Heart to Heart: The Power of Lyrical Bonding in Romantic Nationalism
Heart to Heart: The Power of Lyrical Bonding in Romantic Nationalism
Author(s): Joep LeerssenSubject(s): Studies of Literature, Oral history, Nationalism Studies, 19th Century, Period(s) of Nation Building, Theory of Literature, Sociology of Literature
Published by: Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus
Keywords: lyricism; oral tradition; nation-building; emotive communities;
Summary/Abstract: In nineteenth-century nation-building, the textual genres investigated by researchers are usually long-distance, mediated ones, such as journalism and the novel. This article attempts to assess the function of a much more intimate literary genre, the lyrical, in that process. Lyricism was a central poetical element in Romanticism; its emotive, affect-centered mode was seen as specifically “immediate”, non-mediatized and deeply personal (and therefore non-political). How could this register aid the formation of self-defining national communities? The article suggests a special role for female poets and a privileged position of the lyrical in the interplay between print-disseminated literature and oral-performative literature, in shaping the nation as an “emotive community”.
Journal: Interlitteraria
- Issue Year: XXVIII/2023
- Issue No: 1
- Page Range: 11-25
- Page Count: 15
- Language: English