Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2000 09:33:13 +0300 (EET DST)
From: Fredrik Hertzberg LIT <fhertzbe-AT-ra.abo.fi>
Subject: Re: PLC: Poetry, prose, fiction as meaningful



Just a few words of clarification. The point Simone made, and that I 
made, about classicism and romanticism, i.e., that they are in some ways 
similar, is not the point Alex Trifan made, i.e. that there are no 
significant distinctions between classicism, romanticism, modernism and 
postmodernism. I realize that I've been quoting a lot but can't resist 
quoting once more, just by way of clarification, from Roland Barthes' 
early book Writing Degree Zero, because this is what I had in mind when I 
posted earlier:

"... the ideological unity of the bourgeoisie gave rise to a single mode 
of writing, ... in the bourgeois periods (classical and romantic), 
literary form could not be divided because consciousness was not; 
whereas, as soon as the writer ceased to be a witness to the universal, 
to become the incarnation of a tragic awareness (around 1850), his first 
gesture was to choose the commitment of his form, either by adopting or 
rejecting the writing of his past. /.../ Classical language could have no 
sense of being a language, for it _was_ language, in other words it was 
transparent, it flowed and left no deposit, it brought ideally together a 
universal Spirit and a decorative sign without substance or 
responsibility; it was a language 'closed' by social and not natural 
bounds." (p. 2f)

Fred



On Thu, 31 Aug 2000 zatavu-AT-excite.com wrote:

> 
> On Thu, 31 Aug 2000 10:23:07 -0500, phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> wrote:
> 
> >  I think not, especially in that Romanticism set itself against
> >  Classicism, quite deliberately. Its strength was in the coherence of its
> >  attack, not in the proposal to replace the attacked (Wordsworth, for
> >  instance, completely failed to get "Nature" to fly, and both PBS and STC
> >  saw that and worked on the imagination as alternative).
> 
> No, Romanticism was a reaction to the Enlightenment, and brought back a form
> of classicism in order to do so, thinking that it was closer to the
> emotional center they were trying to achieve through their Romanticism.
> ROmanticism gave direct rise to Neo-Classicism.
> 
> Troy Camplin
> >  
> >  g
> >  
> >  Fredrik Hertzberg LIT wrote:
> >  > 
> >  > On Wed, 30 Aug 2000, George Y. Trail wrote:
> >  > 
> >  > > The transcendent is precisely the creation of the classicist, not the
> >  > > romantic. The timeless is a classical conception, as is the ideal. If
> >  > > you think not you have written Socrates down as a romantic, which is
> a
> >  > > real stretch.
> >  > 
> >  > Good points. But historically, can't romanticism be seen as a
> >  > continuation of classicism, in the sense that romanticism was a
> >  > celebration of that (boourgeois) universality which classicism
> rhetorically
> >  > strived for? (And thus, the rhetoricity of classicism was in many
> >  > ways more apparent than romantic rhetoric which in many cases wanted to
> >  > hide its artifice?)
> >  > 
> >  > Fred
> >  > 
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> >  
> >  
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> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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