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Thread: The greatest Representatives of Romantism

  1. #16
    Registered User Karl Rommel's Avatar
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    Heinrich von Kleist. Coleridge - sorry if repetition there
    “A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.” –Francis Bacon

  2. #17
    Bibliophile JBI's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bitterfly View Post
    Ah, thank you. But then why did I read of Fitzgerald as an American Romantic? Because you couldn't even consider him as a modernist, could you? I have difficulty placing American authors in general, I must say... What about Hawthorne? What is he? Or even Poe? Couldn't he be considered as a Romantic (strains of the Gothic - which was Romantic)?

    And wouldn't you say French Symbolism comes after Romanticism, rather, inspired by it but still distinct from it? And you have Decadent literature both in France and in England as well as in Italy.
    Poe and Hawthorne are both romantics, but I wouldn't call Fitzgerald one, as he clearly fits better, both chronologically, and stylistically with modernism.

    As for Symbolism, yes, it comes after, and it often contradicts, or goes beyond romanticism, I find. As for Decadent literature, yes you have a point, but the Decadentismo was a very specific movement in Italy, equivalent to the symbolist movements elsewhere.

  3. #18
    Bibliophile JBI's Avatar
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    From a rather bland, but accurate public domain translation by A. S. Kline

    The Infinite by Giacomo Leopardi


    It was always dear to me, this solitary hill,
    and this hedgerow here, that closes off my view,
    from so much of the ultimate horizon.
    But sitting here, and watching here,
    in thought, I create interminable spaces,
    greater than human silences, and deepest
    quiet, where the heart barely fails to terrify.
    When I hear the wind, blowing among these leaves,
    I go on to compare that infinite silence
    with this voice, and I remember the eternal
    and the dead seasons, and the living present,
    and its sound, so that in this immensity
    my thoughts are drowned, and shipwreck
    seems sweet to me in this sea.

    Note, the virtuosic style wasn't replicated at all in this translation, and I used this one purely for the reason of it being in the public domain.

  4. #19
    liber vermicula Bitterfly's Avatar
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    I like this poem, even if I imagine it must be far more beautiful in the original Italian (it's so frustrating to have to read poems like this one in translation). So what was Leopardi, a Romantic or a Decadent? I'd say Romantic because of his dates, but Decadent because of the tone and style (as you say it's virtuosic).

  5. #20
    Bibliophile JBI's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bitterfly View Post
    I like this poem, even if I imagine it must be far more beautiful in the original Italian (it's so frustrating to have to read poems like this one in translation). So what was Leopardi, a Romantic or a Decadent? I'd say Romantic because of his dates, but Decadent because of the tone and style (as you say it's virtuosic).
    He's a middle-ground player between Classicism and Romanticism. In terms of schooling, he was a very well established classical scholar even in his youth, where he had already achieved a sort of renown by the age of 18 and earlier. As for his poetry though - mid-career he seems to have had an about face, and given up on classical reverence, in favor of a harsher, more destructive poetics, that, I would think, he intended to capture the harshness of nature, and of life.

  6. #21
    ksotikoula ksotikoula's Avatar
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    I just wanted to add to the list of literature the Bronte sisters: Charlotte, Emily and Anne
    "Life is so constructed, that the event does not, cannot, will not match the expectation." - Charlotte Bronte (Villette)

  7. #22
    Registered User Iago's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ksotikoula View Post
    I just wanted to add to the list of literature the Bronte sisters: Charlotte, Emily and Anne
    I think few would classify them as Romantic. We can of course speak of romantic - or gothic - influences (e.g. Wuthering Heights ) but I would not think of them as Romantic - and not only because of chronological reasons
    .

    A magician pulls rabbits out of hats. A shrink pulls habits out of rats.

  8. #23
    Registered User kelby_lake's Avatar
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    Fitzgerald?

  9. #24
    Registered User Emil Miller's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kelby_lake View Post
    Fitzgerald?
    JBI has already indicated above that Fitzgerald is a modernist.

  10. #25
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    Well, since he wrote his own librettos I will say Richard Wagner.
    J.H.S.

  11. #26
    aspiring Arthurianist Wilde woman's Avatar
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    Sadly, I know more about Romantic classical music than literature. So...

    RACHMANINOFF

    Talk about the personification of a dark, tortured soul. He was one artist who truly achieved catharsis in his music. Some of his stuff, especially his piano concertos are aboslutely orgasmic.

    Also, Debussy - though I'm not a fan of his particular brand of Romanticism. And Saint-Saens, whose I am. Grieg. Schumann. Mendelssohn. Paganini. And who could forget Berlioz, whose Symphonie fantastique is often used as THE textbook example of Romantic program music.

    And if we're talking opera, how could we forget PUCCINI, whose operas are easier on the ears than Wagner's (shudder).

  12. #27
    Registered User Emil Miller's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wilde woman View Post
    Sadly, I know more about Romantic classical music than literature. So...

    RACHMANINOFF

    Talk about the personification of a dark, tortured soul. He was one artist who truly achieved catharsis in his music. Some of his stuff, especially his piano concertos are aboslutely orgasmic.

    Also, Debussy - though I'm not a fan of his particular brand of Romanticism. And Saint-Saens, whose I am. Grieg. Schumann. Mendelssohn. Paganini. And who could forget Berlioz, whose Symphonie fantastique is often used as THE textbook example of Romantic program music.

    And if we're talking opera, how could we forget PUCCINI, whose operas are easier on the ears than Wagner's (shudder).
    Oh Wilde Woman, how I agree with you about Rachmaninov & Co but why not join our music appreciation section, where your views will be much appreciated.

  13. #28
    Bibliophile JBI's Avatar
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    Debussy was more modernist than romantic.

  14. #29
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    I can not imagine anything (and romantism is a wider classification) but romantic to Emily Bronte.
    Adding the brazilian most likely romantics such Gonçalves Dias, Castro Alves, José de Alencar...

  15. #30
    aspiring Arthurianist Wilde woman's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JBI View Post
    Debussy was more modernist than romantic.
    If you consider Impressionism more modernist than Romantic, sure.

    But if you consider Beethoven Romantic, there's no reason not to consider Debussy the same. Both Debussy and Beethoven were more in the transitional vein towards and away from Romanticism than actually in the Romantic period. We could argue all day about this.

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