The trouble with romanticism is that it means so
many things and can be approached from so
many angles. A number of its facets may look
contradictory or even incompatible, at least on
the surface. The important thing however is to
find out what they have in common rather than
where they differ.

The rise of European romanticism shows, on
the whole, two main stages, each of them
dominated by a mood of its own. Whereas the
mood, as well as the impetus, of the first stage
had been one of liberation, the second stage was
imbued with disillusionment and frustration.
What both phases had in common was, of course,
their protest against the existing pattern of life.
Rousseau, the German 'storm and stress' ( Sturm
und Drang) group, the ideologists of the French
Revolution--they all were animated by their
wish to destroy what they regarded as obsolete,
even when their ideals of a new life were either
too vague or too utopian. Still, they believed
in those ideals.

Not so the representatives of the second and
more important wave of the romantic tide. The

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