Culture and identity: historicity in German literature and thought 1770 - 1815

This interdisciplinary study examines the impact of the emerging awareness of historicity on the concepts of modernity, identity, and culture as they developed in German thought around 1800. It shows how this awareness determined the German notion of the priority of cultural identity. Key texts from __Sturm und Drang__, Weimar Classicism, German Romanticism and German Idealism, including Goethe’s __Faust I__ and __Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre__, are contextualised in relation to post-Enlightenment debates on historicity and modernity. The study traces the modification of the Enlightenment concepts of perfectibility and universal ideals to accommodate the new notion of temporal particularity and impermanence. This is achieved by embedding these once static concepts in a historical process that is powered by a self-prompting internal dialectic. Through synthetic absorption within the historical succession the dialectical process allows for the continuity of values, while leaving room for discontinuity and difference by relying on oppositional successions. The study reveals close connections between the intellectual concerns, the literary ambitions, and the endeavours to construct a modern German identity during this period, which suggests a far greater intellectual coherence of the __Goethezeit__ regarding intellectual challenges and objectives than has been previously assumed.

This interdisciplinary study examines the impact of the emerging awareness of historicity on the concepts of modernity, identity, and culture as they developed in German thought around 1800. It shows how thisawareness determined the German notion of the priority of cultural identity. Key texts from Sturm und Drang, WeimarClassicism, German Romanticism andGerman Idealism, including Goethe’s Faust I and Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, are contextualised in relation to post-Enlightenment debates on historicity and modernity. The study traces the modification of the Enlightenment concepts of perfectibility and universal ideals to accommodate the new notion of temporal particularity and impermanence. This is achieved by embedding these once static concepts in a historical process that is powered by a self-prompting internal dialectic. Through synthetic absorption within the historical succession the dialectical process allowsfor the continuity of values, while leaving room for discontinuity and difference by relying on oppositional successions. The study reveals close connections between the intellectual concerns, the literary ambitions, and the endeavours to construct a modern German identity during this period, whichsuggests a far greater intellectual coherence of the Goethezeit regardingintellectual challenges and objectives than has been previously assumed.

Frontmatter Contents Chapter 1 Historicity and the Definition of Modern Culture: The German Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes and the New Concepts of Literature Chapter 2 The Historicity of Modern Knowledge and Consciousness: German Idealism Chapter 3 Historicity, Modernity and German Identity: “Stammvolk Europas” and Modern Kulturnation Chapter 4 Grasping the Historical Dialectic of the Modern German Existence: Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre Chapter 5 Historicity as Identity: The German Myth of Modernity in Goethe’s Faust I Backmatter Examines the impact of the awareness of historicity on the concepts of modernity, identity, and culture as they developed in German thought around 1800. This work shows how this awareness determined the German notion of the priority of cultural identity. It traces the modification of the Enlightenment concepts of perfectibility By Maike Oergel. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.