Romanticism and Post-Romanticism (review)

The Introduction and first four chapters of this often engaging and highly personal essay constitute an essentially orthodox presentation of the philosophical tenets underpinning Romanticism. A judicious selection of authors and texts not only returns us to familiar pronouncements by Baudelaire and Wordsworth, but leads to scrutiny of La Nouvelle Héloïse, De l'Allemagne, and, less expectedly, Diderot's writings on aesthetics. Chapter 5 is entitled 'Aesthetics after Romanticism' and traces the itinerary towards formal experimentation that begins with Gautier's Preface to Mademoiselle de Maupin and Zola's discussion of Manet. Althoughmost individual observations within Moscovici's commentary are familiar enough, the overall picture acquires a certain freshness as a result of the author's consistently philosophical emphasis, her talent for formulations that go straight to the point, and, above all, her undisguised approval of a literature that privileges emotion and passion. If, notwithstanding the occasional questionable generalisation or aside, the presentation in these chapters works well, it is largely due to a keen pedagogical perception of how the various examples of Romantic writing can be shown to represent authentic personal experience in ways that still have the power to move. It is this agenda that leads to Moscovici's more polemical chapters, which argue for a post-Romanticism that continues to place to the fore a combination of verisimilitude, emotion and sensuality, therebymounting a challenge to the predominance of non-representational forms of art. At this point, the discussion, not surprisingly, becomes less concerned with actual examples, although the argument is sketched with the aid of references to a wide range of philosophers from Descartes to Levinas, and it is easy to imagine energetic and productive classroom debate ensuing from the impassioned yet cogent nature of many of the author's statements. The final two chapters present a 'postromantic manifesto' followed by pen pictures of various contemporary painters, sculptors and photographers from across the world who have been recruited to the movement Moscovici has herself founded (see www.postromanticism.com). The hardened specialist in French literature may regret this departure from conventional scholarly analysis in favour of an attempt to get the reader or seminar participant to think about their own emotional life, but honesty compels the acknowledgement that it is the author's commitment to the 'postromantic survival' of Romanticismthat renders possible her rehabilitation of texts that not so long ago had all but ceased to be read. It is, indeed, Moscovici's overriding achievement to have kindled a desire to read naively and unapologetically so. That said, there being no footnotes, there is little engagement with scholarship devoted to the writers themselves, as opposed to the use made of theses advanced by philosophers of aesthetics. (Given the author's insistence on 'Romanticisms', the absence of reference to Lovejoy is, however, surprising.) Solecisms, sometimes repeated, include 'Le Salon de refusés', 'L'oiseau morte' (Greuze), Geffroy (Gustave), Eduard (Manet and Rousseau's Milord), Filipo (Brunelleschi) and 'Mersault' (the reference being to L'Étranger rather than La Mort heureuse). Still more disconcertingly, the poor quality of the printing often makes it difficult for the reader's eyes to focus.