A C T A U N I V E R S I T A T I S L O D Z I E N S I S FO LIA LITTER A R IA A N O LIC A 6, 2003
Dariusz P estka
TH E RO M A NTIC HERITAGE AND T H E C O N C E PT OF TH E PO ST-R O M A N T IC IN LITERATURE A N D M U SIC
“ Kubla Khan” - on the poet’ s alienation from his own vision
T radition ally, R om anticism has been inextricably associated with em o tionality and its exaltation o f the n atu ra l as well as the su p ern atu ral m anifested in its celebration o f folklore and the m edieval. H ow ever grounded such a view is, it only serves as an indicator conducive to o u r u n d erstand ing o f the m ost typical features o f the period. A t the sam e time, as any sim plification o f a problem , it illum inates it as a whole, but also neglects a subtle interplay o f co n tradictions co nstituting the phen om eno n. In this case, W o rd sw o rth ’s self-regenerative introspection, C o leridg e’s professed philosophy o f reconciliation, K e a ts ’ ultim ate delight in sensuous experience o r Shelley’s em pathy with in anim ate objects proved to be solutio ns th at, when tested to the full, testified to their au th o rs’ collapse as instinctual artists.1 T o illustrate, C oleridge rejects potential alternatives to the p hilosophy of reconciliation:2 m aterialism , subjective idealism and dualism . H aving explained
1 The term “instinctual artists” is a deliberate reference to T. S. E liot’s words o f criticism o f Rom antic poets’ tenets. According to his critical evaluation “ the bad poet” is personal and, conversely, good poetry “is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality” (Eliot 1953, 30). M ore specifically, T. S. Eliot refers to S. T. Coleridge as “ a ruined m an” (Eliot 1953, 173). Hence the author of the present article coins the phrase “collapse as instinctual artists” to signify what, all in all, has come to be one of the prevalent accusations of Romanticism in m odem literary criticism. Significantly, however, the author does not share the aforementioned view and he believes that all the artists including poets such as T. S. Eliot are to a lesser or greater degree “ instinctual” , that is driven by their emotions. Still, it is interesting to see how the theory put forward by T . S. Eliot works when applied to Coleridge’s work, which the author does having chosen “ K ubla K h an ” .
2 The author uses the term ’’the philosophy of reconciliation” to denote Coleridge’s emphasis laid on the Im agination as ’’linking man to the inanim ate external world through perception” (Prickett 38). This is not, however, a mere application o f m an’s interior to the
the popu larity o f m aterialism by hu m an predilection for o u tw ard p h en o m en a th a t can be easily detected by senses, he strongly criticises placing the solution in the object for its taking for granted the unkno w n and the unintelligible (C oleridge 1957, 3156). C oleridge do w n grades this obsessive p re o c c u p a tio n w ith o u tw ard presences w ith equ al fe rv o u r as he finds fault, p articularly in his later w ork, with subjective idealism - a seemingly attra ctiv e alternative to m aterialism . T his tendency to place reality in the subject, or m in d , is dism issed by the p o et as an ab su rd ac c o u n t o f h u m an “ experience o r the external w orld on the basis o f a denial o f it” (W heeler 33).
M oreover, D avid H u m e’s d eg rad atio n o f causality in to a m ere succes sion o f ideas linked by association leads, in C oleridge’s view, to a co rres ponding dim inution in value o f ethics and theology (W illey 191-192). Finally, the third alternative to be disapproved o f in Biographia Literaria was the philosophy m ain tain in g an absolute d uality o f m ind and m atter. T his is clearly expressed by D escartes in th e co nclu sio n o f his Sixth M ed itatio n where he claims th a t for any m inds and bodies which are u n ited , it is c o u n terfac tu a lly possible th a t th ey be se p a rated (W ilson
186-188).
A dm itted ly , co n c en tratin g o n D e sc arte s’ o n to lo g ic al a rg u m e n t and m o d al m etaphysics, C oleridge addresses him as “ the first p h ilo sop her, who introduced the absolute and essential heterogeneity o f the soul as intelligence, and the body as m a tte r” (C oleridge 1907, 88). A t the sam e tim e, C oleridge argues th a t such a distinction does n o t have to effect in a division, so th a t the tw o qualities m ight progress to som e position which does n o t allow them to m ain tain their absolute difference and he adds th a t “th e law o f causality holds only betw een hom ogeneous things, i.e. things having som e com m on property; an d ca n n o t extend from one w orld into a n o th er, its o p p o site” (C oleridge 1907, 89).
H aving spurned the three aforem entioned philosophical theories and m ak in g a d istinction betw een subjective idealism and idealism th a t is n o t p ro n e to subjectivism , C oleridge appears to follow K a n t and his concept th a t the im agination is a pow erful creative force m o u ld in g “ a second n atu re o u t o f th e m a te ria l supplied to it by actu al n a tu re ” (K a n t 47). T h e re su ltan t rep resentations o f the im agination are term ed by K a n t “ id eas” , tran sp a ren tly co ntrasted w ith the C artesian “ in n ate id eas” explaining the external world; it rather results in the typically R om antic process o f “ internalisation” . Thus the external is to be magnificently united with the "still m ore w onderful world w ithin” (Coleridge 1949, 168). In view of this, it should not be surprising th at Coleridge dismisses materialism, subjective idealism or dualism as unsatisfactory because simplistic solutions. Thus, they concentrate either only on one aspect of reality (materialism and subjective idealism) or on the conflict between “the soul as intelligence, and the body as m atter” (Coleridge 1907, 88).
interaction o f vital m ind and lifeless m a tte r.3 T hus, being as certain ol the w orld’s existence as o f his ow n, Coleridge, in his re treat from m aterialism , does n o t facilely fall into solipsism or subjective idealism .
Still, as a poet, he appears to epitom ise a m a rty r suffering from a self- inflicted pain grounded on the outgrow n m yth o f failure, the failure o f his life as well as o f his creed, which is m ost conspicuously epitom ised by his “K u b la K h a n .” In this context, the philosophy o f reconciliation he professes, reflected in an attem p t to unify his self-consciousness w ith the consciousness o f the being o f beings, ironically enough, results in a frag m entary internal reality created by the im agery o f the poem.
F u rth erm o re , referring to the whole as a m ere fantasy or poetic reverie, C oleridge dim inishes the p otential o f his achievem ent o f the m etaph orical m ode in which the poem is conceived. In this way, he represses his m etaphysi cal desire for the otherness o f the O ther by rationalising and translating it into self-knowledge. T his implied process o f com prehension, in tu rn , activates a reduction o f the alien to the familiar, of the O ther to the self. In consequen ce, the trace o f the O ther or th at o f the Third, identifiable with the Abyssinian m aid ,4 is reified as intrinsic to the self's psyche, facilely dism issed as a trivial m anifestatio n o f the p o e t’s capricious m ood.
A fundam ental question is w hether the m ajo r obstacle preventing the speaker from contactin g the o th er reality is the frag m entary n atu re o f the reality conceived by him in “K u b la K h a n .” A t this p oint, any biographical notes, som e of which were given by the poet himself, should be relegated to the role of secondary im portance, as these circumstances are in conflict with
3 One o f the fam ous consequences of Cartesian dualism is the necessity o f positing innate ideas. In accordance with the argum ent found at the end o f M editation 2 (Descartes http://www.btintem et.com 7), if external objects are knowable with any clarity at all, then there must be innate ideas. Such ideas come not from the senses or the im agination, but from the operation o f the mind alone. Only such ideas have the features of necessity or universality which are m arks o f such a science; experiential ideas are, rather, contingent. Furtherm ore, ideas do not resemble the objects they claim to represent. Because of this, we know that mind is essentially a thinking substance and body essentially an extended substance; that is, they are essentially different. Therefore, no idea of extension can be formed in the mind by the senses.
4 Evidently, the Abyssinian maid is not to be identified with the speaker himself, but rather with his wishful thinking with reference o f the ideal artifice standing for the absolute and thus being an analogue of im mortality. Since the figure of the Abyssinian maid is extraneous to the speaker’s self, she is much more like the Other or the Third signifying an enigma o f the supernatural, the mystery of G od. However, the author ol the present article is aware of quite a different possible interpretation, emphasizing the fact that the Abyssinian m aid’s song the speaker wishes to revive has occurred in his vision before. In view ol this, she can be seen as “interm ediary for the speaker h im s e lf (Wheeler 153). \ et even then she represents the idea that has not only been externalised, but has also alienated from the speaker, belonging now to the Other.
the standpoint o f the organic nature o f the creative process, also postulated by h im .3 If we assum e th a t the latter criterion o f evaluation is valid, in spite num erous argum ents to the co n trary (m ost o f them co n c en tratin g on the obvious, i.e. on the circum stances u n d er which the poem was conceived) (Jackson 213-247), the structure o f “K u b la K h a n ” is coherent enough as it is controlled by the internal logic o f the piece. T h u s the leading im age o f the artefact-like P aradise L ost reinforced by its A byssinian an alog ue denotes a virtual impossibility o f form ing this image in the speaker’s interior. A lthough an im pression o f incongruity can be caused by the sp e a k e r’s am bivalent attitu d e to this paradise, the price o f which, incidentally, m ay be d am n atio n , T. S. E liot’s distinction between Classicism and Rom anticism in term s o f “the difference between the com plete and the frag m en tary ” (E liot 1972, 79) does no t seem to be entirely unobjectionable. All in all, in “T h e W aste L a n d ,” T. S. E liot him self creates a fragm entary vision o f the w orld, since it is grounded upon the snatches o f o th er w riters’ w ords. A d m ittedly , E lio t’s m ethod differs from th a t o f the R om antics, as su b o rd in atin g the im agery of his poem to the principle o f com plexity, he achieves the effect o f th e oneness o f all experience and o f the sim ultaneity o f the past and present. O n the other han d , this technique is not com pletely unlike th a t used in “ K u b la K h a n ,” where the prim ary image em ployed in Purchas's Pilgrimage is im aginatively transm uted to be thoroughly deconstructed. On the whole, the fragm en tary quality o f C oleridge’s poem reinforced by a sense o f am biguity is n o t th a t m uch a testim ony to the w ork’s formal defects, as it conveys the fidelity to the com plexity o f experience. In other w ords, it becomes a stru ctu ral analogue of the sp eak er’s alienation from his ow n vision.
T hus the p oem ’s fragm entariness is only a reflection o f the sp ea k er’s psychological dilem m a resulting from the philosophy o f reconciliation the poet professes. F o r Coleridge, as for K a n t, the w orld can be ap pearan ce w itho ut destroying the independence o f objects and the com m onness o f o u r experiences. As a result, how ever, the distinction betw een subjective and objective becom es blurred (W heeler 33), thus m aking the objective partly depend on o u r perception. P arap h rasin g T. S. E lio t’s w ords, C oleridge as well as o th er R om antics believes he can dispense w ith allegiance to
5 Coleridge advances the reading of a literary work “ connectedly “ as “ the organic W hole” (Coleridge 1907, 162). In this context, the distinction between “ mechanical” and “ organic” corresponds to the authoritative, arbitrary interpretation and one showing “ how a work can be unified but nevertheless changing, growing, and incomplete in being open-ended” (Wheeler 153). In Coleridge’s work, this sense o f indeterminacy is facilitated by the poet himself, who introduces the preface to “ K ubla K h a n ” and the gloss to “ The Rime o f the Ancient M ariner.” However, these devices have been usually interpreted by readers and critics literally, concentrating on their historical-biographical (“ K ubla K h an ” ) or factual-geographical (“The Ancient M ariner” ) accuracy.
som ething outside himself, acting according to the Inn er Voice ra th e r th an external principles (Eliot 1972, 79-81). Since his know ledge is limited to the interior, instead o f encountering the O ther, he becom es co nfro nted with his alter ego as this kind o f know ledge is a m ere equatio n o f o n e’s th o u g h t with reality. In this way, he enhances his own identity to fill in the void left by his failure to experience w hat emerges against his powers o f com prehension. 1 o use L evinas’ utterance, C oleridge does no t follow the exam ple o f “ A braham who leaves his fatherland forever for a yet unknow n lan d ” (Levinas 348) but he enacts the m yth o f Ulysses returning to his homeland. In practice, however, C oleridge’s re tu rn is n o t quite rem iniscent o f U lysses’ as instead o f being welcomed by a faithful Penelope, he will again be surrounded by indifferent or grudging friends and relatives and by uncom prehending, petty-m inded and largely hostile critics.6 T he m ore so his delusion th a t he m ight be acquainted with the sphere o f the o ther world becomes traum atic; he does not recognize the face of the O ther in the m irror of the poem - what he sees is only his own countenance. Ironically, i.e. despite T. S. E liot’s dislike o f “K u b la K h a n ,” one o f the controlling concepts in “T he W aste L a n d ” is the sam e, nam ely the inability to look the O ther straight in the face, which m o tif is reflected by the passage referring to the jo u rn ey to Em m aus.
A ccordingly, it w ould be far-fetched to follow in this respect som e of the m ost critical assessm ents o f the R om antics, like those by T. S. E liot w ho, paradoxically enough, m ad e exactly the sam e m istak e as th e one com m itted in his view by Coleridge, W ordsw orth or Shelley, w hen he to o k the ruin o f their lives inherent in the incom patibility between d isco rd an t ideas in th eir poem s for the visible decline o f their w ork.
Romanticism: “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” in music and literature
This division o f the R om antics against themselves is inextricably connected with their spontaneity and individualism , their search for th e n atu ra l and the m ysterious. In one o f the m ost sem inal R o m an tic w ritings, “ Preface to Lyrical Ballads o f the 1800 edition, W illiam W ord sw o rth states:
6 Coleridge was perfectly aware o f critics’ possible reaction to his poem. T hat he remained sensitive to unjust criticism is evident while reading his Shakespearean Criticism, where he states: “The crying sin of modern criticism is that it is overloaded with personality. If an author comm it an error, there is no wish to set him right not for the sake o f the truth, but for the sake o f trium ph - that the reviewer may show how much wiser, or how much abler he is than the w rite r.. . . This is an age of personality and political gossip.. . . This style of criticism is at the present mom ent one of the chief pillars o f the Scotch professorial court (Coleridge 1930, 34).
The principal object, then, proposed in these poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them , throughout, as far as was possible in a selection of language really used by men, and, a t the same lime, to throw over them a certain colouring of im agination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual asp ect... (935)
T his R o m an tic m anifesto em phasized the im po rtance o f recording ideas in the m an n er in which we norm ally associate them , “ in a state o f excitem ent” (W ordsw orth 935). In view o f this a poem is to a tta in the co n dition of a feelingful, im aginative m editation; and if it can frequently be inspired by nature, it should be m ainly concerned with hu m an problem s, where this n atu ral phenom enon becomes a co u n terp o in t, com pletion o r stim u latio n of a hum an psyche. T he term s “ sp o n tan eity ” and “ fo lk lo re” seem to overlap thus im plying the precedence o f the n atu ral over the artifice, if n o t the artificial. In this respect, the indebtedness o f W o rd s w o rth ’s “ W e A re Seven” to the com m unal trad itio n with its sim plicity is co m p arab le with F ra n z S chubert’s quintet for piano, violin, viola, cello and double-bass The Trout. Evidently, despite the fact th a t the co m po sitio n is rem iniscent of folk m usic, it is an ingenious extension o f a four-m ovem ent so n ata stru ctu re by the addition o f an extra them e, which m an ip u latio n results in the form o f five brilliant variations. A dm ittedly, then, the su b stan tial stylisation has very little to do with genuine artlessness o f th e original m aterial, i.e. folklore; and m usic is no different from literatu re in this respect, being suspended betw een the artifice and the sim ulation o f the n atu ra l. T o pu rsue the argum ent, the little M a id ’s persistent statem ent “we are seven” testifying to the ch ild’s aw areness o f the transcend ental phen o m en a fo rm ing the bridge between the visible and the invisible is representative o f W o rd sw o rth ’s own interest in the relationship betw een m an and n a tu re in th e con tex t of the act o f perception. T his very act, individualized and n o t m erely social in its nature, is w hat form s a discrepancy betw een N eoclassicism and R omanticism : whereas the form er recorded in verse the technical developm ents in m o d ern science, the latter attem pted “ to explore the new relationships th a t these suggested” (P rickett 11).
In m usic, the great R o m an tics regarded th eir c re a tio n as a fluid, fantastic and alm ost m agical way o f expressing em otions and m o o d s. A t the sam e tim e, like R om antic poets, R o b ert Schum ann, F ra n z S chubert, H ecto r Berlioz, F ra n z Liszt or R ichard W agner realized n o t only the pow er, but also the p otential im perfections o f this idealizing a ttitu d e to art. H ence they w rote com paratively a lot a b o u t m usic, a ttem p tin g to theorize their stance. T h u s to prevent their m usic from being excessively fluid and volatile, they stressed its close relation to o th er arts, like poetry, dram a, p ain ting or dance. T his tendency on the p a rt o f m usic to coalesce with texts is literally reflected in Liszt’s sym phonic poem D ante Sym phony
whose form al disposition pointing plainly in the direction o f sym phonic poem s is reinforced by literary interpolations, as the com poser sought to suggest the links with his source by printing striking passages irom D a n te s poem [Divina Commedia] at relevant points in the score” (Jost 3). Interestingly, this can be considered an anticipation o f m odernist tendencies to illum inate these interrelations, stressed so forcefully in such w orks as Jam es J o y c e s or E zra P o u n d ’s. If this m odernist trend is som ew hat intrinsic and elitist in the sense o f being confined to textural experim entation w ithin great literary and m usical m asterpieces, it was to achieve a contrastingly egalitarian status in p ostm odern dialectics tran slatab le into the definition o f cultural studies as it was postulated by R aym ond W illiam s w ho insisted on the need for seeing the cultural process as a w hole.7
R everting to R om anticism in music, the b o u n d ary betw een this stylistic m a n ife sta tio n and w h a t is classified as the B aro q u e or C lassicism is analogous to the distinction betw een R om antic and N eoclassical literature (to use the term related to the division into literary periods relevant to English history). T hus the concept o f rom antic sym phony, for exam ple, stands for the m usic th a t is no longer intended as en tertain m en t, the m usic th a t consciously refers beyond itself to regions o f irratio n al passion, of m ystery and fantasy, aw akening in the listener a wistful longing, which has custom arily becom e to den o te the essence o f R om anticism , w hose unbridled o u tb u rsts o f feeling have been likewise trad itio n ally co n trasted with the classical form al restraint.
Symphonic poem as the scarch for a narrative foundation
M any com posers, who appreciated the pow er o f the w ord and verbal expression, referred to w orks o f som e o f the m ost n o tab le poets o f the time, like G oethe, Heine or Byron. Besides, the program m atic m ultim ovem ent suite and the sym phonic poem are tw o o f the m ost p o p u la r genres o f the time. T h e form er com prises a num b er o f discrete m ovem ents and the latter a few interlocking sections and they b o th epitom ize the R o m an tic idea of p ro gram m e m usic, i.e. instrum ental m usic th a t conveys an idea o r story, o r renders a visual image as a succession o f m usical m otifs. It was F ranz Liszt w ho in the 1850s invented the concept o f the sym phonic poem (also know n as the to n e poem ), a form in w hich a literary o r o th er non-m usical
7 Postmodernism in the 1960s is more often than not seen as “ a revolt against the norm alising function o f m odernism” (Storey 155) with its m etanarratives and official status as the high culture.” Contrarily, in postmodernism, “ there are no longer any agreed and inviolable criteria which can serve to differentiate art from popular culture (Strinati 225).
source provides a narrativ e fo u n d atio n for a single-m ovem ent orchestral w ork. Being different from a sym phony, the sym phonic poem can be attrib u ted the follow ing characteristics:
• Being called a poem , it em phasizes the fact th a t it is m ad e up like a piece o f fiction, which in this case ad ditio nally signifies th a t it is based on an external, usually literary source.
• It is m ore often th a n n o t easy to see w hat a given to n e poem is ab o u t - because co m posers, ap plying the associative p ro p e rty , co m m on ly nam ed it after the thing it was w ritten about.
• It is pro gram m atic, i.e. it has its roots in the real w orld. P ro gram m usic is w ritten to sound like som ething, or give the im pression o f som ething in the external w orld. T here m ay be, for exam ple, a light flute passage to signify birds, or a drum interlude m e a n t to sound like clockw ork, or d ro n in g trom bones to sou nd like a funeral m arch. It is also possible to get across concepts program m atically, like dying, fighting, suffering or rejoicing.
• A narrative foundation is provided for a single-m ovem ent orchestral w ork. • T he sym phonic poem is generally believed to have been cultivated from the
1850s to the 1950s and som e o f its m ost significant com posers were: Liszt, S m etana, T chaikovsky, W agner, D ebussy o r S trauss (Stankiew icz 694).
In order to illustrate the structure o f this m usical genre, let us concentrate o n “ Infern o - the first p a rt o f the aforem entioned to n e poem Dante Sym phony by F ra n z Liszt. T h e opening section is d o m in ated from the outset by a som bre m o tif on the tro m b o n es w hich is follow ed by a tw o -p a rt section th a t occupies the positio n o f the trad itio n al slow m ov em ent and is m ean t to conjure up “ association love o f P ao lo an d F ran cesca d a R im ini” (Jost 2). T h e function o f the successive scherzo-like section is, according to List, “ to sound like blasphem ous m ocking lau g h ter” (Jo st 2). T h e finale is conceived like a large-scale them atic recapitu latio n o f th e first p a rt and culm inates in a thund erin g restatem ent o f the m ain m otif.
Richard Wagner’s concept of leitmotif and Gesamkunstwerk
All in all, instrum ental o r vocal, R o m an tic com p osition s stand fo r the m erging o f m usic and a text, no m a tte r w hether we tak e the w ord ‘te x t’ q u ite verbatim or if we are ready to accept the term consistently w ith the 20lh cen tu ry cu ltu ral stu d ies’ concept. C h ara cteristically , M en d elsso h n , S chum ann o r Schubert treated their instrum ental w ork as a text, or at least its expression and thus perfect analogue. T o illustrate, Felix M en d elsso h n ’s trib u te to W illiam S hakespeare is em bodied by his su b stan tial suite of
incidental m usic to the play A M idsum m er N ig h t’s Dream. The very term ‘incidental’ indicates a program m atic function o f the com position subservient to the com ed y’s fantasy. M endelssohn, though stand in g in sta rk co n tra st to the personal Sturm und Drang fam iliar to his peers, united m ultifarious artistic interests in a truly R o m an tic fashion: he was n o t only a relined connoisseur o f literature and philosophy, bu t also a talented visual artist. T h e illustrative function o f the R o m an tic m usic was so em blem atic th at, for exam ple, “ although Brahm s him self claimed th a t he had no specific story in m ind when w riting the Tragic Overture, som e scholars believe th a t both this w ork and the m iddle m ovem ents o f the I hird Sym phony had their origin in an abortive project to stage b o th p arts oi G o eth e s Faust w ith m usic” (O sm ond-S m ith 2).
It was R ichard W agner, however, one o f the m ost revolutionary figures in m usic, w ho visibly dom inated the developm ent o f p ro g ram m atic m usic from the 1850s to the 1870s. Even a m ost cursory look at his w ork reveals its inherent co n tradiction; although it is sym phonic in n atu re, his m ore m atu re work consists o f operas m ainly, bu t these, in tu rn , ap p ro x im ate far m ore closely to the status o f the sym phony which m akes them virtually im possible to perform at vocal recitals. His advances in h arm on ic th in kin g unalterably changed the language o f classical music, and his quest for an operatic form as a boundless d ram a integrating m usic with literature changed the way in which com posers have faced the task o f com posing opera since then. H e is also one o f the m o st controversial figures in m usical history, w hose w ritten tracts are full o f philosophical m eandering. Let us concentrate on W agner’s tetralogy The N ibelung’s Ring, the epic based on T eutonic and N orse m ythology. T he whole com prises four operas: The Rhinegold, The Valkyries, Siegfried and Twilight oj the Gods. T o tie this immense dram a together, W agner conceived the notion of the leading m o tif or leitmotif. These were short, pregnant m usical ideas which could be developed in the sam e way sim ilar m otifs are developed in sym pho nies. These would stand for particular persons, places, things, actions, o r ideas. As the action o f the d ra m a developed new situation s and b ro u g h t in related events, the m otives them selves would be m etam o rp ho sed into new form s standing for new areas o f reference. Supported by this flowing web o f musical ideas, the im m ense m usical structures could unfold organically, with no need to break the o p era into separate num bered form s as in earlier operas. W hile there m ight be differences between m ore lyrical m om ents and m ore recitative like d ra m a tic or expository passages, the flow o f su pp o rtin g m elody could continue seamlessly. W agner called this ‘endless m elody and theorized th at with this m ethod and other advanced ideas he would create a Gesamkunstwerk, i.e. a w ork o f to tal arts in which everything (dram a, acting, m usic, scenery, and direction) w orked together in equal m easure (Biegariski 933).
The Wagnerian influcncc an musical developments
T he W agnerian grand scale com posing influenced A n to n B ruckner, an A u stria n com poser o f orch estral, cham ber, keybo ard, sacred vocal m usic, an d several sym phonies, G u stav M ahler, know n for the length, d ep th , and painful em otions o f his w orks, o r R ich ard Strauss with his sym phonic poem s and early operas. A lthou gh evidently influenced by th e W agnerian huge tim e scale as well as m o n u m en tal, vast and slow m o m en tu m , A nton B ruckner can only partly be said to have been a R o m an tic com poser, as “ his patien t spirit has n othing in com m on w ith the self-dram atising ideal o f the nineteenth century R o m an tic” (Sim pson 2). R ichard S trauss, on the o th er han d , app ears to have been m o re affected by W ag n er’s concept o f uniting m usic with literary sources: his o pera Salom e was com posed to the lib retto by O scar W ilde; while his o rch estral to n e poem Thus S p o ke Z arathustra, which title com es from the fam ous bo ok by N ietzsche, w hose alter ego Z a ra th u stra declares th a t G od is dead and preaches the necessity o f m a n ’s self-overcom ing in order to become an Übermensch - the self determ ining super-individualist w ho climbs above and beyond th e com m on and the average. Incidentally, M ahler was also intrigued by N ietzsche’s w o rk ,8 and set the po etry o f Z a ra th u s tra ’s m id nig ht song in his T h ird S ym phony. In his sym phonies, M ahler was u nd o u b ted ly influenced by W agn er’s tendency to com pose extensive pieces grounded o n gran d themes. Som e o th er features o f M a h le r’s sym phonies indebted to the influence of W agner are the extended length o f the overall stru ctu re, the ap plicatio n of a leitm otif and a m on u m en tal developm ent o f slow er m ovem ents. T his tendency is virtually present in all his sym phonies, including his N in th (and his last finished), in which the syncopated tru m p et m o tif “ p erm eates the whole m ovem ent, and seems to w ork alm ost like a W ag nerian leitm otif representing the forces o f evil and d esp air” (Z and er 4). O n the o th er hand, his orchestral m usic is clear, com plex, and full o f m usical im agery, from the heavenly to the banal. T his kaleidoscopic diversity o f conventions and m oods on the verge o f collage, departed quite far aw ay from the W agnerian hom ogenous gravity o f tone. In this respect, M ah ler ra th e r predicted m ore m o d ern tendencies in music, including pop u lar m usic (thus also postm odernist
* Nietzsche’s suspension between traditional philosophy and a new philosophy overthrowing G od, m etaphysics with their canonical values and inviolable m etanarratives makes him a counterpart of M ahler and his position in music. M ahler was similarly suspended between the tradition o f the G reat R om antics and a prophecy o f m odernist chrom atic scales. Unsurprisingly, the composer was intrigued by Nietzsche who overtly advanced a sense of d o u b t and relativism. His critical revision of the past is epitomised by his com m ent on the nature o f truth: “ truths are illusions about which one has forgotten w hat they really are; m etaphors which are worn out and w ithout sensuous pow er” (Nietzsche 219).
trends) from the 1970s onw ards. T his is perfectly exem plified by his Fifth Sym phony, progressing from tragedy to joy: it begins with a funeral m arch, then it passes to a wild outb u rst o f anguish accented with sinister syncopated chords on trom b o n es and horns. N ext the Scherzo introduces a joyful, playful rhythm like a ro n d o them e which is followed by a slower, m ore reflexive m o tif to be finally converted in to a quick tem po accom panying a fugal, triu m p h an t episode.
Various manifestations of Post-Romanticism in literature
T he R o m an tic heritage proved equally inspiring in literature, although its influences are som etim es discernible in the canons o f the w riters who can hardly be reckoned as the p ro p er exponents o f the P o st-R o m an tic trend. T o illustrate, in the early creative period, A lfred T ennyson, the epitom e o f the V ictorianism in p oetry, revived the K eatsian them e o f the in terrelation between art and life, w hich them e was conveyed w ith the C oleridgean d istru st o f the unlim ited auto n o m y th a t could be bestow ed on an artist. T h e m ajo r representative o f the P re-R aphaelites, D a n te G abriel R ossetti, m erged the n atu ra l with the visionary w hich resulted in the artifice o f n atu re, the seemingly irreconcilable com bination an ticip atin g the ideal th at constitu ted an analogue o f the speaker’s search for o th er reality in "Sailing to B yzantium ” by W. B. Y eats fifty years later. A lg ern on C harles Sw inburne was likewise steeped in the R o m an tic trad itio n , which m anifested itself especially in his Shelleyan tendency to reveal an em otional intensity in a rich texture o f adjective-abundant verse against which the recu rren t them e o f assault on C hristianity and accepted m oral codes was set. M ore im p ortantly , his critical w ritings proved conducive to W alter P a te r’s aest hetic theory referring to “ all w orks o f art, and the fairer form s o f n atu re and h u m an life, as pow ers or forces producing pleasurable sensations, each ° f a m o re o r less peculiar or unique k in d ” (P ater 47). W hereas Jo hn R uskin had m ade E ngland art-conscious calling artists to display their m o rality by fidelity to n a tu re and by re strain in g th eir n a tu re , P a te r recom m ended burning “with this gem-like flam e, to m ain tain this ecstasy” (P ater 85). T hus faith, conscience an d disciplined co n stra in t advocated by R uskin were replaced by the P aterian cult o f m ysticism , pleasurable excess and self-indulgent drift. T he la tte r’s philosophy, in tu rn , affected Oscar W ilde and his contem plative ideal o f life accom panying his hedonistic concept o f the m om ent. T his resulted in the W ildean aesthetic individualism op po sin g the V icto ria n s’ m iddle-class d evotion to the useful and the edifying.
A still different form o f P ost-R om anticism was revealed by G eorgian poem s, which co ntrary to w hat they were believed to becom e a rebellion against V ictorian rom anticism - constituted a fu rth er stage o f the long deterio ratio n ; if we agree to consider the w orks o f the p ro p er R o m antics as the culm ination o f the process. A dm ittedly, despite the G eo rg ian s' parochial and out-of-date output, the simplicity o f their utterance, the idyllic atm osphere, and the cult o f the Englishness they prom oted had no t only a wide appeal to con tem p o rary readers, bu t also were tran slata b le into tendencies in other artistic disciplines, to illustrate the classical m usic o f the first h alf o f the twentieth century represented by V aughan Williams and Edw ard Elgar as well as the progressive rock o f the 1970s. This influence was the m o re perceptible as the G eorgians com bined w hat m ight ap p ear incom patible: folk elem ents with grand style, the latter o f which they ostensibly opposed in theory. W hen applied in practice, however, the solem n to n e m atched perfectly the elevated national subjects they used fo r their poem s, e.g. R u p ert B rooke’s war pieces.
A com pletely dissim ilar ro m an tic m anifestatio n occurred in A m erica in the 1950s. A group of A m erican w riters, referred to as representatives of the beat generation, stood fo r anti-hierarchical and anti-m iddle-class ideas conveyed in an unconventional style, as subversive as th e expression. Allen G insberg’s w ords, “ Y our ow n h eart is the G u ru ” (G insberg 1974, 1), which phrase, as tim e passes, becom es m ore and m o re relevant to the consecutive w orks by Jack K erouac, is rem iniscent o f the rom an tic em otio nal attitu d e w ith its idealistic subjectivity. W hat is p articularly p alpable in term s of ro m a n tic influences u p o n th e B eatniks, a p a rt from certain n o t qu ite rom an tic sources of inspiration such as H enry M iller’s eroticism or W illiam B urroughs’ fran k treatm en t o f addiction being a m e ta p h o r o f cultural illusions stealing o u r dream s and confusing o u r lives, is W alt W h itm an ’s poesy. T his idiosyncratic style - based on a cataloguing technique, descriptive, com parable with th a t o f reports - gives the im pression th a t everything is being created at the m om ent. T he form as well as the resu ltan t accum ulative im agery were ta k e n over by the B eatniks, especially A llen G insberg. Needless to say, the B eatniks with their truly ro m an tic, tran scen d en tal flight into im agination, in spite o f being dismissed by the establishm ent critics as nihilistic, reckless and undisciplined, were soon to acquire the cult statu s th a t affected w ith a distinctive force the hippies a decade later.
Post-Romanticism in the age of postmodernism
O n the whole, the R om antic heritage, m ore often th an n o t h as been som ew hat sim plistically associated with high rh eto ric and excessive em bel lishm ents em ployed largely for their ow n sake. L ooked up on patronizingly,
u n p o p u lar to day in the context o f the prevailing m inim alist 01, con trarily , wildly u nco ntrollab le postm odern flows o f signifiers clashing with one an o th er, the concept o f the P ost-R o m an tic appears o utm od ed and ou t oi place. Still, its influence is n o t only palpable, but even overw helm ing, and, w hat is perhaps peculiarly paradoxical, this pow erful im pact is the m ost visible in p o p u lar culture, where the postm o dernist fram e of rcferencc is pervaded with the P ost-R o m an tic aesthetics.
T he overall process o f destabilising the form erly professed values and the canonised position o f high culture largely constitu ted by the m odernist legacy was initialed by the confluence o f such diverse m o v em en ts as d eco n stru ctiv e theories in c u ltu ra l and literary analyses; p o st-M arx ist concepts pu t forw ard by A d o rn o and o th er exponents of the h ra n k lu rt School, as well as by A lthusser or G ram sci; the fem inist attem p ts at revising the cultural canon o f the past; and the aforem entioned postm odernism with its p o stu late to ab a n d o n the b o un dary between high cultu re and p o p u lar culture. T his jo in t im pact, how ever, would have never been so accum ulative in its force if it had no t been for the b reak th ro u g h in the 1960s, when the hippie counterculture affected by the B eatniks o f the form er decade conveyed the P ost-R o m an tic idealism inherited from their T ranscend entalist great-grandparents. A n o th er trace o f the R o m an tic legacy - its aesthetic offshoot - was to becom e the im m anent feature o f the 1970s progressive rock, incidentally, by analogy to the great R o m an tic poets grudgingly recognized by literary critics, derided by p o p theorists and reviewers who, as sociologists ra th e r th an m usicologists by profession, dism issed it as a pretentious, self-indulgent, excessively decorative, introvert and thus incom m unicative m usical genre (M acan 170-171).
The 1960s and 1970s progressive rock as a vehicle for Post-Romantic ideas in popular culture
Progressive rock began to emerge ou t o f the B ritish psychedelic scene in 1967, specifically a strain o f classical/sym pho nic ro ck led by Syd B arrett’s Pink F loyd, the Nice, Procol H arum , and the M o od y Blues. K ing C rim so n ’s 1969 d eb u t In the Court o f the Crimson King firm ly established the concept o f progressive rock, and a quirky, eclectic scene was taking shape in C anterb u ry , led by the jazzy psychedelia o f the Soft M achine, Egg and C aravan. P rog-rock becam e a com m ercial force in the early 1970s, w ith E m erson, L ake & Palm er, Yes, Jeth ro Tull, Genesis, and Pink Floyd leading the way.
O ne o f the m o st striking exam ples o f this m usical genre is the afo re m entioned In the Court o f the Crimson King by K ing C rim son. O n the textual level o f the album , fear o f destructive acts o f th e im personal m ob created by civilization, the lack o f faith in the survival o f W estern culture p aralyse th e speaking voice - a w eak alien, w ho, d esp ite his plight, struggles to preserve his individuality and integrity. T his type o f rom an tic irony, where the hero is beaten up, defeated, an d, as a result o f this, exalted, finds its reflection in P eter Sinfield’s ench anting and fairy tale-like lyrics as well as in the instrum ental p a tte rn perform ed by the b and. On b o th levels, the atm osphere seems to be dignified an d alm ost b om bastic, rem iniscent o f a peculiar fusion constituted by a ro m an tic m e ta p h o r in the context o f classical m usic. H ow ever, this spiritual im pulse th a t lays the fo u n d a tio n o f In the Court o f the Crim son K in g ’s son g -w o rd s is the disbelief th a t W estern civilisation’s spirituality is increasing in direct p ro p o rtio n to its technological progress: “T he wall on w hich the p ro p hets w ro te /is cracking at th e seam s” (Sinfield 2). T his vision o f W estern cu ltu re’s spiritual b an k ru p tcy is rem iniscent o f the co u n tercu ltu re o f the late 1960s and the early 1970s, which is, in tu rn , largely indebted to the A m erican beatniks. T hus, to co u n teract the sim plified because one-sided in terp retatio n o f the phrase “ beat g en eratio n ” i.e. “ beaten com pletely” or “ loser” which m eaning often appeared in the m edia, K e ro u a c articulated its com pletely different co n n o tatio n , nam ely th a t o f “ b eatific” o r “ b e a titu d e” to signify “ the necessary beatness or darkn ess th a t precedes opening up to light, egolessness, giving room for religious illu m in atio n ” (G insberg 1999, xiv).
A t the sam e tim e, the lofty and sublim e o rc h estratio n o f the album as a whole is effectively contrasted w ith the cacophony o f “ 21st C entury Schizoid M a n ” or w ith the co n tra p u n ta l im provisation o f “ M o o n ch ild ” . T he other three com positions, however, including the m ost fam ous “ E p ita p h ” , are m ark ed by slowly unfolding, m on u m en tal style, visibly affected by W ag n er’s or M ah ler’s com positions. T h e m usical co nv ention the K ing C rim son chose fo r their fairly com plex song structu res was the sym phonic poem one o f the tw o (the o th er being prog ram m atic m ultim o vem ent suite) m o st p o p u lar genres in R om anticism and P ost-R om an ticism . A ccordingly, all the five tracks on In the Court o f the Crimson K ing com prise a few interlocking sections. A t the sam e tim e, on a deeper level, it is n o t difficult to discern traces o f neurosis m anifested by dissonances or unexpected in terru p tio n s o f m elodic structures. In consequence, the logical stru ctu re of the album , with its co n ten t and texture reflecting the ch ao s o f the external w orld, is a m o d ern analogue to the R om antic idea o f p rog ram m e m usic, i.e. instrum ental m usic th a t conveys an idea or story.
Neil Pcart’s “ Xanadu” : Coleridge’s “ Kubla Khan” revisited
It has to be adm itted th a t in P ost-R om antic-fashioned rock m usic m e ta physical or quasi-m etaphysical contem plation occurs fairly often, but hardly ever does it accom pany an actual search for the Suprem e Being. M uch m ore frequently it signifies looking for o n e ’s self believed to be tan ta m o u n t to the synthesis o f all the other beings, including supernatural powers. I here are two possible versions o f the further developm ent o f this m editation: one is the state o f bliss which is a straightforw ard consequence o f o n e’s union w ith n atu re, where nature is paradoxically a m irro r o f one’s self; and th e o ther is a failure springing from a sense o f em otional void left by the con fro n tatio n with one s own ego th at, in principle, has nothing to offer: as a transcendental state and self-contem plation ap p e ar to form a con trad ictio n in term s. I he album A Farewell to Kings issued by the C anadian rock band R ush in 1977 perfectly exemplifies the above thesis. T he lyrics o f the m ain com po sitio n called “X a n a d u ” is, as the very title suggests, inspired by the poem o f C oleridge s. T h e history has turned full circle and the text by Neil P eart, the g rou p s lyricist, is an evident extension o f the original.
To stand within the Pleasure Dome Decreed by K ubla Khan
To taste anew the fruits o f life The last im mortal man To find the sacred river Alph To walk the caves of ice Oh, 1 will dine on honey dew And drink the milk o f Paradise... Held within the Pleasure Dome Decreed by K ubla Khan To taste my bitter triumph As a mad im mortal man Nevermore shall I return Escape these caves of ice F or I have dined on honey dew
And drunk the milk o f Paradise. (Peart 2)
T he speaker seems to have im plem ented his predecessor s (the speaker of C oleridge’s “ K u b la K h a n ” ) dream to reconstruct the pleasure d o m e in his m ind, which is sym bolised here by the form er dwelling in X an ad u , where he becom es the last im m ortal m an. H ow ever, the m agical place is turned into the eternal prison, and thus the sp eaker’s achievem ent au tom atically becomes his failure. Accordingly, Coleridge’s fear o f d am n atio n is m aterialised, it is not, as a m a tte r o f fact, preceded by social ostracism only to assum e an even m ore extreme condition - that o f everlasting isolation. In this way, the
vision o f im m ortal existence in X anadu is the epitom e ol the curse of m an k in d and the last im m ortal m an app ears to be “ co ndem ned... to a per petual co n tin u an c e” (Swift 221). O bviously, the above q u o ta tio n from Gul liver’s Travels, does n o t testify to an o u tstan d in g analogy betw een the two visions of im mortality; however, w hat they do have in com m on is a pessimistic c o n n o ta tio n attached to these images. N evertheless, it is no t Swift’s satire on physical infirm ities o f m an th a t lurks in the backg ro un d o f “ K u b la K h a n ” as well as in “ X a n a d u ,” it is ra th e r th e spiritual defect sym bolized by archetypal egotistic search o f the pleasure dom e, th e ad v e n tu ro u s seeking a blissful state the achievem ent o f which implies a painful self-sufficiency and self-consciousness preventing “ an experience o f the absolutely e x te rio r” (Levinas 348).
Conclusion
In conclusion, ironically, however severely criticised it was by some exponents o f the successive literary periods, R om anticism m an aged to leave a deep im print on their thinking. T o illustrate, in spite o f T . S. E lio t’s attem p ts to w ithdraw his poetic idiom from the talkative, ovcrem otional cadences o f the R om antics by coining the term “ objective co rrelativ e” stan d in g for “ a set o f objects, a situation , a chain o f events which shall be the form ula o f . .. em o tio n ” (E liot 1932, 145), his allegiance to the F ren ch Sym bolists and the concept o f aestheticism suffused by the theory o f im personal art is, o f necessity, partly indebted to K e a ts ’ and P o e’s o u tlo o k on art. Sim ilarly, in m usic, S choenberg strived to cut his links off from the W agnerian N eo-R om anticism w ith his ato n al com positions. A t the sam e time, however, he united m odernism with a late-R om antic sensibility, which com bination was additionally influenced by the earlier, Classical forms.
D epartm ent of English Literature Nicolaus Copernicus University, T orun
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