The Romantic Imperative: The Concept of Early German Romanticism [Paperback]

Frederick C. Beiser (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0674019806 | ISBN-13: 978-0674019805 | Publication Date: April 28, 2006

The Early Romantics met resistance from artists and academics alike in part because they defied the conventional wisdom that philosophy and the arts must be kept separate. Indeed, as the literary component of Romanticism has been studied and celebrated in recent years, its philosophical aspect has receded from view. This book, by one of the most respected scholars of the Romantic era, offers an explanation of Romanticism that not only restores but enhances understanding of the movement's origins, development, aims, and accomplishments--and of its continuing relevance.

Poetry is in fact the general ideal of the Romantics, Frederick Beiser tells us, but only if poetry is understood not just narrowly as poems but more broadly as things made by humans. Seen in this way, poetry becomes a revolutionary ideal that demanded--and still demands--that we transform not only literature and criticism but all the arts and sciences, that we break down the barriers between art and life, so that the world itself becomes "romanticized." Romanticism, in the view Beiser opens to us, does not conform to the contemporary division of labor in our universities and colleges; it requires a multifaceted approach of just the sort outlined in this book.

(20050601)

Editorial Reviews

Review

This is an excellent book. Its ten chapters are much more accessible and often clearer than the larger classic tomes on the subject. Each takes up a very significant topic and is sure to be read with profit by a wide range of readers - whether they are new to the field or already quite familiar with it. The book concerns an era, Early German Romanticism, that is properly becoming a major focus of new research. This volume could become one of the most helpful steps in making the area part of the canon for Anglophone scholars in all fields today. It is surely one of the best remedies for correcting out of date images of the work of the German romantics as regressive, obscurantist, or irrelevant. Early German Romanticism extends and modifies the project of the Enlightenment. The author shows that it deserves our attention not only because it is an era represented by some of the most interesting and creative personalities in our cultural history, but also because its main line of thought is responsible for a way of thinking central to our own time, namely a naturalism that might be expansive enough to do justice to traditional interests in the unique value of human freedom.
--Karl Ameriks, Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame (20070101)

This book is a very fine and erudite study. It is impressively wide-ranging: literature, metaphysics, political philosophy, science, ethics, and religion all come seriously into play. It almost functions as an introduction to Early German Romanticism at a very high though not forbidding level.
--Ian Balfour, Professor of English, York University

The author writes clearly and lucidly, arguing forcefully and convincingly on the basis of sovereign knowledge of the material. [A] most excellent volume.
--Joe K. Fugate (German Studies Review )

The historically-minded philosopher Frederick Beiser has established himself as one of the clearest and most insightful interpreters of German thought in the age of idealist philosophy and romanticism. His latest contribution to the field reinforces that reputation and will certainly influence future debates about the nature and implications of German romanticism in its early years around 1800...Ultimately, Beiser's new book will be useful for those wanting a quick introduction to the early German romantics and to the scholarly literature about them. Above all, it should help to get literary critics, philosophers and historians talking to one another about an expanded range of issues fundamental to the study and legacy of early German romanticism.
--Brian Vick (European History Quarterly )

Review

This is an excellent book. Its ten chapters are much more accessible and often clearer than the larger classic tomes on the subject. Each takes up a very significant topic and is sure to be read with profit by a wide range of readers - whether they are new to the field or already quite familiar with it. The book concerns an era, Early German Romanticism, that is properly becoming a major focus of new research. This volume could become one of the most helpful steps in making the area part of the canon for Anglophone scholars in all fields today. It is surely one of the best remedies for correcting out of date images of the work of the German romantics as regressive, obscurantist, or irrelevant. Early German Romanticism extends and modifies the project of the Enlightenment. The author shows that it deserves our attention not only because it is an era represented by some of the most interesting and creative personalities in our cultural history, but also because its main line of thought is responsible for a way of thinking central to our own time, namely a naturalism that might be expansive enough to do justice to traditional interests in the unique value of human freedom. (Karl Ameriks, Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame 20070101) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 262 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (April 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674019806
• ISBN-13: 978-0674019805
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #443,265 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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29 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Decidedly non-literature..., April 13, 2007

By 

Olwe Melwasul (Duluth, MN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Romantic Imperative: The Concept of Early German Romanticism (Paperback)

One can only give an exhaustive work like this five stars. But be warned, Professor Beiser's perspective is decidedly non-literature in nature. That is, there is little or no analysis of the poetry or prose of EGR, instead, exhaustive investigation of EGR philosophical writings, especially of the Schlegels.

One thing I personally despise is our modern tendency to see figures in the past as merely precursors to our great and lofty present-day mindset. This happens so often in literature scholarship that I rarely look at any 20th/21st century literarure scholarship anymore! If you've seen one Marxist lesbian clasping the Brontes to her ample bosom, you've seen them all! Beiser cannot be accused of this, so thoroughly objective are his treatments. But having said that, he does seem to spin the EGR as merely a curious branch of the greater Enlightenment. He carefully, meticulously argues that EGR is NOT an anti-rationalist backlash against the "Rationalismus ueber alles" Enlightenment, that the orderly, logical, rationalist approach is very much in evidence in their philosophical arguments, and that they never argue for outright rebellion against rational processes. I wouldn't mind thrashing this out a bit more with him, as I can see many examples in, say, the writings of Novalis that clearly favor intuitive sensibility over brute-force logic and reductionism:

"...when those who sing or kiss know more than the most learned scholars...and people will recognize that the true histories of the world lie in fairy tales and poems...then at a single secret word this whole wrongheaded existence will fly away."

...that's pretty right-brained, IMHO.

I'm not accusing Professor Beiser of one-sidedness, but I would suggest reading the actual literature also for a nice, rounded view. To my thinking, rationalism has been quite the bully down through the years; it does not play well with other philosophies. With symbolic "yes or no" logic, it seeks to bring order where the sheer complexity and sublimity might suggest a different approach. Obviously, learned noblemen like Novalis would not resort to irrationalism, but would strive to couch the "loose, far-flung webs" of his Poesie revolution in reasonable language, language with the empirical quality that others may read it and get the same gist reading after reading. But this cannot be seen as some odd subset of rationalism itself. Novalis is speaking of a "beyondness," to my thinking.

The modern 20th/21st century arts can be crudely described as the ironical if not absurdist reaction to the madness of the rationalist juggernaut, i.e., modernism is reationary. However, I get something far more subtle than reactionary from EGR. If we are to understand the universe through "Poesie" instead of "numbers and figures," as Novalis says, there must be a very positive as well as intense effort made. When I read Thomas Carlyle's account of Novalis and see his bright, innocent face in the one surviving painting of him, I know The Way Forward lies in him and his band of brothers, and not through any of the twisted, jaded "sick puppies" the 20th/21st century has produced. All in all, Beiser has done us a great service with this book in shoring up the philosophical underpinnings of EGR.

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excelent book, September 29, 2010

By 

VagabondofLimbo - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Romantic Imperative: The Concept of Early German Romanticism (Paperback)

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested, the author is obviously an expert in the field and offers a clear, in depth and surprisingly objective study of the mechanism behind the genesis of romanticism.