Today's Topics:
Blake and the Germanic Romantics
Re: Blake and the Germanic Romantics
Blake List offline 'til 7/26
Re: uni of california
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Date: Thu, 09 Jul 1998 07:26:13 -0800
From: Marcus Brownell
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Blake and the Germanic Romantics
Message-Id: <35A4E109.39A2@peak.org>
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I'm not an expert on the subject of Blake and the German Romantics, but
perhaps a personal interest of mine will relate to the queation of their
relationship.
It seems to me that there is more to the preference for Gothic
architecture over neo-CLassical architecture, that tends to be a
distinguishing characteristic of Romanticism, than I have yet read about
in most general accounts of the period.
I'm thinking of an essay by Goethe that was written in 1772 (I think he
was twenty-three at the time). In it, Goethe praises the architect of
the Strasbourger cathedral with a feeling of devotion and awe. A more
contempoarary essay by Harald Keller (the title eludes me, but it was
written in 1977 I believe) discusses the roots of Goethe's taste for
Gothic architecture as stemming from Herder whose taste for the Gothic
style stems from English writers such as Lowth, Young and Hurd.
Apparently Blake read Lowth and admired Young's poetry, I'm not sure if
he was familiar with Hurd. I've been wanting to follow up on some of
these writers given Blake's preference for Gothic architecture and see
if Goethe's and Blake's preference for Gothic style was related to any
significant degree and/or attributable to any of the