ABSTRACT
The romantic novel represents an interruption – and in Germany a particularly radical one – in the progress of the form from its traditional associations of the 'adventurous' and improbable towards probability and realism. The romantics saw the genre as one of fancy, love and poetry. Friedrich Schlegel, indeed, expects that in all the epic forms, which he sees as 'esoteric' by nature, the structure should be 'nach Art eines Märchens'. The working out of the potential romantic epic concept has not been truly begun. The real 'character' of a romantic novel resides in the unifying spirit dispersed through the whole. The romantic novel, then, works best with a loose epic framework: but at least a rudimentary epic framework there still must be.
