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The Roots of Romanticism

Isaiah Berlin,

Henry Hardy (Editor)

4.28 · Rating details · 987 ratings · 103 reviews

The Roots of Romanticism at last makes available in printed form Isaiah Berlin's most celebrated lecture series, the Mellon lectures, delivered in Washington in 1965, recorded by the BBC, and broadcast several times. A published version has been keenly awaited ever since the lectures were given, and Berlin had always hoped to complete a book based on them. But despite exte ...more

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Paperback, 192 pages

Published March 4th 2001 by Princeton University Press (first published 1965)

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May 11, 2012 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy, non-fiction, literature, culture, political, 20th-century, historical, criticism, british

The Roots of Romanticism, Isaiah Berlin
The Roots of Romanticism is the long-awaited text of Isaiah Berlin's most celebrated set of lectures, the Mellon Lectures, delivered in Washington in 1965 and heard since by a much wider audience on BBC radio. For Berli, the Romantics set in train a vast, unparalleled revolution in humanity's view of itself. They destroyed the traditional notion of objective truth in ethicsm with incalculable, all-pervasive results. In his unscripted tour de force Berlin su The Roots of Romanticism, Isaiah Berlin
The Roots of Romanticism is the long-awaited text of Isaiah Berlin's most celebrated set of lectures, the Mellon Lectures, delivered in Washington in 1965 and heard since by a much wider audience on BBC radio. For Berli, the Romantics set in train a vast, unparalleled revolution in humanity's view of itself. They destroyed the traditional notion of objective truth in ethicsm with incalculable, all-pervasive results. In his unscripted tour de force Berlin surveys the myriad attempts to define romanticism, distils its essence, traces its development, and shows how its legacy permeates our outlook today.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: نوزدهم ماه نوامبر سال 2008 میلادی
عنوان: ریشه های رومانتیسم (رمانتیسم)؛ نویسنده: آزایا برلین؛ مترجم: عبدالله کوثری؛ تهران، ماهی، 1385، در 234 ص، نمایه دارد، شابک: 9649971068؛ چاپ دیگر: تهران، ماهی 1387، در 240 ص، چاپ دوم 1387؛ شابک: 9789649971063؛ چاپ سوم 1388؛ موضوع: رمانتیسم در هنر قرن 18 م -- هنر نوین قرن 20 م
متن سخنرانی آزایا برلین در باره رمانتیسم در هنر قرن 18 میلادی
کتاب «ریشه‌ های رومانتیسم»، نسخه ی ویراسته ی چندین سخنرانی آیزایا برلین، درباره ی رمانتیسم است که با ترجمه‌ ای ارزنده از عبدالله کوثری و طبعی برازنده از سوی نشر ماهی، در سال 1385 هجری خورشیدی، منتشر شده است. آیزایا برلین جنبش رومانتیسم را عامل بزرگ‌ترین تحوّلی که تاکنون در زندگی و آگاهی انسان غربی روی داده می‌داند، و در این کتاب با بیانی دقیق و شیوا سرگذشت این جنبش فکری و هنری را از نخستین مراحل شکل‌گیری تا قرن بیستم میلادی دنبال می‌کند. ایشان نخست تحولات اجتماعی و فرهنگی اروپا، بویژه آلمان را بررسی می‌کند و آنگاه به آراء و افکار متفکرانی که در این جنبش پیشگام و در تحوّل آن مؤثّر بوده اند، می‌پردازد؛ و نیز گرایش‌های گوناگون درون این جنبش را توضیح می‌دهد. اما برلین فقط گزارشگر تاریخ رومانتیسم نیست، بلکه از تأثیر اندیشهٔ رمانتیک‌ها بر همه ی ابعاد زندگی مردمان غرب، از هنر و ادبیات تا گرایش‌های فلسفی و سیاسی، همچون: ناسیونالیسم، فاشیسم، و اگزیستانسیالیسم تصویر روشنی به دست داده است. و بدین‌سان با جنبه‌ های نیک و بد این تحول عظیم از دیدگاه داور کم‌ نظیری همچون خود آیزایا برلین آشنا می‌شویم. گفتنی است هنری هاردی استاد کالج آکسفورد مقدمه‌ ای عالمانه به عنوان ویراستار کتاب بنوشته است. در این پیشگفتار کتاب می‌خوانیم: جنبش رمانتیسم نخستین فرصت در تاریخ غرب است که هنر بر سایر جنبه‌ های زندگی چیره شده و نوعی سلطه بلامعارض بر زندگی دارد که این جوهرِ جنبش رمانتیسم است. پایان نقل. ا. شربیانی ...more

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Nov 10, 2013 Szplug rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Perhaps the singularly most impressive thing about this superb book is that the Mellon Lectures upon which they are based were delivered, for the most part, extemporaneously—a fact exceedingly difficult to comprehend when the breadth and depth of the material delivered to what was doubtless an enraptured audience is taken into consideration. In the introduction, Berlin advocate John Gray accedes that the latter herein is making a large claim, possibly exaggerated about the encompassing nature an ...more

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May 09, 2017 Bertrand rated it really liked it

Shelves: gesamtkunstwerk, xixth-century, 1890, 1900, fin-de-sciecle, enlightenment, history, imperialism, nationalism, philosophy

Isaiah Berlin is probably still the world's most famous historian of ideas, and made his mark in history with his 'two concepts of freedom', as well as by retrieving, for the benefit of lay and academic audience alike, what is now called the 'counter-enlightenment'. After his retirement, we are told by Henry Hardy, the editor of the present book, he was planning on writing a large book on the closely related subject of romanticism, but passed before the project came to fruition. The present volu ...more

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Dec 17, 2011 Ralph Palm rated it it was amazing

A few thoughts:
A great read if you're at all familiar with the figures discussed (18th and early 19th century philosophy types). If not, I imagine it might be hard to follow. I bet it would make an ideal teaching tool, though--as an accompaniment to a reading of the primary texts of the period. For example,
"Professor, WTF is Fichte and/or Schelling trying to say?"
"If you'd like further explanation, read Berlin's *Roots of Romanticism*, page X for next week."
--Next week--
"Oh, okay. That makes a l A few thoughts:
A great read if you're at all familiar with the figures discussed (18th and early 19th century philosophy types). If not, I imagine it might be hard to follow. I bet it would make an ideal teaching tool, though--as an accompaniment to a reading of the primary texts of the period. For example,
"Professor, WTF is Fichte and/or Schelling trying to say?"
"If you'd like further explanation, read Berlin's *Roots of Romanticism*, page X for next week."
--Next week--
"Oh, okay. That makes a lot more sense. But what about..."

I also love the fact that when one of these author's is obscure, he says so, rather than affect the more commonplace attitude of 'Of course, since I've spent 20 years studying this material, all the gibberish is perfectly clear.' Sort of question begging, if you think about it. As an added bonus, Berlin usually mocks the author in question when pointing this out, which must have driven specialists in the audience to distraction.

Berlin's ability to summarize extemporaneously is also quite extraordinary (the book is based on a lecture series, not a finished manuscript). I've spent years studying some of these people, but Berlin can summarize in a paragraph what might take me hours to explain. Of course, he glosses over certain details, which True Scholars Must Never Ever Do, but he knows which details to drop and keeps only the minimum necessary to make his point. This is a very effective rhetorical technique, but one I think he only gets away with due to the massive historical erudition he displayed elsewhere. If a grad student adopted this approach in class, he'd be eaten alive. Not that I have any firsthand knowledge of that or anything....

Lastly, I should point out that I have a reason that this bugs me: Berlin (and others who adopt this approach, elsewhere) are not really proving what they're saying. Instead, this rhetorical approach is an argument from authority. On the other hand, a grad student or other 'unproven' scholar would be rightly criticized for not demonstrating their claims. This contrast suggests (anecdotally, to me) a problem for academic discourse: young scholars might say something (i.e. prove something), but no one listens to them until they get older. But once they get older, and people start to listen to them, they no longer say anything.

Anyway, that last bit isn't really related to the book at all, which everybody should read all the time and stuff. Because of the oceans of books written on the period, there are precious few that are actually enjoyable to sit on a beach with and read. And this is one of them.

...more

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Jun 02, 2008 Thomas Neal rated it it was amazing

Historian and philosopher Isaiah Berlin traces what one might regard as a more traditional account of the development of Romanticism in Europe, connecting the movement with a series of important developments in European history and literature, such as the French Revolution and the writings of Goethe. Berlin does not take on the task of offering a precise definition of Romanticism; he instead circumscribes the movement within a more general trend of philosophical, political, and economic discours Historian and philosopher Isaiah Berlin traces what one might regard as a more traditional account of the development of Romanticism in Europe, connecting the movement with a series of important developments in European history and literature, such as the French Revolution and the writings of Goethe. Berlin does not take on the task of offering a precise definition of Romanticism; he instead circumscribes the movement within a more general trend of philosophical, political, and economic discourses that resist Enlightenment notions of universality.

For Berlin, examples of this resistance can be seen in a diverse corpus of writing, ranging from Montesquieu, whose ideas of relativity in Persian Letters challenged the idea of absolute human values, to Hume's metaphysics, which posited that the existence of the external world as we know it is beyond mathematical or deductive proofs.

The nucleus of the Romantic movement, for Berlin, resides in Germany. Germany's economic and cultural development in the 17th and 18th centuries lagged far behind that of France, and for Berlin, this sowed the seeds of an inferiority complex that would evolve into a full-blown attack on French Enlightenment discourses of rationality, science, and human happiness. In addition, widespread Lutheran Pietism in Germany, which stressed an intense, de-intellectualized relationship with God, underscored a sense of cultural and spiritual difference between Germans and their French neighbors that many saw as irreconcilable.

It is not surprising, then, that Berlin trumpets working-class figures such as Johann Hamann, Kant, Herder, Schelling, Schiller, and Holderlin as Romanticism's pioneers. Berlin stresses that these thinkers and writers worked within assumptions that the universe was fundamentally not knowable; that man's ultimate purpose was not to discover, but to create. Art represents the great achievement of humankind's collective energy, expressing itself through the exertion of individual wills and spirits, and eventually raising the consciousness of the species.

Berlin's analysis provides a key discussion of the concept of movement that transposes to a transatlantic perspective on Romanticism. Berlin explains that Sehnsucht, a German term of searching and yearning, "is the reason why we must go to distant countries...this is why we travel" (105). The universe, to Berlin's romantic thinkers, is not a closed, perfected entity, but an infinite vector of energy and creation, "in movement and not at rest". The human spirit, in the same fashion, resists the static, and embraces the dynamic, engaging itself in an endless process of striving forward, often without knowledge of why it does so.

With the engine of colonialism still running at high speeds in the 17th and 18th centuries, the trope of movement, and its obverse, uprootedness, develop into central themes of the Romantic movement. Movement creates what Mary Louise Pratt calls "contact zones" - places of engagement between local and foreign populations - that become breeding grounds (both literally and figuratively) for discourses of identity and morality that resist traditional European conceptions
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Sep 12, 2007 Brook Finlayson rated it it was amazing

Demands and rewards re-reading.

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May 02, 2013 Gary D. rated it it was amazing

After this book, I see Romanticism everywhere, within me, without me...

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Sep 16, 2017 E.B. Kerouac rated it it was amazing

    Romanticism is portrayed as an aesthetic movement in literature, painting, music, architecture, criticism, and historiography. Nineteenth-century romanticism was characterised by the avoidance of classical forms and rules, it can also be seen as the rejection of precepts of order, harmony, balance, and rationality that epitomised neoclassicism; it was to some extent a reaction against the Enlightenment, rationalism, and physical materialism. Romanticism emphasised the individual, the subjec     Romanticism is portrayed as an aesthetic movement in literature, painting, music, architecture, criticism, and historiography. Nineteenth-century romanticism was characterised by the avoidance of classical forms and rules, it can also be seen as the rejection of precepts of order, harmony, balance, and rationality that epitomised neoclassicism; it was to some extent a reaction against the Enlightenment, rationalism, and physical materialism. Romanticism emphasised the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental. It placed value on imagination and emotion.

     Among the characteristic attitudes of Romanticism include an emphasis on emotions and inner world; celebration of nature, beauty, and imagination; rejection of industrialization, organised religion, rationalism, and social convention; idealisation of women, children, and rural life; inclusion of supernatural or mythological elements; interest in the past; frequent use of personification; experimental use of language and verse forms, including blank verse; and emphasis on individual experience of the "sublime." Charles Baudelaire—a French poet—quoth that “Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor exact truth, but in a way of feeling." This quote, and Charles Baudelaire's description of it, emphasises individualism, freedom from rules, and spontaneity; Baudelaire also suggests that Romanticism examines the inner feelings.

    Romanticists' attitudes included a general exaltation of emotion over reason and of the senses over intellect; a turning in upon the self and a heightened examination of human personality and its moods and mental potentialities; a preoccupation with the genius, the hero, and the exceptional figure in general, and a focus on his passions and inner struggles; a new view of the artist as a supremely individual creator— Victor Hugo's phrase "liberalism in literature," meaning especially the freeing of the artist and writer from restrains and rules and suggesting that phase of individualism marked by the encouragement of revolutionary political ideas— whose creative spirit is more important than strict adherence to formal rules and traditional procedures; an emphasis upon imagination as a gateway to transcendent experience and spiritual truth; an obsessive interest in folk culture, national and ethnic cultural origins, and the medieval era; and a predilection for the exotic, the remote, the mysterious, the weird, the occult, the monstrous, the diseased, and even the satanic.

     Romanticism in literature can best be described as a large system of sometimes competing philosophies, agendas, and points of interest. No other period in English literature exhibits more variety in style, theme, and content than the Romantic Movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Withal, no period has been the topic of so much disagreement and confusion over its defining principles and aesthetics. Romanticism was introduced by several related developments from the mid-18th century. Romanticism characterised a new appreciation of the medieval romance— from which the romantic movement’s name came into the possession of. The romance was a tale or ballad of chivalric adventure whose emphasis on individual heroism and on the exotic and the mysterious was in clear contrast to the elegant formality and artificiality of prevailing Classical forms of literature, such as the French Neoclassical tragedy or the English heroic couplet in poetry.

      There are two phases of Romanticism in literature. The first phase of the Romantic movement was marked by innovations in both content and literary style and by a preoccupation with the mystical, the subconscious, the idiosyncratic, and the supernatural. A wealth of talents, including Friedrich Hölderlin, the early Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Jean Paul, Novalis, Ludwig Tieck, A.W. and Friedrich Schlegel, Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder, Friedrich Schelling, William Blake, William Wordsworth, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, belong to this first phase. In Revolutionary France, the vicomte de Chateaubriand and Mme de Staël were the chief initiators of Romanticism, by virtue of their influential historical and theoretical writings. Romanticism in literature began in the 1790’s with the publication of the Lyrical Ballads of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Wordsworth’s “Preface” to the second edition (1800) of Lyrical Ballads, in which he described poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” became the manifesto of the English Romantic movement in poetry. William Blake was the third principal poet of the movement’s early phase in England.

     The second phase of Romanticism, comprehending the period from about 1805 to the 1830s, was marked by a quickening of cultural nationalism and a new attention to national origins, as attested by the collection and imitation of native folklore, folk ballads and poetry, folk dance and music, and even previously ignored medieval and Renaissance works. The revived historical appreciation was translated into imaginative writing by Sir Walter Scott, who is often considered to have invented the historical novel. At about this same time English Romantic poetry had reached its zenith in the works of John Keats, Lord Byron, and Percy Bysshe Shelley.

     Early Romanticism was shaped largely by Baron Antoine Jean Gros, Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson, and Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres. This blurring of stylistic boundaries is best expressed in Ingres’ Apotheosis of Homer and Eugène Delacroix’s Death of Sardanapalus which polarized the public at the Salon of 1827 in Paris. While Ingres’ work seemingly embodied the ordered classicism of the David in contrast to the disorder and tumult of the Delacroix, in fact both works draw from the Davidian tradition but each ultimately subverts that model, asserting the originality of the artist. In the mid-18th century a number of artists including James Barry, Henry Fuseli, John Hamilton Mortimer, and John Flaxman, began to paint subjects that were at odds with the strict decorum and classical historical and mythological subject matter of conventional figurative art. These artists preferred themes that were bizarre, pathetic, eerie, unusual, or extravagantly heroic. William Blake, the other principal early Romantic painter in England, evolved his own powerful and unique visionary images. In Romantic art, nature— with its uncontrollable power, unpredictability, and potential for cataclysmic extremes—offered an alternative to the ordered world of Enlightenment thought. The violent and terrifying images of nature conjured by Romantic artists recall the eighteenth-century aesthetic of the Sublime.

     In the next generation the great genre of English Romantic landscape painting emerged in the works of J.M.W. Turner and John Constable— whose art expresses his response to his native English countryside—These artists emphasized transient and dramatic effects of light, atmosphere, and colour to portray a dynamic natural world capable of evoking awe and grandeur. As in a view of Salisbury Cathedral; he quoth that a sketch represents “nothing but one state of mind—that which you were in at the time.” Constable's subjective, highly personal view of nature accords with the individuality that is a central tenet of Romanticism.

     This interest in the individual and subjective is mirrored in the Romantic approach to portraiture. Typically, records of individual likeness, portraits became vehicles for expressing a range of psychological and emotional states in the hands of Romantic painters.

     Romanticism expressed itself in architecture primarily through emulations of the older and ancient architectural styles and through eccentric buildings known as “follies.” Medieval Gothic architecture appealed to the Romantic imagination in England and Germany, and this renewed interest led to the Gothic Revival. Wyatt's preposterous, mock medieval Fonthill Abbey displayed the romantic building style in extreme form.

           Romanticism in music was characterized by an emphasis on emotion and great freedom of form. The elements of music reached its zenith in the works of Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, and Wagner. Many romantic composers, including Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin, and Brahms, worked in small forms that are flexible in structure, such as prelude, intermezzo, nocturne, ballad, and cappriccio, especially in solo music for the piano. Another romantic contribution was the art song for voice and piano. Romantic composers, particularly Liszt, in combining music and literature, created the symphonic poem. Berlioz also made use of literature; much of his work. Romantic opera began with Weber, included the works of the Italians Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi, and culminated in the work of Wagner, who aimed at a complete synthesis of the arts in his idea of Gesamtkunstwerk.

     In conclusion, Romanticism have played a major role in our history. Its values were based on transcendentalism, imagination, individualism, and emotions. The Romantic movement had broadened to embrace the literatures of almost all of Europe. Moreover, romanticism has also appealed to music, painting, and architecture. It has influenced the world both artistically and aesthetically. ...more

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Nov 08, 2020 Nikos Gouliaros rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-criticism

This erudite book brilliantly unveils currents in the evolution of (western) thought and sensibility from the 18th through the 20th century. The fact that, consisting of lectures, it just cannot offer an all-encompassing narrative of romanticism might be an actual blessing, making it more concise and to-the-point. My 'problem' with such histories of thought though is that they are just practically impossible to 'prove', that they can feel a bit constructed; how can one prove that fascism would n ...more

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Jan 26, 2020 Harry Croxford rated it it was amazing

This collection of lectures provides one of the most insightful and lucid overviews of Romanticism's emergence against and through Enlightenment thought. Berlin's expansive and eloquent way of speech translates perfectly into a compelling prose-style. Although lacking in conventional academic citation and taking great liberty with the accuracy of certain quotes in the style of Vico before him, this by no means detracts from the work. One should treat this book as an articulate overview of what B ...more

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Feb 24, 2014 Shane Avery rated it it was ok

hard to write anything disparaging about that which is written so amazingly well (they were lectures unintended for publication...), but Raymond Williams does a much better job situating Romanticism. everything seems to add up to value pluralism with berlin, and his history of ideas approach is bound to limit the scope of his conclusions... the romantics held the unwashed masses in contempt, a point which berlin misses; they also more than often dreaded the forms of modern political protest whic ...more

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Nov 18, 2017 João Ritto rated it really liked it

This book is the transcript of a lecture series of Isaiah Berlin on the roots of that intellectual movement we know as Romanticism. Despite being a transcript of spoken word, it reads well as an essay, testifying to the intellectual and communicative power of Berlin.

Some years ago I read Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy and I remember he criticized severely Romanticism as an irrational movement responsible in part for ideas that would develop into fascism. Berlin, however, has a ...more

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May 18, 2012 Ed rated it it was amazing

this is the clearest, most straightforward exposition of Romanticism that I have encountered. I'm sure that some would say that it is over simplified, but Berlin's willingness to strip things down to what he considers the essentials was very helpful for me. I feel much better prepared to read fuller treatments of the many authors he discusses. The fact that he also puts the romantic movement of the early nineteenth century in historical perspective [a German movement reacting to the French Revol ...more

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Jun 05, 2013 Graychin rated it liked it

Berlin’s 1965 Mellon Lectures provide what is possibly the best introduction to the origins of philosophical Romanticism in late 18th-century Germany. Think Herder, Fichte, Schiller, etc. His introductory lecture also provides a fine summary overview of the late Enlightenment, against which the Romantics rebelled. My only caveat: While Berlin is often quite engaging, don’t attempt to read the middle lectures collected here while feeling sleepy and riding a commuter train.

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Mar 12, 2009 Kyla rated it it was ok

whoooooosh. this went over my head. damn lecture series-ness. although it was an interesting take on the rift between the french and german ideologies of history. but. still. this man must speak in clear and not boring sentences.

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Mar 20, 2009 Lazarus P Badpenny Esq rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: russia, proesie, twentieth-century, europa, the-proper-study-of-mankind, 2009, england, france, ideas, germany

Herein reproduced is the series of Mellon Lectures, delivered unscripted in Washington DC in 1965, in which Isaiah Berlin successfully reconciles the noble savage with Parisian poets leading lobsters around on strings thereby creating a convincing definition of the Romantic Movement.

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Apr 09, 2021 AB rated it liked it

Shelves: introductions, history, philosophy

A compelling overview of the Romantic movement, and their thought. In these lectures, Berlin seeks to explore the roots of the movement, revealing how it burst onto the world in the 19th century; as well as explore the main thinkers and their contributions. Romanticism is of necessity difficult to define, due to the various self-contradictory threads it contains and the individual personalities of its proponents.

However, certain features can be delineated. The movement for Berlin, is characteris A compelling overview of the Romantic movement, and their thought. In these lectures, Berlin seeks to explore the roots of the movement, revealing how it burst onto the world in the 19th century; as well as explore the main thinkers and their contributions. Romanticism is of necessity difficult to define, due to the various self-contradictory threads it contains and the individual personalities of its proponents.

However, certain features can be delineated. The movement for Berlin, is characterised by a sense of revolt. Namely, They blew up the previous classical notion of there being a 'rerum natura', a stable structure of reality; and preached a doctrine of free unhindered willing, action and self-expression. Volo ergo sum (Berlin's term) is their message, instead of cogito ergo sum. Thus, the influence they had on our thought led to a fundamental re-alignment of values, and is therefore integral to understanding our modern society.

The German 'sour grapes' revolt against the French (and the Enlightement philosophes) was one of the main influences for the birth of this movement, due to German resentment of that sophisticated 'glittering bright state' and the values of rationality they espoused. The Pietist values of much of Germany at the time, prizing as it did inner spiritual experience was also important; as was the ideals of the French Revolution. The social fact of the more important German intellectuals being from the lower and middle classes, whereas most of the French intellectuals were aristocrats (naturally leading to alienation) was also a contributing factor.

Berlin discusses extensively in turn- Hamann, Herder, Kant (whose ethics prizing freedom had a huge impact), Schiller, Fichte, Schelling and some of Goethe's work. Other figures like Rousseau (whom Berlin opines is still rather classical, despite his temperament), Kleist, Novalis, the Schlegels, Tieck, Schopenhauer and Wagner, Kafka are also discussed. Gave me some valuable background to the philosophies of figures like Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, rooted as their works are in the mood of this period, no matter what they thought about Romanticism as a whole.

Their doctrines were manifold and diverse; but characterized by the two main impulses outlined earlier. After Hume and Montesquieu's doubt of causality, and of their being supra-cultural truths respectively; Romanticism built off their insights to doubt the whole suffocating analytic and scientific temperament. Instead they advocated the flux of things, the flow of life, daring creativity and self-expression, sacrifice for ideals. They emphasized the many sides of Man, and developed the richness of the particular, as opposed to the poverty of the universal. This also led to variants of cultural relativism and historicism, as every culture has its own Schwerpunkt (centre of gravity) which needs to be understood to understand it. There are no eternal supra-cultural Ideas which people seek after (naturally, some Romantics differed on this aspect). In line with this, they also sought to develop their 'own' autochthonous culture- leading some Romantics to espoused rabid nationalism.

Symbolism and the irreducibility of the profound to conventional language, nostalgia and Sehnsucht for an unattainable goal, paranoia about the constant striving of the world (which perhaps gained its peak in Schopenhauer), the notion of profundity itself, the notion of the dominating genius; and romantic irony as the only tool against the petrification of society were other important features of this movement that our culture is indebted to. They espoused that constant striving without ends in sight characterises us, and this blind Will also animates the whole of reality. Revolt against every kind of ossification and grand narrative (including seemingly 'universal' laws of science) is how we should live. This was also the movement that rescued music from being a inferior vocal art, to being the supreme sublime art of all. Art should be for art's sake alone, and the artistic genius is supreme, not a mere entertainer like the Medievals supposed.

Romanticism had a huge impact on art and culture, and without it our world today would be much poorer. Like the existentialists, they prized authenticity and gave rise to a 'new cluster of values' beyond the virtue=knowledge paradigm which dominated European and Christian thought from Socrates to Spinoza. Berlin finds its closest heir today in existentialism, and also reflected in the irrationalism of fascism. (And it of course being Isaiah Berlin) he concludes that liberalism is the most prized outcome of the Romantic movement, as a counter-reaction to its excesses. ...more

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Jul 30, 2020 Daniel Solomon rated it really liked it

I haven't read these transcripts, but I have listened to the full set of lectures on youtube and can strongly recommend them in either form. Berlin captures very well a set of ideas that have served as perhaps the main counterpoint to enlightenment/rational-empiricism in the modern world. The romanticism he presents is at the origins of much of modern individualism, the quest for personal authenticity, the 'just do it' philosophy underlying many people's choices when they try to let their emotio ...more

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Apr 21, 2020 Michael Belcher rated it it was amazing

Shelves: life-changers

With the greatest possible enthusiasm, I recommend this 10-star book (5 stars are too few) to anyone wanting insight into our current zeitgeist of Trumpian individualism from the point of view of a 60s intellectual able to wrestle two centuries of philosophical thought (the 18th and 19th, specifically) into a compulsively ingestible form. The system of symmetrical rationalities that undergirded the Enlightenment are pitted against the irreducible flow of Romantic fervour, with Berlin able to pin ...more

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Sep 02, 2020 papaburi rated it really liked it

This slim volume consists of six lectures Isaiah Berlin gave in the US. Berlin’s prose is unique: not only is his eloquence unrivalled but any reader who feels the urge to summarize and discard certain irrelevant paragraphs will realize that Berlin has already done this for you. Every sentence is carefully constructed, every word is thoughtfully picked and this results in an indispensable work for anyone who is interested in the history of ideas and their implications.

(The cover art on the Prin ...more

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Jul 11, 2019 Reuben Woolley rated it liked it

Shelves: theory, non-fiction, 1760-1830

3.5 — Berlin is really interesting and it’s written (spoken?) beautifully, but in a book that argues primarily that Romanticism is defined by its hatred of absolutism and finite boundaries, he completely disregards the idea that romanticism can’t be defined or bordered very easily itself and gives a really tight timeline and set of writers to discuss, which was v disappointing and I think probably comes from the fact that it was a lecture series first.

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Feb 02, 2020 Michael A. rated it really liked it

Very lucid and helpful discussion of Romanticism. A bit disappointed at the seemingly rushed conclusion of "Romanticism gave us liberalism". Would have liked to read a bit more expounding on that, even if I would have disagreed anyway. The discussion of existentialism qua romanticism was very good...could probably read a whole book on that.

I don't think I really know enough to judge if this were an accurate portrayal of Romanticism, but it seems like a great introduction. ...more

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Oct 13, 2019 Sabina Schmitz rated it it was amazing

What is Romanticism and where did it come from?
Reading Berlin’s book is like having a conversation with a really intelligent friend. From my understanding, this book originated from his previous lectures, which he was reluctant to transcribe. I’m glad they were.

To me, Romanticism now describes the origins of will, the demolition of structure, and the pursuit of the unattainable.

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Jan 02, 2018 8314 rated it it was amazing

Shelves: literary-criticism, arts, philosophy, history

A fascinating introduction with a very accurate comprehension, but dear lord, what a boring ending! I feel bad for accusing the liberals being soft and nice — sometimes, quite unfortunately, these can be vices and errs.

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Mar 16, 2021 Nasar rated it it was amazing

It's hard to give, anything written by Mr Berlin, less than 5-stars. I wish, more people could pack so much in so few words, without getting all obscure and impenetrable. In well below 200 pages, a feast of ideas was introduced, all along the thread of Romanticism. Curiosity well-fed, I should say. ...more

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Dec 17, 2018 Corydon rated it it was amazing

The exuberance of his wording is just haunting, with a critical insight and clear grasp of romanticism. Inspiring lecture.

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Jan 01, 2020 Tiago added it

Outstanding defense of Romanticism as a metaphilosophy replacing the philosophia perennis and the enlightenment belief in it. Dangerous at times to the reader

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Aug 08, 2020 Isaac Slomianski rated it it was amazing

Amazing school for artists!

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Mar 21, 2021 Deago Bramford rated it really liked it

Shelves: art, history, philosophy

I am half way through the book. It's a great work by Isaiah Berlin. I'm glad they got compiled into a book. ...more

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Oct 13, 2016 Abrar Balkhi rated it it was amazing

Berlin belongs to the tradition of those European thinkers whose main intellectual endeavour was scathingly directed against the eighteenth century European movement known as the enlightenment. He is well aware of the fact that the enlightenment was not a uniformed and monolithic movement but rather comprised of such disparate figures such as Voltaire, Diderot, Fontenelle, La Mettrie and even the disgruntled Rousseau. Nonetheless the movement , in his view, boils down to these three core intelle Berlin belongs to the tradition of those European thinkers whose main intellectual endeavour was scathingly directed against the eighteenth century European movement known as the enlightenment. He is well aware of the fact that the enlightenment was not a uniformed and monolithic movement but rather comprised of such disparate figures such as Voltaire, Diderot, Fontenelle, La Mettrie and even the disgruntled Rousseau. Nonetheless the movement , in his view, boils down to these three core intellectual propositions:
“First, that all genuine questions can be answered, that if a question cannot be answered it is not a question. We may not know what the answer is, but someone else will. We may be too weak, or too stupid, or too ignorant, to be able to discover the answer for ourselves. In that case the answer may perhaps be known to persons wiser than us – to experts, an elite of some sort. We may be sinful creatures, and therefore incapable of ever arriving at the truth by ourselves. In that case, we shall not know it in this world, but perhaps in the next. Or perhaps it was known in some golden age before the Fall and the Flood had rendered us as weak and as sinful as we are. Or perhaps the golden age is not in the past, but in the future, and we shall discover the truth then. If not here, there. If not now, at some other time. But in principle the answer must be known, if not to men, then at any rate to an omniscient being, to God. If the answer is not knowable at all, if the answer is in some way in principle shrouded from us, then there must be something wrong with the question. This is a proposition which is common both to Christians and to scholastics, to the Enlightenment and to the positivist tradition of the twentieth century. It is, in fact, the backbone of the main Western tradition, and it is this that Romanticism cracked.
The second proposition is that all these answers are knowable, that they can be discovered by means which can be learnt and taught to other persons; that there are techniques by which it is possible to learn and to teach ways of discovering what the world consists of, what part we occupy in it, what our relation is to people, what our relation is to things, what true values are, and the answer to every other serious and answerable question.
The third proposition is that all the answers must be compatible with one another, because, if they are not compatible, then chaos will result. It is clear that the true answer to one question cannot be incompatible with the true answer to another question. It is a logical truth that one true proposition cannot contradict another. If all answers to all questions are to be put in the form of propositions, and if all true propositions are in principle discoverable, then it must
follow that there is a description of an ideal universe – a Utopia, if you like – which is simply that which is described by all true answers to all serious questions. This Utopia, although we may not be able to attain to it, is at any rate that ideal in terms of which we can measure off our own present imperfections.”

Excerpt From: Berlin, Isaiah, Hardy, Henry, Gray, John. “The Roots of Romanticism (Second Edition).” Princeton University Press. ...more

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About Isaiah Berlin

Isaiah Berlin

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Sir Isaiah Berlin was a philosopher and historian of ideas, regarded as one of the leading liberal thinkers of the twentieth century. He excelled as an essayist, lecturer and conversationalist; and as a brilliant speaker who delivered, rapidly and spontaneously, richly allusive and coherently structured material, whether for a lecture series at Oxford University or as a broadcaster on the BBC Thir Sir Isaiah Berlin was a philosopher and historian of ideas, regarded as one of the leading liberal thinkers of the twentieth century. He excelled as an essayist, lecturer and conversationalist; and as a brilliant speaker who delivered, rapidly and spontaneously, richly allusive and coherently structured material, whether for a lecture series at Oxford University or as a broadcaster on the BBC Third Programme, usually without a script. Many of his essays and lectures were later collected in book form.

Born in Riga, now capital of Latvia, then part of the Russian Empire, he was the first person of Jewish descent to be elected to a prize fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford. From 1957 to 1967, he was Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at the University of Oxford. He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1963 to 1964. In 1966, he helped to found Wolfson College, Oxford, and became its first President. He was knighted in 1957, and was awarded the Order of Merit in 1971. He was President of the British Academy from 1974 to 1978. He also received the 1979 Jerusalem Prize for his writings on individual freedom. Berlin's work on liberal theory has had a lasting influence.

Berlin is best known for his essay Two Concepts of Liberty, delivered in 1958 as his inaugural lecture as Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at Oxford. He defined negative liberty as the absence of constraints on, or interference with, agents' possible action. Greater "negative freedom" meant fewer restrictions on possible action. Berlin associated positive liberty with the idea of self-mastery, or the capacity to determine oneself, to be in control of one's destiny. While Berlin granted that both concepts of liberty represent valid human ideals, as a matter of history the positive concept of liberty has proven particularly susceptible to political abuse.

Berlin contended that under the influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant and G. W. F. Hegel (all committed to the positive concept of liberty), European political thinkers often equated liberty with forms of political discipline or constraint. This became politically dangerous when notions of positive liberty were, in the nineteenth century, used to defend nationalism, self-determination and the Communist idea of collective rational control over human destiny. Berlin argued that, following this line of thought, demands for freedom paradoxically become demands for forms of collective control and discipline – those deemed necessary for the "self-mastery" or self-determination of nations, classes, democratic communities, and even humanity as a whole. There is thus an elective affinity, for Berlin, between positive liberty and political totalitarianism.

Conversely, negative liberty represents a different, perhaps safer, understanding of the concept of liberty. Its proponents (such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill) insisted that constraint and discipline were the antithesis of liberty and so were (and are) less prone to confusing liberty and constraint in the manner of the philosophical harbingers of modern totalitarianism. It is this concept of Negative Liberty that Isaiah Berlin supported. It dominated heavily his early chapters in his third lecture.

This negative liberty is central to the claim for toleration due to incommensurability. This concept is mirrored in the work of Joseph Raz.

Berlin's espousal of negative liberty, his hatred of totalitarianism and his experience of Russia in the revolution and through his contact with the poet Anna Akhmatova made him an enemy of the Soviet Union and he was one of the leading public intellectuals in the ideological battle against Communism during the Cold War. ...more

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“Romanticism embodied "a new and restless spirit, seeking violently to burst through old and cramping forms, a nervous preoccupation with perpetually changing inner states of consciousness, a longing for the unbounded and the indefinable, for perpetual movement and change, an effort to return to the forgotten sources of life, a passionate effort at self-assertion both individual and collective, a search after means of expressing an unappeasable yearning for unattainable goals.” — 11 likes

“Fontenelle was the most civilized man of his time, and indeed of most times.” — 5 likes

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