I'm sure it can be argued the other way, but orthodoxy in the Welsh school
system was that romanticism came to a definitive end in Flanders fields
1914-1918 and anything after that is "modern".  Of course, I was also
basically taught that the entirety of history since the Romans was an
inexorable process leading to the formation of Plaid Cymru in 1926, so I
wouldn't necessarily take the Welsh school system's word for anything.

best

dd

-----Original Message-----
From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Carrol Cox
Sent: 03 January 2005 01:18
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Lisbon Earthquake 1755


Bill Lear wrote:
>
> On Sunday, January 2, 2005 at 17:54:01 (-0600) Carrol Cox writes:
> >"Perelman, Michael" wrote:
> >>
> >> the romantic movement, which in turn helped to inspire the
> >> Nazis.
> >
> >O come now. This could be true only in so far as ...
>
> You are confusing "causing" with "inspiring".  The Nazis were deeply
> rooted in the romantic.  The Germanic hero, flawless and free of any
> weakness toward enemies was deeply romantic.
>

But my point was that so is everything else of the last two centuries.
Although, since "romantic" is such a slippery (and infinitely expansive)
concept, it is equally true to say that it is neither the inspiration
nor the cause of anything, but just the name of everything. It is at
least arguable that marxism, modernism (Rilke, Pound, Proust),
post-modernism, bauhaus architecture, revolt against bauhaus
architecture, naturalism, are all just slightly different variations on
"romanticism." What does it mean, anyhow, to say that the Nazis were
"deeply rooted in the romantic." "Romanticism" can be made to explain so
much that it explains nothing at all in particular.

Carrol

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