Romaticism and Religion in German Nationalism Essay -- Analysis, Hans

Growing out of the amatory movement of the 19th century, there were many factors and various groups that contributed to the rise of German nationalism. With the nation fragmented, and Europe in social turmoil, the German people were lusting for unearthly and worked up unity that Enlightenment thinking could non provide. The population glowering to existing religious groups, romantic thinkers, and secular political faiths to fill the emotional gap that existed in a modernizing Europe.In the name, Romanticism and the Rise of German Nationalism, Hans Kohn attempts to show how romanticism developed from a completely artistic movement, into a crucial component in the rise of German nationalism. In the commencement exercise of five sections, Kohn begins by describing the origins of the romantic movements op fleck toward Enlightenment thinking, and of the French Revolution. He argues that the romantics revered history namely the middle ages which was the foundation for the school ing of the national community. This idealization of history that Kohn argues rejected the current times and had the emotional effect of instilling hope to the people, a point he makes mop up when he give tongue tos, The romantic movement began as an artistic revolt against eighteenth-century culture which seemed not to satisfy the soul and not to warm the heart. (FN, 445).The second section of the article focuses mainly on Novalis, who Kohn calls, The first wide German romanticist.(FN, 447) He contends that Novalis wished the state played more of an intimate role in peoples lives, but makes clear that this was not a political concept, but poetic.(FN, 448). He elaborates by stating that Novalis did not stress unification on a national basis, but ground on the sp... ...an denominations namely Protestantism. Williamson makes this abundantly clear when he states, Indeed, I obtain in this study that the longing for myth is best understood not as a secularization of traditional re ligion or as a form of secular religion, but rather as a development within Christian (especially German Protestant) culture...(FN, 4) Williamson takes the time to discuss the reforms within Protestantism and keeps religion central in the study. This is a good study for anyone interested in nineteenth-century German intellectual history, and how religion played such a undischarged role in the development of national ideas.In the midst of great change on the European continent, Germany was left in a position of uncertainty. With the arrival of modernization, the population was looking for order and emotional fulfillment in a fragmented and changing nation.