The Romantic Revolution

by Timothy C.W. Blanning

Three great revolutions rocked the world around 1800. The first two - the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution - have inspired the greatest volume of literature. But the third - the romantic revolution - was perhaps the most fundamental and far-reaching.

From Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Burns, to Beethoven, Wagner, Berlioz, Rossini and Liszt, to Goya, Turner, Delacroix and Blake, the romantics brought about nothing less than a revolution when they tore up the artistic rule book of the old regime. This was the period in which art acquired its modern meaning; for the first time the creator, rather than the created, took centre-stage. Artists became the high priests of a new religion, and as the concert hall and gallery came to take the place of the church, the public found a new subject worthy of veneration in paintings, poetry and music.

Tim Blanning's wide-ranging survey traces the roots and evolution of a cultural revolution whose reverberations continue to be felt today.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Art, Romanticism, Philosophy, European History, Art History

248 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Timothy Charles William Blanning, FBA is Emeritus Professor of Modern European History at the University of Cambridge, where he taught from 1992 until 2009. His work focuses on the history of Europe from the 17th century to the beginning of the First World War.

Reviews

[Jan-Maat]

This is a very short book divided between two ideas: the Romantic as a revolution or absolute outwardness and the Romantic as Hegel's "absolute inwardness". Blanning's central insight is that "European culture has not repeated itself cyclically but has developed dialectically." (p181) Romanticism replacing the Enlightenment simply "a new phase in the long running dialectic between a culture of feeling and a culture of reason" (p8).

The geographical focus of the book is mostly on Britain, France and Germany (Goya and Rossini virtually the sole representations of their countries here, but there is a limit to what you can squeeze into less than 190 pages) and in contrast to Hampson's The Enlightenment this book is not restricted to literature but takes in painting, music and architecture as well.

Both the revolutionary aspect of the Romantic and the absolute inwardness are clearly related in the first two chapters which see the emphasis on the personal in 18th century religion allowing the development of an idea of revelation within and the sacralisation of the interior, from which grew a cult of genius and of Art as sacred. Art then was elevated as an end in itself, not in service to Prince or public - both potentially philistine and incapable of the appropriate reverence for the genius.

The application of absolute inwardness to politics however led to an explosion of inconsistency and variety. The likes of Napoleon could be both an Enlightenment figure, a patron of Classicism as well as being inspired by the Ossian forgeries and was an aspiring Romantic novelist before his political career really took off. Victor Hugo could shift from Royalist, to Bonapartist to Republican, remaining a Romantic all the while. Absolute inwardness allows for absolute inconsistency, or perhaps more fairly a one word label only rarely can represent the sum of a person's life and thought.

This is an extended essay spinning off in many directions (national myth! landscapes! opera!) rushing forward to Wagner, fin de siecle and Mondrian, as well as taking in more cultural figures than you can shake a stick at from Goya to Schlegel via Keats. This is all very entertaining but at risk of being slightly insubstantial. Perhaps that is itself an appropriate tribute towards the tendency of the Romantic to Pantheism.

[Murtaza]

There is an unacknowledged tendency in popular culture to try and seek a far greater meaning in music or art than seems to be immediately apparent. The roots of this are in the Romantic tendency, a reaction against the over-rationalization of a world that had already been disenchanted by the loss of religion. This disenchantment is one of my main areas of interest, on its own merits but also because Romanticism has had a huge impact on the developing world over the past century of its modernization. This book could be described as a short overview of European Romanticism. I found much of it familiar in broad strokes if not in details. Unfortunately it read like a bit of an index rather than a coherent narrative of any sort. If you are totally unfamiliar with the roots and relevance of Romantic philosophy this might be helpful. It did not resonate much with me, though not necessarily due to its lack of merit.

[Julie Bozza · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book. It covers a very great deal, and is very informative, while remaining a light, easy and fun read. Nice when an author can pull that off! There were enough references to Keats to please me, along with a lack of embarrassment about the sexy side of Romanticism, and extra interest was added by some useful examples of creative works that were new to me (though as you've probably gathered I've read a fair bit about the period by now). Even more intriguingly, the tale begins with the Enlightenment and Rousseau's break from it; Blanning glances back earlier still when necessary; and then he finishes by tracing the effects of the Romantic Revolution through to our present day culture. All of that in 186 pages, plus Notes! Bravo, Tim Blanning!

Happily recommended for anyone at all who's interested in this era, its people and its creative works. If you're new to Romanticism, this is a terrific way in. If you're already in, you just might find something new.

I absolutely loved it.

[WKanert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blanning gives an enlightening account of the romantic revolution in the 18th and 19th century. Describing the European movement, but discussing also national differences, this work is very readable and contributes to understanding of the movement in historical context.

[AC · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly excellent, clear, brief examination of the Romantic period. Highly recommended

[فاروق الفرشيشي · Rating 3 out of 5]

كتاب مهمّ من حيث موضوعه ينقسم إلى مجموعة مقالات تعود إلى بدايات تكوّن الرومنسة في القرن الثامن عشر، وإلى ما سبق التكوّن من تبشير. ثمّ تستمرّ المقالات في إبراز عناصر الرؤية الرومنسية وخصائصها أو من زاوية أخرى، إبراز تأثير التيار الرومنسيّ في النظرة الحديثة للمعمار والطبيعة والعلم وغيرها.
مشكلة الكتاب الوحيدة، هي الإيغال في الاستطراد إلى حدّ لا يحتمل. في حديثه عن قيمة الطبيعة عند الرومنسيين، يحاول أن يأخذ مثالا جبال الالب فيقول :

كما كتب الفنان السويسري كسبار ولف سنة 1779م في مقدمة مجموعته من النقوش المطبوعة "وصف تفصيلي من المشاهد الطبيعية الرائعة في سويسرا". وكان الغرض منها تعريف من لا يقدر على السفر إليها بما يضيّعه على نفسه. وهي خدمة قدّمها كذلك الكثير من الرسامين مثل جون روبرت كوزنس وفرانسيس تاوني الذي رسم في السنة نفسها - 1781م - مناظر طبيعية من جبال الألب. وقد أوحت مشاهد رسوم الألوان المائية التي أنجزها كوزنس إلى تورنير بالسفر إلى الآلب سنة 1802م عندما فتحت معاهدة السلم لأميانس القارة مجددا للمسافرين الانكليز، وإن كان ذلك لمدة وجيزة. ولما التقى الرسام جوزيف فارنغتون في متحف اللوفر لدى عودته إلى الديار، قال إنه وجد جبال الآلب رومنسية جدا!

كلّ هذا الكلام من أجل أن يخبرنا إن رساما رومنسيا وجد جبال الآلب رومنسية جدا. والمشكلة أن هذا الاستطراد المريع تكثف بشكل كبير في المقالات الاخيرة، وأضرّ بجودتها إذ شتّت التركيز حول الاطروحة الرئيسية للمقالات.
لكنّ الكتاب يحتوي على بيبليوغرافيا مثيرة للاهتمام وتفتح الآفاق لقراءات مهمة في الموضوع.

[John Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a serious-minded book, and I took it seriously while I was reading it. But as soon as I finished it, I realized that the romantic revolution is ripe for a sendup along the lines of 1066 and All That. All the good stuff is here; all the big questions are addressed, or most of them, anyway. Add a dose of frivolity—which, come to think of it, wouldn’t have hurt the romantics themselves—and we’d have a worthy entry in the “humorous history” category. What to call it, though? Rousseau and All That might do.

Anyway, here are some of those big questions. Why have we made a cult of geniuses? (We can’t resist applying the term “genius grant” to MacArthur Fellowships.) Why do we worship art and artists and creativity? Why do we dismiss the philistinism of mass public taste, except when we agree with it? Who experimented with drugs before we did? How can I get a touch of madness? (Robin Williams once advised, “You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.”)

Short answer: blame the romantics for all that. And there’s more. The valuing of authentic expression, and of native language, native history, and native legends of gods and heroes, combined to produce not only cultural monuments such as Wagner’s Ring Cycle but also, though you wouldn’t expect it, forgeries such as the Ossian poems. Even the notion of “alternative facts” might owe something to romanticism.

This book is part of a series called Modern Library Chronicles, which, judging from a list of other titles in the front, is a fancier and probably pricier version of Oxford University Press’s Very Short Introductions series. The text is a little longer; the format is hardbound. (My review copy came from a workplace.) I like this entry in the series just fine and may look for others.

[֍ elle ֍ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like if an index tried to string words between its entries.

[Bennett Rogers · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this excellent introduction to the subject, Tim Blanning argues that Romanticism was a “revolution” of “absolute inwardness” (Hegel), which initiated a new phase in the longstanding dialect between the culture of feeling and the culture of reason. Rousseau was its prophet; Byron, its hero; and music, its medium. Blanning knows the sources, writes clearly and engagingly, and hits on all the important themes. This was exactly what I was hoping for from this work.

[Piker7977 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good overview of Romanticism and what it meant for Europe's art scene, writing, music, philosophy, culture, history, and psyche.

[Maya Pujara]

west civy !

[Peter Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Romantic Revolution by Tim Blanning



George William Friedrich Hegel (1770-831) was the father of the murderous 20th century. Communism and Fascism, two mass movements that made the 20th century a time steeped in blood, were developments of Hegel’s ideas about the movement of history toward fulfillment, the importance of an organic community that determined an individual’s nature, and the role of the “rational state,” which was where the Geist (or God) found self-awareness.

This is mystical stuff for a philosopher committed to reason, born after the great advances of the Enlightenment. The question naturally arises, where did these ideas about Geist (or World-Soul) and the individual’s nature being secondary to community come from? The answer would seem to be from a revolution in European attitudes that emerged at the end of the Eighteenth century, i.e., the “Romantic Revolution.” Thus, to understand the 20th century, we must understand Hegel, and to understand Hegel, we must turn to Romanticism.[1]

“Romanticism” is a word that evades definition. Every definition offered is immediately countered. Scholars who write about Romanticism, like Blanning and Isaiah Berlin, are loath to offer a definition; instead, they offer examples from which students can learn to recognize Romanticism. In that regard, Romanticism is like pornography, according to Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who wrote in Jacobellis v Ohio (1964), “I know it when I see it.”

Blanning begins his project by introducing Jean-Jacques Rousseau with his friends Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert. Diderot and d’Alembert are known in history as the “Encyclopedists” for their feat of producing a comprehensive encyclopedia of the sciences, arts, and crafts in 1751. The Encyclopedia encapsulated the Enlightenment project of systemizing human knowledge and making it available to the world with the expectation that this would improve the human condition. Blanning juxtaposes the Encyclopedists with Rousseau, who in 1749 was on his way to see his friend Diderot in prison in Vincennes.[2] On his way to Vincennes, Rousseau read an advertisement for an essay contest on the subject of whether science and progress had improved morals. Rousseau wrote an essay in the negative, won the prize, and launched his writing career.

Blanning makes Rousseau a prophet of Romanticism but not necessarily a Romantic himself. Rousseau’s prime contribution to Romanticism was his epistolary novel, “Julie or the New Heliose,” which was a Romance of frustrated love and suicide. La Nouvelle Héloïse turned Rousseau into a cult figure. Europeans wept for the tragic lovers and believed that the story was a barely concealed incident from Rousseau’s life. In his work, Rousseau shifted attention from artistic creation to the artist, a move that helped create and define Romanticism. Blanning writes:

What proved to be revolutionary was the rejection not of academies, or even rules, but of the whole classical aesthetic based on the imitation of la belle nature. As Rousseau demonstrated in La Nouvelle Héloïse and The Confessions, the truly radical departure was to move from a mimetic aesthetic centered on the work to an expressive aesthetic that put the creator at the center: “The true object of my confessions is to reveal my inner thoughts exactly in all the situations of my life. It is the history of my soul that I have promised to recount, and to write it faithfully I have need of no other memories; it is enough if I enter again into my inner self, as I have done till now.”33 This was the essence of the romantic revolution: from now on artistic creativity was to be from the inside out. In Hegel’s pithy formulation, romanticism was “absolute inwardness.” Explaining this insight, Hegel observed that romanticism had “dissolved all particular gods into a pure and infinite self-identity. In this Pantheon all the gods are dethroned, the flame of subjectivity has destroyed them, and instead of plastic polytheism art knows now only one God, one spirit, one absolute independence which, as the absolute knowing and willing of itself, remains in free unity with itself.”34 No longer does the artist carry around a mirror, to hold up to nature. A better metaphor for the creative process is the lamp, which shines from within.35

Blanning, Tim. The Romantic Revolution: A History (Modern Library Chronicles Series Book 34) (pp. 21-22). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Emphasis added.)

Moving the focus to the creator’s subjectivity emphasizes the creator’s spirit, soul, will, or mind. These things are outside of the world of science, which measures, divides, and calculates nature, rather than trying to communicate nature as an integrated experience. The early Romantics, such as Johann Georg Hamann, defined God as a poet rather than a mathematician. William Blake wrote: “Art is the Tree of Life. Science is the Tree of Death.” John Locke was derided for developing a psychology that expelled innate ideas. William Coleridge referred to Locke as a “Little-ist” by which he meant that Locke’s critical methodology had “dismantled the universe until it lay around in a meaningless heap of little bits and pieces.”

Rather than nature analyzed as a machine, Romantics posited nature as an indivisible whole that inspired awe. Blanning writes:

Underlying these attacks on reason, logic, atomism, materialism, and the rest was a view of nature sharply opposed to that ascribed to Newton. Nothing roused the romantics to greater indignation than the notion that nature was inert matter, to be understood by dissection, experiment, and analysis. On the contrary, they proclaimed, all nature constituted a single living organism, a “Universal Nature or World Soul.” This last concept was central to the philosophy of Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775–1854), succinctly summarized by the chiasm “Nature is visible Spirit; Spirit is invisible Nature.”

Blanning, Tim. The Romantic Revolution: A History (Modern Library Chronicles Series Book 34) (pp. 28-29). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Schelling was a friend of Hegel’s in Jena. Germany, in general, and Jena, in particular, were the ground zero of Romanticism. Undoubtedly, a large part of this was an antipathy between French and German cultures, with France playing the role of arrogant power. France was the home of the Enlightenment, which gave Germans a tendency to favor anything that undermined the Enlightenment. The armies of Napoleon, acting as the “armed wing of the Enlightenment,” in humiliating Prussia at the Battle of Jena in 1806, did not weaken this tendency.[3] Likewise, the Terror. de-Christianization, war, regicide, imperialist conquest tended to undermine the Enlightenment and to call into question the conclusions advocated by the spokespeople for the Enlightenment.”Most German romantics rejected the Revolution and all its works.”

In rejecting the Enlightenment’s attitudes, this included elevating the status of history. According to Blanning:

The view expressed by the Revolution’s chief ideologue, Sieyès, that “the alleged truths of history have no more validity than the alleged truths of religion,”74 had lost its appeal. It was Edmund Burke’s alternative—“people will not look forward to posterity who never look back to their ancestors”75—that had gained in popularity. As Lord Acton observed in his seminal article “German Schools of History” in the very first issue of the English Historical Review in 1886, at the heart of the Revolution had been “condemnation of history,” and “the romantic reaction which began with the invasion of 1794 was the revolt of outraged history.”76 It was also Acton’s view that the historicism of romanticism had “doubled the horizon of Europe” by enlarging its perspective to embrace “the whole inheritance of man.”77 The elevated status now accorded to history was well summed up by Thomas Carlyle in his essay of 1830, “On History”: “History, as it lies at the root of all science, is also the first distinct product of man’s spiritual nature; his earliest expression of what can be called Thought.”

Blanning, Tim. The Romantic Revolution: A History (Modern Library Chronicles Series Book 34) (p. 130). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The idea of an evolving organic community was substituted for natural law:

The notion that there was some sort of natural law, eternally and universally valid, was a chimera. Law was not precept but tradition, the organically evolving expression of a community’s identity. In Friedrich Schlegel’s pithy formulation: “The world is not system but history.”80 This historical concept of law was then given magisterial and highly influential expression in Friedrich Carl von Savigny’s pamphlet On the Calling of Our Age for Legislation and Jurisprudence [Vom Beruf unserer Zeit für Gesetzgebung und Rechtswissenschaft], published in 1814, in which he argued that law, like all other manifestations of the human spirit, including religion and language, was the fruit of historical development.

Blanning, Tim. The Romantic Revolution: A History (Modern Library Chronicles Series Book 34) (p. 131). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The emphasis on history and a World Soul that simultaneously permeates everything but also finds expressions in particular individuals and communities leads to ideas of nation and Volk:

The essay in which Goethe had proclaimed his conversion was published in 1773 in a collection titled On the German Character and German Art [Von deutscher Art und Kunst], edited by his friend Johann Gottfried Herder, whom he had first met three years earlier. This slim volume has been hailed as “the manifesto or charter of the Sturm und Drang, indeed one might go further than this and claim it as the true starting point of the German Romantic movement.”7 In fact, as good a case could be made for Herder’s treatise On the Origin of Language, written in 1770 but not published until 1772, for it was his emphasis on the importance of language that was to be at the heart of the cultural and political revolution that followed. Or rather one should say: the importance of each specific national language. For human beings, Herder argued, the vital link between part and whole, between one individual and another, between individual and community, between humans and the natural world, is language, the most important single concept in his intellectual system. Without language there can be no knowledge, no self-consciousness, no awareness of others, no social existence, no history.

Language was not the direct creation of God; there had been no Tower of Babel. Nor was it the invention of human reason, rather its precondition, both the most natural and most necessary human function. The earliest language derived from the senses, and even when abstractions and concepts emerged, they were underpinned by sensual impressions and reactions.8 Of all the conditions and forces that underpinned a community, language was the most fundamental: “Each nation speaks in the manner it thinks and thinks in the manner it speaks.… We cannot think without words.”9 Language was also the force that created what Herder saw as the fundamental unit of human existence—the Volk. Of all German words difficult to translate into English, this is one of the most intractable. “People” seems the most obvious choice, but Volk means much more than just an aggregate of individuals (for which the German equivalent is Leute). It also denotes a community bound by ethnic and cultural ties, as in “the German people,” together with a populist implication, as in “the common people.” For that reason, the Oxford-Duden German Dictionary offers “nation” as one possible translation of Volk. The Volk constitutes the nation, while the nation is of the people (völkisch). In the Volk’s language are expressed all the environmental conditions in which it developed: “Climate, water and air, food and drink, they all affect language.… Viewed in this way, language is indeed a magnificent treasure store, a collection of thoughts and activities of the mind of the most diverse nature.”10 It was also a character that was unique, for “every language bears the stamp of the mind and character of a national group.”

Blanning, Tim. The Romantic Revolution: A History (Modern Library Chronicles Series Book 34) (p. 112). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

At this point, it seems clear where Hegel got his ideas and why they caught on. Romanticism posited World Soul, creativity, the importance of the creative subject, and the organic community. All of these ideas were incorporated into Hegelianism.

Blanning goes on to mention this aspect of Hegelianism in the subsequent paragraph:

Binding together individual and group was the notion of self-determination. Summing up both the aesthetics and ethics of Sturm und Drang, Herder wrote to his fiancée, Caroline Flachsland, in 1773: “All our actions should be self-determined, in accordance with our innermost character—we must be true to ourselves.”14 And so should nations: “The best culture of a nationality … cannot be forced by a foreign language. It thrives only on the native soil of nationality and in the language which the nationality inherited and which continues to transmit itself.”15 Being true to oneself meant being true to one’s nation, and vice versa. Introspective subjectivism did not need to result in the sort of existential loneliness that afflicted Werther but could and should lead to a creative life within the national community.

Blanning, Tim. The Romantic Revolution: A History (Modern Library Chronicles Series Book 34) (pp. 112-113). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Blanning is not concerned with Hegel. Blanning mentions Hegel approximately a dozen times. He defines Hegel and Kant outside of Romanticism.

Another feature of Romanticism, which seems to have made its way into modernity through Communism (and Fascism, which shared a similar attitude), is the anti-bourgeois stance. This stance began in Jena, Germany, in the 18th century, where a town v. gown fracas gave the world the idea that the bourgeoisie were “philistines”:

In a word, the public was philistine. It was no coincidence that it was during this period that “philistine” acquired its modern meaning as “an uneducated or unenlightened person; one perceived to be indifferent or hostile to art or culture, or whose interests and tastes are commonplace or material; a person who is not a connoisseur,” defined by The Oxford English Dictionary. In this sense it was the invention of German students, who took it from the funeral oration delivered at Jena in 1668 following the death of one of their number at the hands of a local burgher. The preacher’s text was taken from the Old Testament: “The Philistines be upon thee, Samson” (Judges 16:9). Henceforth, the students identified themselves with Samson and the townspeople as the philistines. By c. 1800 the confrontation had expanded from town versus gown to intellectuals versus the rest of society, especially middle-class society. Long before Mr. Gradgrind made his appearance in Charles Dickens’s Hard Times in 1854, his stereotype was established as the European intelligentsia’s bête noire. They chose to believe that everyone engaged in mundane business was motivated solely by considerations of utility while they themselves were inspired solely by devotion to art.

Blanning, Tim. The Romantic Revolution: A History (Modern Library Chronicles Series Book 34) (pp. 48-49). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

I was surprised by a point that Blanning makes about Walter Scott. Walter Scott is characterized as a Romantic in that he wrote about past ages in a way that presented them as possessing virtues lost to modernity. In his historical novels, Scott was the first significant novelist to attempt to write in the vernacular.

Blanning’s attention to detail in this book is kaleidoscopic. Blanning's movement from one topic to another can be overwhelming, but it generates in the reader a sense of the total Romantic experience that living in the world of Romanticism might have felt like. And, ultimately, feeling and the integration of experience are the sine qua non of Romanticism.

Footnotes:

[1] I will be honest, my interest in Romanticism is paper-thin. I find it mawkish, mystical, and overly elaborate. Give me the directness of Reason and the Enlightenment.

[2] Another part of the Enlightenment project was attacking superstition and irrationality, which might involve attacks on the monarchy or the Catholic Church.

[3] In 1806, as he was finishing the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel looked out his window to see Napoleon riding by. Hegel wrote to a friend that he had seen “the World Spirit on horseback.”

[Marius Veiss · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt that there was too much name-dropping, and too little argument. One gets rather bored of continuous quotations

[Roisin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A worlwind of information that works through the revolutionary spirit, with quotes, images and information that I was aware of, some quotes that I wasn't aware of. Written well.

Enjoy!

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is short, 190 odd page introduction to the basic tenets of what Romanticism was, its beliefs, its proponents, its historical location in society and the era it developed within. Its a whirlwind study, and Tim Blanning condenses the books main focus with a prose that it not too bogged down academically, but rather quite straightforwardly written, by covering the main characters and artistic works whom are associated with this artistic and cultural movement. Romanticism essentially was a reaction (I dont know if reaction is quite a correct word to use) or an artistic response to the Enlightenment which led to the French Revolution and the victory of reason over prejudice (and faith to an extent). I suppose, and what Tim Blanning suggests, it was an art form that looked 'inward', or rather it heralded away from the dominance of encroaching secularism which was covering Europe at that time.

Anyway, all the main Romantic authors, artists, poets and musicians are covered here as well as it being a Europe-wide study focusing I think maybe a little too much on the German Romantics, which I suppose could be described as being reactionary with the focus on their 'national historical identity', and we all know where that ended up. Regardless, the movement also had its political edge too, and there were many left wing Romantics (Shelley et al) too, so I find it hard to categorise it as a reactionary, backward looking cultural phenomenon, quite the contrary in some ways. However I found the study an interesting, quick, fact-filled book containing some good avenues of further reading as well as discovering some quite interesting artists of this time that I was unaware about.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

about two and one half stars. Short introduction to the period.

[Annji · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trying to widen my understanding of the Romantic writers. I tend to resist nonfiction but I found this enjoyable.

[Existential Investigator · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating perhaps 3.5

This is a brief and light read. Not including the end notes, the books is only 186 pages in my edition. Blanning handles the ideas of the Romantics in an easy and accessible way, which can be both a positive or a negative thing depending what you're looking for. The result is that this book is light on philosophy. It deals mainly with different cultural manifestations and themes dealt with by Romantic artists, and a little with their reception by and involvement in the society at large.

Depending how much information you're looking for about the Romantics, you might have to supplement other books with this one as it doesn't go in-depth into the philosophy or detail the concrete activities or lives of the individuals referenced in the book but mainly gives a brief overview of the cultural manifestations in the arts with some of the ideas that lay behind them.

I found that the focus was particularly about the Germans and the French with the English being the next most common group detailed as well as some sporadic references to individuals and outputs from other countries, Italy and Russia for example. If I remember correctly, the Americans get no mention.

There is definitely enough here to fire the mind of anyone interested in the subject. Even though the handling is brief and perhaps even a little superficial, it does cover a fair amount of ground in a short time and does give an account of particularly the largest overriding ideas which inspired the Romantics.

The last chapter, or epilogue titled Conclusion: Death and Transfiguration, was okay. I felt like it should have focused more on the immediate shift away from Romanticism but instead, in only a few pages, it covers the ground all the way to the post-war period and even mentions post-modernism. I felt that the conclusion therefore ended up stretching its subjects a little too thin to be helpful, and in relating certain later cultural trends to Romanticism could be as misleading as it is illuminating, because, in such a brief and superficial manner, connections could be made between many of those trends even to many of Romanticism's oppositions.

Overall a worthwhile book on Romanticism which does a good job communicating the ideas and developments of non-verbal mediums (music, painting, architecture, for example), as well as those of verbal mediums such as literature and philosophy, in a brief and easily digestable form.

[Kabaal van Napels · Rating 5 out of 5]

Captivating topic and a great read. Loved it.

"The Romantic Revolution" is after "Pursuit of Glory", Tim Blanning's second book that blew me away. The writer provides a breathtaking overview of the first 100 years of the movement, describing vividly how it influenced Europe's culture in arts, music, literature, architecture, language, mythology and eventually politics.

By structuring the chapters by topic, the wonderful but often dark world of the Romantics is revealed. An inward-looking world ruled by the night, dreams, madness and emotions is explored by taking the reader on an exciting cultural journey. This time the grand tour goes from England and France via the Rhine and the Alps to Germany and includes side trips to the Czech Republic and Scotland. Travel companions include Rousseau, Beethoven, Liszt, Goya, Herder, Chatterton and Friedrich. The result is a fascinating story of a cultural revolution whose influence, especially in music, can still be felt to this day.

Blanning's pace and style are both appealing and lucid and topics covered filled many a blind spot in my knowledge. Especially the writer's explanation of "the cult of genius" helped me enjoy Peter Watson's The German Genius: Europe's Third Renaissance, the Second Scientific Revolution and the Twentieth Century much more. All in all, I immensely enjoyed this masterwork from page one and highly recommend "The Romantic Revolution".

[Julien · Rating 5 out of 5]

I went looking for an in-depth analysis and re-telling of the Romantic revolution and I was thoroughly impressed and satisfied. This is a book for people who are interested in the transformative period of the early modern era (after 1500 CE) during which a complete shift took place in art, science, philosophy, politics, and economics as far as the "western" world is concerned. I think understanding this period in time is obviously critical to one's view of our modern times, especially considering that the author ends the book by suggesting, with good reason, that the revolution is actually quite far from being over. I learned a lot and had a great time doing so, being lead by a clearly well-informed and talented writer. I came out the other side with a deeper appreciation and understanding of the past few centuries in the west and how the ideology, cultures, and histories of our time developed.

[Elle Maruska · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall this is a good overview of the Romantic movement and its historical contexts; the reaction against the excesses of the French Revolution and the almost antiseptic reason of the Enlightenment created a wealth of art, literature, and music based on medieval mythology and nascent forms of nationalism. However I feel that the author maintains a rather narrow analysis; for instance, colonialism is rarely mentioned despite its impact on the era and even more lacking is any discussion of race. Just as "racial" theories informed Enlightenment discourse, the construction of whiteness in the face of colonial brutality and excess impacted the Romantics. To ignore the imperial project and it's wide-ranging impacts on European thought and aesthetics gives a very narrow interpretation of the era.

However, this book is an accessible and interesting introduction to Romanticism.

[محمد DGome95 · Rating 3 out of 5]

الموسيقار الذي فتح الطريق المباشر إلى الجمهور كان ابن بلده ومعاصره تقريبا نيكولو باغانيني 1782 - 1840
لقد أظهر مايمكن أن ينجزه موسيقار وهب الكاريزما . لم يكن الأمر يتعلق بمجرد مهاراته التقنية رغم أن الجميع أقروا بأنها كانت استثنائية
بل لأنه جلب كذلك هالة من السر والخطر المحدق بل والشيطنة أيضا . كما اعتبر الإقلاع المتأخر لمسيرته المهنية مصدر إلهام بوجه خاص
سرت الشائعات تشير إلى أنه حسّن تقنيته عندما كان يقضي عقوبة السجن لعشرين سنة بسبب قتله عشيقته وأن الوتر السابع الذي يعزف عليه مُصنع من جزء من أمعائها وذهب آخرون بعيدا عندما زعموا أنه لايمكن لبشر أن يعزف بهذا الكمال دون مساعدة قوة خارقة وأيضا بأنه قام بأسر الشيطان داخل صندوقه الموسيقي
وقام بعقد اتفاقية معه مثل فاوست مضحيا بروحه في سبيل الحصول على مهارات لا تصدق

[Jose Gomez-Rivera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Romanticism - Rejection of Reason and Objective Truth

This is an excellent book. The author has traced a lineage for Romanticism beginning with Rousseau and moving through the its reemergence in fin CE siecle European art, in Beethoven, Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. He defines Romanticism as the assertion of individuality and sensibilities , emotions against reason and objectivity. In this he draws a clear line in the motivations and consequences of Romantics and Romanticism. Interestingly by ending with current youth culture which he defines as anarchic hedonism he justly points to a future where the influences of Romanticism are likely to matter.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid if largely unremarkable history of the Romantic era (late 1700s to maybe 1850). I think the first section is the strongest, offering a very good overview of the main currents of Romantic thought and explaining its emergence as a dialectical response to the rationalism and scientism of the Age of Enlightenment. The second and third sections have their points of interest, but tend to be a bit less engaging and a bit more "in the weeds." In these sections, the author perhaps tries to cram too many names and works into his broader explanations, which leads to a duller and more confusing reading experience. So overall, it's 1/3 a great historical survey, 2/3 a mediocre one.

[Nomen est Omen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great overview of the movement. It covers the music, the literature, the philosophy, the perspectives, the sentiments, etc. of the romantics. Its geographical scope is placed upon Germany, France, and England. Although, I found the French side, be it the authors or the works, to be the least mentioned of the three. I, nevertheless, highly recommend the book. It was enjoyable and rich in its information.

[A. B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good overview of Romanticism from its roots in Rousseau and the reaction to the Enlightenment, to the focus on the individual genius, nature, the primacy of feeling over the intellect, voelkisch nationalism etc. The author's main thesis is that the culture of Europe evolves dialectically -- with succeeding periods emphasising feeling and reason respectively viz. the Enlightenment, the Romantic Revolution, Victorian Positivism, Fin de Siecle, Modernism, Post-modernism.

[Goran Ovčariček · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author of the book is Tim Blanning, a respected British historian and academic. His book was originally published in 2010 and the version being reviewed here is the Croatian translation, published by Alfa two years later (2012), with the literally translated title. The public discourse is more or less familiar with the three major revolutions that occurred since the end of the 18th century. Those are the French Revolution in 1789, the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, and the Socialist (Communist) Revolution in 1917. Each of them brought its own paradigms and shifts, but none, in the political sense, quite like the Bolshevik Revolution, which brought about a complete shift on the state-leading-elite level, radically changing the élite echelon. As far as the first two go, some historians even argue (notably William H. McNeill) that the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution had the same origins in the social pressure caused by a population boom, and that they are essentially the same revolution that took significantly different paths. Think of it what you will, Tim Blanning is here to propose another revolution, already accepted (though not dogmatically) in the history of ideas discourse, but relatively unknown to the public (to Croatian public at least). Here, the Romantic Revolution enters the stage.

This book could be taken as an introductory work on the paradigm of the spirit that was the Romantic Revolution as it reports in a general way how and why the romantics thought about the world surrounding them. Mainly German romantics that is, as the author focuses heavily on them, drawing from Goethe, Herder and the like, more than from their French or English counterparts. However, what Blanning cannot escape, are the French origins of the movement, nor does he seek to, recognizing Jean Jacques Rousseau as the primeval romantic. It must be noted here that to sum up an extremely complex era (in every sense possible - politically, socially, ideologically…) to the very confined, small number of pages, is an art in itself. Therefore, the author inevitably had to drop out a large portion of his own theme, let alone any possible digressions, and indeed, has to be commended for a job well done.

As expected, the book presents the reader with an excellent overview of the romantic side of the story and that specific romantic view of the world that later spawned the literary colonialism (Orientalism) and gave strength to the nationalist movements, perhaps best embodied in T.E. Lawrence, Victor Hugo, and Richard Wagner respectively. However, what is somewhat lacking, is the general sense of importance of the romantics. It lacks the influence of their, essentially, felt reaction against the world surrounding them, which was undoubtedly huge, but in this piece it somehow lurks ominously in the background, never quite revealing itself. What was fundamentally a reactionary mentality more than it was a movement, spread like wildfire through the stale forests of Europe’s culture giving birth and strength to the later ideas and mentalities.

According to Blanning, the reason was the culprit that had spawned the romantic reaction, and the author utilizes that antipathy as an essential tool to portray the “reaction” as a “revolution”. What is evident, though, in his writings, is the assertion that the reason incorporated the romance further to deepen its postulates. Thus, the reaction against reason became the tool of its strengthening. This short reading is fully packed with diverse themes, since little has escaped the author’s skilled analysis, which is quite impressively endowed with a rich bibliography. Personally, I found the most interesting part to be the portrayal of the romantic (forged) origins of, this or that, nationalism. The idea that national movements owe a great deal of their existence to the constructions through the romantic zeal of individuals is quite intriguing. The construction of nationalism is, in historiography, more or less a well-established fact (which, nonetheless, does not make that construction less real to people). However, to think of it as a felt romantic reaction would explain the extremes of forging a history and then believing your own forgeries. Still, Blanning has failed, in my opinion, to establish a clear link between the two. Perhaps, it has something to do with the duration of the reaction. An emotional response is generally short burst and intense and in short time a romantic can travel the distance between exhilaration and despair, but what matters, are the lasting impressions. Therefore, nationalism could have started out as a burst of exciting romantic reaction, but then, through time, it evolved into the nationalism that we know today omitting its origins in the process.

Trying to find the negatives of this book is like searching for a needle in a needlestack. The piece is rich, it feeds the soul (especially a romantic one), it is profusely corroborated, it is potable and legible, and it deals with an interesting subject. The only objection is on the behalf of its shortness, since that limits the development of the ideas in the book and it restricts the view to a general bird’s perspective, which, logically, fails to observe a vast amount of details.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great thematic overview of the Romantic Revolution as well as a view into the historiography. However due to all of the names of people involved it would be if there was a list which you could consult.

[Joe Middleton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good history of an interesting period that has undoubtedly influenced the way in which we see ourselves. I found the passage about artists and their perceived genius particularly compelling.

I want to believe that I am a Romantic, but maybe I just like getting pissed?

[Iván Martínez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ensayo sobre corriente artística; fácil lectura; no profundiza en los contenidos; abarca diferentes artes y expresiones culturales; erudición y claridad expositiva; menciona a Goya; libro diferente sobre historia+romanticismo+arte+filosofía; recomendado