure rationality and cosmopolitan in their hand and they had to check it, adapt them, make them concrete in comparison with the historical reality of individual nations.
The discovery of the value and size of a psychological feeling of the people on the sociological level, the nation's political, the philosophical history here is the element feature of the new sensibility, which means - more closely in the field of art and literature - the conception of art as an immediate expression of feeling and so the concrete individuality of the artist (the reason is common to all men, while the sentiment characterizes individuals), the ensuing battle against all rules, including the classical mythology that it is empty repetition of myths have arisen in a society totally different from the modern, it was also felt as a bundle of fixed and immutable rules, the claim of naive character, irrational, poetry, and then admiration for the primitive poetry, poetry and popular for the people pure poetry as a source of immediate and as guardian of the most profound of the nation. Hence the focus on the period when he broke the community created by the Roman Empire and began to define the various European nations, namely the focus on the Middle Ages instead of classical antiquity, hence also studies folklore and on folk poetry, especially here, the two aspects of romantic poetry, the irrationalism of the one part (and the lyricism individualistic) and openness to the reality of the other national (and therefore the historicist realism and patriotic). At the first appearance and then attaching those elements, including costume, that have traditionally been defined romantic: the representation of individual pain and cosmic, the outpouring of sentimental pessimism, the contrast between illusion and reality, a longing for things and people far away in time and space, and the exotic, the 'aesthetics and dreams, the love for the vague, indefinite, the indistinct.
the second aspect, the patriotic commitment, the exaltation of the people, the love of freedom, the taste of realistic reconstruction of the historical tradition, and especially the concept of the poem be understood not as an end in itself, but as an instrument to serve the great ideals of freedom, of independence, of national redemption.
In essence, the dialectical opposition of romanticism enlightenment can be summarized as follows: The cult of reason is opposed to the value of feeling, all'antistoricismo, historicism, deism to theism and a need to assume that religiosity sometimes also forms a conservative return to traditional religion and other times a drive towards new forms of religion, cosmopolitanism is opposite the sense of nationality.
As for the moral and literary Romanticism can be briefly summarized that, in its moral aspect of Romanticism indicates an of imbalance and dissatisfaction in an ongoing conflict between ideal and real. The ideal is seen as unattainable, we can sometimes say that only the self-denial. Life is experienced as a struggle and as a romantic drama and man, as has been said, is the man of two souls forever chained and perpetually at war with each other. In its literary aspect was the new conception of poetry as royalties freedom of imagination, freedom from all embarrassment and content set of rules (like those mythological), the popularity of art. After all this has been explained earlier, and should only be added that in many countries takes the romance aspects differ according to the historic environment and local traditions.
SUBLIME
What sublime a concept that stands apart from the aesthetic concept of beauty. Drawn up for the first time in mid-eighteenth century by E. Burke (Research on the origin of the philosophical ideas of beauty and the sublime, 1756), gained importance especially in the discussion of Kant's Critique of Judgement, 1790.
While beauty is that which is harmonious. measured, composed "in a workmanlike manner," the sublime is excessive, the disordered, that is not a human but its excess, for example, the void, the abyss, the immense spaces, the silence, the darkness, the gigantic mountains ... beautiful, says Kant, the beds of a garden, sublime tall oaks, beautiful day, sublime night. According to Kant existing exists a mathematical sublime, which stems from the shock at the massively successful: the series of numbers without limit, the thought of eternity or infinity cosmic storm.
from contemplation of the power of the sublime dynamic nature came into being: the great natural phenomena (storms, earthquakes ...), castrofi caused by the forces unleashed that scare, but at the same time attract and fascinate. E 'attraction may find even what is bad, as long as is "terribly bad." The sublime arises therefore not covered by the quality of the object, but from the disposition of the subject. While the beauty develops a feeling of simple pleasure (satisfaction, fulfillment), the sublime provokes ambivalent emotion, a "delightful horror," a state of mind in which the pleasure is combined with fear.
The discussion of Kant went on highlighting the diverse origins of the sublime and the beautiful. The Judgement of beauty comes from an agreement between the sensitivity and reason, because the subject finds himself in what he covers the same criteria, the same measurements and proportions of regulating its activity mental. Conversely, the sublime sense of results from a conflict between feeling and reason. It makes us feel small and helpless compared to the immensity of nature to the power of its forces unleashed, but the sorrow of the imagination is accompanied by a pleasure of reason: the spectacle of the highest mountains and steepest cliffs awakens the feeling of ' infinity, leads to reflections on human nature and the world. Climbing, maybe only in the imagination, the highest peaks, the man becomes a philosopher, more aware that his dignity as a rational being free makes it even if weak, spiritually superior to any sensible reality. For ability to produce these effects, the sublime arises as a consequence the boundaries between ethics and aesthetics.
remains to add that after the death of Kant, and the emergence of the Romantic sensibility, the concept of the sublime art was extended also to the works of Greek and especially Roman, often just as enormous and gigantic of a natural setting. In this way the concept of the sublime came to mean to the romantic or pre-Romantic artists unattainable, perfect, and infinite. In this regard is the famous painting by JH Fuseli: The artist in despair at the magnitude of the ancient ruins of 1780.
Streben
The sensitivity of romantic German term is defined in Streben (in Italian "tension", but also yearning, longing, anxiety), which expresses a conception of life as a ceaseless effort, a continuous effort to overcome any obstacle both materially and spiritually. In Streben, anxiety or feeling of infinity, if there is an intolerance for any kind of constraint, together with the desire to transcend the everyday, typical of the literary and philosophical culture of the early nineteenth century. As the center of Kant's thinking was the concept of limits, Romanticism was proposed, so symmetrically opposite, exceeding all limits certain: the infinitive is never reached, but it is approachable in what tends to infinity, in its derivations can be the unlimited, the immense, the immeasurable, the 'endless, inexhaustible, the immeasurable, the endless, the innumerable, the eternal, the transcendent, the indefinite, the boundless.
It is for the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte had theorized about the philosophical concept of Streben it to give it an organic ethical proposal. His whole discussion of the absolute, defined as infinite subjectivity, metaphysics is a necessary prerequisite to establish a solid foundation on the idea of \u200b\u200btotal human freedom (necessary starting point for any effort towards infinity). The ultimate meaning of the complex metaphysical reasoning of Fichte, conducted with a highly technical language ("I put the non-I") is that nature (the 'non-it' for the individual) does not contain any insurmountable objective condition . The material world can not be an obstacle to a human will (an 'I') really determined, for the simple reason that all reality is a product of a whole Enel of the subject itself (absolute subjectivity).
The proof of this principle is so far away from common sense in finding, empirically verifiable, that every kind of man you build an idea of \u200b\u200bthe world in his own image: a corrupt tend to see every episode of ill repute in a confirmation of his thesis , discard as exceptions in cases of honesty and choose (unconsciously) all external stimuli to reiterate its view of life, ultimately the corrupt lives in a corrupt world, as well as the idealistic experiment in a reality dominated by the spirit, and the dogmatic allow themselves to be any apparent need.
supporting the superiority on the finiteness of the spiritual body, was the philosopher Ficthe infinity ego, the only principle and source of knowledge, spirit, boundless, creative capacity absolutely free. Of course, the search of the infinite is by definition doomed to remain forever dissatisfied, but what matters is not the achievement of any kind of result, always partial and overcome. The important thing, says Fichte, "is not to be free, but to become, be free."
Connected to Streben is Sensucht (literally "want their own desire"), the painful feeling that comes from the awareness dell'irraggiungibilità infinity. The Sensucht, nostalgia for what you never, aspiration for what is beyond, acute sense of lack (happiness, love) is clearly visible in the intense atmosphere of introspective (large dreamy eyes looking away, melancholy folds at the corners of mouth) of the romantic painters of portraits, confirming the role intellectual reached by new artists.
GENIUS
The concept of genius, after being prepared for the first time in the Romantic period, it became part of the modern language. It designates the condition of some men with a innate and exceptional creative talent, able to work beyond the common predictability, so that often exceed the understanding of contemporaries. Within the embodiment of Romantic genius was Michelangelo, whose critical fortunes grew in the early nineteenth century to the point that it requires a specific term: Michelangelo, to describe attempts to emulate the size, nature titanic, and superhuman power.
finite / infinite
anxiety connotes infinitoche Romanticism, along with the desire of the idealist philosophers of identifying an absolute principle, led to an original reflection on the links exist between the finite (which is concrete, individual) and the infinite. The German poet Novalis synthesized the new sensitivity in these lines (Henry Afterdingen, 1802): "The one in the whole and all in one / the image of God in the grass and the stones / the Spirit of God in men and animals / of this we have to penetrate. " Novalis what you mean is that a sensitive spirit can grasp the infinite in everything, every detail of the world, because the infinite is manifested in the forms of finitude. And the idea that the Romantic period to the end transposition, perceiving everywhere there is something more mysterious.
On the other hand, if every detail can be seen as a fragment of the universal, any event becomes an expression of a higher value. The whole culture of the early nineteenth century is dominated by this frame of mind: according to it, Schelling and Goethe formulated a philosophy of nature (Naturphilosophie) type vitalist and organic: the phenomena of life are not explicable by the laws of chemistry, because nature is all alive, even in its minimum share, in a simple blade of grass you can see the action of cosmic forces, through an internal polarity of forces (of contraction and expansion), produce the complexity of nature and its gradual evolution. Claiming to be 'pantheistic' as a scientist and 'political' as a poet, Goethe saw in nature a living force, dynamic, animated and designed, a body structured so that all (individuals, species) makes sense only as part of whole. He also saw that on this point, you could record a confluence of art and philosophy: in fact this as well as painting or music, or poetry. always tend to grasp the link between the finite to infinity. (CDS)
