Talk:Romantic nationalism
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[edit] Lord Byron
Removed an inaccuracy regarding Lord Byron; he was not "mortally wounded" or killed in combat during the Greek War of Independence. Instead, he got sick shortly after his arrival in Greece and died from illness. Tusken raiders 02:36, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] John Gast Link
i really know nothing about how Wiki works or how this should be fixed but i noticed that the "John Gast" link underneath "American Progress" goes to an incorrect page. someone should look at / fix this!
- Thanks, fixed here and in related pages. Now all that's needed is for someone to start a page about John Gast! ...dave souza, talk 14:21, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Nazism
Is it just me, or does this article not sound quite right? It seems to portray Romantic Nationalism as being a synonom with Nazi racialism and the like, which is something I had not previously thought.
[edit] Better balance?
I've made a lot of edits today, reducing the prominence of Richard Wagner (and his descendents) and keeping focus on the topic romantic nationalism. I have removed incorrect and confusing assessment of Shakespeare in the development of English and the "elite" artform of his theater. I have added some examples and some extensions of ideas that were already expressed. Comparison in "History" mode will best show all the changes. Have I removed any of your favorite material that characterizes aspects of romantic nationalism? Many historical proponents of national romanticism get no mention so far: edit them in! Good quotes would also enrich this entry. Many of my edits were to tighten loose construction, eliminate non-contributing verbiage and define more clearly the relationships among concepts. Wetman 22:22, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
[edit] National Epic
"The concept of a "national epic," an extensively mythologized legendary work of poetry of defining importance to a certain nation, is another product of Romantic nationalism. The "discovery" of Beowulf in a single manuscript, first transcribed in 1818, came under the impetus of Romantic nationalism, after the manuscript had lain as an ignored curiosity in scholars' collections for two centuries. Beowulf provided the English people with their missing "national epic", just when the need for it was first being felt: the fact that Beowulf himself was a Geat was easily overlooked. The pseudo-Gaelic literary forgeries of "Ossian" had failed, finally, to fill the need for the first Romantic generation.
The unseen and unheard Song of Roland had become a dim memory, until the antiquary Francisque Michel transcribed a worn copy in the Bodleian Library and put it into print in 1837; it was timely: French interest in the national epic revived among the Romantic generation. In Greece, the Iliad and Odyssey took on new urgency during the Greek War of Independence. Other examples of epics that have been enlisted since as "national" include Popol Vuh (Mayans), Kalevala (Finland), Kalevipoeg (Estonia), Mahabharata (India), and the Journey to the West (China). Sometimes they have had a galvanizing effect on social politics: think of the Nibelung."
This seems totally wrong. For one thing, there are "national epics" (e.g. the Shahnameh) that existed long before Romantic nationalism; for another, the Ossian poems are a valorization of the Highland Scots, not an attempted national epic for the English(!); third, I don't believe that the English have ever regarded Beowulf as their "national epic", and it has for the most part been ignored except as a high-school reading exercise (in translation -- one of the reasons it can hardly be considered an English national epic is that it's unreadable by any English-speaker who hasn't studied Anglo-Saxon). The type specimens of 19th century national epics are works like Pan Tadeusz and the Kalevala -- both, not coincidentally, directed at national minorities within the Russian Empire -- written in the language of the people to whom they were addressed. The English, by contrast, celebrated their own nationalism with a long chorus of patriotic song and lyric, from The Charge of the Light Brigade to Land of Hope and Glory and had little need for a "national epic" to cement their own concept of the English nation. Beowulf was far from being a torch for English nationalism; it was simply ignored for decades, except among scholars of Old English, being better known on the continent than in England. Many of the other works listed are either genuine "national epics", known and celebrated for years before the romantic period; or are not epics at all, and have never been regarded as such. Journey to the West, for instance, is a comic novel, long and entertaining, with some serious themes, but hardly epic and with very little to do with Chinese nationalism. India, on the other hand, hardly needed the inspiration of European romantics to pay attention to the Mahabharata. Rustaveli's "Knight in the Panther's Skin", the Georgian national epic, had an overwhelming presence in Georgian literary life as far back as the 1500s. It seems unwarrantably Eurocentric to assume that so narrowly European a development as romantic nationalism should hold sway over spheres of culture far distant from Europe; or to trace it beyond its period of literary influence (about 1815-1914). Moreover, it's missing something not to notice that "national epics" had their greatest appeal for submerged nationalities (like those in the Turkish, Austrian, and Russian Empires), somewhat less appeal for fragmented nationalities (like the Germans and Italians), and not much at all for powerful nations in charge of their own states (like the English). 68.100.18.183 15:45, 23 January 2006 (UTC)RandomCritic
[edit] Citation
The quotation from Fichte has been taken from: Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Thirteenth Address, Addresses to the Gerrnan Nation, ed. George A. Kelly (New York: Harper Torch Books, 1968), pp. 190-91.
[edit] Fairy tales
The "national epic" section covers only part of the entire folklore debate. The Brothers Grimm, for instance, gathered their stories as part of a search for true German folklore, rejecting tales for coming from Perrault -- and many folklorists imagined that such tales lasted, unchanged, from millenia earlier, feeding into nationalistic views.
I'm not sure whether it should be a separate section from "national epic" or whether that one should be renamed to include more. Goldfritha 00:03, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] 20th century
I have a problem with the following paragraph in the article: After the First World War, a darker version of romantic nationalism was taking hold in Germany, to some extent modelling itself on British Imperialism and "the White Man's Burden". The idea was that Germans should "naturally" rule over the lesser peoples. Romantic nationalism, which had begun as a revolt against "foreign" kings and overlords, had come full circle, and was being used to make the case for a "Greater Germany" which would rule over Europe.
- Greater Germany or GrossDeutschland, does not refer to Germany ruling over the rest of Europe, but to all ethnic German lands united in one state (i.e. Austria and Germany united). Just read the Grossdeutschland article for yourself, nowhere does it mention German rule over all of Europe. The paragraph in question paints all Germans with the same brush so to say, in that the beliefs of the Nazis represented those of all Germans. If no one brings up a better way to word this paragraph or present its meaning here on the discussion page, I will delete it from the article in 3 days, as its meaning looks to me to be to stereotype all Germans as racists. what this paragraph calls Romantic nationalism can be more ably described as revanchism and the lebensraum of Nazi ideology.
--Jadger 08:29, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Von Herder and non-racist nationalism
Johann Gottfried Herder's article says he was a founder of German romantic nationalism, at the same time that he denied that there were "races", but at the same time this article says that romantic nationalism and racism became inexorably intertwined... well, it could be that it became, but I think that it would be interesting to have something more detailed on that, as Von Herder's article subtly suggests that in its origin it was not necessarily racist, at least not from the beginning. --Extremophile 03:00, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
