EN
The following article is a voice in a discussion on the subject of perspectives of a modern synthesis of Romantic literature in Europe. The methodological part presents theoretical pre-sumptions of this scholarly project. Also, in this part there are postulates of a systemic, and at the same time, a multi-perspective depiction of history of European literature. Thanks to this, it would be possible to encompass various aspects of a philosophy of life, literature and cul-ture of the era, and also, to integrate inside and outside literary point of view, a map of prob-lems with temporal approach, a general view with interpretations focused on particular works. Furthermore, an attention has been drawn to a necessity of o comparative approach, which would register the history of individual national literature into a general trend of trans-formations of literature in Europe. In the second part of the discourse, a German textbook entitled Romantik-Handbuch (the joint work edited by Helmut Schanze, Stuttgart 2003), has been subjected to a detailed analysis. This text presents a rich intellectual panorama of this trend in Germany and includes the most up-to-date status of knowledge on the era. Next to the history of literature of Ger-man Romanticism shown against a background of transformations of culture of that time, the second part presents the main features of the Romantic philosophy of life, convinced of the collapse of a “common world”, its splitting on finality and infinity, the “ideal” and everyday life, but also insistently making an attempt to reconcile an individual with the world, art with science, literature with life. The unique conception of the discourse, presents the Romantic humanities in the context of the present day, emphasises the historic contexts of the era, pre-sents the key works of German Romanticism and the significance of genres and literary con-ventions popular at that time. It also describes the accomplishments of representatives of this trend in other fields of art and the various branches of science. Undeniable competence of authors and multi-directionality of the given lecture, deter-mine considerable values of the discussed work. The reading-matter of Romantik-Handbuch may serve as a perfect starting point for the reflexion on the formula of the modern historical and literary syntheses.