Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Romantisch I

The thing about humans is that we yearn. We yearn for that great Life component. But what differs individuals in this yearning or search, is the extreme passion seeking for that great Life component. Maybe the very entity and component itself.

When Romanticism bloomed in the late 18th century, young German scholars were driven over individualistic notion ever since the Renaissance. Kant was absorbed into their daily philosophies. Das Ding an sich. Or the Thing in itself. These fellow Romantics believed that the Ego, much like Freud's das Ich (the Ego) facilitate greatly in one's knowledge and cognition. They worshiped the Ego. They believed in the most romantic things like the Soul, yearning, imagination, feeling and experience. And believe me, they are beautiful, egocentric and romantic Souls!

But please do not confuse Romanticism with your modern chic literature rubbish.

So what these fellow Romantics (e.g. Beethoven, Goethe, Kant, Schiller, Byron, Coleridge) believed was that art has a deeper meaning to it. When one bridges the link between the external and internal worlds, a significant masterpiece of the internal world is being portrayed.

They were Souls who yearn for the most distant, abstract and metaphysical things. Not your usual face-value affections. They were in a search for something deeper than the seven seas. They believed in Perfection and completion. I dare to bet they'd take lines like Muse's Hysteria "Give me your Heart and your Soul" seriously.

Goethe, a romantic himself, introduced the concept of 'unrequited love' in his The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774).

So what happens when they do not achieve their perceived Perfection? Or when they do not attain their great Life component to Perfection and make them feel as a whole?

2 comments:

aewan6 said...

Thus, if they have failed. They'll experience the rise of the boy band.

Nadrah Mustafa said...

Backstreet back, alright!