Nothing is Transient, Everything is Recurring: Romanticism – the Circle of the Eternal Return – and German literature of the 20th Century
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4312/vestnik.4.261-276Keywords:
Romanticism, German literature of the 20th Century, Dionysian, guilt, longing, artist, eternal recurrence of the sameAbstract
German Romanticism and its rich tradition remain deeply rooted to this day. Despite stereotypical linking of German culture with reason, the essence of German literary (and as well philosophical) ideology is nevertheless the dark side of human nature and all the raging emotions that comprise it. Social crisis, which is reflected as well, and primarily, in literature as a subtle and refined indicator of social conditions, is dealt with by revival of traditional narrative forms, particularly coming-of-age story (Ger. Bildungsroman) with its subgenre artist novel (Ger. Künstlerroman). Man is doomed to eternal suffering and longing (Schopenhauer) and the human history to eternal recurrence of the same forms and ideas (Nietzsche). Consequently, one cannot ignore the fact that the literary movement surging to the forefront of German literary production time and again is precisely the one that revealed and defined this human fate: romanticism. No matter what the crisis, literature places an artist in the foreground and portrays him as a protagonist who utilizes his emotions and Dionysian nature in the fight against society. Numerous protagonists are, however, doomed to either physical or mental decay in the same fashion as the human nature is predisposed to decadent (self)-destruction.
Downloads
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors are confirming that they are the authors of the submitting article, which will be published (print and online) in journal Journal for Foreign Languages by Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani (University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Aškerčeva 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia). Author’s name will be evident in the article in journal. All decisions regarding layout and distribution of the work are in hands of the publisher.
- Authors guarantee that the work is their own original creation and does not infringe any statutory or common-law copyright or any proprietary right of any third party. In case of claims by third parties, authors commit their self to defend the interests of the publisher, and shall cover any potential costs.
- Authors retain copyright and grant the publisher right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.