Romantic idealism located true reality in consciousness, elevating artists into prophetic seers
Evidence
In literature, idealism came to mean the representation of things in an ideal form or as they might be: the imaginative treatment of a subject through poetry or fiction. If true reality is located in our consciousness, then this bestows a central importance on the imagination. Coleridge’s poetic practice famously begins from an appreciation of the importance of imagination, a vital force with the power to transform objects and transfigure the mundane. … The result of this quasi-divine elevation of ego and imagination is that the Romantic artist becomes a prophetic genius, a seer for his community. Artists become—as Percy Bysshe Shelley later put it—“heirophants of an unapprehended inspiration” working in the service of art as a substitute for religion. — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 88
Categorization
- XREF: This genealogy of the ‘critic as priest’ gives a critical vocabulary for positioning how Hamid’s narrator in The Reluctant Fundamentalist speaks as a prophetic witness — useful framing for reading protagonist-narrators as clerisy figures. — connects to: German idealism’s elevation of imagination grounded the Romantic artist as prophetic seer.; German idealism’s inward turn elevated imagination and made the artist a prophetic seer — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 88; Art achieves what philosophy strives for, but only at the cost of illusion — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 687 (+4 more)
- yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: German idealism’s elevation of imagination grounded the Romantic artist as prophetic seer.; German idealism’s inward turn elevated imagination and made the artist a prophetic seer — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 88; Art achieves what philosophy strives for, but only at the cost of illusion — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 687 (+4 more)
Broader Connections
- German idealism’s inward turn elevated imagination and made the artist a prophetic seer
#corroborates(0.96) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 88 - German idealism’s elevation of imagination grounded the Romantic artist as prophetic seer.
#corroborates(0.95) - Idealism’s supremacy of thought masks thought’s practical impotence
#complicates(0.73) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 518 - Art achieves what philosophy strives for, but only at the cost of illusion
#complicates(0.72) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 687 - Presuming aesthetic theory matches artistic practice is itself idealist delusion
#complicates(0.71) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 243