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THE ROOTS OF ROMANTICISM

Name: THE ROOTS OF ROMANTICISM
Author: Isaiah Berlin
ISBN: 0-691-00713-6

by Isaiah Berlin ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1999

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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

Categories:

PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE SENSE OF REALITY
by Isaiah Berlin

- BOOK REVIEW
THE MAGUS OF THE NORTH
by Isaiah Berlin

- BOOK REVIEW
THE CROOKED TIMBER OF HUMANITY
edited by Henry Hardy & by Isaiah Berlin

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THE WEIGHT OF GLORY

by C.S. Lewis ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1949

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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

Categories:

PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION

- BOOK REVIEW
ALL MY ROAD BEFORE ME
by C.S. Lewis

- BOOK REVIEW
PRESENT CONCERNS
by C.S. Lewis

- BOOK REVIEW
BOXEN
by C.S. Lewis

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ON REVOLUTION

by Hannah Arendt ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 15, 1963

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Hannah Arendt is one of the world's most profound political scientists: her scholarship is sterling, her philosophical- psychological insights staggering; two of her books Origins of Totalitariansim and Human Condition are among the few significant works in her field and our era. Whenever she publishes, it is an event. And although she is not at her best in this close study of the American and French revolutions and their meaning for the 20th century, still on every page we are in the presence of a mind of high individuality, great interest and intellectual integrity. It is her thesis that the Founding Fathers were faithful above all else to the ideal of freedom as the end and justification of revolution and thereby they assured its success. On the other hand, the Rousseau-Robespierre misalliance, the idea of the general will binding the many into the one, the transformation of the Rights of Man into the rights of Sans-Culotte, not only ultimately led to the Reign of Terror but also the whole catalogue of post-1792 ideological corruptions. The malhcurcux became the enrages, then the Industrial Revolution's miserables. And the Marxist Leninist acceptance of the new absolutism, which was done in the name of historical necessity and the name of the proletariat as a "natural" force, subsequently absolved both tyranny and blood baths as stages along the way... A powerful indictment and illumination, both immediate and enduring.