Romanticism embodies the neutral term in Balzac’s character system

Evidence

But we have already mentioned a likely candidate for the neutral or neuter term. Its apparently inconsistent synthesis of bourgeois origins and cultural values is indeed realized in the sorry young would-be poet Athanase, and beyond him by Romanticism itself: a movement of which Balzac’s work, like that of Hegel, stands as a thoroughgoing critique. — Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 3985

Categorization

• XREF: Joins the semiotic square exposition to the critique of Romanticism that echoes throughout Jameson and connects to his Hegelian framing. — connects to: Lukacs ranked royalist Balzac above socialist Zola on artistic fidelity to totality. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 536