Romanticism vs. Classicism
Classicism
Notion of Completeness, Unity, Clarity
Free of Confusion, Discord, Alteration /
Transformation
Perfection, Perfectibility, Purity
Clear Borders, Distinctions, Categories
Closed, Fixed Identity
Similar to Platonic Being (Being vs. Becoming)
Ideal, Utopian Notion – Working towards an “end”
Romanticism
Notion of Completeness nonexistent
Unending Process of Becoming
Open; Transformation & Movement
Provisional, Shifting Identity
Blurring and Transgression of Borders, Categories,
Definitions
Fluidity
Opposites contained in one Entity – Ambiguity, Realm
of Paradox
Language of Metaphor, Excess of Meaning
Notion of the Fragment
 Romanticism – attacks strict separation of realms, e.g. thought and feeling, reason and
emotion, dream and reality, inner and outer – search for a unity that encompasses
artificially separated realms
 Artistic Goal of Romanticism – Attack of rationalized Enlightenment thought
 Preference for mixed-forms:Why? – breakdown of genre distinctions, categories >
openness
 Late Romanticism – Emphasis on Pre-History (Mythic Realm) vs. History (Realm of
Facts) > Transcendental Narration – multiple perspectives (e.g. animals) – many different
perspectives exist simultaneously, extension of perception of the world, “reality”
 Subjective Idealism:
o Representational Logic – concerns the absence of ambiguity; clarity, decidability
(one signified [“thing”], one signifier [word of “sign”]). Importance of
correspondence between signifier and signified, dependent on clear borders and
distinctions.
o Romanticism problematizes representational logic – openness, ambiguity, lack of
clear distinctions and borders renders representational logic ineffective.
o Instead of representational logic > Metaphor and Paradox – that which is “both”
at the same time, non-identical entity > constant ambiguity, meaning always
relative
o Skepticism about rep. logic and calling assumptions of Classicism into question
 Politically – French Revolution as breakdown, liquidation of strictly separated
“categories”
 Abolition of literary genres, strict separation of forms in favor of mixed-form and
fragment – Liquidation, blending so that all parts still exist, but are no longer separated.
Fragment not an expression of incompleteness, inferiority….
 Fairy Tales – return to Mystical realm, pre-Logos (which insists on separation,
categorization)
 Night – Clarity, Hierarchy, Separation, Distinctions become muddled and fluid and
disappear.
 Music – Outside of the classical semiotic realm (system of signs, rep. logic); fluidity of
borders, distinctions > ambiguity that is at once liberating and disturbing > Music as a
language w/out referential function (no fixed meaning); isn’t attached to an “object” that
already exists (no signified); tones flow together > in a melody, past notes determine
present ones > notes must flow together to create melody (i.e. “meaning”) > nonreferential writing = musicalization of language.
Temporalization vs. Spacialization
Rat Krespel
Heterogenic Elements united – e.g. “terrible anguish” mingled with “delight”
The Riddle – Solvability of the Riddle > Expression of Ultimate Rationality
Act of Reading has to do with Solving Riddles > “The” Meaning of the Tale (in the Classical
sense) > Clarity of the Solution/Meaning
Riddle with no clear solution> Ambiguity as the Remnant of the Riddle > Non-Classical!
With Hoffman – Lack of Firm Foundation & Definitive, Unambiguous Meaning
Interest in the Threshold between Realms/Spheres that are “classically” separated > double
meanings, confusion, blending > absence of linear, teleological system of thought
Krespel – Embodies Schism motif, Threshold/Edge/Border motif > The Eccentric, neither
completely sane nor completely insane, with conflicting and competing characteristics
Construction w/out Plan > disruption of representational logic of signifier/signified.
No “Master Plan” > instinct feeling guide construction instead > challenge to rational logic
Construction of the text by the narrator like the construction of Krespel’s house? Lustprinzip?
With Antonia – Art = Death; Illness opposes classical conception of beauty (art)
Topos of Tuberculosis > Red cheeks=health, vitality; red cheeks=illness
Excess that Transgresses the Dualistic Arrangement
The Status of Art and the Artist – Art controlled by the artist or the artist controlled by the
artwork?
Desire to control Antonia > Desire to control art?
Question of Objectification and Instrumentalization of Art > “Our” Antonia, which Krespel
objects to; B____ “using”Antonia’s voice for his own career, ego, pleasure?
“Attention to the artist-subjects of Hoffmann's tales quickly brings to the forefront first the
question of whether the artist will control, or will be controlled by, the forces at play in the
representation, whether the artist will subject, or will be subjected to, those forces. That question
in turn opens into a subtler but more crucial realization, arising from the negotiations of the
artist-subject with his material as Hoffmann presents them: it emerges that artistic self-posession
as it becomes an issue in Hoffmann's tales usually involves the risk of dispossession, through
what might be described as a double-faceted fantasy of the creator, who imagines, first, that the
creation onginates from a source outside himself that is alien, strange, so external to him that it
can configure him as part of the composition, yet, second and simultaneously, that the creation
remains fully subject to his creative powers and that he enjoys a freedom sufficiently resilient
and resourceful to allow him to risk presenting himself as a limited, less fully realized character-even or especially as a two-dimensional, cardboard or puppet figure--in the composition. Thus
the prevalence in Hoffmann's tales of artist-narrators who are or who are gradually revealed to be
central figures in the fictions they construct and relate: the narrator, as subject presumably
controlling (authorizing) his narrative, inevitably sees himself to some extent as the narrative's
subject.
In Hoffmann's story "Rat Krespel," for example, the point or climax of Krespel's narration is hot
the death of the feminine subject, Antonia, but Krespel's rapt--enraptured and enrapturing-presentation of himself as a figure transfixed by the music of Antonia and her fiance, B. Krespel
performs in the tale as the diegetic author--that is an author fully within the narrative, as opposed
to Theodor, the tale's narrator, who is both inside the narrative and not--and in particular as
author whose pleasure derives in part from his envisioning himself as simultaneously selfpossessed and dispossessed of the subjectivity that empowers him to tell the story, that in fact the
story expresses. It is hot only Antonia's death that frees the diegetic author, releasing him as
writing subject, but also the reflexive twist that empowers the author to elaborate a fiction that
suspends his freedom, that hypostasizes himself as a textual figure that can be manipulated,
directed, constricted, or transfixed, if hot actually killed. This reflexivity, of course, is also the
diegetic author's sublimation: in a masterstroke of narrative, he strikes himself out of himself,
sees himself in ecstasy, and, crucially, strikes his audience, electrifying, galvanizing them with
his story's vividness.”