.jpg "The Soul of the Rose, a painting by John William Waterhouse (1849–1917).")
In the late 18th century, what we now call Germany consisted of a great many large and small self-governing principalities and fiefdoms, and the authorities rigidly controlled a great many aspects of their subjects' lives, not least ruling on who could marry whom, or divorce, and requiring permission to travel.
The book is about the lives and works of the first Germanic Romantics, a group of philosophers, poets, artists and thinkers, who gathered for a number of years in the small and relatively free town of Jena, 150 miles south-west of Berlin, around the turn of the 18th century, and whom the author terms the Jena Set. These were people like Caroline Böhmer-Schlegel-Schelling and her daughter Auguste; Johann Gottlieb Fichte; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel; Alexander, Caroline, and Wilhelm von Humboldt; Novalis; Friedrich Schelling; Friedrich Schiller; August Wilhelm and Friedrich Schlegel; Friedrich Schleiermacher; Ludwig Tieck, and Dorothea Veit-Schlegel.
If there's one takeaway from this compelling and well-rounded history that tells it “warts and all”, it is that the wonders the German Romantics of the Jena Set wrought so energetically perfectly illustrate that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” – in their case far greater – when creative folk come together to chat and discuss a wide, inter-disciplinary range of topics, and collaborate in producing literary or artistic works. All the more so when such meetings of minds are facilitated by someone as intelligent, perceptive, informed and energising as the Jena Set's muse, Caroline Böhmer-Schlegel-Schelling.
Of course, it wasn't all “beer and skittles” for the Jena Set in the late 18th century. Infant mortality was high and adults, too, succumbed to all manner of diseases, and the medical profession of the time knew nothing about bacteria and viruses, though there were, thankfully, already inoculations against smallpox.
The Jenna Set had their rivalries, disagreements, estrangements and scandals, too – not least as a result of flirtations, open marriages, and extra-marital affairs; and like a lot of struggling creative people, they were not without their financial difficulties.
Also in the background, there was always the danger of getting caught up in the wars that the French army was waging across Europe and not least in Germanic states; wars that left in their wake fear, destroyed homes, civilian casualties, looting by troops of anything that might be eaten, drunk, worn, or used as fuel for camp fires, and rape.
In the end, war reached Jena, and many fled, but by this time, the Jena Set had largely fallen apart, disbanded and were scattered across the Germanic states and beyond, though some letters were still being exchanged and visits made.
Thankfully, however, their rich legacy lives on, taken up and further diffused by the English Romantic poets and by American Transcendentalists, and their Romantic ideas spread around the West. Their work has had huge implications for something as basic as how we view ourselves as individuals, our individual freedom coupled with moral responsibility; how we relate to nature, of which we are an integral part; and for human qualities like feeling and imagination.
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Image: The Soul of the Rose / John William Waterhouse (1849–1917) / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain.