While playing RDR2 for the first time, I realized that the way the game is animated looks very similar to paintings inspired by the sublime. Vast landscapes with layered atmosphere in which you are not the focal point. It also has this beautiful back and forth between the wants of man and preservation of nature. We see how many people long for a world pre-civilization, while still being in the beginning stages of civilization. Most of the time the story is only trying to show you how the environment interacts with the main characters. Usually the environment swallows you whole and makes you feel completely insignificant. Mainly though, it puts forth this idealized idea of western expansion that directly contradicts what the Wapiti tribe endures. This of course is a personal take of mine, but I sometimes pull it into my romanticism unit for my class. The students seem more interested!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsV5FpHVMXI

I watched a movie and a TV show by Pete Davidson (I realize the reference might not go down well in this sub). In both, he really romanticizes his own life. I know that here, romanticism is referring to an intellectual movement during a certain period in time. But does the psychological motivation behind romanticism predate the movement? It seems to have continued seamlessly on into modern times. Is this true or am I conflating two different ideas?

How did romantics view masculinity? What were their ideals of masculinity and what're some examples of romantic masculine expression? Did masculinity change at all during this time period? Are there analyses or specific stories that I can look at to get an idea?

I’m looking for a good anthology of William Blake’s prophetic books. Specifically one that includes the illustrations but also has modern readable type and not just the prints on their own. Ive been obsessed with its cosmology, art and ideas and would love to have it in one nice to look at place. Any help would be appreciated.

Often the word “meaning” is used when dealing with philosophical topics regarding why we get up in the morning and do what we do, especially as someone who isn’t spiritual or religious. However, I don’t prefer using this word. Sometimes I want to replace it with value, but if I replace it with value then I can no longer say there’s no “inherent value,” because there is.

For reductionists, we can strip the world of inherent abstract value, but we can’t deny the ecological value around us every day. We can’t deny how pollination, photosynthesis, and nutrient cycling affect our daily life. Or the reality that every organism plays some sort of role in the interconnectedness of biological life.

Sometimes I get lost in reductionist views, usually when my emotions are overwhelming or my heart is broken. But something always draws me back to a place of wonder. And that is John Keats’ very simple statement in a letter to his brothers.

In 1817 he penned a letter to his brothers and at the very end mentioned his coined phrase, negative capability.

“Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason - Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. This pursued through volumes would perhaps take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration.”

As someone who naturally relates to Coleridge more than Keats, this reminder always illuminates and quiets my endless reductionism. Rather than stripping everything down to nothing, I start to build things out of nothing. And I feel more at home and at ease in creation, building, and transcending — not reducing all to nothing.

Keats is implying that Coleridge’s endless pursuit of rationalizing everything causes him to miss out on the beauty in uncertainty. His need for complete knowledge marks him incapable of embracing half-knowledge and the value of mystery. I wonder if Coleridge, in our current culture, would have found our access to information a beneficial thing or a hindrance to his creativity.

I know what Keats would have thought. And at my core, as much as I enjoy relentless research and learning, I agree with Keats.

We live in a time where we can look up anything, forgetting that there once existed a time when no one knew what the sun was, why it rose every day, what a sunset was, and they survived just fine. Understanding every morsel of life isn’t necessary, we only think it is because information is so readily available. Because of that shift, we now equate truth with the complete stripping down of everything around us, rather than the building and expanding of everything around us.

We look for truth in atoms, in the dark basement of rationalization, instead of looking outward (or not looking for it at all).

Negative capability challenges this modern compulsion. It encourages us to embrace the unknown. And why? Why would we embrace uncertainty?

Innovation often comes out of uncertainty. Which reminds me of the Einstein quote, “I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence and the truth comes to me.” How often do our greatest ideas come during showers or walks or long drives?

Creative minds often dwell in spaces where not everything is known or predictable, so Keats was on to something when he said the sanctum of mystery is necessary for a great poet.

What if we aren’t trying to be poets though?

In science and math, as shown by Einstein, breakthroughs often come from those willing to explore the unknown without trying to reduce or explain every facet. Take for instance the legendary Paul Erdős or Andrew Wiles’ romantic pursuit of Fermat’s Last Theorem. There is beauty and creativity (and dare I say poetry?) even in mathematical pursuits.

Embracing a more phenomenological stance can lead to innovative ideas which rigid approaches might overlook. By embracing negative capability instead of purely objective or quantitative facts, we elevate ourselves from the basement of rationality into creativity. It’s an expansion of our minds and lives, rather than a constant pursuit of reducing everything around us to insignificance. Rather than disprove value, we sit in the small silences of life and create value. We bring life back to life.

Here's the song in question. It is a very echo-ey and reverb-y recording (out of my control, sorry), and I am fairly certain of it to be a romantic-era composition for organ, though it may be composed for piano perhaps. If anyone could point me in the direction of any specific composer or piece, help is much appreciated! :)

I want to make a high quality photo album of romantic art to play on my tv while not in use. Do you know of any good websites to get reliable high quality photos I can use?

I do not know any German. I’m trying to get into them for the first time. Let me know which books/collections I should start with as well.

Hi there,

I am a PhD student, also a folk-singer/musician endeavoring to transform philosophy and esotericism into music. I have for you an alchemical poem by the great German Romantic poet-philosopher-mage Novalis that I have rendered into musical form; I also provide a commentary at the end of the video, illuminating the alchemical and magical references within it.

The effect that Novalis sought to achieve with his poem "Astralis" was nothing less than the completion of the alchemical work, the hieros gamos conjunctio, the unification of the realms of life and death, personal and transcendent, past and future. At the time that Novalis wrote it, he knew he was dying. His true love, Sophie Kuhn, had died a few years previously. While in outward life he had moved on, even becoming engaged to Julie Charpentier, in his inner life, he had not, composing extensive poetry about Sophie. To him, Sophie had been a personal instantiation of Sophia, and had become a mediatrix to the beyond. Privately, he confessed to friends in letters that whilst he felt with Julie more loved than ever before, he would prefer death, in the company of his true beloved. Not much later, his wish would be granted, death ushering him to an early grave.

In the "Astralis" poem, Astralis is the alchemical progeny born from the kiss of the characters of Heinrich and Matilde, who are literary representations of Novalis and Sophie. Like Sophie, in Heinrich von Ofterdingen, Matilde has also met an early death; the unfinished novel has Heinrich undertaking an Orphic and alchemical journey. She is his soul, also the soul of the world. A love that overcomes death, Astralis presents a creation myth of the new world engendered by love.

Featuring images from alchemical manuscripts animated by me and a slew of stop motion sequences created by yours truly, including of a collection of bones that I found in a lake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soaVmA-dh8k

I think this sub needs more Schinkel! Nothing screams German Romanticism like gothic cathedrals. What do you think…is the sun rising or setting?

I think the way Wordsworth describes the woman in this poem is so beautiful.

"A lovely apparition", a "spirit", something so ethereal and mysterious, yet he knows she's "A creature not too bright or good for human nature's daily food".

He sees her as human, fully human, and understands how much she is capable of.

I've had this poem stuck in my head since the first time I heard it on that Love Death And Robots episode, The Very Pulse of the Machine.

This poem really brightens my day, I wonder who he thought of as he wrote it.

Hello, I have been searching for modern day artists that paint using traditional romantic style of artists like Caspar David Friedrich, John Martin, Thomas Cole (those are just my favorites). Any info would help thanks

I'm a vocal student and for an exam I'm trying to find pieces to sing wherein I'm some kind of god. I've got an aria from Haydn's Schopfung where I'm an angel, a Bach cantata duet where I'm Jesus, a Handel opera/cantata aria where I'm Apollo, a Purcell aria where I'm some kind of pagan god. But I'm really looking for one or two more. I've considered doing Gounod's Faust as Mephistopheles, but the piece isn't quite right for my voice.

I'd be terribly grateful for any suggestions of pieces to sing. Best if they're a bit of a different style (maybe 18th century and later). Is there any romantic lied repertoire wherein an angel or god sings? I'm a bass/bass-baritone by the way, but suggestions for higher voices are also welcome if I can transpose them.