DJ: Quite a lot of what people think of as Romanticism now has been reduced to little bite-sized chunks, and the full radicalism and intellectual complexity of Romanticism is often omitted. Do you not feel that Romanticism has been almost Bowdlerised?

TB: At one level it clearly has, in that Caspar David Friedrich's Wanderer above the Sea of Mist will pop up now on biscuit tins in Germany, and appear on jigsaw puzzles and so on, and has been vulgarised and turned into kitsch, if you like. On the other hand, the most powerful message of Wanderer above the Sea, and indeed in all of Friedrich's paintings, is that there is a transcendental dimension, to gain entry into which is deeply rewarding. And one way of doing it is through the contemplation of Friedrich's paintings — that was his intention. As one of his contemporaries said, "Looking at Friedrich's paintings is like looking at a man praying." 

DJ: If you take away the religious and intellectual background to Romanticism, what have you got left? I wonder how easy it is for us to think ourselves back into their mental world.

JB: It's such a fascinating and complex period, the early 19th century, that to think oneself back into all the aspects of it is very difficult, because the moment you emphasise one dimension you leave out another. We've said nothing about the importance of the abolition of slavery, and the centrality of the abolition debate to the writing of so many of the Romantics in England. A hero like Toussaint L'Ouverture, the Haitian revolution — these were absolutely central at the time, but many discussions about Romanticism seem to forget about that. 

TB: That's a very good point and one needs to move East across the Channel, where both of those things were important, but where one could also include the whole Philhellene movement that bound Romantics right across Europe.

JB: One aspect of Romanticism where there is a lot of interest at the moment is the fascination with the East, with Romantic Orientalism. There's the fascinating story of this guy William Jones, who got interested in Hindu culture, an interest in comparative religion, an idealisation of aspects of Hinduism, for instance vegetarianism — these were very important parts of Romanticism, and they do seem to strike a chord with younger people today. 

DJ: That's very true, and the whole environmentalist movement, and so on.

JB: Yes, what in one of my books I call Romantic ecology.

DJ: Although there's something much more attractive about the Romantics' ideas about nature and so on than what it has now become. In many ways we're missing the real point of a great deal of the Romantic aesthetic, because we've turned these things into ideologies, haven't we?

JB: But that's where Tim's point about the critique of the Enlightenment and his reading of The Ring returns, because where there is a direct line between Romantic ecology through to the modern Green movement is that sense that the great advances of the Enlightenment have a downside, and that comes with the desecration of nature.