The Roots of Romanticism
Borrowed from Isiah Berlin
The True Fathers of Romanticism Chapter three
Irrational desires
Unconscious drives
Some kind of satisfactions
Irrational persons wandered
Talking about animal spirits
Various nostrums engage the attention
The same anti-rationalism
Strange messiahs who wandered about
Foist upon God our own Puny, human, logical schemes
Words cut things to pieces
classified
are too rational
Mystery in artistic images
There is imprisoned
Violent
Bold
Dark
Criminal instinct
I did not reason
I surrendered to the confusion
I suffocated in the universe
To leap into the infinite
To swelling ecstasy
They were unique
Action is the soul
We shall brood over it
Intense spirituality of the pietism
To the ravages of science
In accordance with the demonic
Or titanic demands
Insoluble conflict
Right that they should resist
Right that the strong
Fatalistic and pessimistic
God is closer to the abnormal
Normal do not really understand what goes on
So sincere
So deeply intended
God is closer to thieves and prostitutes, sinners and publicans
There is no cure
Must end badly
Thought is an irrational place Solution was in principle undiscoverable
Enlightened despotism Irascible and unbalanced temperament
Notion of expressionism Notion of belonging
Notion that ideals
Are often incompatible Cannot be reconciled
Everyone seeks to belong
Does belong
A group
A sect
A movement
In some proximity
Not the criterion of blood
Not the criterion of race
Language as a bond
Soil as a bond
Impalpable common gestalt
A man belongs to where he is A uniquely intelligible fashion
Different ages had different ideals Valid for its time
And its place Admired and appreciated now
Equally valid Equally fruitful
Everything is delightful
.
.
.
.
.
Disliked every form of
Violence
Coercion
Swallowing of one culture by another
Everything to be what it is.
The perfect life collapses
Variety and difference
A splendid fact
Infinite possibilities still
Unfulfillability of human ambitions