On the Nature of Romanticism

Abstract

From Plato to T. S. Eliot it has been repeatedly said that any widespread change in taste and in the forms of art signalizes a profound change in the structure of the parent culture. Certainly, Romanticism represents such a change and, consequently, is worth careful attention. The present intent is to determine what Romanticism is and is worth philosophically with relation to our topic without, however, losing sight of its other more specific and less philosophical expressions. To this end we shall note certain of its literary leit motifs and then consider their treatment at the hands of some critics and finally their fate within a Romantic philosophy. It may then be possible to determine and evaluate the characteristics of these Romantic ideas and to find their place within the idealistic tradition to which they belong. Is, for example, the Romantic movement a single unified movement having its own ends and its own rationale? Or is it, as some critics maintain, rather a collection of disparate and disconnected movements confusedly lumped together under one name? How ought Romanticism, or the Romanticisms, to be described?