The Poetry of Class: Romantic Anti-capitalism and the Invention of the Proletariat (Historical Materialism Book, 305)

In the early 19th century, a new social collective emerged out of impoverished artisans, urban rabble, wandering rural lower classes, bankrupt aristocrats and precarious intellectuals, one that would soon be called the proletariat. But this did not yet exist as a unified, homogeneous class with affiliated political parties. The motley appearance, the dreams and longings of these figures, torn from all economic certainties, found new forms of narration in romantic novellas, reportages, social-statistical studies, and monthly bulletins. But soon enough, these disorderly, violent, nostalgic, errant, and utopian figures were denigrated as reactionary and anarchic by the heads of the labour movement, since they did not fit into their grand linear vision of progress. In this book, Patrick Eiden-Offe tells their story, tracing the making of the proletariat in Vörmarz Germany (1815-1848) through the writings of figures like Ludwig Tieck, Moses Hess, Wilhelm Weitling, Georg Weerth, Friedrich Engels, Louise Otto-Peters, Ernst Willkomm, and Georg Büchner, and in so doing, revealing a striking similarity to the disorderly classes of today. ‎Contents ‎Translator’s Note ‎Introduction ‎Introduction ‎1. Class and Classification, Proletariat and Proletarianisation ‎Introduction ‎2. The Proletariat: a Non-identical Subject ‎Introduction ‎3. Romantic Anti-capitalism ‎Introduction ‎4. Historiography of Rescue ‎Introduction ‎5. Proletarian Identity: Openness and (Self-)Enclosure ‎Introduction ‎6. Inverse Relevance of the Vormärz ‎Introduction ‎7. Literary History as Social History: Class as Figure ‎Chapter 1. Small Masters and Journeymen: from Guild to Movement ‎1. Romantic Anti-capitalism: Ludwig Tieck’s The Young Master Carpenter ‎Chapter 1. Small Masters and Journeymen: from Guild to Movement ‎1. Romantic Anti-capitalism: Ludwig Tieck’s The Young Master Carpenter ‎1.1. The Death of the House and the Life of the Factory ‎Chapter 1. Small Masters and Journeymen: from Guild to Movement ‎1. Romantic Anti-capitalism: Ludwig Tieck’s The Young Master Carpenter ‎1.2. The Bourgeoisie as Whole and Part ‎Chapter 1. Small Masters and Journeymen: from Guild to Movement ‎1. Romantic Anti-capitalism: Ludwig Tieck’s The Young Master Carpenter ‎1.3. Becoming Rabble: from Servants to Scum ‎Chapter 1. Small Masters and Journeymen: from Guild to Movement ‎1. Romantic Anti-capitalism: Ludwig Tieck’s The Young Master Carpenter ‎1.4. The Decline of the Guilds ‎Chapter 1. Small Masters and Journeymen: from Guild to Movement ‎1. Romantic Anti-capitalism: Ludwig Tieck’s The Young Master Carpenter ‎1.5. Guild Representation ‎Chapter 1. Small Masters and Journeymen: from Guild to Movement ‎1. Romantic Anti-capitalism: Ludwig Tieck’s The Young Master Carpenter ‎1.6. Affect Politics from Above ‎Chapter 1. Small Masters and Journeymen: from Guild to Movement ‎1. Romantic Anti-capitalism: Ludwig Tieck’s The Young Master Carpenter ‎1.7. Passions and Interests: Leonhard, Adam Smith and Albert O. Hirschman ‎Chapter 1. Small Masters and Journeymen: from Guild to Movement ‎1. Romantic Anti-capitalism: Ludwig Tieck’s The Young Master Carpenter ‎1.8. Political Passions, Aesthetic Taste ‎Chapter 1. Small Masters and Journeymen: from Guild to Movement ‎1. Romantic Anti-capitalism: Ludwig Tieck’s The Young Master Carpenter ‎1.9. Enclosing Class Struggle: Tieck’s Guilds as Invention of Tradition ‎Chapter 1. Small Masters and Journeymen: from Guild to Movement ‎1. Romantic Anti-capitalism: Ludwig Tieck’s The Young Master Carpenter ‎1.10. The End of the Guilds and the Beginnings of the Labour Movement. ‘Traditions’ of Social History ‎Chapter 1. Small Masters and Journeymen: from Guild to Movement ‎2. Journeymen Culture and the Workers’ Movement: Wilhelm Weitling ‎Chapter 1. Small Masters and Journeymen: from Guild to Movement ‎2. Journeymen Culture and the Workers’ Movement: Wilhelm Weitling ‎2.1. Journeymen Language ‎Chapter 1. Small Masters and Journeymen: from Guild to Movement ‎2. Journeymen Culture and the Workers’ Movement: Wilhelm Weitling ‎2.2. Journeymen Song ‎Chapter 1. Small Masters and Journeymen: from Guild to Movement ‎2. Journeymen Culture and the Workers’ Movement: Wilhelm Weitling ‎2.3. Journeymen Association ‎Chapter 1. Small Masters and Journeymen: from Guild to Movement ‎3. Georg Weerth and the Break with Guild Traditions ‎Chapter 2. ‘We? Tricky Question!’ on the Search for Class Identity in Proletarian Journals ‎Chapter 2. ‘We? Tricky Question!’ on the Search for Class Identity in Proletarian Journals ‎1. Negations: ‘Bourgeois’ and ‘Intellectual Prolatarians’ ‎Chapter 2. ‘We? Tricky Question!’ on the Search for Class Identity in Proletarian Journals ‎2. Ascension: ‘We’ Want to Be Bürger ‎Chapter 2. ‘We? Tricky Question!’ on the Search for Class Identity in Proletarian Journals ‎3. Activation: What ‘We’ Should Be ‎Chapter 2. ‘We? Tricky Question!’ on the Search for Class Identity in Proletarian Journals ‎4. Affirmation: ‘We’ Who Raise Our Voices ‎Chapter 3. Counting the People: Class Statistics ‎Chapter 3. Counting the People: Class Statistics ‎1. Statistics and Social Agitation: The Hessian Messenger ‎Chapter 3. Counting the People: Class Statistics ‎2. Statistics in the Service of Revolution: Gesellschaftsspiegel ‎2.1. Rhetoric of Facts: Statistics and Description ‎Chapter 3. Counting the People: Class Statistics ‎2. Statistics in the Service of Revolution: Gesellschaftsspiegel ‎2.2. Exaggeration and Distance: the Style of Criticism ‎Chapter 3. Counting the People: Class Statistics ‎2. Statistics in the Service of Revolution: Gesellschaftsspiegel ‎2.3. Fiction and Correction: Statistics of Prostitution ‎Chapter 4. Miserabilism and Critique: from the Poverty of Literature to the Poverty of Theory ‎1. Ludwig Tieck and the Wolves of London ‎Chapter 4. Miserabilism and Critique: from the Poverty of Literature to the Poverty of Theory ‎2. German Misery, German Verse: Engels as Narrative Theorist ‎Chapter 4. Miserabilism and Critique: from the Poverty of Literature to the Poverty of Theory ‎3. Striking Stereotypes: Ernst Dronke’s ‘Rich and Poor’ ‎Chapter 4. Miserabilism and Critique: from the Poverty of Literature to the Poverty of Theory ‎4. The Family Romance of the Proletarian ‎Chapter 4. Miserabilism and Critique: from the Poverty of Literature to the Poverty of Theory ‎5. Relentlessness ‎Chapter 4. Miserabilism and Critique: from the Poverty of Literature to the Poverty of Theory ‎6. Mystères – Misère ‎Chapter 4. Miserabilism and Critique: from the Poverty of Literature to the Poverty of Theory ‎7. Misery in Relations: Production, World Market, Needs ‎Chapter 4. Miserabilism and Critique: from the Poverty of Literature to the Poverty of Theory ‎8. Poverty and Quality of Life: Disposable Time ‎Chapter 5. Wage Labour and Slavery: Unfulfilled Promises of Freedom ‎Chapter 5. Wage Labour and Slavery: Unfulfilled Promises of Freedom ‎1. Allegories of Class: ‘Steam King’ and ‘White Slaves’ ‎Chapter 5. Wage Labour and Slavery: Unfulfilled Promises of Freedom ‎2. Point of Comparison: Weitling’s ‘Politics of Slavery’ ‎Chapter 5. Wage Labour and Slavery: Unfulfilled Promises of Freedom ‎3. The ‘Semblance of Liberty’ and Real Slavery: Engels ‎Chapter 5. Wage Labour and Slavery: Unfulfilled Promises of Freedom ‎4. Class Slavery ‎Chapter 5. Wage Labour and Slavery: Unfulfilled Promises of Freedom ‎5. Why ‘White Slaves’? ‎Chapter 5. Wage Labour and Slavery: Unfulfilled Promises of Freedom ‎6. Theory as Mystification: the Cult of the Industrial Worker and Global Critique ‎Chapter 5. Wage Labour and Slavery: Unfulfilled Promises of Freedom ‎7. The Universality of Proletarianisation ‎Chapter 6. Representing the ‘Labouring Poor’ ‎1. The Possibilities of Literature: Ernst Willkomm’s White Slaves or the Sufferings of the People ‎Chapter 6. Representing the ‘Labouring Poor’ ‎2. Engels and the Invention of Social Reportage ‎Chapter 6. Representing the ‘Labouring Poor’ ‎3. The Reporter in the Field: ‘The Great Towns’ ‎Chapter 7. Class in Struggle ‎Chapter 7. Class in Struggle ‎1. Witches’ Sabbath as Early Modern Class Struggle: Tieck ‎Chapter 7. Class in Struggle ‎2. The Witches’ Sabbath of the Class Struggles in France: Börne ‎Chapter 7. Class in Struggle ‎3. Social War on Lake Zurich: Weitling ‎Chapter 7. Class in Struggle ‎4. Primitive Rebels in Lower Lusatia: Willkomm ‎Chapter 7. Class in Struggle ‎5. Rescuing the Rebels ‎Chapter 7. Class in Struggle ‎6. Revenge and Class ‎Chapter 7. Class in Struggle ‎7. The Machine Breakers ‎Chapter 7. Class in Struggle ‎8. Is It O.K. to Be a Luddite? ‎Chapter 7. Class in Struggle ‎9. Towards a Pure Strike: Georg Weerth’s Fragment of a Novel ‎Chapter 7. Class in Struggle ‎10. The Struggle for the Family Wage, the Feminisation of Factory Work and the Masculinisation of the Workers’ Movement ‎Conclusion. The Return of Romantic Anti-capitalism ‎Epilogue. Romantic ‘Anti-capitalism’ from Above ‎Bibliography ‎Name Index In his ground-breaking study, Patrick Eiden-Offe gives romantic anti-capitalism its long-repressed due and liberates the social and literary history of the 19th century from one-dimensional perspectives.