The renowned scholar Rudiger Safranski's "Romanticism: A German Affair "both off
ers an accessible overview of Romanticism and, more critically, traces its lasti
ng influence, for better and for ill, on German culture. Safranski begins with t
he eighteenthcentury "Sturm und Drang "movement, which would sow the seeds for R
omanticism in Germany. While Romanticism was a broad artistic, literary, and int
ellectual movement, German thinkers were especially concerned with its strong ph
ilosophical-metaphysical and religious dimension. Safranski follows this spirit
in its afterlife in the work of Heinrich Heine, Richard Wagner, Friedrich Nietzs
che, Thomas Mann, and through the later artistic upheavals of the twentieth cent
ury. He concludes by carefully considering Romanticism's possible influence in t
he rise of National Socialism and the student revolt of 1968."
