Figures of Natality: Reading the Political in the Age of Goethe (New Directions in German Studies)

__Figures of Natality__ reads metaphors and narratives of birth in the age of Goethe (1770-1832) as indicators of the new, the unexpected, and the revolutionary. Using Hannah Arendt's concept of natality, Joseph O'Neil argues that Lessing, Goethe, and Kleist see birth as challenging paradigms of Romanticism as well as of Enlightenment, resisting the assimilation of the political to economics, science, or morality. They choose instead to preserve the conflicts and tensions at the heart of social, political, and poetic revolutions. In a historical reading, these tensions evolve from the idea of revolution as Arendt reads it in British North America to the social and economic questions that shape the French Revolution, culminating in a consideration of the culture of the modern republic as such. Alongside this geopolitical evolution, the ways of representing the political change, too, moving from the new as revolutionary eruption to economic metaphors of birth. More pressing still is the question of revolutionary subjectivity and political agency, and Lessing, Goethe, and Kleist have an answer that is remarkably close to that of Walter Benjamin, as that “secret index” through which each past age is “pointed toward redemption.” __Figures of Natality__ uncovers this index at the heart of scenes and products of birth in the age of Goethe. "Figures of Natality reads metaphors and narratives of birth in the age of Goethe (1770-1832) as indicators of the new, the unexpected, and the revolutionary. Using Hannah Arendt's concept of natality, Joseph O'Neil argues that Goethe, Schiller, and Kleist see birth as challenging paradigms of Romanticism as well as of Enlightenment, resisting the assimilation of the political to economics, science, or morality. They choose instead to preserve the conflicts and tensions at the heart of social, political, and poetic revolutions. In a historical reading, these tensions evolve from the idea of revolution as Arendt reads it in British North America to the social and economic questions that shape the French Revolution and from there to the question of the German nation. Alongside this geopolitical evolution, the ways of representing the political change, too, moving from the new as revolutionary eruption to economic metaphors of birth. More pressing still is the question of revolutionary subjectivity and political agency, and Goethe, Kleist, and Schiller have an answer that is remarkably close to that of Walter Benjamin, as that "secret index" through which each past age is "pointed toward redemption." Figures of Natality uncovers this index at the heart of scenes and products of birth in the age of Goethe."--Bloomsbury Publishing. "Examines the work of Goethe, Kleist, and Schiller in the light of Hannah Arendt's concept of natality"--Bloomsbury Publishing. "Figures of Natality reads metaphors and narratives of birth in the age of Goethe (1770-1832) as indicators of the new, the unexpected, and the revolutionary. Using Hannah Arendt's concept of natality, Joseph O'Neil argues that Goethe, Schiller, and Kleist see birth as challenging paradigms of Romanticism as well as of Enlightenment, resisting the assimilation of the political to economics, science, or morality. They choose instead to preserve the conflicts and tensions at the heart of social, political, and poetic revolutions. In a historical reading, these tensions evolve from the idea of revolution as Arendt reads it in British North America to the social and economic questions that shape the French Revolution and from there to the question of the German nation. Alongside this geopolitical evolution, the ways of representing the political change, too, moving from the new as revolutionary eruption to economic metaphors of birth. More pressing still is the question of revolutionary subjectivity and political agency, and Goethe, Kleist, and Schiller have an answer that is remarkably close to that of Walter Benjamin, as that "secret index" through which each past age is "pointed toward redemption." Figures of Natality uncovers this index at the heart of scenes and products of birth in the age of Goethe. "-- Provided by publisher FC 1 New Directions in German Studies 2 Volumes in the series: 3 Title 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 Acknowledgments 9 Abbreviations 11 Introduction 12 1 Lyric Births: Poetic Revolution and Maieutic Technique 63 2 Genre, Generation, and the Retreat of the Political 114 3 Ghostly Births: The Specter of Romanticism and the Maieutics of the Medium 157 4 “Not as in a mirror”: Wilhelm Meister and the Haunting of Sovereignty 187 5 Kleist’s Machiavellian Mothers: Institution, Relation, Distribution 236 Conclusion: Split Summits and Bifurcated Maieutics: The Political Difference and the Future of Democracy 279 Bibliography 306 Index 318 Machine generated contents note: Chapter 1: Lyric Births: Poetic Revolution and Maieutic Technique -- Chapter 2: Genre, Generation, and the Retreat of the Political -- Chapter 3: Ghostly Births: The Specter of Romanticism and the Maieutics of the Medium -- Chapter 4: "Not as in a mirror": Wilhelm Meister and the Haunting of Sovereignty -- Chapter 5: Kleist's Machiavellian Mothers: Institution, Relation, Distribution -- Conclusion: Split Summits and Bifurcated Maieutics: The Political Difference and the Future of Democracy "Examines the work of Goethe, Kleist, and Schiller in the light of Hannah Arendt's concept of natality"-- Provided by publisher