I. HILDE CONTINUES TO READ...

III. THE NEXT LESSON [ROMANTICISM]--see the key words, p. 342...:

A. ROUSSEAU and SCHELLING and SPINOZA and BERKELEY--are the philosophical fathers of romanticism

B. BLAKE, WORDSWORTH, COLERIDGE, BYRON, SHELLEY, KEATS, BEETHOVEN--note the common elements; love of nature, feelings control emotions, the creative urge--the primacy of the imagination, love of nature, love of the medieval past, man creates his own soul--Promethius, the Byronic hero (negative romanticism), ego-worship, cosmic consciousness, organicism vs. mechanic form, mysticism.

C. THE AESTHETICS OF KANT--PRELUDE TO ROMANTICISM:

1--WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE EXPERIENCE THE BEAUTY OF A WORK OF ART AS IT EXISTS INDEPENDENT OF SENSE EXPERIENCE? CAN THERE BE A STANDARD?

2--EACH OF THE BRITISH ROMANTIC POETS THEREFORE ATTEMPT TO ARTICULATE THEIR OWN STANDARDS FOR ART.

IV. THE ARTIST IS LIKE GOD--THE EXPRESSIVE THEORY. THE ARTIST MIMES GOD.

A. THE BRITISH ROMANTICS DEVELOPED A VOCABULARY OF THE IMAGINATION. FOR TOLKIEN WE HAVE SUB-CREATION. HAS HILDE'S FATHER SUB-CREATED SOPHIE AND ALBERTO?

B. WORDSWORTH BELIEVES (PREFACE TO THE LYRICAL BALLADS), THE IMAGINATION "COLORS' THE 'ORDINARY' OBJECTS OF EMPIRICISM MAKING THEM 'EXTRAORDINARY'.

AFTER MANY CHAPTERS, SOPHIE, ANIMATED BY WHAT ALL PHILOSOPHERS INNATELY CHERISH, SEES HER ENVIRONMENT, INCLUDING HER PETS AS COLORED BY HER OWN IMAGINATION.

C. COLERIDGE SPEAKS OF THE DIVINE SPARK, AND THE PRIMARY / SECONDARY IMAGINATION

D. SHELLEY WRITES OF THE SYMPATHETIC IMAGINATION'S POWER TO TRANSFORM THE WORLD, BUT HE HAS BEEN CALLED A BEAUTIFUL BUT INEFFECTUAL IDEALIST. WHY IS PHILOSOPHY OFTEN DISMISSED BY THE PRACTICAL MINDED?

E. KEATS--STRESSES THE ROLE OF DREAMS AND MUSIC IN THE CREATIVE PROCESS. WHY ARE UNHEARD MELODIES SWEETER THAN WHAT WE HEAR? (READ "ODE ON A GRECIAN URN.")

D. THE BYRONIC HERO PROBES THE GOTHIC SIDE OF THE IMAGINATION, OR THE 'FORCE' IF YOU PREFER. STAR WARS IS ROMANTICISM. SEE: GOTHIC ROMANTICISM FOR THE DARKER SIDE

V. DESPITE KANT, THE ROMANTICS ARGUE OR FEEL THE ESSENCE OF NATURE IS BEYOND REASON, SO THE PRIMACY OF THE IMAGINATION IS ESSENTIAL TO ALLOW US TO "SEE INTO THE LIFE OF THINGS" (WORDSWORTH'S TINTERN ABBEY)

A. SCHELLING (p.346 ff) ATTEMPTS TO FUSE THE NATURAL AND ETHEREAL, HIS WORLD SPIRIT ANIMATES MIND AND MATTER, THEORETICALLY ACHIEVING A SYNTHESIS.

B.WORDSWORTH CALLS THE WORLD SPIRIT THE PRESENCE--SEE TINTERN ABBEY, AND USES ACTION VERBS TO DESCRIBE ITS DYNAMIC:

And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.

VI. THE UNIVERSAL AND NATIONAL ROMANTICISM: THE ROMANTICS WERE SIMULTANEOUSLY INDEBTED TO ARISTOTLE (MATTER AS A CATALYST) AND PLATO (ACHIEVING THE ETHEREAL THROUGH WHAT MATTER PRESENTS)

A. THE HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OR RACE--THE RISE OF FAIRY TALE LITERATURE:

1--GRIMM BROTHERS-(LATER WE WILL LEARN OF A RATHER IMPORTANT GOOSE...?)
2--FOLK TALES OF THE COMMUNITY
3--NATIONAL SOCIALISM-- ‘TRIUMPH OF THE WILL’--THE DARK SIDE, BUT HITLER APPEALED TO THE ROMANTIC IMPULSES IN GERMANY THAT SAW INDUSTRIALIZATION AS INIMICAL TO THE WORLD SOUL'S EXPRESSION, THUS CORRUPTING THE PEASANT-FARMER WHOM HE EXTOLLED AS BEING CLOSER TO NATURE THAN THE BUREAUCRAT.
4--FOR TOLKIEN, A DEVOUT ROMAN CATHOLIC, THE FAIRY TALE = MYTH = TRUTH, BEST EXPRESSED IN THE GOSPELS.: SEE MY TOLKIEN SEMINAR CLASS, AND CONSIDER THESE LINES FROM HIS MYTHOPOEIA:

Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme
of things not found within recorded time.
It is not they that have forgot the Night,
or bid us flee to organized delight,
in lotus-isles of economic bliss
forswearing souls to gain a Circe-kiss
(and counterfeit at that, machine-produced,
bogus seduction of the twice-seduced).

VII. THE APPEARANCE IN THE WOODS OF ALADDIN, p. 351

A. THE SPIRIT IN THE LAMP HE RUBBED LOOKED LIKE HILDE’S FATHER. NOTICE THE NUMBER OF TIMES MAGIC APPEARS IN THE NOVEL, ESPECIALLY IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE MIRROR SOPHIE FINDS IN THE CABIN. TOLKIEN ARGUED IN HIS FAIRY TALE ESSAY THAT THE GENRE INVOKES MAGIC, BUT NOT THE STAGE MAGICIAN'S TRICK; FOR HIM, MAGIC IS TRANSUBSTANTIATION, AN INVITATION TO THE ETHEREAL.

B. PUZZLE: HOW CAN HILDE’ FATHER APPEAR OUT OF A LAMP IN A STORY WRITTEN ABOUT SOPHIE BY A MAN IN LEBANON?

VIII. SOPHIE AND ALBERTO ARE LIVING IN A BOOK THAT HILDE’S FATHER WILL GIVE TO HER AS A PRESENT FOR HER 15TH BIRTHDAY, (p.352)

B. THE ESSENCE OF ROMANTICISM IS ON PAGE 352 AS HILDE EXCLAIMS,

1--ONLY AN ANGEL CAN REBEL?
2--CAN HILDE PUNISH HER FATHER FOR THIS TRICK?

IX. WHAT IF SOPHIE AND ALBERTO ARE NOTING BUT IMAGES IN THE MIND OF THE MAJOR WHO IN TURN IS NOTHING BUT AN IMAGE IN THE MIND OF...

X. IS THE AUTHOR A PART OF A HIGHER MIND? (SPINOZA? BERKELEY?)

XII. IF SOPHIE EXISTS ONLY IN THE MAJOR'S MIND, MUST WE SAY THE SAME FOR HILDE AND THE AUTHOR OF THE NOVEL AND OURSELVES. WHAT WOULD ARISTOTLE ARGUE? REMEMBER HIS FONDNESS FOR CLASSIFICATION AND ORGANIZATION? WHAT IS BEING ORGANIZED HERE?