File spoon-archives/phillitcrit.archive/phillitcrit_2000/phillitcrit.0009, message 21


Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 08:55:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: David Langston <dlangsto-AT-mcla.mass.edu>
Subject: Re: PLC: The classical, the romantic



On Sun, 10 Sep 2000, Louis F Caton wrote:

> And we need difference to be substantial 
> in order to discuss with a sense of sharpness and distinction.

If that is true -- and I am far from convinced it is -- then discussions
of the differences between the terms, "Neo-Classical,"  "Classical," and
"Romantic," or "Romanticism"  will end in tangled confusion every time. 
These terms revolve around each other, and poets and philosophers have
each defined them over against one another to to stake out their own
positions.

I suppose it is obvious that the terms don't carry the same meaning across
contexts, and deciding whether _Young Man Werther_ is Romantic or
Classical obliges the maker of the categories to decide on a whole
basketload of related matters.

The touchstone for me is to compare epistemologies (the poetics of each
position) and to sidestep questions of form, genre, nationality, or
"period style,"  until the root position on "mind" and "how we are to know
the world" has been well understood.  Undertaking those operations usually
means that slogans and classification schemes are only hindrances at
first. 

Another mistake, I believe, is to assume that these terms reveal anything
meaningful about historical sequence, or worse, supercession.  I don't
think they do. Instead, it is more useful to see them as transmutable
elements in an ongoing modern argument about how we are to define and
understand human capacities for knowing and acting.

David Langston



     --- from list phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005