Metrical Claims and Poetic Experience : Klopstock, Nietzsche, Grünbein

This volume contributes to the fields of lyric poetry and poetics (especially poetic form), aesthetics, and German literature by intervening in debates on the social functions, cognitive and emotional effects, and the value of poetry. It builds on, and moves beyond, previous theories of rhythm to tie meter more particularly to the specificities of poetic language in blending of embodied responses, cultural situations, and linguistic particularities. The book examines the German-language tradition across three centuries, arguing that the interdisciplinarity and richness of metrical theory and practice emerge in the heterogeneity of poetry and its defenders in their specific historical moments. Focusing on Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Durs Grünbein, the book contextualizes each in the metrical and aesthetic debates of his epoch, showing how questions of meter are linked with overarching poetic goals such as the relationship between form and meaning, the adaptation of the Classical past for German literature, and the ways poetry's sounds work in the body. It argues that Klopstock's, Nietzsche's, and Grünbein's metrical theory and practice offer valuable insights for thinking about the ways poetry works and why it matters. Cover Title Page Copyright Page Acknowledgments Contents List of Figures Introduction 0.1 Metrical Claims 0.2 Meter versus Rhythm 0.3 What Language, Which Culture, Whose Bodies? 0.4 Volume Overview 1 Meter, Language, History, and the ``Whole Human'' 1.1 Context: Metrical Theory and Practice in the Long Eighteenth Century 1.2 The Hexameter Debate, 1730–1800 Translation History and Examples Rigorists Latitudinarians Anti-Hexametrists 1.3 Ramifications Johann Christoph Gottsched Johann Jakob Breitinger Alexander Baumgarten Johann Georg Sulzer Johann Gottfried Herder 2 Klopstock's Meters as Embodied Meaning 2.1 Klopstock's Context and Major Works 2.2 Klopstock's Metrical Thinking Mitausdruck Subjectivity of Metrical Experience Klopstock's Terminology: Wortfüße, Zeitausdruck, Tonverhalt Movement: Wortbewegung Functions and Effects of Mitausdruck 2.3 View of Language and Subjectivity Expressive Signs Embodied and Culturally Embedded Language 2.4 The Metrical Sublime: The ``Triumphgesänge'' of the Messiah The Context of the Messiah and the Task of the Twentieth Canto The New Strophes in ``On Equal Verse'' The Seven Cities in Revelation Lines XX.612–26 3 Disciplining Meter 3.1 Translation and Literary Contexts 3.2 New Disciplines Historical Linguistics and Germanic Philology: Jacob Grimm Comparative Metrics: Rudolf Westphal Physiological Metrics: Ernst Brücke 3.3 Classical Philology Metrics as (Kantian) Science: Gottfried Hermann Philology as Unending Task: August Böckh Music's Challenge to Philology: August Apel Reclaiming Aristoxenus: August Rossbach and Rudolf Westphal An Attempted Synthesis: Wilhelm Brambach 3.4 Music Theory Philosophical and Cultural Foundations: Schopenhauer, Wagner, and Hanslick Westphal Turns to Modern Music Methods of Music Theory: Hugo Riemann A Schopenhauerian Critique of Music: Carl Fuchs 4 Nietzsche's Meters as Cultural Critique 4.1 ``To Melancholy'' (``An die Melancholie'') Writing about Writing Parody 4.2 Rhythm Notebooks Distinctions and Units Embodiment and Physiology Ictus Expression and Ethos Philology, Philosophy, Skepticism 4.3 Between Philology as Science and The Gay Science (1873–87) Critique Productive Constraint Knowledge and Perception 4.4 ``Poet's Calling'' (``Dichters Berufung'') Idyll, Science, Cycle: Contexts Rhythm as Compulsion 4.5 ``Only fool! Only poet!'' Overview and Divergent Interpretations Free Rhythms, Affect Rhythms, Sentence Rhythms 5 From Meter to Media and Materiality 5.1 Literary History and Literary Theory Metrical Histories and Handbooks Posthermeneutics 5.2 Quantitative and Natural-Scientific Approaches Linguistics Cognitive Poetics and Neuropoetics Evolutionary Aesthetics 6 Shaping Time, Forming Subjectivity: Grünbein's Meters 6.1 Meter and Poetry in the Brain ``Biological Waltz'' Meter and Memory 6.2 Temporality, Antiquity, Prosody Forms of Coming After Shaping Syllables, Shaping Time 6.3 Meter, Materialism, and Metaphysics: Descartes' Devil and On Snow Descartes' Devil On Snow Epilogue: Metrical Experience Appendix : Poems and Translations Der Bach The Brook Sponda Spondee An die Melancholie To Melancholy Dichters Berufung Poet's Calling Nur Narr! Nur Dichter! Only Fool! Only Poet! Aporie Augustinus (Über die Zeit) Aporia Augustine (On Time) Works Cited Index Shows that analyzing meter as it is discussed and deployed in different historical moments offers crucial insights about language and how human beings use it, and explores how meter illuminates the interplay of culture, cognition, emotion, and embodiment.