The Myth and Identity of the Romantic Artist in European Literature

This study addresses the question of artistic identity and the myth of the artist as it has been shaped by the artists themselves. While the term artist is to be understood in a broad sense, the focus of this study is the literature of the Romantic tradition. Identity is largely perceived as a construct, and a central hypothesis of this book concerns its aesthetic value and the ways it creates dominant narratives of self-perception that produce powerful myths.
The construction of the artist's identity, be it collective or personal, rests on a series of aesthetic praxes. Caught between the mythic idealisation of poetic genius and its social devaluation, the Romantic artist seeks to create a place for himself, and in doing so, he engages in his own mythmaking. This process is studied in an interdisciplinary perspective, approaching texts and writers from different traditions. The study analyses various typologies of the artist, numerous mythmaking strategies as well as several postural techniques; all of which have sketched major direct or indirect fictional self-portraits in the European tradition.

Elena Anastasaki is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at the Department of Language and Intercultural Studies at the University of Thessaly (Greece). She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the Universities of Kent and Paris 8.

Acknowledgments Notes on Translation Introduction Overview of the Background Scene Outline of Approach, Key Concepts and Methodology Book Structure Part One Chapter 1, Forming Identity: An Interdisciplinary Approach Ethos and the Image of the Author Narrative and Identity Theories: Narrating the Self, an Ontological Dilemma Identity and Aesthetics Kant, Schiller, and Romantic Aesthetics Chapter 2, The Making of Artistic Genius A philosophical Concept The Figure of Chatterton Coleridge's Chatterton: A Life-long Companion Alfred de Vigny's Chatterton: The Emblem of a Social Cause Chapter 3, Goethe's Prometheus, Rousseau's Pygmalion, and their Progeny "Here sit I, forming mortals / After my image": The Promethean Artist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Prometheus" Lord Byron, "Ode to Prometheus" Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound Victor Hugo, "Genius," "The grieving poem weeps" Théophile Gautier, "On the Prometheus of Madrid" Pygmalion and the Ontological Status of the Work of Art Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Pygmalion Thomas Lovell Beddoes, "Pygmalion, or the Cyprian Statuary" Part Two Chapter 4, "Now, if I know myself, I should say, that I have no character at all"-Byron's Mythmaking Strategies The Quest for a Personal Voice The Poet's Physical Appearance The Poet as Pilgrim: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Poetic Ventriloquism: The Lament of Tasso and The Prophecy of Dante Byron's Public Persona Chapter 5, Percy Shelley and the Metaphysical Authenticity of the Poet Alastor, or The Adventures of the Poetic Mind From Aesthetic Experience to the Aesthetic Self Adonais, or the Self from Without - Pivotal Moments of Self Awareness From Poet to Poet: "To Wordsworth" and "Lines to __" ("Sonnet to Byron") Chapter 6, Honoré de Balzac, the Napoleon of Letters "[L]a tête dans le ciel et les pieds sur cette terre" - Balzac's Fictional Artists The Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man The Artist as Martyr Sympathetic Parody: Grotesque and Sublime Identities The Bourgeois Artist Chapter 7, Théophile Gautier, Stylistic Identity and Poetic Time The Negation of the Self: Les Jeunes-France The Golden Fleece: A Quest for Rubens' Blonds, or How Art Spoils Reality Autobiographic Sketches and the Poet as Shapeshifter Conclusion, A Sociopoetical Approach to Genius Materialistic Representations of Genius The Poet's Two Bodies Napoleon Artistic Identity as a Narrative Construct in a European Context Works Cited and Consulted