The Emotional Sphere of a Romantic Hero in an Artistic and Aesthetic Perspective

The article reveals the influence of the emotional sphere of a romantic hero on the generation of innovations of the artistic and aesthetic nature — romantic drama, psychological prose, philosophical poetry, metaphysical writing, as well as premonitions of innovations in different types and genres of art — existentialist reflections, thrillers, suspense, postmodern irony, the techniques of theatre within theatre, and the principle of interactivity, which received a response in the 20th-21st centuries. The article analyses the spectrum of romantic experiences that has a lifepurpose character and is associated with the vagueness of feelings, unclear romantic languor — love, enthusiasm, melancholy, fears, mystical providences, and ironic mood. Based on the analysis of poetry, prose, drama, and painting by French, German, English, and American Romanticists, it is shown that their specificity is self-sufficiency, freedom, and a tendency towards self-reflection. The creative spirit of the artist is directed upwards, to the divine spheres of the ideal, the sublime, and the beautiful, and at the same time inwards, to the introspective comprehension of the mysteries of one’s own spiritual life. Art appears in the aesthetics of Romanticism as a privileged area that allows the transcendental to be embodied in artistic images and symbols. In their aesthetic views, Romanticists give priority not to mimesis but to the transformation and multiplication of the world in art thanks to the creative imagination of the artist. In the course of a subject analysis of the features of psychological prose about love, existential reflections in philosophical poetry, tendencies to romanticize mystical horror, and a sharp ironic mood, it is shown that Romanticists endow art with an existential status — it is called upon to be rather than to designate.