Romanticism as epoch : an investigation into the possibility of epochal categorization

Abstract

Sammendrag: Part one is a critical discussion of two methodical presuppositions that underlie most theories of the Romantic epoch in the twentieth century: nominal Romanticism and the classical theory of categorisation. Nominal Romanticism is a principle of selection which delegates romanticity to things that are called Romantic, that is, conventionally associated with it. The rationale for this principle is that persons have a higher claim to romanticity than products or ideas, and that the romanticity of the latter is a function of the former. The classical theory of categorisation has been dominant since Aristotle, and is still found in most fields of contemporary science. It defines a category in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions.

For the case of my argument I attempt to articulate some formal conditions for any epoch, and analyse two exemplary realisations of these in the case of the Romanticism: Arthur Lovejoy s On the Discrimination of Romanticisms and René Wellek s The Concept of Romanticism in literary History.

Part two presents an alternative principle of selection, conceptual Romanticism, informed by Eleanor Rosch s theory of prototype categorisation and George Lakoff and Mark Johnson s theory of conceptual metaphor. This principle delegates romanticity to ideas rather than persons or products; it defines Romanticism in terms of its centre instead of by necessary and sufficient conditions; it describes metaphoric and metonymic categorical extensions from the centre, and degrees of romanticity accordingly.

Conceptual Romanticism is finally employed in my own suggestion for a theory of Romanticism. My hypothesis is that Romanticism is characterised primarily by the extensive use of conceptual organicism. The basic logic of organic things is mapped metaphorically upon practically every field of experience, including mind, subject, community, nature, and art.