Chapter V: Introduction: Of the Romantic in General

1. The Principle of inward Subjectivity 282

2. The steps in the Evolution of the content and form of the Romantic Principle 283

[(_a_) Point of departure deduced from the Absolute viewed as the determinate existence of a self-knowing subject of thought and volition. Man viewed as self-possessed Divine. History of Christ 286

(_b_) This process of self-recognition and reconcilement viewed as a process in which strain and conflict arise. Death as viewed by Christian and Greek art contrasted 287

(_c_) The finite aspect of subjective life in the secular interests, the passions, collisions, and suffering, or enjoyment of the earthly life] 290

3. The romantic mode of exposition in relation to its content 291

(_a_) The content of romantic viewed relatively to the Divine extremely restricted. Nature divested of its association, symbolic or otherwise, with Divinity 291

(_b_) Religion the premiss of romantic art in a far more enhanced degree than in symbolic art. Influence of the romantic principle on the medium adopted 293

(_c_) Two worlds covered by the romantic principle, viz., the soul-kingdom of Spirit reconciled therein, and the realm of external Nature from which even the aspect of ugliness is not excluded. Latter world only portrayed in so far as soul finds a home therein] 293

Division of subject-matter 295