The long epoch of Romanticism extended until well into the nineteenth century. In the German-speaking lands, the years of occupation by the Napoleonic troops and the accompanying imposition of foreign law encouraged recourse to local history and the Middle Ages. The wish for independent national states gained momentum all over Europe. After the so-called Wars of Liberation (1813–1815), many intellectuals envisaged having a say in the political order. These hopes, however, were not fulfilled. The governments tightened censorship. And many exponents of Romanticism began to change the objectives of their writing.
It was in this period that, with Madame de Staël as a driving force, the translation of the manifestos of Romantic art got underway, ensuring that they would be discussed outside the German-speaking world as well. In many European countries, the ideas corresponded to related tendencies introduced by English and French pioneers of the new era. It was in these years as well that Joseph von Eichendorff published his first major works. Here in Germany, Eichendorff’s stories and poems continue to shape our conception of Romantic literature to this day. On the international stage, German Romanticism owed its reception in good part to the works of Goethe, E.T.A. Hoffmann, and Heinrich Heine.
Once Romanticism had gotten underway in literature, its themes and motifs were adopted first by painters and then by composers, who lent it the worldwide popularity it still enjoys today. Bettine von Arnim played a special role in this development: drawing on the Early Romanticist fragments by Novalis, she intervened directly in the political debates of the 1840s.
Our exhibition comes to a close with a display on Robert Schumann’s Scenes from Goethe’s Faust — a pinnacle of the musical reception of Goethe. The installation offers insights into the creation of this key work of German Romanticism.
