Romanticism in Germany

Romanticism was a European cultural revolt against authority, tradition, and Classical order (the Enlightenment); this movement permeated Western Civilization over a period that approximately dated from the late 18th to the mid-19th century. In general, Romanticism is that attitude or state of mind that focuses on the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the creative, and the emotional. These characteristics of Romanticism most often took form in subject matters such as history, national endeavor, and the sublime beauties of nature. According to historians, the mind-set of the Romantics was completely contradictory to the straightforwardness, impartiality, and serenity of 18th century Classicism. By the 19th century, Romanticism and Classicism had clearly been established and recognized as a major split in art. Masses of Europeans found the concepts of Romanticism appealing and the engagement of these concepts resulted in the reshaping of nineteenth century Germany. The Romantic Movement played a significant role in intellectual life, influencing the country's nationalistic fervor.

Nationalism was born with the French Revolution. Nationalism refers to the belief that the state and the nation should coincide as a single entity. It is best described in the equation 'people = nation = state.' In 1789 the people of France, defined themselves as the nation, took control of the state and the nation state was created. The sense of nationhood was intensified by the internal attempts to overthrow the revolution and by the experience of the war. Victories abroad instilled a feeling of national pride and of national duty. At first the fraternal wish was to free other subject peoples. Then later to civilize Europe by the export of French ideas and by the further control of foreign territory, which was an aim particularly, associated with the Napoleonic Era (1799-1815). Napoleon claimed that the sole purpose of regulating alien territory was to free Germans and Italians, but whilst he reconstructed the frontiers of the European states, he did very little to encourage nationalism directly. Nationalism developed as a reaction to French rule in the geographical areas of Germany. A general feeling of humiliation blanketed the populace of Germany after the invasion and people began to rise up against the empire of Napoleon I. The spirit of nationalism took a stronghold in Germany.

Writers began to expound common culture, heritage and language that defined Germans. Works from Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), one of the earlier well respected German philosophers and writers of the time played a significant role in the development of the patriotic insurrection. He concentrated on the human powers of reason and intuition. Kant's interest in natural rather than "artificial" intellect inspired the critic Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803) to suggest that artistic intuition had little to do with education or intellectual refinement. Like the language itself, Herder said, poetry rises form the collective consciousness of a people. Herder collected and edited German folk songs and encouraged others to examine the "popular" arts of the past as the English were doing at the same time.

Herder also collaborated with Wolfgang von Goethe and others in a pamphlet, Von deutscher Art und Kunst, which became the handbook of a movement termed Sturm und Drang (storm and stress). The movement's emphasis on the personal crises of an individual was inspired in part by Rousseau and by the new cult of "sentiment" in England. Its major result was the early work of Goethe himself. The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) set Germany and all of Europe to writing novels about suicide. German authors became cultural leaders of Europe, writing literature that that was fundamental in its stress on subjectivity and man's discomfort in society. If German literature had ended at this point it would already have contributed a new note to the Romantic movement. But Goethe, Friedrich von Schiller, and Friedrich Holderlin extended beyond the Sturm und Drang philosophy to a new lyric and drama that established the golden age of German literature.

Goethe towered over his associates. His Faust (in two parts, 1808 and 1832) is the greatest of all German works; a giant dramatic poem that seemed the epitome of its age. The novel of character growth, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (1795-1796), broadened Goethe's influence on fiction. He also made a contribution to science and the study of morphology of living organisms.

Goethe's gift greatest gift remained always with the lyric. He could achieve a scene, an insight, or a passion with both perfect form and incomparable emotional intimacy. The anthology of love lyrics WestÐ"¶stlicher Diwan (1819) contains some of the most beautiful lyrics in any language. Using persuasive dialect he captures the essence of Romanticism and inspires his fellow Germans to be proud of their achievements and adhere to one another.

Friedrich von Schiller places second to his friend in the German memorial. He was a consummate dramatist, often focusing his works on political injustice, as in the passionately liberal Die RÐ"¤uber (1781). Among his later plays are Wallenstein (a trilogy, 1798-1799), Mary Stuart (1800), and William Tell (1804).

Schiller