THE ROMANTIC ERA Bye. A. S. WALKER,SeniorLecturerin German at The Queen's University ofBelfast

I. GENERAL STUDIES Die Erhebung gegen 1806-1814/15, ed. Hans-Bernd Spies (Quellen zum politischen Denken der Deutschen im 19. und 20. Jh., 2), WBG, ix + 472 pp., is an extremely valuable collection of source material for any student of the history or literature of this period. Included are previously published letters, articles, pamphlets, ser­ mons, poems by Arndt, Fouque, Garres, Hoffmann, Kleist, , the Schlegel brothers, Schleiermacher, etc., all written within these nine years and presented in strict chronological order. The poems are given in full; other items are often in extract. Brieffootnotes are provided, and there is a useful introduction. Interpretation of the material is largely left to the reader. Frauenbriefe der Romantik, ed. Katja Behrens (Insel Taschenbuch, 545), , Insel, 449 pp. + 18 illus, contains a selection ofletters by Karoline von Giinderode, , , Caroline Schlegel-Schelling, Dorothea Veit-Schlegel, and Susette Gontard. There are adequate notes, a list of persons mentioned, a perceptive postscript, but no index. Dichter-Garten. Erster Gang: Violen, ed. Gerhard Schulz (Seltene Texte aus der deutschen Romantik, 2), Bern, Lang, 1979,38 + vii + 362 pp., isa facsimile reprint of the 1807 edition, which was edited by 'Rostorf' ('s brother, Karl von Hardenberg), and which contains poems by him, and by , 'Sylvester' (Georg Anton von Hardenberg), and Sophie Bernhardi, as well as the latter's tragedy Egidio und Isabella. Schulz gives a succinct account of the significance of this anthology for the Romantic movement. Undergraduates will be grateful for sensitive and sensible reactions to the major literary texts of the period, including those ofJean Paul and Kleist, in Alan Menhennet, The Romantic Movement (Literary History of , 6), London, Croom Helm, 276 pp. The title could be somewhat misleading, for 'movement' is seen more as a pattern of shared attitudes, motifs, and forms at a certain period rather than as an historical process. In the sections on the 'Romantic mentality' and on literary theory we are told little of what Romantic authors considered to be, and topics such as friend­ ships, groupings and collaboration of writers, periodicals, salons, the contemporary reception of works, and the political and social background are mostly passed over. It is significant that Hebel's poetry gets three pages and Die Christenheit oder Europa four lines, and that not only Hebel but Chamisso and Uhland are dealt with before German Studies Novalis. Klassiker heute. Zwischen Klassik und Romantik, ed. Hans­ Christian Kirsch (Fischer Taschenbuch, 3024), Frankfurt, Fischer, 1980,349 pp. (abbrev. Klassiker heute below), is a laudable attempt to popularize the 'classics', to attract the literary layman who thinks that the study of literature is only for the recondite. In each of the eight on writers from Jean Paul to Buchner major works are examined against the background of the author's life and times, and there is a short text, a chronological table, and a guide to further reading. Most of the contributors are involved as teachers or researchers with the reading habits of young people, and they have strenuously followed the request to avoid the 'jargons' of Germanistik, and with the exception of the editor they have also avoided the contrasting danger of slipping into mateyness. On the other hand Amala M. Hanke, Spatiotemporal Consciousness in English and . A Comparative Study of Novalis, Blake, Wordsworth, and EichendorfJ(EH, XVIII, 25), iv + 208 pp., is most decidedly a book for the specialist. Although it reads at times as if it has been not quite translated from the German this closely argued and very stimulating work brings many new insights to familiar texts. H. concludes generally from these four 'representative' authors that 'although the Romantics are keenly aware of the transitoriness of time that can be experienced as the harbinger of the temporal fragmentation of self and world and their separation from the eternal and infinite, time, the destroyer, is more often transvaluated into the redeemer.... It carries the present toward the future and the regaining of eternity' (p. 181). One could hardly hope for a better general treatment of European Romanticism and the visual arts than Hugh Honour, Romanticism, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 415 pp. (first published by Allen Lane, 1979). H. adopts a similar approach to that used in his earlier contribution to the Penguin Style and Civilization Series, Neo-Classicism (1968), and examines such themes as love, death, , the life of the artist, etc. Throughout he relates painting and sculpture to theories ofart and literature and to , and opens up many fascinating vistas. Kerner, Uhland, Miirike. Schwabische Dichtung im 19. Jahrhundert, ed. Albrecht Bergold et al. (Marbacher Kataloge, 34), , Kosel, 1980, 207 pp., contains material also on Hauff and Schwab. E. Frederiksen, 'Die Frau als Autorin zur Zeit der Romantik', Burkhard, Frauen, pp. 83-108, finds an incipient feminist tradition in the writings of Caroline Schlegel­ Schelling, Rahel Varnhagen, Karoline von Gunderode, and Bettina von Arnim, and asks that these should be treated independently of the writings oftheir men-folk. K. Kiesant, 'Zur Rezeption der Literatur des 17. Jhs durch die Romantik', WB, 27, 1980, no. 12:36--48, concentrates on critical and historical studies by the Schlegel brothers