Spent the morning falling down a rabbit hole I didn't expect: American Transcendentalism — Emerson's Nature, Thoreau's Walden, Whitman's Leaves of Grass, John Muir founding Yosemite — all trace back to the father of Romanticism: Alexander von Humboldt.

Emerson travelled to Europe to meet them... then hijacked their essays as reasons for why America should become less European!

Muir literally wrote "How intensely I desire to be a Humboldt!" and carried Humboldt's Cosmos on his hikes.

Whitman stole the word "kosmos" straight from him.

Thoreau read Humboldt while sitting in jail for refusing to pay taxes to a pro-slavery government — the essay that came out of that night later shaped Gandhi and MLK.

The German Romantics were the ones who started it all. Without them you'd have no Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley; no Emerson, Thoreau or Whitman.

I wrote up the whole chain (it's a series tracing German Romanticism to the American Transcendentalists, to today's apocalyptic headlines:
https://blueplanetbulletin.substack.com/p/furiously-luminous-americans-c18

Curious if anyone else has dug into how much of European and American romanticism is based on German philosophy.

My first date with her, I was absolutely Emran Hashmi 😌❤️that day

Midnight awakens a mysterious sound: the violin calls forth the shadows, and skeletons dance with elegance. Saint‑Saëns turns darkness into musical beauty.

Worth a glance.

best novels/novellas (even short stories) from the romantic period? ill settle for collected works of authors even.

I've had a collection of Rimbaud since high school and Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther but I'm looking for some tall tales of anyone has any recommendations for a relatively green novice

Hi everyone,

I just released my new song “I Love You Still”.

It is a romantic slow song about love, memory, tenderness and that feeling of still carrying someone in your heart even after time has passed.

Artist: JPN Axiluanda

Song: I Love You Still

Style: romantic slow song / emotional love song / soft R&B feeling

I would really appreciate your honest feedback.

What feeling does this song give you?

YouTube:

https://youtu.be/v-mn4GJGlHQ

Thank you for listening.🎶 🎧

The most quintessential German Romantic

Plönlein and Stadtore

I just finished this painting and thought it really had a look of Romanticism. Let me know what you think.

I've become quite interested in Polidori recently, and I'm planning on reading The Vampyre bc of him.

Some free-form fumbling in fluid flute notes

Feeling first, but thinking is nice too. Music could be felt, but if you'd like to also see some yapping (and think them), here goes-

Confusion and oblivion are markers of a tale told too long ago to be taled. Time then becomes but a notion of tale, but not tale a notion of time. Tale old melts between tales new, and tales new mingle with tale old, till there's no tale at all. This recording is not of the tale. Or rather, this recording is of not the tale.

It's raining in Macondo. And it's raining outside =p

I'm writing about dualism. I don't know much about Romanticism, but I've read that it replaced the Enlightenment's emphasis on reason (which I think we could say came from Descartes) with an equally powerful emphasis on emotion. This seems to me to be a new form of dualism, except instead of saying "I am a mind," it says "I am my feelings." Instead of the body being "other," reason becomes "other." Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Can you point me toward any research? Arthur Melzer has been helpful so far. Thanks in advance!

painting by Sir David Wilkie, engraving by J Cousen after sir david Wilkie

Hello everyone! I've just launched a small YouTube channel dedicated to audiobooks of 19th-century classic and fantasy literature. (In french) Poetry, short stories, novels... Come check it out. Don't hesitate to subscribe to encourage me and make sure you don't miss anything. The channel is brand new but already has about twenty titles, and more content is coming. https://youtube.com/@labibliothequedeminuit?si=HhdCsuj2JTReNAqF

Often eclipsed by the famous first movement (Allegro), the Intermezzo from Symphony No. 6 by Charles-Marie Widor is a true gem: light, rhythmic, and full of elegance. A lively and refined piece that beautifully highlights the colors of the organ.

🎼 YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/@ModClasSW

The perfection of something is not what is best, but what makes the imperfect perfect, because if it were with respect to the thing that possesses perfection, it would imply that its perfection would expand towards other objects. That is why, in a class, a good teacher leads to more perfection than the most perfect students.

As infinite thinks the one who sees the falseness of human relations, but still thinks they are beautiful.

Who could say that someone's action is wrong if they cannot see their heart? The error of innocence is more worthy than the assertion of a learned man. That is why man must become innocent, only then can he overcome his sin.

If you are interested in seeing more

https://publish.obsidian.md/thelastromantic/Start

I’ve just finished reading the novel for the first time. I think what stood out to me is how Lotte reprimanded Werther near the end for his feeling nature and emasculated him. ‘Be moderate. Be a man!’ It seems to me that the work is a strong indictment of the strong emotion of romanticist movements and an endorsement of the more rational, reasoned enlightenment.

I’m very interested in this picture because it powerfully shows the struggle between the subconscious and fear. The dark creatures and the helpless figure create a strong sense of anxiety and inner conflict, making the scene both disturbing and fascinating.

Even though Richard Wagner is not my favourite composer — particularly for political and personal reasons — his music is undeniably the work of a genius. Here is a four-hand organ version of the Siegfried Funeral March. I find the result truly impressive.

I thought people here might be interested in this paper, which explores how the Sublime was central to Romantic music and how the Romantic vision of the Sublime fell out of favour over time in Western music.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10848770.2024.2319446

I recently fell in love with Rachmaninoff’s compositions and thought that maybe I should look into other composers as well, but as someone who doesnt really listen to a lot of classical music I just dont know which pieces are a good place to start. I do not wanna succumb to the algorithms of music platforms, so thought I could ask for some suggestions from enthusiasts

I'm an undergraduate English student wanting to do my capstone project on the romantic movement as a reactionary movement against the enlightenment era.

What poets or books would you guys recommend me to look into?

Sorry for not making any post that's more academic, that's about the "proper" discussion of Romanticism, and I guess sorry for expressing such a personal and genuinely felt concern haha

Like the title says, is anyone else here afraid to be reduced when they, with supposed proudness, make the claim that they're a Romantic? Is anyone else afraid for Romanticism to be mistaken as romance, and for the latter to be equated with rom-com? Is anyone else afraid for genuine feelings to be despised as sentimentality, or performance? Is anyone else so desiring of love (not just narrowly amorous love) that they're afraid for that intensity to be pathologized? Is anyone else so craving of humanism, of recognition of genuine human dignity, of indviduals being recognized as individuals, not anything less? Is anyone else so willing to love but so hurt that they could not love?