Romantic Poetry

Romantic Poetry

1.
Romantic poetry is a progressive, universal poetry. Its aim isn't merely to reunite all the separate species of poetry and put poetry in touch with philosophy and rhetoric. It tries to and should mix and fuse poetry and prose, inspiration and criticism, the poetry of art and the poetry of nature; and make poetry lively and sociable, and life and society poetical; poeticize wit and fill and saturate the forms of art with every kind of good, solid matter for instruction, and animate them with the pulsations of humor. It embraces everything that is purely poetic, from the greatest systems of art, containing within themselves still further systems, to the sigh, the kiss that the poetizing child breathes forth in artless song. It can so lose itself in what it describes that one might believe it exists only to characterize poetical individuals of all sorts; and yet there still is no form so fit for expressing the entire spirit of an author: so that many artists who started out to write only a novel ended up by providing us with a portrait of themselves. It alone can become, like the epic, a mirror of the whole circumambient world, an image of the age. And it can also – more than any other form – hover at the midpoint between the portrayed and the portrayer, free of all real and ideal self-interest, on tbe wings of poetic reflection, and can raise that reflection again and again to a higher power, can multiply it in an endless succession of mirrors. It is capable of the highest and most variegated refinement, not only from within outwards, but also from without inwards; capable in that it organizes – for everything that seeks a wholeness in its effects – the parts along similar lines, so that it opens up a perspective upon an infinitely increasing classicism. Romantic poetry is in the arts what wit is in philosophy, and what society and sociability, friendship and love are in life. Other kinds of poetry are finished and are now capable of being fully analyzed. The romantic kind of poetry is still in the state of becoming; that, in fact, is its real essence: that it should forever be becoming and never be perfected. It can be exhausted by no theory and only a divinatory criticism would dare try to characterize its ideal. It alone is infinite, just as it alone is free; and it recognizes as its first commandment that the will of the poet can tolerate no law above itself. The romantic kind of poetry is the only one that is more than a kind, that it is, as it were, poetry itself: for in a certain sense all poetry is or should be romantic.

[Translation by Peter Firchow, from Friedrich Schlegel’s Lucinde and the Fragments, University of Minnesota Press, 1971]

Posted over on Jerome Rothenberg's blog Poems & Poetics

2.
Romantic poetry is a progressive, universal poetry.
Its aim isn't merely to reunite all the separate
species of poetry and put poetry in touch
with philosophy and rhetoric.
It tries to and should mix and fuse
poetry and prose, inspiration and criticism,
the poetry of art and the poetry of nature;
and make poetry lively and sociable,
and life and society poetical;
poeticize wit and fill and saturate the forms
of art with every kind of good, solid matter
for instruction, and animate them with
the pulsations of humor.
It embraces everything that is purely poetic,
from the greatest systems of art,
containing within themselves still further systems,
to the sigh, the kiss that the poetizing child
breathes forth in artless song.
It can so lose itself in what it describes
that one might believe it exists only
to characterize poetical individuals of all sorts;
and yet there still is no form so fit
for expressing the entire spirit of an author:
so that many artists who started out to write
only a novel ended up by providing us with
a portrait of themselves.
It alone can become, like the epic,
a mirror of the whole circumambient world,
an image of the age. And it can also –
more than any other form – hover at the midpoint
between the portrayed and the portrayer,
free of all real and ideal self-interest,
on tbe wings of poetic reflection,
and can raise that reflection again
and again to a higher power, can multiply it
in an endless succession of mirrors.
It is capable of the highest
and most variegated refinement,
not only from within outwards,
but also from without inwards;
capable in that it organizes –
for everything that seeks
a wholeness in its effects –
the parts along similar lines,
so that it opens up a perspective upon
an infinitely increasing classicism.
Romantic poetry is in the arts
what wit is in philosophy,
and what society and sociability,
friendship and love are in life.
Other kinds of poetry are finished
and are now capable of being fully analyzed.
The romantic kind of poetry is still
in the state of becoming; that, in fact,
is its real essence: that it should forever
be becoming and never be perfected.
It can be exhausted by no theory
and only a divinatory criticism would dare
try to characterize its ideal.
It alone is infinite, just as it alone is free;
and it recognizes as its first commandment
that the will of the poet can tolerate
no law above itself.
The romantic kind of poetry is the only one
that is more than a kind, that it is,
as it were, poetry itself:
for in a certain sense all poetry is
or should be romantic.


Line breaks by Glenn Buttkus