Opening the text

Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 3. The Reaction in FranceBrandes, Georg

History

Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 3. The Reaction in France

Name: Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 3. The Reaction in France
Author: Brandes, Georg

Brandes, Georg

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

He has had love affairs, but he has never been truly in love before.
It seems to him as if, when she looks at him, there is a remoteness in
her gaze which he has never felt before in human eye. It reminds him
of the gleam of the stars, which has traversed millions of miles of
space. He has a hesitation in approaching her which makes the distance
between them seem impassable. When he at last succeeds in making her
acquaintance, it is the name and the position of a brother which she
gives him, and with this he is contented and happy. No sooner have they
found one another than he feels as if he were relieved from a heavy
burden--the burden of his heart. As soon as he gives it away he learns
what life in all its fulness is. He feels as if he were floating in the
purest ether; his joy is infinite and luminous as the air of heaven.
During the first hours which he spends with her he loses all perception
of time; he is certain that a thousand years spent thus would to him be
so many seconds. He does not feel like a human being, but like a living
hymn of praise.

And this ecstatic mood lasts as long as he breathes the same air with
her. They are happy together during the beautiful summer days, and
prolong their summer into autumn: "Our summer was in ourselves."

We feel that this description of the bliss of young love is a
description of something that really has existed. The young couple are
living not far from the place where Rousseau, as a youth, loved Madame
de Warens. Raphael is rather younger than Julie--he is twenty-four, she
twenty-eight; this gives their relation a certain resemblance to that
between Rousseau and his protectress; but the emotions of Raphael and
Julie are as incorporeal and romantic as those of the other couple were
substantially human.

And not only the happiness produced by the presence of the loved one,
but the pain of separation, the longing for letters, the fever of
expectation when the time of meeting draws near, and the agonies of
parting are described, with many admirable realistic touches, in a
manner worthy of a great writer.

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

Opening the text

Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 3. The Reaction in FranceBrandes, Georg

History

Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 3. The Reaction in France

Brandes, Georg

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

He has had love affairs, but he has never been truly in love before.
It seems to him as if, when she looks at him, there is a remoteness in
her gaze which he has never felt before in human eye. It reminds him
of the gleam of the stars, which has traversed millions of miles of
space. He has a hesitation in approaching her which makes the distance
between them seem impassable. When he at last succeeds in making her
acquaintance, it is the name and the position of a brother which she
gives him, and with this he is contented and happy. No sooner have they
found one another than he feels as if he were relieved from a heavy
burden--the burden of his heart. As soon as he gives it away he learns
what life in all its fulness is. He feels as if he were floating in the
purest ether; his joy is infinite and luminous as the air of heaven.
During the first hours which he spends with her he loses all perception
of time; he is certain that a thousand years spent thus would to him be
so many seconds. He does not feel like a human being, but like a living
hymn of praise.

And this ecstatic mood lasts as long as he breathes the same air with
her. They are happy together during the beautiful summer days, and
prolong their summer into autumn: "Our summer was in ourselves."

We feel that this description of the bliss of young love is a
description of something that really has existed. The young couple are
living not far from the place where Rousseau, as a youth, loved Madame
de Warens. Raphael is rather younger than Julie--he is twenty-four, she
twenty-eight; this gives their relation a certain resemblance to that
between Rousseau and his protectress; but the emotions of Raphael and
Julie are as incorporeal and romantic as those of the other couple were
substantially human.

And not only the happiness produced by the presence of the loved one,
but the pain of separation, the longing for letters, the fever of
expectation when the time of meeting draws near, and the agonies of
parting are described, with many admirable realistic touches, in a
manner worthy of a great writer.

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

Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 3. The Reaction in France

Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 3. The Reaction in France

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