Opening the text

Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 2. The Romantic School in GermanyBrandes, Georg

History

Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 2. The Romantic School in Germany

Name: Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 2. The Romantic School in Germany
Author: Brandes, Georg

Brandes, Georg

Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Naturalism in literature; Romanticism

The French authoress looks upon unchangeable love for one and the same
person as a possibility only, dependent upon certain conditions; and
her idea of love is not, like Schleiermacher's, that it is the highest
educational force, but that, as an irresistible natural force, a
possessing passion, it is beautiful, the most beautiful thing in life.
Institutions must adapt themselves to it, since it cannot change its
nature to suit institutions. A disciple of Rousseau, she champions the
cause of nature.

Let us now glance at one of the works of a contemporary English writer
of the same tendencies, at Shelley's _Queen Mab_. In the notes he has
appended to this poem we come upon a third variation of the opposition
to prevailing opinions. Shelley says: "Love is inevitably consequent
upon the perception of loveliness. Love withers under constraint: its
very essence is liberty: it is compatible neither with obedience,
jealousy, nor fear: it is there most pure, perfect, and unlimited,
where its votaries live in confidence, equality, and unreserve.... A
husband and wife ought to continue so long united as they love each
other: any law which should bind them to cohabitation for one moment
after the decay of their affection would be a most intolerable tyranny,
and the most unworthy of toleration. How odious an usurpation of the
right of private judgment should that law be considered which should
make the ties of friendship indissoluble, in spite of the caprices,
the inconstancy, the fallibility, and capacity for improvement of the
human mind. And by so much would the fetters of love be heavier and
more unendurable than those of friendship, as love is more vehement
and capricious, more dependent on those delicate peculiarities of
imagination, and less capable of reduction to the ostensible merits
of the object.... Love is free: to promise for ever to love the same
woman is not less absurd than to promise to believe the same creed....
The present system of constraint does no more, in the majority of
instances, than make hypocrites or open enemies. Persons of delicacy
and virtue, unhappily united to one whom they find it impossible to
love, spend the loveliest season of their life in unproductive efforts
to appear otherwise than they are, for the sake of the feelings of
their partner or the welfare of their mutual offspring: those of less
generosity and refinement openly avow their disappointment, and linger
out the remnant of that union, which only death can dissolve, in a
state of incurable bickering and hostility. The early education of
their children takes its colour from the squabbles of the parents;
they are nursed in a systematic school of ill-humour, violence, and
falsehood.... The conviction that wedlock is indissoluble holds out
the strongest of all temptations to the perverse: they indulge without
restraint in acrimony, and all the little tyrannies of domestic life,
when they know that their victim is without appeal.... Prostitution

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 2. The Romantic School in GermanyBrandes, Georg

History

Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 2. The Romantic School in Germany

Brandes, Georg

Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Naturalism in literature; Romanticism

The French authoress looks upon unchangeable love for one and the same
person as a possibility only, dependent upon certain conditions; and
her idea of love is not, like Schleiermacher's, that it is the highest
educational force, but that, as an irresistible natural force, a
possessing passion, it is beautiful, the most beautiful thing in life.
Institutions must adapt themselves to it, since it cannot change its
nature to suit institutions. A disciple of Rousseau, she champions the
cause of nature.

Let us now glance at one of the works of a contemporary English writer
of the same tendencies, at Shelley's _Queen Mab_. In the notes he has
appended to this poem we come upon a third variation of the opposition
to prevailing opinions. Shelley says: "Love is inevitably consequent
upon the perception of loveliness. Love withers under constraint: its
very essence is liberty: it is compatible neither with obedience,
jealousy, nor fear: it is there most pure, perfect, and unlimited,
where its votaries live in confidence, equality, and unreserve.... A
husband and wife ought to continue so long united as they love each
other: any law which should bind them to cohabitation for one moment
after the decay of their affection would be a most intolerable tyranny,
and the most unworthy of toleration. How odious an usurpation of the
right of private judgment should that law be considered which should
make the ties of friendship indissoluble, in spite of the caprices,
the inconstancy, the fallibility, and capacity for improvement of the
human mind. And by so much would the fetters of love be heavier and
more unendurable than those of friendship, as love is more vehement
and capricious, more dependent on those delicate peculiarities of
imagination, and less capable of reduction to the ostensible merits
of the object.... Love is free: to promise for ever to love the same
woman is not less absurd than to promise to believe the same creed....
The present system of constraint does no more, in the majority of
instances, than make hypocrites or open enemies. Persons of delicacy
and virtue, unhappily united to one whom they find it impossible to
love, spend the loveliest season of their life in unproductive efforts
to appear otherwise than they are, for the sake of the feelings of
their partner or the welfare of their mutual offspring: those of less
generosity and refinement openly avow their disappointment, and linger
out the remnant of that union, which only death can dissolve, in a
state of incurable bickering and hostility. The early education of
their children takes its colour from the squabbles of the parents;
they are nursed in a systematic school of ill-humour, violence, and
falsehood.... The conviction that wedlock is indissoluble holds out
the strongest of all temptations to the perverse: they indulge without
restraint in acrimony, and all the little tyrannies of domestic life,
when they know that their victim is without appeal.... Prostitution

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 2. The Romantic School in Germany

Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 2. The Romantic School in Germany

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