#peter armour

[romanticmaterialism]

Romanticism looks to the ancient world for inspiration, not because it has renewed and emphasized its myths, but because it is dissatisfied with its own rationalist, enlightened age, and therefore it resolves into a poetic art. Materialism, which appears on the heels of Romanticism, not only accepts its own era but believes it represents the highest phase in the total evolution of reason. The gods are dead, even if they had to slake their thirst with human blood in the process, and the divine has come down to earth.

Eugenio Montale, The Divine Comedy, “Introduction”