The Roots of Romanticism

If everyone wrote like Isaiah Berlin orates, the world would be a much much better place. Should you have had the pleasure, then you have had the pleasure. Clauses build on clauses of clauses - so fitting for this particular subject of which he speaks - with crescendo rolls always resolving to something worth savoring until the next round (never long forthcoming). The man is a true poet: that or Henry Hardy has taken some poetic liberties of his own.Content-wise, what more is there to want? It is true that, beyond Hume, Berlin doesn't delve too deeply into Englightenment "roots" for the intellectual sources of Romanticism: to that extent, he pretty much just juxtaposes the major themes and ideas of that period with those of the title; Spinoza, certainly, could have been more properly addressed. Does this make for a lesser work? Well, sure, in one sense. Man can always want a different narrative by which to reach the same conclusion, I suppose. But Berlin's big point here is to leave the reader juxtaposed/disjointed. The Romantic movement was a rupture, an opened chasm, a wound that its predecessor knew not how to mend. To be fair, it is not as though Berlin ignores Kant, who really did have one foot in each movement (for a wonderful account of this drama, I can only recommend Frederick Beiser's wonderful  The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte .Art, politics, philosophy, literature...it's all covered here, and all with a sweep only deserving of those much more learned than you or I. Throughout, Berlin's commitment to fairness and objectivity shines. Perhaps the one thing that I admire about Berlin above all is his magisterial objectivity throughout the affair. I'm not sure I've ever had the pleasure of reading one's words that are so consistently impartial and considerate of his subjects.If you like your prose as poetry and your intellectual history as pure pleasure, then this is the book for you.

A thorough, well-rounded book on the Romantic movement. Superb for the serious reader of Romanticism. Book arrived quickly and in perfect shape. Suggested for all students. Thank you!

Having a hard time reading this one.

This was a Christmas gift for my son-in-law. It was on his wish list. I was pleased that it came in time for Christmas. He was very pleased to get it.

Romanticism, `the largest recent movement to transform the lives and the thought of the Western world', was a reaction to the 18th century Enlightenment view that we could in some way stand apart from the world and analyse it, get to know it and ultimately control it through rational argument, logic, mathematics and science. This positivist view, held by the philosophes of 18th century France, was overturned by the French Revolution and the Lisbon earthquake, events that proved conclusively that this was not, after all, the best of all possible worlds, as Leibniz had claimed. In the Roots of Romanticism, which is a transcript of six lectures delivered in Washington in 1965, Isaiah Berlin traces the roots and fruits of a movement which gave rise to a way of viewing the world that many now take for granted.The author's scholarship and grasp of his subject is masterful. This is a book that every student of 19th and 20th century art, history and philosophy must read. In the space of 118 pages, Isaiah Berlin knits together, in a readable and at times entertaining way, the complicated pattern of views held by the German and British romanticists, and shows the lasting effects of those views.If the book has one fault it is the fact that Berlin gives so little weight to the influence of Spinoza's philosophy. In Spinoza, opponents of the Enlightenment found not merely a set of counter-arguments to the positivist view that the universe could be described in mathematical terms, but a comprehensive system that cohered with reason, logic and all the evidence of common sense and experience.In Germany, the mechanistic world view was effectively eclipsed by the view, first expressed by Spinoza in his Ethics, that God and Nature were one and the same thing. Herder, Hegel, Goethe, Schlegel, Fichte, Schleiermacher, Schopenhauer, Schelling, Novalis, Nietzsche--all these and many more admitted the influence of Spinoza on their thought, and reflected his monism in their works. Their influence continues to be felt to this day in the works of 20th century European philosophers, notably those of Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre and Gadamer.Hegel said Spinoza was the central point of modern philosophy: "either Spinoza or no philosophy." In The World as Will and Representation Schopenhauer acknowledged the influence of Spinoza, and in his Criticism of the Kantian Philosophy he pays homage to Spinoza as beginning "an entirely new epoch of free investigation, independent of all theological teaching."Novalis, who referred to Spinoza as a "God-intoxicated man" said that "the true philosophy is realistic idealism--or Spinozism." Schelling admitted that "no one can hope to progress to the true and complete philosophy without having at least once in his life sunk himself in the abyss of Spinozism." And Goethe asserted: "Spinoza does not prove the existence of God; existence is God."In 1798, Schlegel, who held that modern philosophy began with Spinoza, wrote excitedly to Novalis suggesting the establishment of a new religion based on the philosophy of infinite substance as God-or-Nature. In his letter he is confident that such a religion will have the backing of Schleiermacher, Goethe, Fichte and Schelling.The pantheistic view was not limited to philosophers, artists and mystics. By the late eighteenth century the notion that the universe was a single plenum in which force and matter were intimately linked was taking hold among physicists. The Danish physicist Hans Oersted (1777-1851) declares in The Soul in Nature that Spirit and Nature are one, viewed under two different aspects. "This system [...] is a part of a more distant and higher system, an eternal whole created in infinite space, which embraces all the ideas realized in existence. [...] The complete idea is expressed in the totality of things. [...] Each individual is thus a particular realization of the fundamental Idea of Being."In spite of this omission, The Roots of Romanticism is an outstanding work of scholarship. Basic Flying Instruction: A Comprehensive Introduction to Western Philosophy

bien pero un poco árido (para no muy iniciados)

A quand un traducteur? D'autant que ce texte est en anglais d'Angleterre, et assez facile a traduire.Une réflexion profonde et étayée d'un britannique qui connait la littérature française comme personne

I bought this as I'm half-way through reading 'The Enlightenment and Why It Still Matters' by Anthony Pagden and, whilst reading reviews on that truly excellent new book, I found several references this work by Isaiah Berlin. It's a transcription (very well edited) of a series of Berlin's lectures and, as such, it has a lively quality that exudes Berlin's passion and knowledge. He provides very useful insights into the roots of the Romantic period in ways I haven't read before. Highly recommended.

Rermains the most succint and important book on the subject.

This book is a very down to earth book and makes a lot of sense when trying to under stand romanticism.