"They proclaim the futility of human life, as if every living person is mastered and defeated by circumstances.” I have the strong, instinctive feeling this was why Italy Calvino abandoned realism after his first novel, A Path to the Spiders Nest. His characters in The Cloven Viscount or The Baron in the Trees did not accept this futility. Italian postmodernism is the only kind I like, since it basically continues what modernism started, rather than destroying it.
“Romanticism is a dangerous view. Exalting the natural man is dangerous to our soul. Seems obvious we can’t trust our natural impulses to guide us through each day.” I know this is set before our time, but it reminds me of how hypocritical people are about that today. A lot of what we teach people is to basically follow their impulses. But at the same time, it's dangerous? Perhaps this is really what people mean when they say they want equality: we are all afraid of each other. (Slightly historically unprecedented, since we didn't share that fear with our fellow villagers) The problem is, there are both good and bad among us. Binding people in the conceptual prison of equality (in this manifestation: I don't mean its good forms, like political equality) restricts the good people as much as the bad. It's not just the Hitlers who are confined, but the Churchills and De Gaulles as well.
I don't know if I'm allowed to answer this way. But I would say I'm half Romantic, half Renaissance. The bolstering of personal quality in the Renaissance enabled the Romantics to write much of the greatest literature in history. (And of course the Renaissance guys weren't bad themselves) But the Romantics nonetheless understood that we are not robots, but emotional beings. And this is one of literature's strengths, as other fields of knowledge do not deal with this kind of thing. (Except maybe psychology, and even then it's totally different; though it's also why we have psychological novels rather than, say, archaeological novels, chemical novels and - God forbid! - theoretical novels) As you've probably noticed on Timeless, I make little effort to suppress either inclination. I don't know of a single Realism work that is better than Young Werther. (And I also don't think realism can compete with nonfiction)
The cool part of having a dialogue among fictional characters is that I didn't have to take a final stand. Gwen makes good points of Realism / Naturalism and Troy gets in a good statement about Romanticism. Francis is a devout traditional Catholic. He's into Dante. All six love the Renaissance ethos, so I'm clearly laying my cards on the table of my positive view of that.
I think Realism can be done well and provide value. But I don't appreciate any of the Realism of the late 19th Century or early 20th Century other than The Red Badge of Courage.
I esteem Wordsworth but wasn't ever able to quite appreciate Keats, Shelly, or Byron.
In the novel I'm bringing out in July, there is a play produced by the American and German characters (written more in short-story form) about Friedrich Holderlin, including his friendship with Hegel. I've read extensively about Holderlin, but I'm still not sure whether or not he was a Romantic. They were both German Idealists, by almost any definition, but German Idealism was more of a metaphysical philosophy than what Romanticism was and is.
"They proclaim the futility of human life, as if every living person is mastered and defeated by circumstances.” I have the strong, instinctive feeling this was why Italy Calvino abandoned realism after his first novel, A Path to the Spiders Nest. His characters in The Cloven Viscount or The Baron in the Trees did not accept this futility. Italian postmodernism is the only kind I like, since it basically continues what modernism started, rather than destroying it.
“Romanticism is a dangerous view. Exalting the natural man is dangerous to our soul. Seems obvious we can’t trust our natural impulses to guide us through each day.” I know this is set before our time, but it reminds me of how hypocritical people are about that today. A lot of what we teach people is to basically follow their impulses. But at the same time, it's dangerous? Perhaps this is really what people mean when they say they want equality: we are all afraid of each other. (Slightly historically unprecedented, since we didn't share that fear with our fellow villagers) The problem is, there are both good and bad among us. Binding people in the conceptual prison of equality (in this manifestation: I don't mean its good forms, like political equality) restricts the good people as much as the bad. It's not just the Hitlers who are confined, but the Churchills and De Gaulles as well.
I don't know if I'm allowed to answer this way. But I would say I'm half Romantic, half Renaissance. The bolstering of personal quality in the Renaissance enabled the Romantics to write much of the greatest literature in history. (And of course the Renaissance guys weren't bad themselves) But the Romantics nonetheless understood that we are not robots, but emotional beings. And this is one of literature's strengths, as other fields of knowledge do not deal with this kind of thing. (Except maybe psychology, and even then it's totally different; though it's also why we have psychological novels rather than, say, archaeological novels, chemical novels and - God forbid! - theoretical novels) As you've probably noticed on Timeless, I make little effort to suppress either inclination. I don't know of a single Realism work that is better than Young Werther. (And I also don't think realism can compete with nonfiction)
Very interesting perspective, Felix.
The cool part of having a dialogue among fictional characters is that I didn't have to take a final stand. Gwen makes good points of Realism / Naturalism and Troy gets in a good statement about Romanticism. Francis is a devout traditional Catholic. He's into Dante. All six love the Renaissance ethos, so I'm clearly laying my cards on the table of my positive view of that.
I think Realism can be done well and provide value. But I don't appreciate any of the Realism of the late 19th Century or early 20th Century other than The Red Badge of Courage.
I esteem Wordsworth but wasn't ever able to quite appreciate Keats, Shelly, or Byron.
In the novel I'm bringing out in July, there is a play produced by the American and German characters (written more in short-story form) about Friedrich Holderlin, including his friendship with Hegel. I've read extensively about Holderlin, but I'm still not sure whether or not he was a Romantic. They were both German Idealists, by almost any definition, but German Idealism was more of a metaphysical philosophy than what Romanticism was and is.