Suffering and practical life in the Romantics and in Manzoni

Abstract

Suffering and practical life in the Romantics and in Manzoni One of the most interesting aspects of Romanticism is its illustration of oppos- ing solutions to problems of life, whether general or stemming from specific historical or social circumstances.We find in fact assertive or submissive per- sons, the latter usually motivated by religious considerations, though these are not always derived from orthodox Christianity.The renewed emphasis on suffering, as Schenk (100) points out, was a characteristically Romantic trait, though the ancient Greeks had hailed the discipline of suffering and Christian theorists had regularly elaborated on it.In marked contrast to the optimism of the Enlightenment, says Schenk, the Romantics can be said to have redis- covered the inevitability of human suffering; Michelet, for example, styled Géricault "the Correggio of suffering," because his paintings illustrated ship- wrecks, mad scenes and executions.Indeed, many Romantics, especially in Continental Europe, adopted a conservative and traditionally Christian posi- tion, for the most part Catholic, in reaction to the sterile "illuminismo" of the eighteenth century (Frye 39).For Leopardi, on the other hand, the pointless- ness of life should lead us to pity and assist our fellow human beings; our only release is through death, as he states in A se stesso.

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