European Literature From Romanticism To Postmodernism: A Reader In Aesthetic Practice (continuum Collection)

European Literature from Romanticism to Postmodernism This page intentionally left blank European Literature from Romanticism to Postmodernism A Reader in Aesthetic Practice Edited by Martin Travers CONTINUUM London and New York Continuum The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX 370 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10017-6503 First published 2001 This selection and introductory material © Martin Travers 2001 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data European literature from romanticism to postmodernism: a reader in aesthetic practice/ edited by Martin Travers. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8264-9098-0 ISBN 13: 978-0-8264-9098-8 1. Literature, Modern—History and criticism. I. Travers, Martin. PN710 E88 2000 809'.03— dc21 00-022684 CONTENTS Preface Acknowledgements xi xiv Part I: Romanticism Introduction 1. 'A new knowledge of my real self and my character': Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Reveries of a Solitary Walker (1782) 2. 'The vital root of genius': Edward Young, Conjectures on Original Composition (1759) 3. 'Touched by divinity': Johann Gottfried Herder, 'Shakespeare' (1773) 4. 'Irresistible simplicity and nature': James Macpherson, The Works of Ossian (1765) 5. 'The Nordic imagination': Madame de Staël, On Literature (1800) 6. 'Inwards lies the path of mystery': Novalis, Fragments (1798) 7. 'As the Eye is formed, such are its Powers': William Blake, Letter (1799) 8. Romantic longing: August Wilhelm von Schlegel, Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature (1808) 9. 'The passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature': William Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800) 10. 'Awakening the mind's attention from the lethargy of custom': Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria (1817) 11. 'Sentiments which ought to inform every discourse': Alessandro Manzoni, 'On Romanticism' (1823) 12. 'The great instrument of moral good is the imagination': Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defence of Poetry (1821) 13. 'The grotesque and the sublime': Victor Hugo, Preface to Cromwell (1827) 14. 'Liberty in literature as in Arts, industry, commerce and consciousness. This is the motto of our epoch': Mariano Jose de Larra, 'Literature' (1836) 15. 'For the spirit comes alive': Giovanni Berchet, 'The semi-serious Letter' (1816) 3 13 16 19 21 24 26 29 31 34 37 40 43 45 48 51 vi Contents 16. The poetry of the Volk: Ludwig Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano, The Boy's Magic Horn (1805-8) 17. 'The nations that act, who suffer for the truth': Adam Mickiewicz, The Slavs (1842-4) 18. Reflective and non-reflective modes of artistic creation: Friedrich von Schiller, On Naive and Sentimental Poetry (1795-6 19. Transcendent and universal poetry: Friedrich von Schlegel, Aphorisms and Fragments (1797-1800) 54 57 59 62 Part II: Realism Introduction 69 1. 'Of the pathetic fallacy': John Ruskin, Modern Painters (1856) 79 2. 'Moral emotion': George Eliot, 'Worldliness and other-worldliness: the poet Young' (1857) 81 3. 'The art of copying from nature': Walter Scott, Review of Jane Austen's Emma (1815) 84 4. 'French society is the real author': Honoré de Balzac, Foreword to The Human Comedy (1842) 86 5. 'The mission of art today': Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve, 'The ho