The "Titan" is Jean Paul's longest--and the author meant it, and held
it, to be his greatest and best--romance; and his public (including Mr.
Carlyle) seems, on the whole, to have sustained his opinion. He was ten
years about it, and his other works, written in the interval, were
preparatory and tributary to this.
As to the _general_ meaning of the title there can hardly, on the whole,
be any doubt. It does _not_ refer, as the division into Jubilees and
Cycles might, to be sure, suggest to one on first approaching it, to the
titanic scale and scope of the work, but to the titanic violence against
which it is aimed.
It seems, indeed, from a letter of the author's, that he thought at
first of calling it "Anti-Titan." The only question in regard to the
_application_ of the title seems to be, whether the champion of truth
and justice against the moral Titans in this case was meant to be
understood as represented by the hero of the story, with his friends,
resisting the iniquity which moved earth and hell to ruin him, or
whether the book itself is the Anti-Titan, and an age of extravagance
the Titan.