Talk:Romantic nationalism

Problems
"Beowulf was felt to provide the British people with their missing "national epic", [4] 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."

Clearly the author here has completely overstated the role of Beowulf for the 'British'. As a work it should be considered a work of the Saxon and English people. It is irrelevent to Scotland, Wales and Nothern Ireland. As for Ossian being a failure? What a horribly ignorent thing to say, the author has disregared the huge success it was in influencing European romantic nationalism, including one great nationalist, Napoleon Bonaparte. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.168.55.185 (talk) 12:04, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I suspect the writer is correct. Despite turning out to be forgeries the Ossian poems were very influential indeed in the their own time - and thus perhaps their influence persists to this day. But I must take issue with the idea that Beowulf is of no relevence to Scotland. Much of the 'Scottish' lowlands, perhaps the bulk, were historically (and culturally/ethnically still are) Anglo-saxon or 'sassenach'. Thus Beowulf isn't a work simply relevent to the English of England but to all the Anglo-saxons of Britain. Cassandra. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.145.189.76 (talk) 16:34, 9 December 2014 (UTC)


 * No, they weren't. Anglian influence on Scotland is largely in the far south east and southern fringes. It is nothing to do with the areas which Glasgow, Dundee, Stirling and Aberdeen are in. Beowulf is also mostly set on the east coast of the North Sea.


 * Also it is very much a midwit's opinion that Ossian was just a forgery. Maybe James MacPherson improved the material but he was using legends which were recorded centuries before he was born. Girvan, which is very much in the Lowlands, has an area called Knockoshin (Cnoc Oisein) which is probably named after him. The legends were also mentioned in Lowland literature including David Lindsay's plays... in such a way to suggest they were well known there. Again before MacPherson was born. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.33.247.178 (talk) 13:14, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

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)

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)

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.


 * It's not just you. This article has virtually no citations or coherence and is very misleading and tendentious [IMO]. It would be much better to name names and use dates and get one's facts straight. I believe the article as it stands entirely mischaracterizes Romanticism in a way that is now quite tired and dated. Some critics, particularly during World War II and in the immediate aftermath of the start of the Cold War, have indeed connected the Romanticism of Byron and Rousseau with later extreme racialism and militaristic fascism, but this is quite unfair to these writers, who would have been appalled at these later movements. The Romantics may have reacted against the extreme rationality of the Enlightenment, but they generally believed in liberal democracy, peace, and brotherhood. At any rate the scientific racialism, imperialism, and social darwinism that characterized Nazi racialism were not products of Romantic nationalism, far from it.Mballen (talk) 19:29, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

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)

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

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.

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)

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.''


 * 1) 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)

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)

Seems to me
that the last paragraph related to the United States is highly POV. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.33.158.121 (talk) 18:49, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I don't see how PNAC can be a manifestation of Romantic Nationalism as defined here. Iapetus (talk) 13:26, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I deleted that part out. It was an entirely political POV that was not needed. In fact, this whole damn article needs a major revision and slants against Romantic nationalism, and leads readers to conclude that its a philosophy of nazism and racism, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.165.178.170 (talk) 07:44, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

possibilities of mentioning Hungary?
A mention of Hungary could possibly be added since, as of right now, there isn't any. Specifically, maybe it can be with János Arany's poetry The Death of King Buda (1864) which presented the supposedly historical and legendary past of Hungary. By using Arnold Ipolyi's Magyar Mythologia (1854) as a source, Arany's work has shaped a popular impression on many of the origins of Hungarians at the detriment to factual research. To this day, this view on Hungarian history is still a major aspect of nationalism within Hungarians. (just a thought, idk, im new to all this) Venusz.o (talk) 21:11, 27 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Hungary is a strange omission.-78.33.247.178 (talk) 13:26, 13 June 2023 (UTC)