7 - England: Romantic legacies

Summary

The revolutionary philosophy of Kant and Hegel remained largely untranslated until mid-century, and much of the writings of the German Romantics, including Novalis, the Schlegels and Schleiermacher, remained so until the twentieth century. Perhaps the most unlikely German Romantic influence on critical thought in the English-speaking world was that of Johann Gottfried Herder. The most original piece of religio-poetic theory of the first half of the century, however, came from the best-selling poet of the century, John Keble. Poetry, for Keble, was the product of tension or repression, issuing in disguised or ironic utterance. Romantic historicization was never an absolute process, nor was it commonly a path to single grand-narrative interpretations. It might have delighted at least those Romantics addicted to the Middle Ages to think that it was more like a return to the polysemous narratives of that period.