A Research On The Thought Of New Myth Of Early German Romanticism

The thought of New Myth of Early German Romanticism was generated in the long western Irrationalism and modern Rationalism tradition. As a succeeding attempt of the debate of religious problems among Germany ideological circles, it directly originated in the passion for French Revolution and reflection on French Revolution’s failure.This thought began with the attention to the Problem of human existence, which was neglected by the Enlightenment and Rationalism. In On Religion, Schleiermacher analyzed two kinds of existence:secular existence and religious existence. Secular existence focused on the finiteness, while religious existence was open to infinity. Moreover, these two kinds of existence both socialized and appeared in the history. However, when he further analyzed the history of Christianity, he encountered the religious existence’s contradiction between internal vitality and external decay. Therefore, Schleiermacher gave up the analysis method of existence, in order to call for a new form of religion to solve the contradiction. The other members of Early German Romanticism did not satisfied with the theoretical settlement of the problem, and they practiced creating a new form of religion, that is, New Myth.The feature of New Myth contains three aspects:new and constantly updated content; holiness and transcendence of religious emotion; abundance and plenitude of content. New Myth on the one hand means narrow and particular myth with concrete experienced feature; on the other hand, it means generalized encyclopedia of myths as a prototype. And these two meanings of New Myth interact and are complementary to each other. This paper first briefly introduces the practical creations of New Myth by the Early German Romanticism, next analysis the myth elements such as God and Hero; the world and operation of the myth successively. The man in the New Myth can experience the one-time salvation from sins and arbitrarily make use of his creativity.The practical meaning of the New Myth of Early German Romanticism is that:not only concerns individual lives, highly praises the pursuit of life, which regards the creativity and the emotion as the highest value, and causes the people’s reflections on real condition of existence; but also concerns about politics, presents the ideal blueprint for practical politics, and causes the revolutionary aspirations against the current order. It further analyses in New Myth regardless of the distinction between man and god, the god-man relation, the man-man relation, and the relation between man and himself has fundamentally changed, which lead to the disorder and lost of sacred values. Finally the myth becomes the discourse of human. New Myth faces the destiny to break down.The thought of New Myth of Early German Romanticism has profound influences in history:this is mainly reflected in:First, it profoundly influenced the direction of ideological history in Germany in the19th century. Second, it triggered a wave of roaring waves of literature and art, and directly led to a new passion on the people of the national culture, Medieval and Eastern civilization. Third, in the realistic history, the New Myth, which symbolizes the German cultural unity and prosperity, had stimulated people’s utopian ideals and revolutionary enthusiasm, and affected the Marxism and the Fascism. It had profoundly changed the historical process of Germany and even the world since19th Century.