German Philhellenism : the pathos of the historical imagination from Winckelmann to Goethe

This book tells the story of the relationship between German letters and ancient Greece in the second half of the eighteenth century. It is a study of two generations; that of Winckelmann and Herder, and that of Schiller and the younger Goethe. It tells the story of philhellenic ideas in the half century before Romanticism and Napoleon changed the terms in which the various legacies of Greek antiquity were conceived and manifested in art, literature, and historiography. This study is a complement to the work of Suzanne Marchand, whose Down from Olympus has delineated the German interest in Greece from the point of view archeology and educational institutions, and to the work of Katherine Harloe, whose book, Winckelmann and the Invention of Antiquity , elucidates philhellenic ideas in this period in the context of their relationship with classical philology. Philhellenism the fascination with the art, politics, religion and society of ancient Greece- is a powerful and compelling phenomenon in German culture and intellectual history, creating a language and a series of key ideas that were to exert a continuous influence on German thought, aesthetics and politics well into the twentieth century. In this book Valdez examines the first generation of German Philhellenes from Winckelmann to Goethe. He shows how German Philhellenism was torn between the search for a historical whole which could explain and encompass Greek excellence, and the desire to incorporate individual aspects of Greece in a wider ethical and artistic enterprise, and finally, to give it a place in the history of freedom itself. Valdez also shows that German philhellenic ideas grew out of a dialogue with French and British ideas and historiography. He charts how the fascination with Greek antiquity was reflected in theatre and literature and how the longings and idealisation of Philhellenes clashed with the more critical and sober historians of the Enlightenment. The book also explains how the search for the historical reality of philhellenic ideals created intense emotional and ideological conflicts about the unique nature of male friendship in ancient Greece and about the position of women in ancient Athens. Front Matter....Pages i-v Introduction....Pages 1-3 The Age of Winckelmann and the Young Herder I: Encounters....Pages 5-25 Winckelmann and the Young Herder II: Historicity and Symbols....Pages 27-55 The Women of Athens I: The Varieties of Enlightenment History....Pages 57-81 The Women of Athens II: Courtesans, Heroines, and the Greek Polis....Pages 83-105 Iphigenie auf Tauris: German Theatre and Philhellenism....Pages 107-128 The Legacies of Iphigenie auf Tauris....Pages 129-149 From Sturm und drang to Italy....Pages 151-179 The Loss of Paradise and the History of Freedom: German Philhellenism in the 1790s....Pages 181-207 Back Matter....Pages 209-265 This book is an account of the modern German fascination with the art, politics and religion of ancient Greece from Winckelmann to Nietzsche's generation.