Sartor Resartus · Chapter
V: Romance explained
Teufelsdröckh falls deeply in love with Blumine, experiencing a transcendent but ultimately doomed romance.
What happens
Teufelsdröckh falls deeply in love with Blumine, experiencing a transcendent but ultimately doomed romance. Their relationship, marked by intense passion and spiritual connection, ends abruptly when Blumine decides to marry a richer man, plunging Teufelsdröckh into despair and setting the stage for his later spiritual crises.
Themes in this chapter
Love and Loss
The chapter centers on Teufelsdröckh's intense love for Blumine and the profound loss he suffers when she leaves him.
Spiritual Crisis and Faith
The romantic experience is described in quasi-religious terms, and its dissolution triggers a crisis that prefigures Teufelsdröckh's later spiritual struggles.
Critique of Society and Materialism
The Editor criticizes the societal pressures that lead Blumine to choose wealth over love, highlighting materialism's corrosive effect.
Characters to notice
- Diogenes Teufelsdröckh
Falls in love with Blumine, experiences ecstasy and heartbreak, and is left devastated by her rejection.
- Blumine
The object of Teufelsdröckh's love; she ultimately ends their relationship to marry a richer man.
- The Editor
Narrates and comments on Teufelsdröckh's romantic episode, providing critical perspective.
Key passages
“One morning, he found his Morning-Star all dimmed and dusky-red; the fair creature was silent, absent, she seemed to have been weeping. Alas, no longer a Morning-star, but a troublous skyey Portent, announcing that the Doomsday had dawned! She said, in a tremulous voice, They were to meet no more.”
One morning, Teufelsdröckh saw that Blumine, his 'Morning-Star,' was sad and distant; she told him they would never see each other again.
The moment Blumine ends their relationship, marking the climax of the romance.
“Thus was Teufelsdröckh made immortal by a kiss. And then? Why, then—'thick curtains of Night rushed over his soul, as rose the immeasurable Crash of Doom; and through the ruins as of a shivered Universe was he falling, falling, towards the Abyss.'”
Their final kiss immortalized him, but immediately afterward he felt as if the universe shattered and he plunged into an abyss of despair.
The kiss symbolizes both the peak of love and the onset of devastating loss.
“Love is not altogether a Delirium, yet has it many points in common therewith. I call it rather a discerning of the Infinite in the Finite, of the Idea made Real; which discerning again may be either true or false, either seraphic or demoniac, Inspiration or Insanity.”
Love is like a delirium, but more accurately it is seeing the infinite within the finite, which can be either divine or maddening.
Teufelsdröckh reflects on the dual nature of love as both transcendent and potentially destructive.