An edited transcript of lectures recorded by the BBC in 1966—67, this book is editor Hardy’s (one of Isaiah Berlin’s literary trustees) commendable effort to preserve the legacy of one of the most prominent thinkers of the 20th century. Berlin searches for the sources of Romanticism primarily in Germany, focusing on Hamann, Kant, Herder, Fichte, Schiller, Schlegel, and others who contributed to the rise of the movement at the end of the 18th century. This break in European consciousness led to the replacement of Enlightenment-era objective criteria in the evaluation of human reason and beauty with individualistic, relativist, and mystical Romantic views. Proponents of Romanticism advocated the rejection of aesthetic rules, believed in emotionalism and the liberating function of art, and craved the infinite as embodied in myths. For them, the creative process entailed delving into the artist’s unconscious, and they espoused the idea that will, not reason, dominates life. Berlin points out the complexity of Romanticism, which embraces an infinite array of potentially conflicting aspects. He considers the obvious paradox between the valorization of the noble savage on the one hand, and the whimsical Gothic taste for extravagance and mysticism on the other. Both tendencies, however, reflected the Romantic urge to transgress the boundaries of dull, everyday existence by pointing to some unattainable, exotic reality. Among the offshoots of the Romantic worldview, Berlin mentions two powerful 20th-century phenomena: existentialism and fascism. Existentialism was rooted in the extreme Romantic view of the universe as void, while fascism can be traced back to Fichte’s patriotic diatribe calling upon the “younger, vigorous” German nation to conquer weaker, “decadent people.” Besides occasional plot summaries of prose works, Berlin does not illustrate his views with actual Romantic texts. His survey of Romanticism remains a fairly dry but exacting account of the ideas underlying the movement’s aesthetic sensibilities. Complicated by uneven syntax and repetitiousness betraying the genre of oral presentation, the book is a challenge even to the dedicated reader.
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-691-00713-6
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author’s sincere sermon—at times analytical, at times hortatory—remains a hopeful one.
New York Times columnist Brooks (The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement, 2011, etc.) returns with another volume that walks the thin line between self-help and cultural criticism.
Sandwiched between his introduction and conclusion are eight chapters that profile exemplars (Samuel Johnson and Michel de Montaigne are textual roommates) whose lives can, in Brooks’ view, show us the light. Given the author’s conservative bent in his column, readers may be surprised to discover that his cast includes some notable leftists, including Frances Perkins, Dorothy Day, and A. Philip Randolph. (Also included are Gens. Eisenhower and Marshall, Augustine, and George Eliot.) Throughout the book, Brooks’ pattern is fairly consistent: he sketches each individual’s life, highlighting struggles won and weaknesses overcome (or not), and extracts lessons for the rest of us. In general, he celebrates hard work, humility, self-effacement, and devotion to a true vocation. Early in his text, he adapts the “Adam I and Adam II” construction from the work of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, Adam I being the more external, career-driven human, Adam II the one who “wants to have a serene inner character.” At times, this veers near the Devil Bugs Bunny and Angel Bugs that sit on the cartoon character’s shoulders at critical moments. Brooks liberally seasons the narrative with many allusions to history, philosophy, and literature. Viktor Frankl, Edgar Allan Poe, Paul Tillich, William and Henry James, Matthew Arnold, Virginia Woolf—these are but a few who pop up. Although Brooks goes after the selfie generation, he does so in a fairly nuanced way, noting that it was really the World War II Greatest Generation who started the ball rolling. He is careful to emphasize that no one—even those he profiles—is anywhere near flawless.
The author’s sincere sermon—at times analytical, at times hortatory—remains a hopeful one.Pub Date: April 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9325-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The name of C.S. Lewis will no doubt attract many readers to this volume, for he has won a splendid reputation by his brilliant writing. These sermons, however, are so abstruse, so involved and so dull that few of those who pick up the volume will finish it. There is none of the satire of the Screw Tape Letters, none of the practicality of some of his later radio addresses, none of the directness of some of his earlier theological books.
Pub Date: June 15, 1949
ISBN: 0060653205
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1949
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