''Die Propyläen'' was a periodical begun in July 1798 by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...
and his friend
Johann Heinrich Meyer.
Impetus
During the journal's short, three-year existence its various contributors and editors, for example, shown in essays by
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a German philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1949, the university was named aft ...
and
Friedrich von Schiller, sought to address, disseminate, and foment ideas and fundamental conceptions concerning art and aesthetic processes and therewith to determine, on cultural and social levels of influence, what characterizes art's essential import and its practice by artists. Alike to
Friedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, philosopher and historian. Schiller is considered by most Germans to be Germany's most important classical playwright.
He was born i ...
's ''
Die Horen'', the journal's basic impetus was to extend the reach of
classical values in art.
Through its
German name, "''Propyläen''" (from the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
''προπύλαιον'', ''propylaion'', pl. ''προπύλαια'', ''propulaia'', an entryway to a building), which can be translated to
English as "
Propylaea
In ancient Greek architecture, a propylaion, propylaeon or, in its Latinized form, ''propylaeum''—often used in the plural forms propylaia or propylaea (; Greek: προπύλαια)—is a monumental gateway. It serves as a partition, separat ...
", the periodical, including its various themes, was to represent a uniquely cultural "entryway"; and thus, it symbolized the building that is life into which the artist is required to enter.
External links
“Introduction to the ''Propyläen''” by Goethe
Defunct literary magazines published in Germany
German-language magazines
Magazines established in 1798
Magazines disestablished in 1801
Mass media in Frankfurt
Visual arts magazines published in Germany
Works by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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