Theodore Ziolkowski 
Stages of European Romanticism 
Cultural Synchronicity across the Arts, 1798-1848

Employs an innovative approach by ’stages‘ to offer a unified vision of European Romanticism over the half-century of its growth and decline.






Romanticism was a truly European phenomenon, extending roughly from the French Revolution to the 1848 revolutions and embracing not only literature and drama but also music and visual arts. Because of Romanticism’s vast scope, most treatments have restricted themselves to single countries or to specific forms, notably literature, art, or music. This book takes a wider view by considering in each of six chapters representative examples of works – from across Europe and across a range of the arts – that were created in a single year. For instance, in the first chapter, focusing on the year 1798, Beethoven’s
Pathétique sonata, Wordsworth and Coleridge’s
Lyrical Ballads, Tieck’s novel
Franz Sternbalds Wanderungen, and Goya’s painting
El sueño de la razón. The following chapters treat works from the years 1808, 1818, 1828, 1838, and 1848.

This approach by ’stages‘ makes it possible to determine characteristics of six stages of Romanticism in its historical and intellectual context and to note the conspicuous differences between these stages as European Romanticism developed-for example, the waxing and waning of religious themes, the shifting visions of landscape, the gradual ironic detachment from early Romanticism. In sum, the volume offers a unified vision of European Romanticism in all its aesthetic forms over the half-centuryof its growth and decline.


Theodore Ziolkowski is Professor Emeritus of German and Comparative Literature, Princeton University.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE: 1798

Beethoven,
Grande Sonate Pathétique

Wordsworth/Coleridge,
Lyrical Ballads

Brothers Schlegel,
Athenaeum

Tieck,
Franz Sternbalds Wanderungen

Goya,
El sueño de la razón produce monstruos

Findings

CHAPTER TWO: 1808

Beethoven,
Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67

Fichte,
Reden an die deutsche Nation

Scott,
Marmion

Arnim/Brentano,
Des Knaben Wunderhorn and Zeitung für Einsiedler

Kleist,
Die Hermannsschlacht

C. D. Friedrich,
Tetschener Altar

Digression: Goethe,
Faust I

Findings

CHAPTER THREE: 1818

Rossini,
Mosè in Egitto

Lamartine,
Saül

Hoffmann,
Die Serapionsbrüder

Mary Shelley,
Frankenstein

C. D. Friedrich,
Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer

Findings

CHAPTER FOUR: 1828

Schubert,
Die Winterreise

Scott,
The Fair Maid of Perth

Hugo,
Cromwell

Mickiewicz,
Konrad Wallenrod

Eichendorff,
Ezelin von Romano

Constable,
Hampstead Heath, Branch Hill Pond

Findings

CHAPTER FIVE: 1838

Schumann,
Kreisleriana

Brentano,
Gockel, Hinkel und Gackeleia

Mérimée,
La Vénus d’Ille

Poe,
Ligeia

Delacroix,
Médée furieuse

Findings

CHAPTER SIX: 1848

Verdi,
Il corsaro

Dumas,
La Dame aux camélias

Grillparzer,
Der arme Spielmann

Anne Brontë,
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Spitzweg,
Gnom, Eisenbahn betrachtend

Findings

CONCLUSIONS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Über den Autor

Theodore Ziolkowski is Professor Emeritus of German and Comparative Literature, Princeton University.