[A Sip of Books] You Have Lost OO in the Age of Video

Some sentences encapsulate the entire content of the book itself, while others instantly reach the reader’s heart, creating a connection with the book. We excerpt and introduce such meaningful sentences from the book. - Editor’s note

The author says that what we need most today, as we suffer from emotional poverty, is precisely ‘romance.’ Professor Kim Seong-jung, a scholar of English literature, overlaps the 19th-century situation when the British Empire was expanding due to the Industrial Revolution with the 21st-century situation where the development of science and technology has peaked in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The author emphasizes that even today, the restoration of ‘romance and sensibility’?which British Romantic poets of that time cried out for?is desperately needed and introduces ways to achieve it.

As we move toward an era dominated by video, the delicate sensibility that allows us to be moved by words is becoming increasingly dull. Sensibility is a core concept even in British Romanticism. Recently, products that stimulate nostalgia for the past, called ‘retro’ or ‘vintage,’ have been gaining popularity. The word ‘romance’ seems to be consumed only as a value with commercial appeal in the capitalist market, while in reality, the number of people who can feel their own romance with sensibility is gradually decreasing.

- From The Age of Video, The Crisis of Romance

What we need today is ‘romance’ that will gently moisten our drying hearts like a mountain spring in a drought. But unfortunately, our reality is a step, or rather several steps, away from romance. Reality is harsh to shout for romance, and there are too many things to overcome to pursue only ideals. Therefore, for modern people, ‘romance’ sometimes seems like a fanciful dream talked about by naive fools who do not understand the ways of the world. But romance is not far away. Romance has always existed close to our lives and still does. If you suddenly hear a familiar old song while drinking coffee at a cafe and can vividly recall past experiences as if they are happening now, and if you have ever deeply longed for those times, you are surely a romantic person. According to Wordsworth’s standard, someone with such sensibility is a poet.

- From Romance Is Not Far Away

To You Who Have Forgotten Romance | Written by Kim Seong-jung | Flow Publishing | 320 pages | 17,500 KRW

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.