Author:
LU Yiyun, Boya Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Peking University.
Abstract:
The poetic theory of Early German Romanticism (Frühromantik) is often interpreted as a reaction against the Enlightenment, but the specific role of Christianity in this context has received comparatively little attention. This paper argues that Christianity shaped Early Romanticism in several distinct ways. First, figures such as Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis explicitly rejected the Lutheran principle of sola scriptura, advocating instead a return to the spiritual core of Christianity. Second, drawing on Enlightenment accounts of religion in thinkers such as Lessing and Kant, they sought to reconfigure Christianity as a "Universal religion" grounded in human nature, thereby moving beyond historically institutionalized forms of faith. Finally, after the dissolution of Early Romanticism, the Catholic turn of its members revealed a conservative dimension within its poetic theory, while at the same time anticipating postmodern philosophical currents later developed by Nietzsche and Heidegger. By examining these multiple dimensions, this paper shows how Christianity functioned as a constitutive force in the poetic and religious thought of Early German Romanticism, offering a new perspective on the dialectical relationship between Romanticism and religious modernity.
Keywords:
Early Romanticism, Lutheranism, Universal Religion, Existentialism
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