The Roots of Romanticism

To ignore this, to evade it, to attempt to see things as submissive to some kind of intellectualisation, some sort of plan, to attempt to draw up a set of rules, or a set of laws, or a formula, is a form of self-indulgence, and in the end suicidal stupidity.

Apart he stalked in joyless reverie … With pleasure drugged, he almost longed for woe, And e’en for change of scene would seek the shades below.16fn1 There was in him a vital scorn of all … He stood a stranger in this breathing world … So much he soared beyond, or sunk beneath, The men with whom he felt condemned to breathe …17

This is very different from Wackenroder, who wrote in the 1790s that music ‘shows us all the movements of our spirit, disembodied’,9 or from Schopenhauer, who says, ‘The composer reveals to us the intimate essence of the world; he is the interpreter of the profoundest wisdom, speaking a language which reason cannot understand.’10 Neither reason, no

kind. The values to which they attached the highest importance were such values as integrity, sincerity, readiness to sacrifice one’s life to some inner light, dedication to some ideal for which it is worth sacrificing all that one is, for which it is worth both living and dying.