Online course
Two terms or concepts that are used rather chaotically. That have become synonymous of
anything, or mere “suitcase words”. We will attempt to give, or approach, more precise
definitions, therefore necessarily controversial, not without revising diverse historic-political
postures, as well as different aesthetical theories and of the history of the ideas.
Definitions and origins: The overcoming of the middle ages. The German tardy romanticism.
The French illuminism. The Italian double lecture. Causes of the so called renaissance. The
autumn of the middle ages. Italy as an idea. Manifestations. Painting, sculpture, architecture,
music, poetry, birth of critical history and political theory. The baroque as a problem or its
turning into a problem. From the etymological origin to the symbolical origin. Torsion and
spiral. The cruel and the macabre. Baroque politics. Can we say there is a baroque fantastic?
