THE FRUEHROMANTIK AS A CRITICAL IMITATION OF THE LATE MEDIEVAL ROMANCE (JENA CIRCLE, NOVALIS, LUDWIG TIECK, FRIEDRICH SCHLEGEL)

This study reexamines the medieval studies of the Erohcomantikec (Tieck, Novalis, the Schlegels, and Wackenroder) arguing that their medieval scholarship was so influential in shaping Jena Circle aes-thetic theory and fiction that much of their work constitutes a critical imitation of the conventions and values of late medieval and early renaissance literature. My analysis rests on the possibility that a critic and poet can glean not only conventions, but the plausible theory behind those conventions from reading, not a critical essay, but a work of fiction, and that the critic and poet\u27s own aesthetic theory may also find clear expression in his works of fiction. Chapter 1 examines past scholarship of Jena Circle medieval studies as a product of generative entrenchment, a Zeitgeist bias, faulty and often too philosophical definitions of key Jena Circle terms, and a failure to recognize that there are multifarious interpretations of medieval literature. Chapter 2 illustrates the extent of the Circle\u27s involvement with late medieval literature and the scholarly methodology and conclu-sions they, ironically, share with the reigning American and English medievalists of the 1960\u27s: D. W. Robertson, Bloomfield, Muscatine, and Brewer. No lineage from Novalis to Princeton is suggested; the point is that those who dismiss Jena Circle conclusions about medieval literature as incorrect are also dismissing preface to Chaucer. Chapter 3 starts from Lovejoy\u27s premise that romantisch stems from the romance, not the novel, the Gothic novel, or the Marchen, then illuminates medieval genre theory as a key to Jena Circle genre discussions. Chapters 4 and 5 then set up eleven features--both con-ventions and underlying values--of late medieval and early renais-sance romances which the Jena Circle both praises as romantisch and imitates in its own fiction. Jena Circle symbols are shown to often be standard late medieval iconography, its idealism and view of history to be the underlying values of late medieval romances. The final chapter suggests the inherent form-content relationship in the romance which facilitated the critical imitation