Frederick C. Beiser. The Romantic Imperative: The Concept of Early German Romanticism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. Print.

1. Social and Political Context

The romantics’ solution to this crisis lay with education. If all the chaos and bloodshed in France had shown anything, they argued, it is that a republic cannot succeed if the people are not ready for it. A republic has high moral ideals, which are worthless in practice if the people do not have either the knowledge or the will to live by them. For a republic to work, it must have responsible, enlightened, and virtuous citizens. If the people are to participate in public affairs, they must know their true interests and those of the state as a whole; and if they are to be responsible citizens, they must have the virtue and self-control to prefer the common good over their private interests. But such knowledge and such virtue are possible only through education, and indeed by a very deep and thoroughgoing one. Somehow, it was necessary to transform the obedient, passive, and benighted subject of an absolute monarchy into an autonomous, active, and enlightened citizen of a republic(88-89).

2. Education as the Highest Good

The paradox disappears, however, when we reconsider the German term Bildung. This word signifies two processes—learning and personal growth—but they are not understood apart from one another, as if education were only a means to growth. Rather, learning is taken to be constitutive of personal development, as part and parcel of how we become a human being in general and a specific individual in particular. If we regard education as part of a general process of self-realization—as the development of all one’s characteristic powers as a human being and as an individual—then it is not difficult to understand why the romantics would regard it as at least a plausible candidate for the title of the highest good.

The romantics regarded self-realization as the highest good in both its classical senses. Self-realization is the final end, because it does not derive its value as a means to some higher end, such as the common good or the state. Although the romantics stressed the importance of education for the state, they did not value it simply as a means to that end; on the contrary, they insisted that self-realization is an end in itself, and they argued that the state should promote the self-realization of each of its citizens. Self-realization is also the complete end, since an individual who attains it lacks nothing, having achieved everything of value in life. In other words, a person who achieves self-realization attains the end of life itself, the very purpose of existence(91-92).

The ideal of Bildung was meant to rectify these shortcomings of Kantian ethics. A romantic education had two fundamental goals, each compensating for one of these flaws. One would unite and develop all the powers of a human being, forging all his or her disparate capacities into a whole. The other would develop not only our characteristic human powers—those shared by everyone as a human being—but also our individuality—those unique aptitudes and dispositions peculiar to each individual. These goals were, of course, closely linked: to develop all one’s powers as a whole was inevitably and naturally to realize one’s individuality, for individuality emerges in that unique synthesis, that special unity, of all one’s human powers(93).

3. Aesthetic Education

Art became so important to Schiller and the romantics because they saw it as the only means to resolve this crisis. They argued that while philosophy cannot stimulate action nor religion convince reason, art has the power to inspire us to act according to reason. Because it so strongly appeals to the imagination, and because it so deeply effects our feelings, art can move people to live by the high moral ideals of a republic. Ultimately, then, the romantics sought to replace the traditional role of religion with art as the incentive and stimulus for morality. Hence they developed ideas for a modern mythology, a new Bible, and a restored church. Now the artist would take over the ancient function of the priest(95).

4. The Role of Art

Exactly how the romantics understood aesthetic education becomes clear from a close reading of Schiller’s Briefe. It is striking that, in the tenth letter, Schiller virtually concedes the whole charge of naivité. He admits that art will educate only the virtuous, and he notes that the periods when art flourished were also those when morals declined. But, after accepting these points, Schiller then turns his argument in a new direction. The question for him is not whether art has an effect on moral character, but whether beauty is an essential component of human perfection itself. Schiller’s argument is that if we perfect ourselves—if we form our various powers into a whole—then we will become like works of art. To perfect ourselves is to unify the form of our reason with the content of our sensibility; but the unity of form and content is what is characteristic of beauty itself. Hence aesthetic education does not consist in having our characters formed by works of art but in making our characters into works of art(96).

Schiller’s ideal of the beautiful soul gives a completely new perspective on how art motivates moral action. It is not that contemplating works of art inspires us to do good deeds, but that there is an aesthetic pleasure inherent in human excellence, which serves as an incentive to attain and maintain it. The stimulant to moral perfection does not derive from any work of art but simply from the pleasure involved in the exercise of characteristic human activities. Like most moralists, Schiller maintains that virtue brings its own reward, a unique kind of pleasure; he simply adds that this pleasure is essentially aesthetic, because achieving human perfection is like creating a work of art(97).

Schiller, Novalis, and Schleiermacher all assume that the perfect society or state is like a work of art because there is an organic unity between the individual and the social whole, which is governed neither by physical nor moral constraints but only free interaction(97).

The early romantic ideal of utopia was therefore the creation of a social or political work of art. This aesthetic whole would be a Bildungsanstalt [Education Institute], a society in which people would educate one another through the free exchange of their personalities and ideas. The romantic salons, in Berlin and Jena, were fledgling attempts to put this ideal into practice. If life were only one grand salon, one long learning experience in which everyone participated, the romantics believed, then society would indeed become a work of art, and this life “the most beautiful of all possible worlds(97-98).”

5. Education and Freedom

Schiller argues against Kant that beauty is more than simply a subjective quality, such as the pleasure of contemplation, and he insists instead that it is an objective feature of an object itself. Whether or not an object is beautiful, Schiller contends, depends on whether it is self-determining, that is, whether it is free from external constraint and acts according to its inherent nature alone. Since self-determination is equivalent to freedom, and since a beautiful object presents, exhibits, or reveals this quality to the senses, beauty is nothing more nor less than freedom in appearance(99).

The romantic concept of aesthetic education has its roots in Schiller’s redefinition of the moral role of art. What is central to and characteristic of the romantic concept is the Schillerian thesis that the end of aesthetic education is freedom. Like Schiller, the romantics maintain that to become an aesthetic whole, to make one’s life a work of art, it is necessary to realize one’s nature as a spontaneous and free subject. Since beauty consists in freedom in appearance, we attain beauty only when our moral character expresses freedom itself.

That Bildung consists in the development of freedom is a point much stressed by both Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis. Schlegel simply defined Bildung as “the development of independence” (Entwicklung der Selbständigkeit), famously arguing that what is characteristic of Bildung in the modern world, in contrast to the ancient, is precisely its striving for freedom. The purpose of our lives, he maintained, is to realize our nature as self-determining beings, where self-determination consists in constantly attempting to determine what one is, and then realizing that one is nothing but the activity of constantly attempting to determine what one is. Novalis was no less emphatic and explicit than Schlegel: “All education (Bildung) leads to nothing else than what one can call freedom, although this should not designate a mere concept but the creative ground of all existence(100).”

6. The Awakening of the Senses

Like Schiller and the Sturmer und Dränger, the romantics wanted to cultivate sensibility as an aesthetic faculty. Their aim was to educate the senses, specifically their power to perceive the beauty of the world. This faculty could be made more sensitive, refined, and acute, they believed, so that a person’s life could be greatly enriched and ennobled(101).

What is distinctive of their program is not that, but how, they wanted to educate sensibility. Their aim was, in a word, to romanticize the senses. But what does this redolent word mean? The best clue comes from Novalis. To romanticize the world, he explains in an unpublished fragment, is to make us aware of the magic, mystery, and wonder of the world; it is to educate the senses to see the ordinary as extraordinary, the familiar as strange, the mundane as sacred, the finite as infinite. The romantics wanted to break outside the confines of our ordinary and mundane perception of the world, where we automatically categorize everything according to common concepts, and where we see things only as objects of use. Their goal was to develop our power of contemplation so that we can see things anew, as they are in themselves and for their own sakes, apart from their utility and common meaning. 

The romantics sought to romanticize not only our external senses—our powers of perception of the external world—but also our internal ones—our sensitivity to the world within. They attempted to direct our attention to our inner depths, to the hidden recesses of the self, no less than to the world without, the realms of society and nature. For the romantics, self-realization was essentially self-discovery, an exploration of one’s inner depths. As Novalis puts the point: “We dream of a journey through the universe. But is the universe then not in us? We do not know the depths of our spirit. Inward goes the secret path. Eternity with its worlds, the past and future, is in us or nowhere.”

It was this conviction that later inspired Novalis to write Heinrich von Ofterdingen—he major Bildungsroman of the romantic school— an antipode to Goethe’s earlier work in the same genre, Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. While Wilhelm’s apprenticeship consists in his adventures in the wider world, his encounters with extraordinary characters and difficult situations, Heinrich’s education comes from unraveling the secret of his own dreams. There are two ways to educate the soul, Heinrich explains: one of them “the path of experience,” which is very indirect and leads to only worldly wisdom or prudence, while the other is “the path of inner contemplation,” which is very direct and results in spiritual self-realization.

There was a grand ambition behind this program for the reawakening of the senses, whether internal or external. The romantics aim was to reunify man with himself, nature, and others, so that he would once again feel at home in his world. According to the romantic philosophy of history, early man had been at one with himself, with others, and with nature; this unity was purely natural, and did not depend on any efforts of his own. Inevitably and tragically, however, this primal harmony had been torn apart by the development of civilization. Man had become alienated from others as a result of the increasing competition of civil society; he had become divided within himself with the rise of the division of labor; and he had become estranged from nature after the sciences had demystified it, making it into an object to be dominated and controlled for human benefit. The task of modern man was to recreate on a self-conscious and rational level that unity with ourselves, others, and nature that had once been given to early man on a naive and intuitive level(101-102).

7. The Power of Love

The romantic program of Bildung, of aesthetic education, stressed the cultivation of love, the development of the capacity of every individual to give and receive affection. This was essential to self-realization, to the development of our humanity and individuality, the romantics believed, because love is the very core of our humanity, the very center of our individuality. “Only through love, and the consciousness of love,” Friedrich Schlegel wrote, “does a human being become a human being.” Love was indeed the key to reconciling and unifying the two warring sides of our nature, the intellectual and physical, the rational and the emotional. It was not simply a physical urge, but a much deeper spiritual desire: the longing to return to that golden age when we were at one with ourselves, others, and nature(104).

8. A Final Paradox

The romantic philosophy of education ends with a paradox. We have seen that there was nothing more important to the romantics than Bildung, the education of humanity. This was the central theme and goal of their ethics, aesthetics, and politics. But, from a more practical perspective, there seems to be nothing less important to the romantics than education. When it comes to concrete suggestions about how to educate humanity—about what specific institutional arrangements are to be made—the romantics fell silent. There is very little in the writings of the romantics about the social and political structure to be created to ensure the education of humanity.

Such silence, however, was more the result of principle than negligence. The reason for their taciturnity was their deep conviction that the self-realization of the individual must derive from his freedom, which must not be impaired by social and political arrangements. It is for this reason that Friedrich Schlegel would write: “Humanity cannot be inoculated, and virtue cannot be taught or learned, other than through friendship and love with capable and genuine people, and other than through contact with ourselves, with the divine within us.”

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