The Symbolological Aspect of Romanticism

Abstract

Romanticism represents an extensive artistic site for literary symbols. For this reason, it seems extremely important to explore the artistic extent of the symbols. Starting from the specificity of this direction, the whole spectrum of free interpretations of chrestomatic mythical archetypes as well as biblical pictorial language overlaps. 

In the work of the Romantics, the eternal, uncompromising struggle of two worlds (the rational and the unreal) is an excellent means for the literary demonstration of the inner world of their opposing essence. However, for the "inquiring mind", there is no sensation of absolute harmony that has produced the "Weltschmerz"...

For the Romantic poets, nature is a kind of "spiritual echo" and represents a unique artistic phenomenon. However, literary symbols must be separated from the spectrum of poetic vocation or purpose of nature, because the illustration of nature cannot be attributed to a symbol.

Taking into account the Georgian material (and this material is extensively and thoroughly researched by me), one could conclude that a layer of literary symbols is unswervingly associated with Romanticism and receives an impressive extent within the framework of this direction.

Based on Georgian ethnopsychology - artistic thought (creative consciousness) is essentially presented in a poetic-philosophical cut, which can be more or less explained by the homogeneity of symbolological perception, because Georgian literature mainly represents biblical pictorial language and only partially overlaps with the interpretable archetypes of myth.

For this reason, Georgian Romanticism generated its own literary symbols as soon as it emerged, - of course with the Romantic colouring and corresponding "canonicity". In this matter, absolute perfection is achieved by Nikoloz Baratashvili, whose artistic and biographical peripeties contain and radiate the spirit of the entire Romanticism. The poetic work of Nikoloz Baratashvili from the point of view of symbolology was thoroughly researched in my scientific papers, and as a result, the portrait of his pictorial language emerged in full clarity. Nikoloz Baratashvili, as a romanticist, founded the phenomenon of the language of pain in Georgian literature. This phenomenon was explored in my treatise "Aesthetics of World Pain". The intertextual content of Baratashvili's work is set out in the "Symphonic Dictionary of Literary Symbols". For this reason, in the present article I limit myself only to exploring the vocabulary of the pictorial language of Vakhtang Orbeliani, Alexander Chavchavadze and Grigol Orbeliani.