ENTHUSIASM: ROMANTIC ACCOUNTS OF A MODERN EMOTION

Among predominant dysthymic states of the Romantic soul, enthusiasm seems a bit of an oddity; prisoner of a disenchanted world and abandoned to its own self-regulating system, the modern self frequently experiences mood disorders including anxiety, ennui, depression, an acute feeling of loneliness or incompleteness, and enthusiastic fervour may appear as a streak of colour in this monochrome affective landscape. Despite its negative medical and philosophical implications throughout medieval and early modern European history, which would justify its association with melancholy particularly in the humoral tradition, enthusiasm imposes itself through its Platonic idealistic content in Romanticism and has a pivotal role in the process of Übereinstimmung, of bridging the finite and the infinite. Its implicit ramifications in religion, art, and politics show its paradigmatic fidelity to the Romantic age and the texts chosen belonging to various authors (Schleiermacher, the Schlegel brothers, Wackenroder, Hölderlin, Madame de Staël, Hegel, J. de Maistre, E. Burke) illustrate the intrinsic qualities of a modern emotion, its purity, versatility, and intensity, which define this affective category in the centuries to come.