Dead crab. Or maybe it's sleeping. Little Howrah Beach. January 2012. Theme Thursday again and our minds are firmly fixed on the concept of STORM. Well, I should really say that my little mind is actually geared towards STURM ( und Drang ). Typically, people have translated STURM und Drang as "STORM and Stress" and use it to describe the proto-Romantic movement in German literature and music that occurred in the late-eighteenth century. Ever the dissenter, I prefer the less frequent translation of "STORM and Urge ". The implications of the difference is not a minor one. STURM und Drang was characterised by the liberation of individual subjectivity and the embrace of spectacular extremes of emotion – i.e. ladies fainting, men challenging each other to duels/ love affairs/ adventures. This free expression emerged largely in reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism imposed by the Enlightenment and its associated aesthetic movements. An example, previ...