Absquatch Wrote:
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> My
> reference was to someone else in this forum who
> once made such an accusation when the subject of
> the Romantics arose.
That may well have been me! I blame all the ills of contemporary society---fascism, socialism, environmentalism, vegetarianism, animal-rightsism, fantasy trilogies, and what-have-you---on the Romantics.
Smith does not fit in very well with the Romantics. For instance, in his stories, encounters with the "numinous" typically end very badly. Of the three Weird Tales "greats," only Howard, with his obsession with the themes of ancestry, blood, and race, seems to me to have anything to do with the concerns of the Romantics.
I do not see how this separates CAS from the Romantics, Jojo. Most treatments of the supernatural in Romantic poetry and fiction that come to mind also end badly:
most of the stories by Tieck; at least half of the stories by Hoffmann; Bürger's "Lenore"; Goethe's "Sorcerer's Apprentice", "Erlking", and "The Bride of Corinth"; Keats' "Lamia" and "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", Hugo's "Accursed Huntsman", etc.
Jim is quite right about the tendencies in most Romantic supernatural fiction.
In addition, and in keeping with the thread, I am focusing upon CAS's poetry. With all due respect, anyone who cannot see the incredibly obvious influence of Shelley and Keats upon the poetry of CAS needs a new set of reading glasses.
Also, we've been through this before, and I don't intend to re-hash the matter, but those who can find "obsessions with the theme of blood, ancestors, and race" in the work of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, Byron, Shelley, and Keats should really consider publishing on the subject, as that will be a revolutionary discovery, indeed. There's more to Romanticism than the Germans, and, even then, the work of Herder, Arnim, and the Brothers Grimm does not an "obsession" (nor a monolithic movement, even among the Germans) make.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 28 Feb 11 | 09:01AM by Absquatch.