ABSTRACT
We have already pointed out that German romanticism did not originally develop as an absolute antithesis to classicism. Modern research in the field of biography, history, ethnology (Nadler), philosophy (Ziegler, Spranger, Unger, F. Koch), esthetics (Wölfflin, Worringer) has done much to further our understanding of the irrational sublimation and dissolution of classic harmony. Rationalism thus appears, one might say, as the thesis, irrational “storm and stress” as the antithesis, classicism as the synthesis. As romanticism is their sublimation, it must by no means be regarded as a symptom of decadence. Today we recognize in romanticism features which are common to all European literature of the period. The old-fashioned conception of “romantic schools” developing from one centre (Jena) and subsequently dividing into older and younger schools can no longer be taken seriously. Romanticism appeared simultaneously at the most various places and one cannot possibly speak of a later movement developing from an earlier one, since F. Baader, for instance, is more nearly related to the “storm and stress” than to early romanticism. Moreover, romanticism is rooted in spiritual and psychological inclinations which vary according to the individual and the race. In our present study, however, we are concerned with the particular qualities of German romanticism as a phenomenon that appeared at a given moment in history, namely at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
