#sth melancholic and gothic

[neonlacrima]

Michael Langdon & Mallory

Love is flesh, it is a flower flooded with blood.

Marina Tsvetaeva

[lesamis]

Which would be the least and most problematic German romanticists?

(Some) German Romantics From Most to Least Problematic, Ranked By Someone Who Hasn’t Studied German Literature In 7 Years

most problematic: achim von arnim. first of all what a completely laughable name. downright rancid vibes which aren’t helped by the fact that his wife was 100x cooler than him, making an already boring and - even my standards of the time - stunningly nationalist bastard look even worse than he was. 11/10. bad energies.

brentano is fast on arnim’s heels and i suspect that is exactly where he wants to be. kept marrying even though clearly all he wanted to do was follow arnim around. his writing’s ok but one time in class a guy brought his ukulele and interpreted “der spinnerin nachtlied” on it and if not for brentano i never would have gone through that. for all his Bad Political Views see arnim. 10/10 kind of a dick.

schlegel the younger TM. surprisingly readable and has some genuinely cool and interesting linguistic stuff going for him so he can stay but he converted to catholicism by choice which is surely unforgivable. never admitted that he was in love with novalis even though everyone probably knew anyway. 7/10 catholic and mediocre.

the myth. the man. the legend. it’s your boy, your dreamy and youthful and perpetually in-ill-health bf, novalis himself. whimsical as hell & wonderfully on-point about romanticisation in the fragments but it’s all downhill from there. haven’t read christenheit but @kazimirov‘s reviews indicate to me that it’s not unlike getting high in a church. uncomfortably horny for queens and only has half a foot in reality at any given moment but he’s too pretty to stay mad at. 5/10 

karoline von günderode - she rly doesn’t belong on this scale at all bc who are we to tell her she’s problematic? is she going to care? she’s too independent and also too busy writing and falling deeply in misguided love to even notice we said sth. excellent writer to the point where men were like “are we SURE this is even like, a real woman”. gothic heroine icon. 3/10 only problematic bc i wish she’d lived longer

least problematic: EICHENDORFF. the most aggressive discourse blog anno 1833 wouldn’t find a reason to start shit with eichendorff. immune to drama. super mellow and gorgeous to read; never overcomplicates things. top provider of quotes to put on german condolences cards for 2 centuries and counting. “und meine Seele spannte weit ihre Flügel aus” goddamn, joseph. goddamn. 0/10 this man is unobjectionable

off-scale: heine. heine would fight me with his own fists for including him in a list of flower-picking sunset-gazing nationalism-drivelling romantics. he would then immediately fall in love with me for all of .5 seconds & consequently write a mean and gloomy poem abt how i killed him by leading him on which is, of course, yet another expression of womankind’s wiley and dishonest nature. ceaselessly entertaining. wonderfully melancholic. funniest bitch of his time & fluent in irony, also pissed off victor hugo personally which deserves commendation. you’ll never find a poet w a more interesting and complex and deeply divided attitude to germany. i would take eight bullets to the chest for heine. transcends the problematic scale by being both the most and least problematic poet in german literary history 

seeing as the previous post was entirely non-controversial i am of course more than happy to make another one with the same premise :D ask and ye shall receive, @aflamethatneverdies & @kazimirov​! i only included the writers i still know enough about to have an opinion, however ill-formed.