On Romantic Drama and Genres

The focus on the theatrical culture of the Romantic era, and its relations to ques- tions of form and genre as historicized in the crucial decades at the turn of the nineteenth century, provides the ground for a debate which is to be read in the context of, and in itself contributes to, the recent and impressive development of Romantic drama studies in particular. [...] Discussions in recent criticism have often pointed out a problematic perception of Romantic culture and literature, which has been at the basis of an essential misreading or, as Stuart Curran puts it, the «entrenched belief that Romanticism was inherently suspicious of, even hostile to, traditional literary forms [...]. We have inherited the myth of a radical generic breakdown in European Romanticism that in fact never happened». The persistence of such a critical commonplace is at least partly connected with the Romantic emphasis on the subjective stance, as bound to have inevitable effects on the expecta- tions of the reading public, which are based on the recognition of forms within an established syntax.