18th-century German Literature
   HOME
*



picture info

18th-century German Literature
German literature () comprises those literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German parts of Switzerland and Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, South Tyrol in Italy and to a lesser extent works of the German diaspora. German literature of the modern period is mostly in Standard German, but there are some currents of literature influenced to a greater or lesser degree by dialects (e.g. Alemannic). Medieval German literature is literature written in Germany, stretching from the Carolingian dynasty; various dates have been given for the end of the German literary Middle Ages, the Reformation (1517) being the last possible cut-off point. The Old High German period is reckoned to run until about the mid-11th century; the most famous works are the ''Hildebrandslied'' and a heroic epic known as the ''Heliand''. Middle High German starts in the 12th century; the key works include '' The Ring'' (ca. 1410) and the poems of ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Heliand
The ''Heliand'' () is an epic poem in Old Saxon, written in the first half of the 9th century. The title means ''saviour'' in Old Saxon (cf. German and Dutch ''Heiland'' meaning "saviour"), and the poem is a Biblical paraphrase that recounts the life of Jesus in the alliterative verse style of a Germanic epic. ''Heliand'' is the largest known work of written Old Saxon. The poem must have been relatively popular and widespread because it exists in two manuscript versions and four fragmentary versions. It takes up about 6,000 lines. A '' praefatio'' exists, which could have been commissioned by either Louis the Pious (king from 814 to 840) or Louis the German (806–876). This ''praefatio'' was first printed by Matthias Flacius in 1562, and while it has no authority in the manuscripts it is generally deemed to be authentic. The first mention of the poem itself in modern times occurred when Franciscus Junius (the younger) transcribed a fragment in 1587.Kees Dekker, 'Francis Junius ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Friedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, and philosopher. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller developed a productive, if complicated, friendship with the already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. They frequently discussed issues concerning aesthetics, and Schiller encouraged Goethe to finish works that he had left as sketches. This relationship and these discussions led to a period now referred to as Weimar Classicism. They also worked together on ''Xenien'', a collection of short satirical poems in which both Schiller and Goethe challenge opponents of their philosophical vision. Early life and career Friedrich Schiller was born on 10 November 1759, in Marbach, Württemberg, as the only son of military doctor Johann Kaspar Schiller (1733–1796) and Elisabetha Dorothea Schiller (1732–1802). They also had five daughters, including Christophine, the eldest. ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour. He is widely regarded as the greatest and most influential writer in the German language, his work having a profound and wide-ranging influence on Western literary, political, and philosophical thought from the late 18th century to the present day.. Goethe took up residence in Weimar in November 1775 following the success of his first novel, ''The Sorrows of Young Werther'' (1774). He was ennobled by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Karl August, in 1782. Goethe was an early participant in the ''Sturm und Drang'' literary movement. During his first ten years in Weimar, Goethe became a member of the Duke's privy council (1776–1785), sat on the war and highway commissions, oversaw the reopening of silver min ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Weimar Classicism
Weimar Classicism (german: Weimarer Klassik) was a German literary and cultural movement, whose practitioners established a new humanism from the synthesis of ideas from Romanticism, Classicism, and the Age of Enlightenment. It was named after the city of Weimar, Germany, because the leading authors of Weimar Classicism lived there. The ''Weimarer Klassik'' movement lasted thirty-three years, from 1772 until 1805, and involved intellectuals such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Gottfried Herder, Friedrich Schiller, and Christoph Martin Wieland; and then was concentrated upon Goethe and Schiller during the period 1788–1805. Development Background The German Enlightenment, called " neo-classical", burgeoned in the synthesis of Empiricism and Rationalism as developed by Christian Thomasius (1655–1728) and Christian Wolff (1679–1754). This philosophy, circulated widely in many magazines and journals, profoundly directed the subsequent expansion of German-speaking a ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Sturm Und Drang
''Sturm und Drang'' (, ; usually translated as "storm and stress") was a proto- Romantic movement in German literature and music that occurred between the late 1760s and early 1780s. Within the movement, individual subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of emotion were given free expression in reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism imposed by the Enlightenment and associated aesthetic movements. The period is named after Friedrich Maximilian Klinger's play of the same name, which was first performed by Abel Seyler's famed theatrical company in 1777. The philosopher Johann Georg Hamann is considered to be the ideologue of ''Sturm und Drang''; other significant figures were Johann Anton Leisewitz, Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz, H. L. Wagner, and Friedrich Maximilian Klinger. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller were notable proponents of the movement early in their lives, although they ended their period of association with it by initiating what wou ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

The Sorrows Of Young Werther
''The Sorrows of Young Werther'' (; german: Die Leiden des jungen Werthers) is a 1774 epistolary novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, which appeared as a revised edition in 1787. It was one of the main novels in the ''Sturm und Drang'' period in German literature, and influenced the later Romanticism, Romantic movement. Goethe, aged 24 at the time, finished ''Werther'' in five and a half weeks of intensive writing in January to March 1774. It instantly placed him among the foremost international literary celebrities and was among the best known of his works. Plot summary Most of ''The Sorrows of Young Werther'', a story about a young man's extreme response to unrequited love, is presented as a collection of letters written by Werther, a young artist of a sensitive and passionate temperament, to his friend Wilhelm. These give an intimate account of his stay in the fictional village of Wahlheim (based on , near Wetzlar), whose peasants have enchanted him with ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour. He is widely regarded as the greatest and most influential writer in the German language, his work having a profound and wide-ranging influence on Western literary, political, and philosophical thought from the late 18th century to the present day.. Goethe took up residence in Weimar in November 1775 following the success of his first novel, ''The Sorrows of Young Werther'' (1774). He was ennobled by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Karl August, in 1782. Goethe was an early participant in the ''Sturm und Drang'' literary movement. During his first ten years in Weimar, Goethe became a member of the Duke's privy council (1776–1785), sat on the war and highway commissions, oversaw the reopening of silver mines ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Johann Gottfried Herder
Johann Gottfried von Herder ( , ; 25 August 174418 December 1803) was a German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic. He is associated with the Enlightenment, ''Sturm und Drang'', and Weimar Classicism. Biography Born in Mohrungen (now Morąg, Poland) in the Kingdom of Prussia, Herder grew up in a poor household, educating himself from his father's Bible and songbook. In 1762, as a youth of 17, he enrolled at the University of Königsberg, about 60 miles (100 km) north of Mohrungen, where he became a student of Immanuel Kant. At the same time, Herder became an intellectual protégé of Johann Georg Hamann, a Königsberg philosopher who disputed the claims of pure secular reason. Hamann's influence led Herder to confess to his wife later in life that "I have too little reason and too much idiosyncrasy", yet Herder can justly claim to have founded a new school of German political thought. Although himself an unsociable person, Herder influenced his contempor ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

The Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries with global influences and effects. The Enlightenment included a range of ideas centered on the value of human happiness, the pursuit of knowledge obtained by means of reason and the evidence of the senses, and ideals such as liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, and constitutional government. The Enlightenment was preceded by the Scientific Revolution and the work of Francis Bacon, John Locke, and others. Some date the beginning of the Enlightenment to the publication of René Descartes' ''Discourse on the Method'' in 1637, featuring his famous dictum, ''Cogito, ergo sum'' ("I think, therefore I am"). Others cite the publication of Isaac Newton ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Johannes Von Tepl
Johannes von Tepl (c. 1350 – c. 1415), also known as Johannes von Saaz ( cs, Jan ze Žatce), was a Bohemian writer of the German language, one of the earliest known writers of prose in Early New High German (or late Middle German—depending on the criteria). He was literate in Czech, German and Latin. Not much is known about him; historians presume that he probably studied at universities in Prague, Bologna and Padua. In 1383, he became a solicitor in Žatec (Saaz) and in 1386 a rector of the town's Latin school. He lived in Prague from 1411. He spent almost all of his life in the Kingdom of Bohemia, during the reign of kings Charles and Wenceslaus. Johannes von Tepl is best known for his early humanist poem ''Der Ackermann aus Böhmen'' (''Ploughman of Bohemia''), sometimes also called ''Der Ackermann und der Tod'' (''Ploughman and Death''), written around 1401 and first printed in 1460. It is a dialogue of Death and the ploughman, who accuses Death because his wife Ma ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]